by Steve Graves | Jan 7, 2013 | Footie
WHEN Daniel Sturridge passed his debut Liverpool goal in to Mansfield’s net, he did his best to look nonchalant. Perhaps aware that putting one past a non-league side wasn’t the kind of thing Real Proper Strikers Who Play Through the Middle like what he is...
by Steve Graves | Nov 19, 2012 | Footie
Statistics should, on the face of things, offer neutrality. Start with the facts, you would have thought, and logical conclusions will follow. The seemingly undefinable can be codified, explained, nicely tucked away in tables. Are Liverpool good at football? A...
by Steve Graves | Nov 2, 2012 | Footie
Grim is the word. Liverpool-Swansea was grim. Unrelentingly, teeth-grindingly, appallingly grim. There was, this time, no leeway to claim the opposition were too direct or the officials blinkered. It was a simply, starkly, awful performance. The shambling figures on...
by Steve Graves | Oct 12, 2012 | Footie
Football, we’re often told, has a morality problem. Players dive (if foreign) and go to ground too easily (if English). Players (foreign) wave imaginary cards. Fans sing offensive songs, abuse referees, name rape victims on social networks. God, everybody’s on them...
by Steve Graves | Oct 3, 2012 | Footie
When Brendan Rodgers joined Liverpool most fans were impressed by the vision he laid out for the club in his early press conferences. The emphasis on possession, tactical awareness, positive yet responsible football. The talk of hard work bringing rewards, the need to...
by Steve Graves | Sep 20, 2012 | Footie
LIKE many people, I really enjoyed Channel Four News chief correspondent Alex Thomson’s doorstepping of Kelvin MacKenzie. It made for great TV. Who could fail to be amused by the sight of a man once among the most powerful in Fleet Street reduced to cowering in his...
by Steve Graves | Aug 22, 2012 | Footie
CONFIDENTIAL BBC STAFF PERFORMANCE APPRAISAL Department: Sport Full name: Lawrenson, Mark Thomas ‘Lawro’ Role: Pundit. Co-commentator. PART ONE – TO BE COMPLETED BY EMPLOYEE State your understanding of your main duties and responsibilities: People said be the...
by Steve Graves | Aug 19, 2012 | Footie
“It’s just as well that I’ve seen the team give an off-form display in my first match. I’ve learned quite a few things this way.” Bill Shankly, reflecting on his new club’s 4-0 home defeat to Cardiff City, certainly sounds like a man from a different...
by Steve Graves | Aug 17, 2012 | Footie
With just a few sweaty, feverish hours left till the sparkly new Liverpool are unleashed on the football world in a fiesta of passing, movement and ultimate disappointment, the final Anfield Wrap predictions are in. Just three this time, but we were limited for space...
by Steve Graves | Aug 15, 2012 | Footie
Three days! Just three days till real football’s back! You can try as hard as you like to be all insouciant and calculated and bang on about the Olympics and everything but let’s all just get giddy and celebrate the fact that the best, most beautiful,...
