Sir Alex on Referees

[gerd]

so much speculation so little proof... cmon gerd. sounds like your writing a jack higgins novel...

I've said myself that we will never know what Ferguson told Rooney to do...that is indeed speculation.
Fact is that yesterday Rooney should have got a yellow card for his charge on Reina.
Fact is that Rooney was the only player who mad a dangerous tackle in the match against Portsmouth where Queroz, Ronaldo and Ferguson were screaming injustice...Rooney (and the Portsmouth player of course) was lucky that he missed, because that tackle was far more horrendous than the one on Eduardo...
Fact is that every single time Paul Scholes (and i love Scholes, i really do) makes a tackle, he get its completely wrong...he is a fair player but if he would play for a lesser team he would be one of the champions of the sending offs...It's not that he wants to injury other players i'm sure of that (although my American friend would call this speculation) but Taylor did not want to injure Eduarde, neither did Mido with Clichy...

PS: Csaunders, you never replied to my posting about Gooch and Ronaldo in the English Premiership thread...you are a nice guy, but sooo biased...

 

[beachryan]

yeah right right!! liverpool are lucky in europe, no? continuously lucky. fine then. luck will do very well then, why dont we do one thing? buy united some of it? now if it ai'nt referees, it has to be luck.

Listen mate I know the 5 times thing is what gets you guys through the night, but ask anyone, cup competitions are always determined by little slices of luck. The fact that you've been to two finals in a few years shows some consistency, but at the end of the day the league is a measure of real quality. In my opinion of course.

 

[marukomu]

Rooney should have got a yellow card for his charge on Reina.


Fact is that Rooney was the only player who mad a dangerous tackle in the match against Portsmouth where Queroz, Ronaldo and Ferguson were screaming injustice...Rooney (and the Portsmouth player of course) was lucky that he missed, because that tackle was far more horrendous than the one on Eduardo...

First point. it wasn't that bad. he had every right to go for the ball and pulled up without any major contact. Watch it in real time and not slow motion.

Second one, he missed and was yellow carded. Rightly so because it was very aggressive, but the fact is, there was no contact and you are speculating again about it being far more horrendous than the Eduardo tackle. You could argue that he knew exactly what he was doing as his leg came down well in front of the player and could have just stopped the ball.

Is a tackle that looks bad and makes no contact worse than an accidental one that does?

 

[Abhishek]

PS: measured by what i saw in MOTD Man Utd deserved to win against Liverpool...Gerrard once again proved that he's one of the most over-hyped players in the world.

As much as I hate to admit, Gerrard is the one of the most INCONSISTENT players in the world, and thus over-hyped

 

[gerd]

First point. it wasn't that bad. he had every right to go for the ball and pulled up without any major contact. Watch it in real time and not slow motion.

Second one, he missed and was yellow carded. Rightly so because it was very aggressive, but the fact is, there was no contact and you are speculating again about it being far more horrendous than the Eduardo tackle. You could argue that he knew exactly what he was doing as his leg came down well in front of the player and could have just stopped the ball.

Is a tackle that looks bad and makes no contact worse than an accidental one that does?

Look, i don't want to start a controversy...you guys all think that i hate Man Utd (which is not true, i simply said that i'm an ex-fan) and you seem a nice enough guy (just like gomito or Csaunders), but when reading your reply i ask myself if you ever played football...

Most probably you did and then i'll have to think that we disagree for cultural reasons...i've been talking enough of that in other threads...it's about the more physical aspect of English football...charges like Rooney's on Reina end up in massive brawls here on the continent...you simply don't touch the keeper...

If it's a difference in football culture, what i do not understand is that you do not react if you see the constant diving of Ronaldo and the way Ferguson reacts to it...and so we are back on topic...Man Utd as a team who are consistently and deliberately and systematically trying to influence referees...and yes other team do it aswell, but Man Utd do it most of all...

Well, Man Utd fans and me will never agree on this...it's funny if we would be talking about Wenger (who does it too, but less systematically) you guys would say that i'm right. Just like most Arsenal fans agree with me now...and most Liverpool fans agree with me too....


I hope they will agree that despite the Mascherano thing, Man Utd deserved to win that match and simply are a better team for years...when Liverpool won the CL they were good, but very lucky...

 

[Abhishek]

I hope they will agree that despite the Mascherano thing, Man Utd deserved to win that match and simply are a better team for years...when Liverpool won the CL they were good, but very lucky...

I agree completely, apart from the last part. Our win in the 2005 final was probably luck, just like Milan's was in 2007. But overall, our performances, in all games of the competition and not just the final, are definitely not luck, but just Rafa's tactical astuteness in such games.

 

[marukomu]

No controversy Gerd. I just think it was a nothing challenge on Reina that happens in nearly every match. Maybe English football is going to change with most of the physicality taken out of it.
Precedents have been set in the last couple of weeks that they'll have to keep up with.

 

[T Butcher fan]

This about sums it up for me....

Javier Mascherano wrong to ignore post-Cole warning

Martin Samuel, Chief Football Correspondent

The biggest lie to nail is the one about consistency. You will have heard it. Javier Mascherano should not have been booked, and therefore sent off, on Sunday because last week, last month or last year another player from another club did the same and got away with it. This argument collapses with the revelation that referees do not arrive packaged in an Acme box like the entrapment devices in Road Runner cartoons but are that curious mixture of deoxyribonucleic acid that goes to make the bipedal primate known as man.


Men react to similar situations in different ways, which is why some let you in from a side road and others treat the slow emergence of your car as an affront to human civilisation. As every instance of dissent, each foul and any handball will be, in some small way, unique, there will always be the random factor of interpretation. Unless the Premier League wishes to divert much of its television bounty from the onerous duty of propping up the most falsely inflated market this side of the New England property bubble, to begin work on a programme aimed at inventing heartless cyborgs to take charge of future matches, we are stuck with referees selected from life that occurs naturally on this planet. Therefore, inconsistencies will arise.
Leaving entry-level biology aside, though, there is another reason why Steve Bennett was within his rights to book Mascherano at Old Trafford when he might not have contemplated the same action had the incident taken place a month earlier, and it will be instantly apparent to anyone who has either had children or been one (which, unless this cyborg production line is more of a goer than we think, we can presume is most of us).


Remember when you were at school and everyone was playing up in a lesson and the teacher would ask for quiet? Then he might have said it again, with more sternness. He may even have demanded it a third time, in a manner that suggested that he was on the cusp of losing the plot, with the threat that the next person who so much as whispered was going into detention. Well, you shut up then, didn't you?


And if you were the one who was so dumb that you carried on talking when even the nutters, the wild men, the ones who were going to leave at 16 for a fledgeling career in car crime and juvenile delinquency, knew to pipe down, you deserved everything that was coming your way. Not because that mumbled, smart aleck aside to your friend was so much worse than what had gone before, but because you were plain, slack-jawed stupid. You knew that the situation had changed, you knew the climate in which you were operating and you paid it no mind. That was Mascherano on Sunday.


Every parent has been in Bennett's shoes, too. “Guys, stop playing with a real football in the house, you'll break something.” Five minutes later. “Look, boys, I've told you once, get dressed and go outside if you want to play football. I'm not having it in here.” Five minutes more. “Is that the damn ball I can hear again? It better not be. I've told you twice now - if I see that thing in here again today, no Game Boy for a week.” Another five minutes, big thump against the wall. “Right, I warned you, Will, that's it, no Game Boy. But? But what? I don't care about Rob doing it. I didn't see him, Will, I saw you. You were told, both of you. I warned you.”


Recognise that? It might not be perfect parenting as endorsed by child psychologists, but it is instantly familiar as life as lived in millions of households everywhere, so its principles should not be too foreign for footballers to understand. There are basic rules (no games with real footballs in the house) and we try to apply them without being mirthlessly authoritarian (the genial, if firm, reminder stage), but if no one pays attention, there is usually a final notice (no Game Boy) and then the crackdown (give me that Game Boy).


Even if Mascherano or the management at his club were so blasé about the controversy over Ashley Cole's dissent to Mike Riley, the referee, during Chelsea's match against Tottenham Hotspur last week that they did not sense that the climate had changed, it is impossible to believe that Bennett did not talk to a senior representative of Manchester United and Liverpool at Old Trafford to tell them that respect for officials was high on the agenda.


At Stamford Bridge, before the match between Chelsea and Arsenal, Mark Clattenburg, the referee, could be seen spelling out the new dynamic to John Terry and William Gallas, the captains. His body language was immediately decipherable and, if Bennett was not as transparent in his intentions, his last act immediately before Mascherano's booking - he showed the yellow card to Fernando Torres, the Liverpool striker, for dissent - should have been the clue that it was not the time to run 25 yards to dispute the decision.


It does not matter how many times Mascherano had previously queried Bennett's judgment (which was plenty) or what he said when he got there, whether he swore, or doubted Bennett's parentage or merely inquired, as he claims: “What is happening?” It is the run that got him sent off, not the commentary.
Referees put up with a lot on the field because their dialogue with the players is ostensibly private. So José Manuel Reina can say to the referee that he thinks he is having a bad game and the referee might reply that it is hardly his fault that Reina cannot catch the ball, and life goes on. The television cameras famously picked out Wayne Rooney repeatedly swearing at Graham Poll, the referee during a match at Highbury in February 2005, but in Poll's mind this was going on out of sight, certainly of the crowd, and he dealt with it man to man.


Where Mascherano overstepped the mark was in running across the field to begin his confrontation. This was a blatant act of defiance, one that undermined the authority of the referee in front of players, club officials and everyone in the stadium. It was the difference between a childish tantrum in the home, met with a five-minute time-out in the bedroom (and a scornful “you're not getting your way like that, Mister”) and one in the middle of the high street, which will receive all manner of hissed threats, curses and the administration of a parental code red (“no electronic toys of any description for a month, Sunshine, and this time I mean it”).


It is this nuance that went unappreciated by the league of old sweats, as embodied by Andy Gray, the Sky Sports football expert. If there was a list of clichés to cover a dissent-related red card, Gray ticked them off one by one, from ruining the game to the referee (not the player) losing control and being unable to handle a big match. “What, can't you talk to referees any more?” he asked, as if Mascherano had attempted to engage Bennett in cocktail-hour chit-chat in the manner of Noël Coward.


Richard Keys, the presenter, asked whether Mascherano had acted foolishly in the present climate. Gray claimed ignorance of any change in mood, a ridiculous stance considering the attention given Cole's behaviour, which coincided with the launch of the FA's campaign to win greater respect for officials. It was left to Jamie Redknapp, a former Liverpool captain, to acknowledge the need for a different approach - the irony being that, at this point, we saw Gray's view of any challenge to his authority, which was considerably less composed than Bennett's to Mascherano.
Thankfully, Redknapp refused to be bullied by Gray's raised voice and stood firm on the issue of professional responsibility. He deserves credit for that. It would have been easy to have joined the club, to have fallen in with the party line and, while he may not have won any friends at Anfield with his stance, he has gone up in estimations just about everywhere else, including, one hopes, at Sky.


Gray, by contrast, sounded like a voice from the past, a spokesman for football's credo of live and don't learn. Taken into the real world, the contention would be that as Johnny did not get a detention for talking during geography the first time, then Freddie should not get it, either, when he disrupts the lesson after the teacher has issued five warnings and the class is on the brink of anarchy. Football does not want consistency, it wants stupidity. It wants the freedom to make the same mistake twice. We got it wrong last time, so we must get it wrong this time, too. Yes, we'll keep being wrong, but at least we'll be consistent.


Perhaps it was for the best that Riley did not show Cole the red card he deserved at White Hart Lane. This error served as the wake-up call, the reminder that we had gone too far and it was time for adjustment. After what happened at Old Trafford on Sunday, any player approaching the referee in a disrespectful manner - including all 25-yard sprints, however cheerful the demeanour on arrival - is asking for a yellow card.


The difference between Mascherano and the child with the confiscated Game Boy is that one is a restless ten-year-old frustrated by a rainy Sunday and the other is a professional with five years' experience and worth £17million for his aptitude in a midfield role that requires discipline. The child might get his toy back after a few days of household chores, but from here, any player who has talked his way into trouble is going to need to do a lot more than a few bowls of washing-up to charm his way out of it.

 

[Abhishek]

Yup, Mash's name is jumping up and down in the media now. He will become a joke now. He has been made a scapegoat.

This about sums it up for me....

Javier Mascherano wrong to ignore post-Cole warning


The difference between Mascherano and the child with the confiscated Game Boy is that one is a restless ten-year-old frustrated by a rainy Sunday and the other is a professional with five years' experience and worth £17million for his aptitude in a midfield role that requires discipline. The child might get his toy back after a few days of household chores, but from here, any player who has talked his way into trouble is going to need to do a lot more than a few bowls of washing-up to charm his way out of it.

People have got away with doing much, much worse than what Mascherano did. But it's Mash who will have to suffer. He's got the 'bad boy' reputation, and that disgusts me.

Pass me a sick bag here. FFS, players have been doing it ALL THE TIME. Mash gets a red, get over with it. But no, he's going to be made an example of. Look at that, comparing him to a 10 year old child. His name is going to be jumping around the media, for the next several days. He's the bad boy now. A 5 match ban, and a 100,000 fine. And even worse, it's completely ruined his reputation.

And what does Ashley Cole get? Fuck all!

Yeh, sums it up indeed.

Mash, in no way, deserves the stick he's getting.

 

[T Butcher fan]

How about you read the article rather than crying about how unfair it all is?

Samuel is making the point that a line was drawn after what Ashley Cole did. Don't you see what he's getting at?

An FA initiative was started at the weekend to stop players abusing referees. With me so far?

The first player (and certainly not the last) to be punished is Mascherano.

What's not to get?

 

[Abhishek]

How about you read the article rather than crying about how unfair it all is?

Samuel is making the point that a line was drawn after what Ashley Cole did. Don't you see what he's getting at?

An FA initiative was started at the weekend to stop players abusing referees. With me so far?

The first player (and certainly not the last) to be punished is Mascherano.

What's not to get?

I've read the article. Fine, FA have drawn up new rules. I have no problem with that. I have no problem with Mascherano getting sent off.

But reading through the article, he makes it seem as if Mascherano has committed murder. He makes it sound as if Mascherano is some mental freak, who has no control over himself. That is just bollocks. This is the first time he's ever been sent off, or even been charged for dissent. YET, he makes it sound as if dissent is a part of Mascherano's game. He's beeing vilified. He deserved the red, it's over now. He name is jumping around in the media circus. And EVERYONE seems to forget that Torres had been given a ridiculous yellow card, which actually led to the sending off.

It was simple. Bennett had come out to make a point. He didn't have the balls to say anything to the home team. He picked out a Spanish and Argentine player to establish his authority. When Gerrard asked 'Are you taking the piss' he did fuck all. He didn't have the balls to do it to an English player either. A Spanish and Argentine were perfect targets. He succeeded. Well done to him.

And will other players be punished for this then? Will they? Will they fuck? Was Eboue punished for mouthing off to the ref? Nope.

I'll just wait and see if all this bullshit leads to anything at all.

 

[T Butcher fan]

Abhishek - get a brown paper bag and start breathing into it first of all.

As you're based in India, you may not be aware of the media over here. After Chelsea drew with Spurs, it was Ashley Cole on the back pages of every newspaper. Headlines like "ENOUGH IS ENOUGH" and "DISGRACE", radio phone-ins vilifying him for his disgraceful behaviour to the referee.

First of all, I should point out I find it odd you don't have the same concern for Ashley Cole's welfare, but we'll move on.

Basically, something had to be done - the Cole affair was the straw that broke the camels back.

Now, along comes Masherano 4 days later, with the press full of calls for refs to be given greater respect remember - with his repeated questioning of the referee, not to mention the 5 times he told the ref to 'fuck off' all caught on camera, he get sent off for exactly the offence that they are trying to stamp out.

I can't really make your point out, but what you appear to be saying is that even though there is now a crackdown on dissent to referees, dissent shouldn't be punished.

 

[gerd]

Terry is right abishek...i like Mascherano, very good player...he has lots of footbaal intelligence (great position play) but sunday he simply forgot to take it with him to Old Trafford...there is no excuse for what he has done: it's plain stupid....


PS: of course the mother of all stupid players is Ashley Cole...the biggest jerk in football IMHO...but that is very, very personal...i like Chelsea, but they should get rid of that cunt...

 

[PetrovLFC]

Its all very well drawing up an initiative at the weekend and then acting on it, but when you only put it in plae towards one team and one player, then it simply isn't.

Was the initiative being implemented when Makalele was mouthing off a load of crap constantly to the ref just a day later?

 

[Abhishek]

Terry is right abishek...i like Mascherano, very good player...he has lots of footbaal intelligence (great position play) but sunday he simply forgot to take it with him to Old Trafford...there is no excuse for what he has done: it's plain stupid....


PS: of course the mother of all stupid players is Ashley Cole...the biggest jerk in football IMHO...but that is very, very personal...i like Chelsea, but they should get rid of that cunt...

I am not even defending Mascherano's actions on Sunday. He deserved the red card, and maybe an extended ban for his behavior after that.

I do have a problem with the media vilifying as someone who does all this regularly. Mash lost the plot, as well as Gerrard, Carragher who just bottled it. But this is the first time he was sent off in the EPL, and first time charged with dissent. He has had an excellent disciplinary record before this, except some yellow cards, which he will get due to the role he plays. Players do so much worse than what he did. He was an idiot to do it. But this one incident has marked him with the 'bad boy' reputation that he does not deserve.

Abhishek - get a brown paper bag and start breathing into it first of all.

Haha, what type of reply is that.

Mash deserved the sending off, maybe the extended ban, but he does not deserve being labeled as the dirty player, because this is the first time he's done it. That's what I am saying.

 

[T Butcher fan]

True Gerd - Cole started all of this!

I'm sick of talking about it now to be honest. I've said my piece - if people still don't get it that's their problem, they can carry on bleating about it.

 

[PetrovLFC]

Ow dear..this thread has gone totally wrong and is basically the "Sir Alex Abuse Thread" at the end of the day Liverpool lost a football match and their fans aren't happy so reason's and issue's are brought up that in my opinion just aren't there..beachryan summed it up already above

haha

if you read the thread from the beggining you will realise the thread was started about SAF's comments about referees after the Portsmouth game.

It has merely developed into the Mascherano debate because once again it proves how hypocritical SAF is.

 

[Jumbo_]

I thought the article was spot on, although it was a bit long winded. It got the point across very well though.

Abhishek - do you really think the world is gonna start to hate Mascherano? On Monday, some sections of the media were calling the referee the idiot not Mash, these things change all the time and in the end, they mean nothing.

Just think, how many times has Beckham gone from hero to villain in the papers? At one time he couldn't do anything right, after he got sent off against Argentina and he was a 'national hate figure'. Next thing we know, he's saved our bacon and got us to the 2002 World Cup and they're all over him like syphilis on a prostitute.

And if you think Ashley Cole is getting away with an untarnished reputation then you're very wrong. He's probably the most disliked player in this country at the moment. Most people have forgotten that he's actually a very good player because he's an absolute tit and the papers make it worse for him than he does for himself.

Don't worry about it, Masherano made a mistake and after his ban is done, he'll let his feet do the talking and everyone will have forgotten about it within a few weeks.

 

[Chris Davies]

I was hoping the thread would evolve into more of a "how do grow men get away with telling someone to fuck off for 90 minutes when it wouldn't be acceptable in any other business" thread, but instead it's become about Mascherano.

I have totally different opinions on that, he was the best player on the pitch and yet jeopardised the whole result by talking to the referee when it wasn't required, but at the same time if refs are going to start stamping this out then they need to make a SET RULE for everyone to be judged by before they just start picking random fixtures and random people to be more strict to.

That's not excusing anything that has happened or will happen to Mascherano, I just hope that by this time next month people are still being carded for the same offences, rather than this new stance being old news and there being a new one about kicking the ball away or something.

But to go back to referees, I genuinely don't know how they do the job they do without sending a lot more people off. The amount of time I see people bitching to the referee and crowding round, and the assistant as well - I wouldn't allow it, I'd just say "I've made a decision, now if you don't shut up within the next three seconds I will book you". No decision can be reversed, so there's no need for them to be there, so I don't understand it. You say "fuck off" to me and you can fuck off into an early bath. What has happened to sportsmanship, and never mind that, basic human respect?

 

[T Butcher fan]

Yeah, a lot of this has gone on in the wrong thread - my fault!

It would be nice to hear what Tim7 thinks about all this - this initiative was brought in specifically to help at the levels he refereed at. It's not about persecuting millionaire footballers despite what some might think.

 

[gerd]

One has to admire people who want to referee...
A friend from work did for a while but he stopped because he was fed up with the constant abuse and difficulties...if you know that our job is to go in "problematical neighbourhoods"...he used to quite a lot of abuse and misery...but he was just fed up with the constant moaning and abuse...he was refereeing kids and the abuse came from the parents and the kids' coaches...
I think generally referees should be protected more by the FA's...
The way punditsare "analysing" referreing errors does not help much too...we all know that the average (former) football player hasn't got a clue about the finer aspects of football rules...why not put a former referee in football pannels...

 

[T Butcher fan]

The way pundits are "analysing" referreing errors does not help much too...we all know that the average (former) football player hasn't got a clue about the finer aspects of football rules...why not put a former referee in football pannels...

I'm not saying Andy Gray is always wrong, but he's exactly who I thought of when you said that. For some reason Sky have propelled him into this position as 'fount of all knowledge' about the Premiership but a lot of what he says ill thought out, blinkered 80s nonsense.

And I hate the way he'll look at a frozen replay and say 'that was obviously offside' when if you took the picture a millisecond earlier or later it would not be nearly so near cut. How could you tell in real life!?

We're all wise after the event, but he in particular clearly has no responsibility for the manure he spouts about refs and linesmen. I'd love to see him try it!

 

[Abhishek]

I'm not saying Andy Gray is always wrong, but he's exactly who I thought of when you said that. For some reason Sky have propelled him into this position as 'fount of all knowledge' about the Premiership but a lot of what he says ill thought out, blinkered 80s nonsense.

And I hate the way he'll look at a frozen replay and say 'that was obviously offside' when if you took the picture a millisecond earlier or later it would not be nearly so near cut. How could you tell in real life!?

We're all wise after the event, but he in particular clearly has no responsibility for the manure he spouts about refs and linesmen. I'd love to see him try it!

Well, I think we all at least agree that Andy Gray is clueless

 

[gerd]

To be honest i wasn't thinking about Gray, i've never seen the man as pundit (we aren't able to watch Sky in Belgium).
I watch MOTD, and i have to say that Hansen, Shearer e.a. are not better...
Every time they "analyze" referee decisions with the benefit of hindsight and 47 slow motions...
They never have the guts to criticize managers like Ferguson and others (because yes each and everyone of them does it..., because Ferguson and other managers are important and have power, referees have no power at all, they are vulnerable people.
What infuriates me is that the big clubs and their managers create a climate where refs will always advantage them.
Liverpool fans are screaming injustice now about Mascherano. If i'm not mistaken, next weekend the Merseyside derby will be played. I'm pretty sure that Everton will suffer from referee decisions not because the ref is a bad ref, but because Liverpool will "guide" the referee, will "influence" him.
Amidst all the talk about Ferguson, i must say that the most blatant referee injustices i've seen this season was in the first Merseyside derby. The way Gerrard influenced the referee in the sending off of an Everton player was disgracefull (in the replay it was clearly visible that the ref had already a yellow card in his hand when Gerrard approached him and talked to him, the ref put his yellow card back in his pocket and showed a red card). Maybe i'm old fashioned and naïve but Gerrard should have been punished afterwards...that is extremely unfair behaviour. Afterwards the same ref disallowed a perfectly valid Everton goal in injury time...of course Liverpool will end up 4th...

 

[ALAIN]

@Gerd you are completely right about th Gerrard accident.It seems that in England there is 2 levels(for the media,FA),one for foreign players and and another for English Players.So let's guess if the same thing has happened with players like Drogba or Eboué ,we would have heard the same bullshit in England we don't do that or this ,it's not part of our culture etc...But when an English player does it ,it 's ok ,even sometimes they" forget" to show it on TV(Ronney dive against Man city, Anyone??)

 

[Abhishek]

The way Gerrard influenced the referee in the sending off of an Everton player was disgracefull (in the replay it was clearly visible that the ref had already a yellow card in his hand when Gerrard approached him and talked to him, the ref put his yellow card back in his pocket and showed a red card). Maybe i'm old fashioned and naïve but Gerrard should have been punished afterwards...that is extremely unfair behaviour. Afterwards the same ref disallowed a perfectly valid Everton goal in injury time...of course Liverpool will end up 4th...

I probably would agree that Everton were robbed in that game, and should have deserved AT LEAST a draw. And I also think Gerrard was wrong to talk to the referee (but he only talked, he didn't start jumping around him did he?). But it was a red card. If the ref had given a foul, it was a red card, as the keeper was the last player that Gerrard had to beat. And I'm far from a Gerrard fan....

 

[Mack]

 

[Chris Davies]

HAHAHAHAHA, first-class.

In other news, is THIS Keane hitting out at his mentor? Shock horror! Never thought I'd see him do that, the ungrateful swine!

Seriously though, it's good that at least one Premier League manager doesn't talk crap.

 

[bebo]

Mack ...that made my morning