reds issues?
Posted by Ian Marshall's Double in Everton, Liverpool | 21 February 2006
“The true hypocrite is the one who ceases to perceive his deception, the one who lies with sincerity” Andre Gide
Things are pretty quiet on the Everton front, so as promised a critical look at the glut of ex-Liverpool players and current Liverpool fans in the media.
Players first, Molby, Houghton and Barnes spring to mind but the main ones all come from the successful sides of the late 70s/early 80s.
- Phil Thompson - Painfully biased on Sky, even more so than the one-eyed Frank Mclintock but I think that is to miss the point. Sky has no intention of setting itself up as a bastion of impartiality and makes a point of having ex-players commenting on their former teams. The point of Sky Soccer Saturday is to be provocative so that’s fine. The Rush/Thompson impression of Statler and Waldorf was taking it a bit far though.
- Mark Lawrenson – Pretty fair and even handed to be honest. Whether he’s overcompensating or not he seems to be unduly positive about Everton at times, even tipping us to draw at home with Chelsea in the league when most of us would have accepted an honourable defeat. Does try a bit too hard to be a comedy genius, but who doesn’t.
- Alan Hansen – His patter is starting to become more annoying, and his habit of talking in 3s, pace, power, passion etc is an annoyance. He’s also just said that Arsenal should have signed Chris Sutton in the transfer window, hmmm. Found his wailing and gnashing of teeth about ‘the Robben incident’ was over the top and was a smokescreen to hide the fact that in the end they were well beaten at Chelsea.
So a few gripes but no real issue with the ex-reds in the media.
That said, a source of much greater irritation are ‘celeb’ fans.
- Alan Green – Not a favourite of Evertonians but he actually seems to have dropped any pretence now and seems so biased that it beggars belief. It must be embarrassing for Liverpool fans as well. His outburst about Bolton, just after they had played ‘you know who’ was bad enough, but the ‘Gary Neville incident’ plumbed new depths. We know better than most that Neville, completely opposite to his honourable brother Phil (are they really related?), is odious at best. Green though used his over zealous celebration to ignore the main point, that is, United had just scored the winner in the last minute of a crucial game. Then before the FA Cup game he hopped over the other side of the fence, quite an achievement for such a ‘big boned’ individual, and told everyone to ‘concentrate on the football’. He also comes out with outrageous statements when people call 6-0-6, which is virtually pointless now, like ‘I have to admit I’m a personal friend of Graeme Souness’. So where does that leave us? Don’t bother calling about Newcastle. Ridiculous. Either you shut up about it or you tell us he’s your mate and reassure us that it won’t affect your view. He seems to leave it out there saying, ‘if Newcastle lose 20 games in a row I still won’t admit he should lose his job.’ To coin his own favourite word – woeful.
- DJ Spoony – At least Green knows a bit about football, this Spoony knows nowt. Can this just be 5live trying to appeal to the ‘yoof’ market?
- Colin Murray – Last and least. In the words of the great Jim Royle ‘he’s like shit in a field him – everywhere’. It’s not enough to have to put up with his whining nasal tones on Radio 1, he’s now turned up on the previously brilliant Fighting Talk on Fivelive. Oh and Channel 5’s UEFA Cup coverage, and for fellow insomniacs, American football coverage too. Real Life Blues like to tackle things hard but fair, so figured it’s worth checking out Colin’s biography, to give him the benefit of the doubt. Fair’s fair, he must know his music but probably did a bit of sports journalism in his youth or something. But, no sport, no football. Loathe him or hate him, you just can’t ignore him.
Compared to this shower, the ex-pros seem like paragons of virtue. Enough ranting for now, the next blog will be back to singing the blues, and looking forward to Saturday’s vital game.
Comments
I'm just glad Rodney Marsh has gone.
Beefy
True, but honestly, that Colin Murray. Fighting Talk - the one radio programme worth listening to, ruined.
phil thompson absolutely detests newcastle, does anyone know why, has he got a grudge against someone?
