Liverpool FC Forum

the pen decisions probably were correct, what gets my back up though is when you think of the beginning of last season when suarez was pulled down against sunderland, there was far more contact in that incident than the agger / long one but agger gets an early bath and the sunderland player stays on.
okay we miss the pen but if sunderland are down to 10 men after 10 minutes it`s a different game and who knows maybe a different season.
on saturday the ref may have got the pen decisions right but his general handling of the game was awful, some of the bookings for our players were ludicrous, he was quick to get his cards out to our players but when the west brom defence were kicking lumps out of our players and he did f**k all.
when suarez was booked for his dismissive wave of the arm to the linesman even the telly commentator (who arent exactly suarez`s biggest fans) was saying `oh come on ref that is ridiculous, it wasnt an aggressive gesture it was a dismissive one and he wasnt in his face he`s 40 yards away`
when you think of the way rooney gets right into the faces of the refs effin and blinding it makes you f**king laugh.

Benny The Noon » Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:12 am wrote:

Kenny Kan » Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:56 am wrote:

Benny The Noon » Tue Aug 21, 2012 8:45 am wrote:It's not bollox Bam go and watch it again - Skrtel dwelt on the ball - Long nicked it off him and Skrtel kicked his leg - penalty

It was the wrong decision. End of.

Why is it wrong ?

Did Skrtel kick Long ?

I thought it was a poor call by the ref. Skrtel does not see the player, in fact he thinks he is about to take another touch of the ball with his 2nd touch but Long (unbeknown to Skrtel) has nicked it off him in a flash and then falls like he's been shot for the 2nd time in the game. For me there no intent to foul or even any awareness that Long was there. It was a harsh penalty.

I hate blaming referee's but I think its fair to say we've had a lot more decisions go against us than for us last season and so far this year.

I can't honestly remember the last time we were given a soft peno yet we seem to concede them a lot.

What can we do though?  Kenny complained last year and it made things worse

Scottbot » Tue Aug 21, 2012 1:08 pm


I thought it was a poor call by the ref. Skrtel does not see the player, in fact he thinks he is about to take another touch of the ball with his 2nd touch but Long (unbeknown to Skrtel) has nicked it off him in a flash and then falls like he's been shot for the 2nd time in the game. For me there no intent to foul or even any awareness that Long was there. It was a harsh penalty.

tripping players is not the same as handball mate, intent doesnt come into it, wether you intentionally mean to trip someone or not, if you trip someone up in the box it`s a pen. if the shoe was on the other foot and suarez nudged the ball away from a defender and was caught on his heel you can bet your bottom dollar we`d all be screaming for a pen.
it was a soft pen (long went down like he was poleaxed) but it was a pen. that situation was caused by bad play by skrtel not bad reffereeing. mind you his team mates didnt help either, surely someone should of given skrtel a shout when long was coming up behind him.

Scottbot » Tue Aug 21, 2012 2:08 pm wrote:

Benny The Noon » Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:12 am wrote:

Kenny Kan » Tue Aug 21, 2012 9:56 am wrote:It was the wrong decision. End of.

Why is it wrong ?

Did Skrtel kick Long ?

I thought it was a poor call by the ref. Skrtel does not see the player, in fact he thinks he is about to take another touch of the ball with his 2nd touch but Long (unbeknown to Skrtel) has nicked it off him in a flash and then falls like he's been shot for the 2nd time in the game. For me there no intent to foul or even any awareness that Long was there. It was a harsh penalty.

Being unaware of a player isn't a reason for not to give the penalty or intent - he kicked - that's a simple fact and because he kicked him in the box and he went down its a foul and a penalty.

The problem with referee's in football in general is consistency.  They are not one bit consistent and thats what angers people.

Sometimes an incident that happens 10 minutes into a game is treated differently than if the same incident occurred in the 80th minute.
Or often incidents are treated differently based on the scoreline.  (Ref feels sorry for the team that are losing).
Sometimes its based on home advantage or players reputations.

Its like what people are saying about Dowd not sending Richardson off last season.  If it had've been the second half, he probably would've walked... which doesn't make sense.

jacdaniel » Tue Aug 21, 2012 2:22 pm wrote:The problem with referee's in football in general is consistency.  They are not one bit consistent and thats what angers people.

Sometimes an incident that happens 10 minutes into a game is treated differently than if the same incident occurred in the 80th minute.
Or often incidents are treated differently based on the scoreline.  (Ref feels sorry for the team that are losing).
Sometimes its based on home advantage or players reputations.

Its like what people are saying about Dowd not sending Richardson off last season.  If it had've been the second half, he probably would've walked... which doesn't make sense.

as you say mate, same ref, similar circumstances (opening game of the season, home team being awarded a pen etc) but in one game he sends a player off and in the other he gives him the benefit of the doubt. ironically there was more contact in the incident when the player stayed on.
on both occassions we were the ones losing out.

Whatever, it's done now so best move on I reckon. We're starting to sound like the motd panel here debating it and let's be honest, is there anything more boring than talking about the performance of the ref!

Forget the ref. We should have been better on the day and Suarez should have been more clinical. Let's forget about this now and look forward to the next game.

tubby » Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:09 pm wrote:Forget the ref. We should have been better on the day and Suarez should have been more clinical. Let's forget about this now and look forward to the next game.

Agreed.

However i dont know what will happen if we take 1 point from the first 4 games............

SouthCoastShankly » Tue Aug 21, 2012 7:56 am wrote:

I'm not being miserable, but we got outplayed by WBA and I'm sorry but that deserves bad comments. I'm confident we'll bounce back, but our first game of this season didn't show much improvement. As for Arsenal

August

13 Sat Barclays Premier League A Newcastle United 0 0 (draw)
16 Tue UEFA Champions League H Udinese                  1 0      (win)
20 Sat Barclays Premier League H Liverpool                  0 2     (lose)
24 Wed UEFA Champions League A Udinese                  1 2 (win)
28 Sun Barclays Premier League A Manchester United 8 2     (lose)

September

10 Sat Barclays Premier League H Swansea                  1 0      (win)
13 Tue UEFA Champions League A Borussia Dortmund 1 1 (draw)
17 Sat Barclays Premier League A Blackburn Rovers 4 3 (lose)
20 Tue Carling Cup                 H Shrewsbury          3 1      (win)
24 Sat Barclays Premier League H Bolton Wanderers 3 0      (win)
28 Wed UEFA Champions League H Olympiacos          2 1      (win)


Followed by a lose against Spurs, a win against Sunderlend, a win against Stoke and a win against Chelsea in October. Like I said, losing 2 games against us and Manchester United can't be called a bad start, considering the following results. Everybody's saying they had a bad start because of the bad result against United and the bad performance against us.

Clearly we have a rose tinted Arsenal fan in our midst.

Are we ignoring the defeat to Blackburn?

Also just because you would like to ignore the defeat on October 2nd to Tottenham, it was their 7th league game! That means in their first 7 league games, they lose 4 games. Stop trying to defend Arsenal, it's embarrassing. Talk to any Arsenal fans in that period and watch the abuse they were getting and see if they thought it was a good start.

You also keep picking up on the fact West Brom out played us. Up to the first goal, we were by far the better team. No questions asked.

After the goal and then the subsequent red card, things changed. West Brom did what any capable team can do with an extra man and a goal lead. Sure the scoreline wasn't nice to see but the chances they had at the end were the direct result of a team with 10 men chasing a game.

A bad day at the office, but not the catastrophe you're making it out to be.

Oh yes, I'm a gunner spy 

Look, I'm just saying that people at the time thought that Arsenal is going to have the worst season ever. But that opinion was based on the fact that they lost few games in a row right at the start but against strong opposition. They never had a game like we did against WBA. If we keep playing like that, saying things like "don't worry, Arsenal were worse than we were at the start" will be pointless and untrue.
I'm not saying that the game was a catastrophe, as a matter of fact, I said that I'm confident that we'll get better after this, but it was a very bad game (though we were slightly unfortunate) and the game didn't show much improvement and showed that we have still a lot of work to do.

tubby » Tue Aug 21, 2012 4:09 pm wrote:Forget the ref. We should have been better on the day and Suarez should have been more clinical. Let's forget about this now and look forward to the next game.

nuff said, end of.

Without much money given to spend, Brendan's hands are pretty much tied and I am expecting a mediocre season with around a 10th position finish just like Swansea last year. This is going to be an experimental season and BR will still be here next season if we don't get relegated. I am fearing the worst for our first 3 home games and I think we'll be beaten high and dry in all of them including the away game at Sunderland.

The goal scoring crisis is going to spill over to this season if Brendan doesn't sign a proven striker soon. Suarez should never be played as a central striker, he is best playing down the left or right flank tearing down defences and providing assists and score a world class goal every now and then.

alwayslfc » Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:41 am wrote:Without much money given to spend, Brendan's hands are pretty much tied and I am expecting a mediocre season with around a 10th position finish just like Swansea last year. This is going to be an experimental season and BR will still be here next season if we don't get relegated. I am fearing the worst for our first 3 home games and I think we'll be beaten high and dry in all of them including the away game at Sunderland.

The goal scoring crisis is going to spill over to this season if Brendan doesn't sign a proven striker soon. Suarez should never be played as a central striker, he is best playing down the left or right flank tearing down defences and providing assists and score a world class goal every now and then.

If we finish 10th then Rodgers should be shot never mind sacked ! I'm stunned by the lack of ambition and expectation that is starting to filter to the supporters now. It's bad enough when it comes to our transfer and the way the manager talks but I  really cant understand fans believing that the likes of Everton and Newcastle are better sides than us.  We have some of the best players in the league in their respective positions (Reina, Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Enrique, Lucas, Gerrard, Suarez) at our club and to make matters worse only 2 sides have outspent us in terms of both total spent AND net spent over the past few years.

Rodgers can be excused a slow start (and 3-0 to Brom is not a slow start, its an embarrassment) but if he ends the season anywhere lower than 7th then he doesnt deserve another season. I'm not a big fan of changing managers every season and I thought Kenny should have stayed despite wasting tons of money but by sacking him the owners (imo) made it clear that they believed a club of our stature shouldnt be anywhere near where we ended last season. In that, I agree with them.

Rodgers has a lot of work to do if he wants us to play his style of football AND get results doing it. Funny enough, I have a feeling Rodgers will need to show a lot more flexibility and adaptability at least in the short term.

aCe' » Wed Aug 22, 2012 5:38 pm wrote:

alwayslfc » Thu Aug 23, 2012 4:41 am wrote:Without much money given to spend, Brendan's hands are pretty much tied and I am expecting a mediocre season with around a 10th position finish just like Swansea last year. This is going to be an experimental season and BR will still be here next season if we don't get relegated. I am fearing the worst for our first 3 home games and I think we'll be beaten high and dry in all of them including the away game at Sunderland.

The goal scoring crisis is going to spill over to this season if Brendan doesn't sign a proven striker soon. Suarez should never be played as a central striker, he is best playing down the left or right flank tearing down defences and providing assists and score a world class goal every now and then.

If we finish 10th then Rodgers should be shot never mind sacked ! I'm stunned by the lack of ambition and expectation that is starting to filter to the supporters now. It's bad enough when it comes to our transfer and the way the manager talks but I  really cant understand fans believing that the likes of Everton and Newcastle are better sides than us.  We have some of the best players in the league in their respective positions (Reina, Johnson, Skrtel, Agger, Enrique, Lucas, Gerrard, Suarez) at our club and to make matters worse only 2 sides have outspent us in terms of both total spent AND net spent over the past few years.

I've ignored "supporters" who spout this bull Sh*t.  We finished 8th last season when the only consistency we had was that we were consistently *****.  We won't finish worse than we did last year, even tho it's much more competitive now.  Last season and the start of this season shows that it's much harder for the big clubs to consistently pick up points, and I expect that to continue to be a trend.  There's no need to freak out yet.  If we finish 5th or 6th, it really wouldn't be bad considering how many big clubs are in the premier league this season.  City spent hundreds of millions and still finished 5th, qualified for the CL the following season, and won league the season after that. 

It takes time to adjust to a few new key players, a new manager, and a new style of play.
Rodgers can be excused a slow start (and 3-0 to Brom is not a slow start, its an embarrassment) but if he ends the season anywhere lower than 7th then he doesnt deserve another season. I'm not a big fan of changing managers every season and I thought Kenny should have stayed despite wasting tons of money but by sacking him the owners (imo) made it clear that they believed a club of our stature shouldnt be anywhere near where we ended last season. In that, I agree with them.

Rodgers has a lot of work to do if he wants us to play his style of football AND get results doing it. Funny enough, I have a feeling Rodgers will need to show a lot more flexibility and adaptability at least in the short term.