We wuz robbed
Tuesday, 21 August 07, 01:10 PM
Where do I start? I had to leave it a few days until I had calmed down before I wrote about the Chelsea match. As you know by now, Rob Syles ruined the match by giving Chelsea a non existent penalty
and failing to send off Essien despite showing him two yellows. He's since been demoted. There were numerous other decisions that he messed up on but I'm trying to build a bridge and get over it. The ref robbed
us of what would have been a great win over one of our title rivals. The difference between this match and previous season's matches against the top four is that this time we didn't let them back
into the match after taking the lead, the ref did.
But before all of that, Torres did this. An awesome goal which had me jumping out of my seat. I thought
that he was tidy if unspectacular over the rest of the game but when given the opportunity, he did what we pay him to do. Gerrard found him with a great ball and he took it up to Ben Haim. Nando
showed him the ball to draw him in but then turned on the pace to leave him in his wake. Cech advanced but El Nino placed ball inch perfectly inside the far post. Some people have been drawing
comparisons with Henry. He has some way to go before he is at that level but the way in which he toyed with Ben Haim and made the finish look easy, does remind me of him to some degree. What a home
debut? I don't think that Torres is 100% yet after his ankle injury. This was a great start and I'm hoping that he can build on it against Sunderland.
There were other positives to take from the game. Pennant, again, caused Cole lots of problems on the right wing. His cross to Riise should have resulted in a goal if Riise's touch had of been
better. The midfield as a whole played well and Gerrard was superb. They along with the defence closed Chelsea down well and they had no shots on target, bar the peno. Arbeloa had another decent
match. I still have some reservations about a right footed left back.
After the boring International friendlies, we will be traveling to the Stadium of Light to face Sunderland on Saturday morning. This is going to be a tough away match as we've seen from
Sunderland's game's so far. Any team managed by Keane is going to fight for every ball. I wouldn't be surprised to see Crouch start this one.
It looks like Heinze won't be arriving at Anfield. He would have been useful as cover but I for centre half and might have competed for a starting berth at left back but I'm not that disappointed that this isn't happening. The fact that it's pissed Fergie off makes it a worthwhile exercise. I wonder if we'll now go for Chiellini or someone else for that spot? I'd be happy enough to go with who we have and to give Insua a few games at left back.
Check out the look on Slurs face in this clip from MOTD. He can't believe that Tevez missed with a header from a yard out. I really like Tevez but I don't know how the hell he missed that one. Almost as bad as this classic from Forlan. Here's hoping that Spurs can turn them over on Sunday to drop them into the relegation zone.
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I think its unfair to blame the referee when he was conned into giving a peno by Malouda. It will even itself out though because a Liverpool player will dive to win them a peno or free kick which
will change the out come of the match. Referees cant be blamed for the dishonesty of players. Liverpool were the better team and deserved to win but it was Malouda who robbed them, not the ref. Rob
Styles has been demoted but punishing the ref wont solve anything, if you want to get rid of bad refereeing decisions players who dive should be punished. I dont support either team so the result
didnt bother me and the this just makes the game more interesting.
I honestly thought that goal has a shade of thierry in it. Bringing the Va Va Voom back to the premiership. Who knows ?
d_gaffa, you can't blame Malouda for Stiles' mistake. Malouda didn't claim for a penalty nor did he dive. I think it was very unfair to give the peno but Stiles is the only one to blame. I am a
Chelsea fan and we have been blamed for diving before to win penos and free kicks but Malouda is an honest player and I think that Chelsea in the last year have moved away from diving and are trying
to play honest football. Stiles should have given a free out, or even if he thought it was a liverpool foul, it was an indirect free kick for obstruction. He admitted it was his mistake. It is a
shame the peno was given, I think if it wasn't Chelsea would have played more attacking football and really attacked Liverpool, could have been a belter of a game. Maybe sometime soon we will get the
Liverpool Chelsea game that matches the hype.
I agree with gkmack. I don't think that Malouda dived. Neither he nor any of the other Chelsea players claimed a peno. The blame lies with the ref who admitted that he made a mistake. But there's
nothing that can be done about it now so let's put it behind us and move on. Rafa has said that Styles has appologised to him and that's the end of it. The win over Keane's Sunderland will help us to
get over it.
I agree the ref did make a mistake but it came about because of what Malouda did, dive or no dive. Blame the ref who disallowed Healys goal last week for costing Fulham the match but not Styles on
this one.
14 Comments
breaks of the game, my friend ... bad calls will always be there - referees are only human (although some are worse than others). gerrard had an undeserved free kick which led to a goal last week. it
evens out during the season i believe.
I hope so. I'll be expecting some outragous fortune over the course of the season to even this out. But overall I'm happy enough as we played really well and had them beaten. Lampard did nothing bar
the peno.