Erics Inner Monologue wrote:


Get the fuck out. I knew from the reviews of Being: Liverpool that he had a portrait of himself in his house; I'd assumed it was a half-decent oil three-quarters profile in a decent blazer kind of thing; that is just beyond the pale.

Liverpool's penalty award was exceptionally generous, but I actually felt a bit sorry for them tonight.

It was a low-wattage, low-standard game, but until the final ten minutes Liverpool made what running there was, without exception. For almost the entire match they were the only side trying to score. West Brom weren't even defending that well and seemed to have zero interest in mounting an attack.

Mick McCarthy was doing World Cup commentary for the BBC a few years back and described the minimalist efforts of some team (probably Paraguay or Greece) as "parasite football". That phrase ran through my head a few times tonight as West Brom rattled in their two goals. Don't get me wrong, I was happy at the outcome, but it's not like West Brom played well.

Daniel Agger is a fraud and a shaper, and always has been. He likes to show off and score the odd goal, and thinks this will mask the fact that he keeps losing his man. He was getting caught out years ago too -- think back to his wanky efforts against Amr Zaki when Liverpool narrowly scraped a last-ditch win against Wigan at Anfield in 2008 -- and he has never learned to sharpen up, cut out all the shite and become less flashy and more effective. He thinks he's Laurent Blanc or Franz Beckenbauer or Rio Ferdinand, but he's just another Frank Leboeuf.

AB2 wrote:


I've just looked up what happened to him as I remember him being amazing for Wigan for a while. Seems he's available on a free, but is a massive bell-end and comes with more baggage than Paris Hilton.

Mick McCarthy was doing World Cup commentary for the BBC a few years back and described the minimalist efforts of some team (probably Paraguay or Greece) as "parasite football". That phrase ran through my head a few times tonight as West Brom rattled in their two goals. Don't get me wrong, I was happy at the outcome, but it's not like West Brom played well.


There's an irony of sorts in criticising a team for a poor performance and using a nugget of 'wisdom' from Mick McCarthy (who has experience in these areas) to make the point.

Given the result last night, Wikipedia seems to be taunting Liverpool with their featured article today... en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liverpool_F.C._in_European_football

Mick McCarthy was doing World Cup commentary for the BBC a few years back and described the minimalist efforts of some team (probably Paraguay or Greece) as "parasite football". That phrase ran through my head a few times tonight as West Brom rattled in their two goals. Don't get me wrong, I was happy at the outcome, but it's not like West Brom played well.

Just to return to that theme, I'm sure that some more learned OTFers could point out games played by the Premier League's top four who put in crappy displays and yet managed to win matches even though their displays didn't warrant them, leaving the better side to rue the day. Nice of McCarthy to give it a snappy name, though.

On the bright side, last night's defeat means that James Lawton will probably pontificate exhaustively over the Liverpool dilemma in tomorrow's 'Independent'. He'll have saved his 'Rodgers' Brave New World' piece that he wrote yesterday afternoon until they put a couple of wins together.

ian.64 wrote:


I think it's a snappy little phrase, don't you? Doesn't really matter who said it.

Once again, I'm pretty happy West Brom won. But their performance was rather poor for the most part and there's nothing wrong with mentioning it. When the penalty award came along I was cursing them for not having attempted a single shot in the match.

Scratchmonkey wrote:


Is it true that Rodgers has a Harley Davidson, too? I can't find any photographic evidence for this, I have to say.

It's like he went into one of those shops that sell sub-Warhol Scarface prints and the staff convinced him that Al Pacino has one at home, in between trips to the stock room to piss themselves laughing.

Nah, he's made that himself with a knock-off copy of Photoshop he got from Pirate Bay.

Surely?

It's one of those paint-by-numbers things, isn't it? I had those, back in the 70s, as a kid.

Do you think such a thing encourages illeism?

Only he's probably convinced by now that the painting is managing the team, and not him.

evilC wrote:


Somewhere in a dusty attic there is a league table where Liverpool are 12 points clear. Or something.

To paraphrase GO (I think) over on the mundane thread: Travel back in time 30 years.

jw wrote:


Maybe it's the painting that is cursed? Perhaps, at midnight, the evil Brendan Rodgers steps out of the painting, gets on the Harley and rides to the training ground. Here, he makes phonecalls to all the semi-injured players demanding that they meet him there for a special nighttime training session in 20 minutes time (or whenever they get out of the club - whichever is sooner). Then he puts them through heavy sprinting and jumping drills until their hamstrings and knee joints are all well and truly re-tweaked.

Job done, he re-mounts the Harley, roars back to Casa Bren and slides back into the painting, with a tiny bit more of a gleam in those otherwise cold, lifeless eyes.

Once again, I'm pretty happy West Brom won. But their performance was rather poor for the most part and there's nothing wrong with mentioning it. When the penalty award came along I was cursing them for not having attempted a single shot in the match.

Okay. To add, anyone would pray that their team would get a win if it had to come at the end of a torrid affair and it arose from a simple bounce of the ball into the net off someone's arse. Last night was a variant of that theme, but with two nicely taken goals instead.

And as for that painting: as Will Smith says in MIB, ''cause...damn!'

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/2013/02/12/who-...brent_n_2667551.html

I scored 12 out of 14.

Which, when you think about it, makes me the winner. I mean, fair enough, I've dropped points, but I've seen enough in that performance to make me positive for the future.