FA Youth Cup Quarter- Final: Manchester United U-18 v Charlton Athletic U-18

For the second year running, Manchester United are through to the semi-final of the FA Youth Cup following a thrilling victory over a powerful Charlton side in front of  over 4,000 spectators shoehorned into the lower deck of the North Stand at Old Trafford.

The game was a tremendous advert for Academy football and both sides will feel that they did enough to win it.  Charlton, a noticeably bigger and more physical team than United, looked dangerous throughout and dominated the game for lengthy periods.  They also created enough opportunities to have won the tie themselves but found United’s defence in obdurate mood. 

United made 2 changes from the team that won so convincingly against Swansea in the fifth round, welcoming back skipper Luke McCulloch at centre-back and bringing in Liam Grimshaw at right back.  The most notable name on the Charlton teamsheet was undoubtedly Diego Poyet, son of current Brighton manager, Gus Poyet, who joined United’s Luke Hendrie and Jack Barmby in the ‘Sons of Famous Dads’ department.

The game began at a frantic pace and it was immediately clear why Charlton had progressed so far in this year’s tournament.  They were forceful and direct and in Tobi Sho-Silva had a front man to worry any defence.  On the other hand, Norwegian Mats Daehli was also proving a real handful, regularly weaving his way through Charlton’s massed defence as both teams gave as good as they got.

Charlton came closest to scoring early on when midfielder Callum Harriot saw his powerful drive touched on to and over the bar by United keeper Jon Sutherland.  That chance came after 11 minutes and was the last really clear-cut opening we saw until a manic period leading up to the break.

First United nearly went ahead when Jack Rudge’s instinctive shot from six yards out was beaten away by Dillon Phillips  in the Charlton goal.  The ball then broke to Sho-Silva, who ran virtually the length of the pitch before driving in a powerful shot at the near post that Sutherland kept out with his knees.

United got their noses in front after 42 minutes with a strike from a familiar source.  Jack Barmby has scored in every round of this year’s competition and he maintained that record with a powerful skidding shot from the left-hand edge of the Charlton area which skipped over the diving Phillips and into the far corner.  However, Charlton were soon back in it thanks to another piledriver from Harriot.  This time, Sutherland could only parry the ball into the air and Sho-Silva arrived first to loop a header over the United keeper and into the net.  Harriot then spurned a gilt-edged chance to put Charlton ahead, blazing a shot over the crossbar with the goal at his mercy.

Barmby and Blackett celebrate United’s first goal

Into the second half and the pace remained unrelenting, but neither side could gain a clear advantage.  16-year old  James Wilson – so impressive as a sub at Swansea – replaced Hendrie some ten minutes in and United reshuffled their pack with Daehli dropping into midfield, allowing Wilson to support Sam Byrne further forward.  Both sides created chances with Phillips beating away a Barmby shot and Nick Iannou slicing a Jordan Cousins cross just over his own bar.

Further goals looked likely and in the end it was United who got their noses in front again after 77 minutes.  This time, full-back Liam Grimshaw went on an overlapping run and curled in an almost Beckham-esque cross which the onrushing Gylliano van Velzen stooped to head home despite the close attentions of a Charlton defender.  Unbelievably, within 85 seconds, the Londoners were level again.  A United move broke down in midfield and Oliver Muldoon fed Sho-Silva, who drilled a low shot unerringly past the sprawling Sutherland and into the bottom corner of the United net.

For United’s U-18 and for coach Paul McGuinness, this was all becoming a bit like ‘Groundhog Day’ – at the weekend, the U-18′s had taken the lead three times against Wolves. only to be quickly pegged back each time.  The same pattern appeared to be occurring here as well.

With cramp taking its toll – particularly on the Charlton team – there were numerous substitutions in the final stages of the game.  One of the Charlton subs, midfielder Harry Gerard, didn’t have long to enjoy his trip to Old Trafford as he was on the receiving end of a robust challenge from Tyler Blackett after 85 minutes and received fully 5 minutes of treatment on the pitch before being stretchered off.   Blackett was booked, though the tackle was over-enthusiatic rather than malicious.  This reduced Charlton to 10 men, but despite this, they had two great opportunities to score at the death, both involving another sub and their leading scorer, Adebayo Azeez.  First Nick Iannou contrived a brilliant goal-line clearance to keep out Azeez’s close-range shot, then the sub burst free of United’s defence only to see Sutherland hurl himself to his left to deflect his goalbound shot wide of the post.

Given how close they had come, it must have been a bitter disappointment for Charlton to concede what proved to be the winning goal in the 7th of 10 minutes of time added on for Gerard’s injury, sundry outbreaks of cramp and a raft of substitutions.

This time, van Velzen, quiet for much of the game, got away down the Charlton left and fired in a low cross which the stretching James Wilson managed to divert into the net from about 10 yards out.  Glee among the United players was matched by misery among the Charlton youngsters.  They had stood toe to toe with United for 100 minutes of end-to-end action and had only just come up short.  There were tears from some of the Charlton lads at the final whistle and, not surprisingly,  both sets of players looked utterly spent.  Paul McGuinness has got it all on to get the United lads down off the ceiling in time for next   Saturday morning’s trip to Barnsley.

James Wilson – United’s matchwinner and a real prospect.  But has he done his homework?

In an eerie retread of last year’s competition, United must now face up to a two-legged semi-final against Chelsea.  Last year they lost the first leg at Stamford Bridge but won comfortably at Old Trafford and though this year’s squad aren’t quite as robust or as physically imposing as their predecessors, you wouldn’t put anything past them now.

It’s never their fault, they’re always the victims, it’s never their fault…..

I wrote at some length here last month about the Suarez/Evra affair.  Since then, Liverpool and Manchester United have played one another at the Dipperdrome (2-1 to them in the Cup) and at Old Trafford last Saturday (2-1 to us in the League).  Happily there will be no further meetings this season.

As for the football; neither game was particularly memorable for what happened during the 90 minutes, but both were notable for the toxicity of the atmosphere around the game and between the principals in the build-up and aftermath of each.

In many ways, it’s hard to know what to say about this whole sorry mess.  Despite my profound dislike of Liverpool FC  and my general antipathy towards Merseysiders as a ‘breed’, even I have been astonished by the public relations ‘car crash’ orchestrated by the club over this affair.  Wherever they have had the choice to make between a correct decision and an incorrect one, they have unerringly screwed up, to the general amazement of the watching millions around the world.  The damage done to the reputation of this once-great club is incalculable and the repercussions will continue to resonate long into the future. Yeah, like I could give a toss….

As for Suarez, who lied about what he said to Evra in front of the FA Commission and presumably maintained his innocence to everyone at LFC who closed ranks and supported him, he has now doubled his jeopardy by lying to everyone -again - about shaking Evra’s hand before the Old Trafford game.  Clearly the man has a problem with the truth, but then most of us realised that anyway.  Suarez is obviously a talented footballer with a number of fatal flaws, but you could say the same of George Best or Diego Maradona, not that Suarez is as good as either of them. 

Evra meets Suarez; the handshake that never was

For me the pantomime villain of this whole dismal business is Kenny Dalglish, who was himself a great player, but who has demonstrated the deft interpersonal skills of a constipated grizzly bear in the way he has handled the media scrum that erupted over this affair.  Dalglish’s default mode with the media is one of grumpy mistrust – even more so than Fergie – and this has, of course, always played well in the red areas of Merseyside. 

They love nothing more than to gather round a storage heater of an evening and nurse a sense of betrayal and self-pity.  The whole world is against them and the media and the FA are in Fergie’s pocket.  It’s all a conspiracy designed to prevent King Kenny’s hordes from re-assuming their rightful position at the top of the footballing tree. Et cetera, et cetera. Yawn.

Dalglish’s stupidity – and this has been much in evidence –  has been to nail his colours to the mast of these self-pitying fools and to place too much trust in the word of Suarez.  He has stoked the fires of resentment that never really go out on Merseyside and has played the ‘Scouse’ card for all it’s worth (not much, actually).  For those in thrall to ‘King’ Kenny’s siren song, it’s a well-trodden road that leads from Huyton to Heysel and on to Hillsborough.  To the rest of the world, it just makes them look like a bunch of self-deluding idiots.  The point is that Dalglish obviously went so far out on a limb for Suarez, dragging the self-pity brigade with him,  that he made Suarez believe that he could basically get away with anything and would still retain the backing of the club.

On Saturday, the United fans were singing (to the tune of ‘Sloop John B’)  ”It’s never your fault, it’s never your fault; you’re always the victims, it’s never your fault.”  That’s about right in my book.

Dalglish : Bang out of order in his Sky interview

What happened in the wake of Saturday’s game – Suarez refusing to shake hands with Evra, Dalglish’s belligerent post-match interview with Sky, Fergie finally coming out of his shell to condemn Suarez as a ‘disgrace’ – was as inevitable as it was pathetic.  The ‘New York Times’ - the second largest shareholder in the Fenway Sports Group who own Liverpool – came out with a piece suggesting that John Henry and the Boys from Beantown needed to get their act together to salvage something from the wreckage of Liverpool FC and there was a similar piece in the ‘Boston Globe’.  With the stench of racism drifting down the Mersey and across the Atlantic, it wasn’t long before FSG finally decided to act.

Suddenly, after months of stony silence, statements were appearing on the LFC website faster than fleas jumping off a dying rat.  Suarez apologised for not shaking Evra’s hand, Dalglish apologised for escalating his normal grumpiness into outright hostility in his interview with Sky and waffled on about ‘conduct not befitting a manager of Liverpool’ or words to that effect.  Then, hilariously, we got a statement from Liverpool’s Managing Director, Ian Ayre, a man hitherto so invisible that it’s a wonder people weren’t picking up black eyes by walking into him.  The (Hitherto) Invisible Man rebuked Suarez for lying to the club – a pity he didn’t do so a few months ago – and blathered on a bit about the responsibilities of anyone playing for Liverpool FC.  All too little and too late because as the United fans reminded Suarez throughout the second half of Saturday’s game, ‘we know what you are’.

Ian Ayre finally puts in an appearance

Now, apparently, Liverpool’s shirt sponsor, Standard Chartered, are cutting up rough.  They were being lined up as a potential major investor for the possible new Dipperdrome in Stanley Park, but with relations between them and LFC currently as frigid as the February weather, any such deal is looking a remote possibility.  Amazing how quickly things start moving once the money men get involved.  Dalglish, Suarez and Ayre no doubt had their arses kicked and were obviously told by FSG to get out there and eat some humble pie – something we all knew would happen eventually.

Even so, I took little pleasure from something I knew would happen in the end and that is because,  in the final analysis, one bloke has apologised for not shaking another’s hand, another bloke has apologised for being rude to a TV interviewer and the Invisible Man hasn’t apologised to anyone.

The media are lowering the curtain on this one now, mainly because anyone unconnected with LFC or MUFC is probably bored shitless by the whole matter and though it retains a certain fascination for the hacks who must deal with the likes of Dalglish, Ferguson and Suarez on a daily basis, even they know that people just want this to end.  Even United’s response to the multiple Liverpool apologies indicated an eagerness to move on…

Understandable, but a pity nonetheless, if only because there are so many important issues that remain unresolved.  Such as……

1. Suarez was wrong to make racially charged comments to Evra and wrong not to apologise – preferably immediately.  He has still to apologise for these comments.

2. Liverpool were wrong to come out so publicly in support of the Uruguayan over such a sensitive issue  and even more at fault when they chose to wear those pikey t-shirts before the Wigan game.  So much for ‘Respect’…

3. They were wrong in condemning  the findings of an independent commission that found Suarez guilty, especially after he admitted to using the term ‘negro’ in the specific context in which the word was used.

4. Liverpool FC were even more at fault in questioning Evra’s credibility as a witness.  Where do they stand with that now that Suarez has been exposed a a serial liar?

5. Dalglish was wrong to suggest that all the ‘facts’ had not emerged from the commission’s hearings (despite their exhaustive report), yet Liverpool FC didn’t have the balls to mount a proper appeal and let the world see what those ‘facts’ were.  We’re still waiting….

6. Liverpool fans – all partisan considerations aside – were wrong to victimise Evra further by booing him throughout last month’s FA Cup clash at the Dipperdrome.  Then again, did we really expect anything different?

7.  Dalglish was wrong to once again claim Suarez should not have been suspended in the build-up to Saturday’s game.

8.  Suarez was wrong to snub Evra’s offer of a handshake

9. Suarez should not have lied to the club about his intention to shake Evra’s hand

10. Dalglish was wrong  not to condemn him in the immediate aftermath.

11. The intervention of the Fenway Sports Group was anaemic until their ‘income streams’ came under threat.  What does this tell us about their attitudes to issues like racism?

It remains to be seen whether or not Suarez and Dalglish can survive this disastrous episode.  Had Liverpool not got through to their first Wembley final in years then Dalglish’s position might be under greater threat.  He has shown himself incapable of dealing with complex non-football issues like this and may do well to survive the internal blood-letting that will surely follow – particularly if the Standard Chartered deal sinks into the Mersey. 

His second term as Liverpool manager is likely to be defined by this affair and you would not bet against him walking away for a second time.  Don’t think there would be quite as much gnashing of teeth and rending of garments this time, because on top of the whole Suarez / Evra mess, there’s the issue of his judgement when it comes to shelling out bucketloads of cash for the likes of Downing, Carroll and Henderson.

As for Suarez, good footballer though he is, his credibility is completely shot after this catastrophic episode.  Like Tevez, he has gone from hero to zero in pretty short order and if Liverpool get a reasonable offer for him from a Spanish or Italian club in the summer, I would imagine that all parties will grab it with alacrity.  His career is going to be forever mired by this episode and his relationships with future team-mates, let alone future opponents – particularly if they’re black – are going to be, at the very least,  tricky.

The Waltons go to Jurassic Park

I will admit firstly that I am a sucker for a decent sci-fi series.  I get lured in by whizz-bang trailers full of monsters and lasers and all that stuff and before I know it I am knee-deep in something that is essentially the televisual equivalent of a McDonald’s hamburger.  Only occasionally does something genuinely engaging come along.

And so it has been with Terra Nova, which ran on Sky last autumn and which has just been spoonfed to me on DVD by a friend with a warped sense of humour.  He’s like me – just can’t resist these trashy sci-fi potboilers.  I think his rationale was  that if he was going to suffer, he wasn’t going to suffer alone.

Briefly, Terra Nova is a story of time travel to a past but parallel Earth.  Parallel is good, because it means none of that nonsense about changing the future because you swat a butterfly in the Cretacaeous past. 

The story centres on the Shannon family – hunky Dad, sexy Mom and three kids – the sulky boy/man of about 18, the gawky teenage princess of about 15 and the saccharine brat of about 7.  They are all dreadful actors but  ludicrously photogenic and unbearably wholesome.  It’s like the Waltons moving to Jurassic Park. 

The Shannon family emoting furiously in ‘Terra Nova’

The story starts in 2149 in an overpopulated, polluted and dying Chicago where the annual ‘pilgrimage’  of about 100 souls back to the Terra Nova colony via the one-way time portal represents a ray of hope for the crowded masses.  Having more than 2 kids is a crime punishable by prison time and Dad the  Chicago cop ends up in the slammer after the family apartment is raided by the Population Control storm-troopers.  Mom gets off the hook because she is a super-talented doctor and some three years later she is invited to go to Terra Nova with 2 of her kids.  All that is needed is for tough, resourceful Dad to break out of prison ( a doddle, apparently) and smuggle himself into the ‘pilgrimage’ party with the youngest child stashed in a giant backpack.  It’s the kind of thing that I’m sure we’ve all experienced; my uncle used to boost me over the walls of football grounds when I was a mere tadpole so he didn’t have to pay for me and this isn’t much different really; just a bit more high-tech.

Anyway after a bit of drama and lots of thunderous music, they get whooshed through the time portal back to 85 million BC or whenever.  They duly arrive in a kind of sub-tropical version of Centre Parcs.  The Terra Novans live in twinky little chalets behind a big fence.  The fence is to keep out big and noisy dinosaurs who live in the forest and a bunch of renegades who, like the Elves of Lothlorien, live up in the trees and all look like extras from ‘Mad Max II’.  Their purpose in splitting away from the main colony emerges as the story meanders on, but I won’t vex you with the labyrynthine complexities of it all.  The renegades are sort of at war with Terra Nova, but there’a actually a bit more to it than that.

Steven Spielberg is involved with ‘Terra Nova’ as an Executive Producer; every now and again he does some slumming in the world of TV and has previously done so to better effect with 2002′s ‘Taken’, which ended a bit inconsequentially but was actually quite gripping for most of its run.  Spielberg often gets berated for some of his soft-focus, Hallmark  Card sentimentality, particularly about family life among the American bourgeoisie and, for however much he may be held responsible, the Shannons of ‘Terra Nova’ are right up there with the sickliest of his creations. 

The teenage boy gets involved almost at once with a pretty racy bunch who distil their own moonshine out in the woods and with one girl (called ‘Sky’ for pity’s sake) in particular.  He’s at loggerheads with his controlling Dad, but in the end they discover (shucks) that they really love one another and even get into some manly hugging before the series ends.  Middle daughter is a bit more of a straight arrow and she hooks up with a ramrod-straight military type with a crewcut who gets up when Dad enters the room and calls him ‘Sir’.  Mom just oozes maternal love for her brood and has no problem ejecting hunky Dad from the marital bed when the little one can’t sleep.  The little one, of course, gets the cheesiest lines and she is pretty much off the scale on the cute-ometer.

More troubling is the fact that the colony is presided over by an Action Man alpha male cum benevolent dictator – the first man through the portal - who makes all the big decisions on behalf of the colonists; no town meetings and no democracy here.  We’re just supposed to take it on trust that he has everyone’s best  interests at heart.  Richard Nixon would have loved this show.

Of course, we’re also supposed to be fascinated by the various plot-twists and the regular run-ins with dinosaurs and renegades, but I found myself distracted by quite a few of the assumptions made in the basic set-up of the plot - they’re either derisory or deeply suspect.  If this is Spielberg’s world-view, I’m glad I don’t live there.  Whatever happened to the Bill of Rights?

One of the CGI dinosaurs in ‘Terra Nova’ – not the most dangerous animals in the show.

What’s good about ‘Terra Nova’ are some of the set piece action scenes, the great scenery (Australia, apparently) and the CGI beasties.  However, it’s the hackneyed humans with their toothpaste smiles, their empty heads and their deeply conservative values who are the most dangerous of the animals we encounter in ‘Terra Nova’.

Remarkably, Fox are considering commissioning a second season….

 

 

United’s Glass Ceiling

Last season, I wrote lengthily and lovingly about United’s U-18 Academy youngsters and their run to the FA Youth Cup Final where they ultimately beat Sheffield United over two legs.  That was a special group of players and it’s actually slightly depressing to reflect on their apparent progress – or lack of it - since that balmy night at Old Trafford back in May.

Sir Alex Ferguson, so the orthodox United mythology goes, has always given youth its chance.  Pundits always mention the much-heralded ‘Class of ’92′ that featured the likes of Ryan Giggs, Nicky Butt, David Beckham, Paul Scholes and Gary Neville and how Fergie offloaded established players like Hughes, Ince and Kanchelskis to make way for the youngsters in the 1995-6 season.  However, in the years since then – apart from the recent emergence of Danny Welbeck- the only domestically-produced youngsters to have made any impact on the first team are Wes Brown, John O’Shea and Darren Fletcher – none of whom, I would say, are in the same class as Beckham, Scholes etc.  In any case, Brown & O’Shea have moved on and Fletcher’s career seems to be in the balance due to his ongoing illness.  Welbeck is looking promising, but is still a work in progress.

In my view, there has been a ‘glass ceiling’ for young players at Old Trafford since the mid-90′s.  We have produced and developed a number of youngsters who showed huge initial promise , but for one reason or another never quite made it and were sold on.  Into this category would come players like Chris Eagles, David Jones, Febian Brandy and Giuseppe Rossi.  Eagles and Jones are still playing Premiership football at Bolton & Wigan respectively, whilst Rossi has become a major goalscoring force in La Liga for Villareal. 

Sometimes, there are clear reasons why players don’t make it and Febian Brandy is a case in point.  He was attached to United from the age of 9 and looked like an absolute world-beater, playing in various youth tournaments and scoring goals for fun.  He was lightning fast, but was also a big lad for his age and that helped him muscle past smaller defenders, but the problem was that Febian had probably done most of his growing by the time he was 15.  From that point onwards, he could only watch as smaller defenders got bigger and stronger whilst he just stayed pretty much the same.  He’s still only 22, but last time I looked, was without a club. 

Febian Brandy – currently unattached

Rossi was of a similar build, scored masses of goals in the Reserves, but the arguments against him  also usually revolved around his diminutive stature – ‘not big enough or tough enough for English football’ was the customary comment, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped a player like Jermaine Defoe from having a long and successful career with West Ham and Spurs.  Since he went to Spain, Rossi has become a full Italian international and a bit of a goal machine for Villareal, though has been less successful of late.

Jones looked like a nailed-on future United stalwart; a left-footed midfield organiser in the Roy Keane mould, though thankfully a bit less volatile.  He  had spells at Preston (on loan), Derby and Wolves, but has now landed up at Wigan and finds it hard to get into a struggling team.  Chris Eagles went to Burnley and has now moved to Bolton, where he is having some success playing as an orthodox right-winger.  He still looks a good player, too, but like Jones and Rossi, was never really given a chance to establish himself in the first team at United.

Chris Eagles – never really given a chance at United

The usual response here from those who defend United’s policy towards emerging youngsters is  ’If they were good enough, they’d have made it into the first team.’  However, the issue here is opportunity – or the lack of it. 

Darren Fletcher – now sadly and possibly permanently sidelined by illness - is a beneficiary of  Old Trafford’s ‘glass ceiling’.  For years, Fletcher was jokingly referred to as ‘The Godson’ by malcontent United fans.  Many people were so mystified by Fletcher’s constant opportunities in the first team that the theory was that -given his Scottish roots – he must be Fergie’s godson.  Certainly, though Fletcher did eventually emerge as an energetic if not very creative midfielder – what Eric Cantona would typify as a ‘water carrier’ – this was a process that took years to come to fruition.  During that time, Fletcher took over from the departed Phil Neville as the butt of the fans discontent.  I have been at Old Trafford and heard a huge collective groan when his name was read out on the teamsheet before a game.

The point here is that Fletcher was given multiple opportunities to nail down a first team place, even when his contribution quite clearly did not merit this.  Fergie liked him for whatever reason, so he got into the team.  Jones, Eagles and Rossi were never given more than a fraction of the opportunities that Fletcher has had.  Who knows how much they could have achieved at United if they had been among Fergie’s favourites in the way that Fletcher was (and Jonny Evans  is)?

Which brings me to last year’s FA Youth Cup winners.  Most of the team have now ‘moved up’ to the Reserves, where most of them continue to prosper.  Midfielder Ryan Tunnicliffe has been loaned out to Peterborough for the season and goalkeeper Sam Johnstone  also had a spell on loan at Scunthorpe.  Quite clearly, some of these players need some time to settle in at this level – both Jesse Lingard and Larnell Cole are hugely promising but both are still growing and need to ‘fill out’.  However, there were a few of the team – specifically, Paul Pogba, Ravel Morrison and Will Keane – who were ready to take a up a place in the first team squad and  – indeed – all three have seen some action in the first team this season.  They, along with Tunnicliffe, were the outstanding players in last year’s Youth Cup winning team and they presaged a bright new future for United’s Academy players.

However, that future has not really happened for a variety of reasons.  Ravel Morrison’s off-field activities have been well-documented and he has now been sold to West Ham in the January transfer window.  For all his silky skills, I think we have to accept that there were too many issues in Ravel’s private life for him to ever really make it at United.  Clearly the club has kept the lid on a lot of this in an effort to protect the player and it could be that the truth will never be known.  Under such circumstances, getting away from Manchester was probably a necessary step for Ravel, but you do wonder whether he will handle the temptations of living in London any better.  No doubt the tabloids will keep us informed about this.

Paul Pogba is a midfielder of massive promise.  Tall, athletic, mobile, inventive – the comparisons with a young Patrick Vieira are fully justified.  He has seen more first team action than any of the others, but is clearly dissatisfied – and with good reason, in my view. 

Paul Pogba – overlooked in favour of Jones, Cleverley & Scholes

Whatever Paddy Crerand and other apologists may say, there is little doubt that United’s midfield is the weakest area of the team – and has been so for several years now.  Last year we won the title without ever having a settled midfield – Carrick, Scholes, Fletcher, Park, Giggs, Gibson and even O’Shea were rotated regularly – a strategy that we just about got away with in the Premiership, but which was ruthlessly exposed by Barcelona in the Champions League Final last May.  In the summer, the club lost Paul Scholes to retirement and were reputedly in pusuit of Inter Milan’s Wesley Sneijder – a move that never happened for whatever reason.  In a revisionist comment made after the Sneijder move had broken down, Fergie said  ”If we hold Paul Pogba back, what’s going to happen? He’s going to leave in a couple of years’ time when his contract is finished. We have to give him opportunities to see how he can do in the first team. He’s got the ability, the physique and the athleticism.”  Exactly, Sir Alex, so why haven’t we seen more of Pogba in the first team?  Pogba clearly – and justifiably - feels that he’s not being given a decent shot and according to whichever tabloid you believe, is destined for City, Inter, Juventus, Arsenal or wherever.  Pogba has seen returning loanee Tom Cleverley rocket past him and into the first team (and the England squad), he has seen central defender Phil Jones deployed in a midfield holding role and has seen Paul Scholes come out of retirement, whilst his own opportunities have been minimal.  You don’t need to be a genius to see why the young Frenchman is so disilluioned with life at United.

In some ways it’s been even worse for Will Keane.  At the start of the season, as a striker, he would have seen Rooney, Hernandez, Berbatov, Welbeck, Diouf, Owen and Macheda ahead of him in the pecking order and must have despaired of getting any first team action at all.  He did finally get on for a few minutes in the home defeat against Blackburn and was on the bench against Stoke the other night, but much of that is down to Macheda (loan) and Diouf (permanent) having departed and injury problems with Rooney and (surprise, surprise) Owen.  He continues to bang in goals for the Reserves, but the likelihood of him getting a decent run in the first team seems as remote as ever. 

Will Keane – will he ever get a real chance?

So, Morrison has gone, Pogba could be on his way and Will Keane is kicking his heels in the Reserves – for now.  So much for the FA Youth Cup winners heralding a brand new dawn.  In fact, the young players making a splash at Old Trafford have either been bought in (Jones and Smalling) or were out on loan last year (Cleverley & Welbeck).

So what of this year’s crop of hopefuls?  A couple of the Youth Cup winning team – Tyler Blackett and Gylliano van Velzen – were suffciently young to carry on in the Academy this year.  Otherwise, Paul McGuinness has had a new crop of youngsters to contend with, among them the sons of some famous Dads;  Nick Barmby’s son, Jack,  is a striker-cum-winger and Luke Hendrie, son of ex-Middlesbrough midfielder John, is following in Dad’s footsteps in central midfield.  Welsh striker Tom Lawrence made a few  appearances late last season and looks promising, but other than that it’s all change for the U-18′s.

Results were poor early in the season – consecutive defeats to Portsmouth and Southampton to open the season and since then a bit patchy.  Centre-half Luke McCulloch has emerged as a lynchpin and Jack Barmby has scored regularly in a team that seems to have only the (relatively) diminutive Sam Byrne as a central striker. Tom Lawrence seems to have been out with injury for most of the season, so the team seems to have got by using a plethora of wingers and midfielders, often playing with Byrne on his own up front. 

The defending FA Youth Cup holders got through their third and fourth round games at Altrincham against Torquay (4-0) and Derby (2-1)  – games I managed to miss for one reason or another, but last night’s 5th round game against Swansea at the Liberty Stadium represented perhaps their greatest challenge to date in this year’s tournament.

Like the United first team, the U-18′s are going through an injury crisis of their own, with (apparently) up to 10 players unavailable for last night’s game.  Even so, the Youth Cup seems to have worked some kind of alchemy on the team yet again – or more likely the coaching of Paul McGuinness , Jim Ryan and their staff is beginning to have a real impact.  Working forward from the back, Tyler Blackett (who captained the team) seems to have acquired a little more discipline to compliment his undoubted talent and athleticism and had a storming game at centre-back.  Charni Ekangamene, born in Antwerp, but of Congolese descent, seemed for so long to be in search of a role within the team, but now seems to have settled in well at left-back.  In midfield, Luke Hendrie produced a top-rate performance, whilst diminutive Norwegian Mats Daehli combines guile and speed to great effect.  Van Velzen looks a far better player than he did last year and has now added better decision-making to his undoubted ball-playing skills.  Jack Barmby has looked good and scored regularly all season whilst Sam Byrne has now started to find the back of the net as well.  All in all, the team produced a top-rate performance and looked a far more cohesive unit than they did when I saw them last. 

Tyler Blackett – a commanding figure in defence

Swansea’s youngsters don’t play in the Academy League, so were a bit of an unknown quantity.  Even so, they put out Liverpool earlier in the competition so were clearly not to be under-estimated.  They had a proven goalscorer in James Loveridge and left-back Jandir Zola also looked a good player.

The first 40 minutes of the game were fairly even and fairly open.  Loveridge probably missed Swansea’s best chance, heading over from about 6 yards with the goal at his mercy, whilst at the other end, Swansea goalkeeper Davies had to dive at Jack Barmby’s feet to prevent United from going ahead. 

In the end, the game probably hinged on a three-goal United blitz in the seven minutes leading up to half-time.  First, Cypriot centre-back Nicolas Iannou sent a long, hopeful ball forward which Barmby, who’d stayed onside, got to before Davies.  With the goalkeeper committed and the goal untended, Barmby’s careful left-foot shot from the edge of the area  just beat the retreating Zola to give United the lead.  Less than two minutes later, a brilliant, if risky backheel by Blackett in his own right-back area, followed by a surging run and incisive pass, enabled Mats Daehli  to beat Swansea’s offside trap and race away, drawing Davies before squaring the ball into the path of the onrushing van Velzen who could hardly miss – a wonderful ‘team’ goal.  Then, on the stoke of half-time United got lucky when Barmby’s mishit shot struck Byrne on the heel, spun into the air and dropped perfectly for the Irish striker to volley home from close range. 

Into the second half and though Swansea markedly upped their game, United were still creating openings, due in no small part to Swansea’s tendency to overplay the ball at the back and then lose it in midfield.   After 49 minutes, a fine crossfield foray by full-back James Weir led to van Velzen finding enough space on the edge of the Swansea area to stroke  a low left-footed shot beyond Davies and make it 4-0.

Loveridge did pull one back for Swansea just 4 minutes later.  Blackett’s weak clearing header was probably his only error of a Man of the Match performance, but Loveridge had time to control the ball on his chest and send a low volley past Jon Sutherland and in via the inside of the post. 

Substitutes James Wilson and Josh Harrop came on and made a considerable impact with both denied after fine runs and despite Swansea pulling a goal back, United continued to look the most likely to extend their lead.  That eventually happened just a minute or so from time when Blackett bulletted home a free-kick from the right-hand edge of the area.

So, a 5-1 victory for United and they move on to the quarter-final where they will play either Charlton or Tottenham at home.  The team do seem to be coming together impressively since I last saw them and though they may lack the truly outstanding individuals of last year’s group, they have clearly made good progress under Paul McGuinness’ wing. 

The Three Wise Men?   (L-R) Ferguson, Ryan and McGuinness

The likelihood is that by the time this crop reach the stage where they are agitating for a first-team place, they will have a new manager to impress; hopefully one who will walk the walk as well as talking the talk where young players are concerned.  Blackett and Barmby currently look the best candidates for rapid promotion through the ranks and it would be nice to think of them joining the likes of Pogba, Keane, Lingard and Tunnicliffe in the United first team squad.  However, like me, they are probably approaching the future with hope rather than optimism.

Another milestone……

Yesterday, this blog quietly crept past 100,000 hits since its inception way back in September 2009. 

Those were t’ days when you could go out with a 50p coin in your pocket, drink 12 pints of embalming fluid, eat 3 Chicken Bhunas and still have enough left to get a stretch limo home……

Well, maybe not; nostalgia, as has been well-documented, ain’t what it used to be.  Even so,  I do seem to have churned out a lot of verbiage and doubtless some drivel along the way and I really must thank all visitors, but in particular serial offenders, for dropping in to keep that remorseless counter ticking over. 

I can’t actually say that I never thought I’d reach this stage because for much of its existence I never really considered the  ’life’ of the blog.  Just moved on to  the next post …and yet here we are still.

Right now, I’m feeling a bit like a neglectful parent because, due to well-documented issues dealt with at some length in recent posts, I just don’t have much time or energy left for blogging .  I’m not going to reproach myself too much about that, simply because this is after all a blog, not a daily newspaper. 

Things will, eventually, settle down again I’m sure, leaving me with more energy for lots of other, less onerous things, including blogging.  We’re now into Winter’s ‘dog days’ and Spring is just around the corner, so there is light at the end of the tunnel in most respects.  Here’s to the next 100,000….

Stuff……

Just when I’d really like to be blogging away about how Gnidrolog’s  album ‘In spite of Harry’s toenail’  is a touchstone of Western civilisation or words to that effect, I find myself beset by the need to clear my Dad’s house of a lifetime (two lifetimes, if you count my Mum) of stuff….

Now, I already have stuff problems of my own, notably with cd’s and to a lesser extent with books.  When I decided to go over to cd’s from vinyl, I rejoiced in the fact that I had managed to create a huge amount of space in the house and that these new shiny silver discs with their economical dimensions were surely never going to become as oppressive a problem as those big boxes of LP’s.    Jump forward 15 or so years and all the space once occupied by clunky crates of vinyl is now taken up with smaller crates of cd’s.  The economy of scale offered by cd’s has just encouraged me to acquire more of them, so in essence, I now have a larger quantity of music taking up the same space as before.  Hmmmm….

With books, it’s not quite so bad, but I can nonetheless boast an impressively tall  and increasingly unstable ziggurat of unread volumes next to my bed, which, should it ever collapse on me during the night, would probably result in a severe case of concussion.

All of which goes to show that for people like myself with a magpie disposition, you could probably rehouse us into a 25-room mansion and we would still – over a period of years – manage to fill the place up with stuff.

In some respects, I am fortunate to live with someone who is of a quite different viewpoint; the partner sees herself as some latter-day Gandhian ascetic who only needs a spare loin-cloth and a packet of B&H to keep her happy.  As in many things, she’s not totally consistent about this, having a weakness for jewellery, cosmetics and handbags to name but a few conspicuous items, but she is generally happier to be less burdened with stuff than I am.  I am always being encouraged by her to ‘sacredly cleanse’ the various cluttered areas of my life – my wardrobe, my cd collection, my books – and it’s sometimes hard to make her understand that the stuff I have accumulated over the years is somehow intrinsically bound up with my personality and forms an essential part of the way in which I see myself in relation to the rest of the world.  Well, that’s my excuse anyway – another view would be that all my stuff is like a big security blanket that helps me maintain the illusion that everything is under control and that I actually do know what I’m doing.  As if….

Of course, all of this comes from somewhere, and – unsurprisingly – I get it from my parents, both of whom were magpies up to a point.  However, with them there was definitely an extra dimension that I think is probably peculiar to people who lived through the wartime years.  This can probably best be summed up by the phrase – and it’s a phrase that I heard both of my parents use on numerous occasions – “I’ll hang on to that/those; it/they might come in handy.”

So now I am reaping the whirlwind of stuff that my folks accumulated in this house over the 28 years they lived here together and the final 7 years my Dad lived here as a widower.  Having an appreciation of things that ‘might come in handy’ perhaps suggests an almost prescient appreciation of potential future needs, but as I’m finding, it’s more like an obsession with being prepared for any and every eventuality, no matter how unlikely. 

I’ve already written here about how, after my Mum’s death, I was (partially) clearing out her kitchen and found several large tupperware boxes crammed full of those little sachets of sugar that are available in cafes and motorway service stations.  My Mum would undoubtedly have accumulated these on my parents’ many post-retirement caravanning holidays and I can see the way her magpie mind would have justified this consistent and systematic pilfering of sugar.  She knew perfectly well that neither she nor my Dad used sugar, except perhaps on breakfast cereal – something they ate only rarely, so there was little point in keeping any sugar in the restricted storage space within their caravan.  On the other hand, it was not unknown for them to entertain other caravanners for a cup of tea from time to time and those people might be users of sugar, so having a few sachets handy would be a good thing.  So far, so logical, but then the wartime hoarding mentality, not to mention the something-for-nothing mentality obviously kicked in and what started out as a piece of common sense rapidly became a full-scale obsession, eventually requiring tupperware boxes and cupboard space.

Now that I am having to clear the entire bungalow, what I am finding is that my sugar sachet experience was just the tip of a candy-coated iceberg.  It’s becoming abundantly clear that my folks kept just about everything, treating the house as a repository for the accumulated stuff of their lives.  However, whilst their previously-mentioned prescience about the things that they kept because they might ‘come in handy’ perhaps hints at  an organised approach to their squirrelling, what I am now finding is that there was a total absence of such an approach. Obscure cupboards and unused shelves became spaces where stuff could be shoved in a fairly haphazard manner and it has become customary for me to find small and often broken ornaments filled with assorted detritus – for example, fuses, perished rubber bands, paper clips, foreign coins, keys (to unknown locks), 50-year old letters from obscure or unknown persons, old passport photos, yellowed newspaper cuttings featuring useful gardening or household tips, recipes clipped from old magazines and so on.

Larger receptacles such as cardboard boxes may feature tourist brochures for somewhere in Scotland or Switzerland, theatre programmes, football programmes, single gloves, plastic flowers, broken Christmas decorations, 30-year old credit card bills, postcards from friends or family, invitations to weddings of people I’ve forgotten or never heard of and desiccated chunks of that weird green foam that florists use (or once used) for flower arrangements.

A cupboard occupied principally by a well-lagged hot water tank was additionally filled with dozens and dozens of tea-towels and hand-towels, washcloths and threadbare old tablecloths, all of which had over the years been stuffed in there and had slowly forced themselves down and  around the tank like an extra layer of lagging and had been slowly compressed into almost sedimentary layers of exhausted cotton and towelling. 

Wardrobes were another horror show; odd slippers, dozens and dozens of ties, wildly kitsch sixties jackets, multiple old cagouls that had somehow become stuck together, so that they were like some bizarre gore-tex sculpture, weird hanging contraptions that dangled from the inside of wardrobe doors as receptacles for shoes and more stuff…..as if any extra space were needed.

And so it goes on.  A peculiarity of the house compared to the others in the vicinity – all built in the early ’70′s – is that my Dad’s place was built by the builder for himself; he lived there for 4 years before selling the place to my parents in 1976.  As such, it’s bigger, has more garden and – in particular – has a  small room (maybe 8 feet wide and 15 feet long) leading off the main living room which could, in another lifetime, have been a small bedroom or, more likely, a study.  Instead, my Dad slowly turned it into what I called (somewhat inappropriately) his ‘glory-hole’ .  It all began well enough, with large and capacious shelves for books, files and the like, but as the years rolled by and the  shelves filled, the floor-space eventually became covered with boxes, pieces of old (and frequently broken) furniture and, in the end, random piles of papers and junk.  By the time I started in on it about 3 weeks ago, it was barely possible to open the door and it took me the best part of a week just to clear a path to the shelves at the far end.

Thus far, I have found some real gems among an awful lot of shite.  On the plus side, there were some really old family photos that I’d never seen before of relatives (most of them long gone now) taken during the war years.  In amongst that were letters from LMS Railways in Leicester detailing aspects of my Dad’s glorious and brief  Casey Jones career before he got into teaching, love letters from my parents to one another before and just after their marriage, a letter from my maternal Grandmother to my Mum at her workplace a week after she’d stormed out with my Dad, begging her to come home and begging forgiveness for the terrible things that had been said (she never went back) and finally a letter written by my maternal Grandfather to my Dad’s parents, turning down their invitation to my parents’ wedding on the basis that there had been too much ‘lying and deceit and insulting behaviour’  from my Mum & Dad for them to accept.  Dramatic stuff and though I knew the stories I’d never seen the documentary evidence.

However, for every piece of genuinely interesting stuff I’ve had to wade my way through piles and piles of detritus – most of it prompting the question ‘Why on earth did they keep this?’  About 50 address books – most of them unused, zillions of tourist pamphlets from Salzburg to Saltash to Salt Lake City and a whole box of postcards going back to the 60′s – some of them used/received, others unused/blank.   In another pile were about 150 postcards of Inveraray Castle – all of them unused, all of them identical.  Shelf after shelf of VHS videotapes, boxes of audio cassettes, boxes of 35mm transparencies – the footsoldiers of obsolescent technologies.  I’d already disposed of my Dad’s classical cd’s and old vinyl and there were some favourite pieces like Elgar’s ‘Enigma Variations’  which he had on cd, LP and audio cassette.  Well you never know….

However, if I needed a metaphor for this whole process, it would be a plain terracotta flowerpot that I found tucked behind a curtain on a windowsill in this overstuffed room.  In it were some pieces of World War 1 shrapnel that my Dad picked up on a trip round the Somme battlefields about 20 years ago.  Apparently, farmers in north-east France still plough up thousands of tons of this stuff every year – they call it the ‘Iron Harvest’ – and they tend to leave it lying by the side of the fields for Bomb Disposal (in the case of munitions) or for the tourists (in the case of less lethal artefacts) to pick up – which is exactly what my Dad did.  He’d picked up several random pieces of very heavy metal, including what was recognisably the remnants of a horseshoe,  and was clearly transfixed by these souvenirs of a war that fascinated him even though it had ended fully 6 years before he was born.  Kept around as a conversation piece for a few weeks after their return from France, the shrapnel had finally been lodged in a random flowerpot, dumped on the windowsill of this room and forgotten.  Twenty years of sun and oxygen and condensation have done their work and most of the shrapnel has by now disintegrated into powdery red dust, which poured out of the hole in the base of the flowerpot the minute I picked it up.  So much for history.

Still, you never know when you might need a few handfuls of rust…might come in handy.

Goofy and Worzel’s Big Adventure

So, ‘Goofy’ Suarez has copped an 8-match ban and a fine of about half a week’s wages for making racist remarks to Patrice Evra during the October fixture at the Dipperdrome.  I actually took the trouble to read large chunks of the 115-page FA Commission report on this whole affair and what struck me most was the level of detail they had gone into over Goofy’s remarks to Evra and his responses.  Apparently this was in order to make it ‘appeal-proof’ and the exhaustive investigations into what was said, by whom and what the cultural or linguistic nuances of that might be would appear to leave Liverpool with very little room for manoeuvre.

In any case, it was clear whilst watching the game that Pat was extremely upset about something that Goofy had said to him.  He kept looking across to the United bench, as if for guidance.  It was abundantly clear that Suarez was trying to wind him up.

All in all, having read large chunks of the Report, there seems little doubt that the case is proven.  Suarez probably isn’t any more of a racist than any other footballer, but he did seemingly use racist remarks  to Evra on this occasion in an attempt to get him booked (he succeeded) or sent off (he didn’t).

Mr Suarez

Who knows how many more ‘undocumented’ cases like this happen at all levels of football during any given season?  Goofy’s mistake was that he picked on the wrong guy.  Gaining an advantage in key games like Liverpool vs United is par for the course and winding up opponents is axiomatic if you think you can needle or unsettle your opponent and provoke them into a rash challenge or injudicious foul.  Through the years, there have been a number of high-profile players with ‘short fuses’ – Denis Law, Roy Keane, Joey Barton, to name but three – who have doubtless been on the receiving end of barbed comments from opponents that were similarly calculated to unsettle and enrage.  It will be interesting to see if there is an increase in this kind of complaint from now on.

What has been far more interesting throughout this whole affair has been the relative responses of the two clubs and their managers.  Fergie and the United camp have been at pains to stay out of it, by and large.  This is fair enough; after all the case was being brought by the F.A., not by Manchester United F.C..  Fergie’s only comment on it was that they were supportive of Evra’s standpoint.

Predictably, Liverpool’s response – and that of  their manager in particular – has been far more of a comedy turn.  The ghosts of Bill Shankly and Bob Paisley must have been spinning in their graves at some of ‘Worzel’ Dalglish’s comments. 

Apart from trying to discredit  Patrice Evra’s testimony due to the totally unrelated incidents that took place at Stamford Bridge in 2008 – whilst conveniently neglecting to mention Goofy’s ban for biting a (black) opponent whilst playing for Ajax in 2010 - Worzel has lost considerable respect among the wider footballing community due to the one-eyed parochialism of his responses.  His attempts to plug into Liverpool’s well-documented ‘victim culture’ via Twitter  to ensure that Goofy ‘never walks alone’ (yawn…) have recently been in full flow after L.F.C.’s recent defeat at Fulham – in particular his response to the chants of the Fulham fans about Goofy’s behaviour.  Suck it up, Kenny, because, thanks in no small part to your public utterances,  the terrace wags around the country will be reminding Suarez of his misdemeanours for as long as he remains a Liverpool player, no matter your affronted outrage.  The only surprise is that Dalglish hasn’t yet taken issue with the fact that both of the F.A.’s ‘linguistic experts’ who advised on Goofy’s use of ‘Rioplatense’ Spanish were attached to the University of…..you guessed it…Manchester.

 United fans, of course, have predictably already developed a parody of Liverpool’s ‘Just can’t get enough’  Suarez song that makes their views on his behaviour perfectly clear.  Should he play at Old Trafford in February, we will undoubtedly be treated to lengthy renditions of this.

Then there was the whole business of the Liverpool squad (and manager) wearing cheap-looking Suarez t-shirts before the recent Wigan game.  Showing solidarity with a team-mate is one thing, but to do so in such an ostentatiously public display is quite another.  Contrast that with the way in which United dealt with Eric Cantona’s ban for assaulting a mouthy idiot in the crowd at Selhurst Park back in 1995.  We all knew – and the club publicly acknowledged – that Eric shouldn’t have done it, but we all supported him anyway – if only because it swiftly became clear that Eric’s target was the worst kind of Sarf London moron.   However, once the seagulls had abandoned the trawler to his fate, the whole thing was quietly taken in-house and he was supported behind closed doors – a concept that Worzel doesn’t seem to have grasped.    

Mr Dalglish

Consider the scale of the screw-ups and the enthusiasm with which everyone connected to  The Dippers has managed to paint themselves into a corner over this issue: first, there have been frequent testimonials from Goofy’s team-mates to the effect that he isn’t a racist, but that is something that he was never charged with.  Add to this Worzel’s attempts to discredit Evra and engage with all those miserable, self-deluding Scousers who have chips the size of Pier Head on their shoulders and think that everything is an anti-Liverpool conspiracy,  plus the sheer embarassment now being felt by Goofy’s advisors who set him up with all kinds of do-gooding anti-racism initiatives in South Africa and elsewhere.  It’s almost beyond belief that a major football club could miscalculate so badly over an issue of such seriousness.

Liverpool’s players and staff have publicly gone out on a limb for Luis Suarez, but now the rest of us get to watch them squirm as the penny finally drops and they realise that they are going to have to back down and eat humble pie over this.  Their aggressive stance and their belated understanding that they were just making things worse with each successive public statement will make the inevitable, eventual climbdown even more hilarious.  If I were Evra, I would insist that Suarez is made to apologise publicly in the middle of Moss Side at 10:30 pm on a Saturday night.  I’m sure then that we would see some of the speed and movement for which he is so famous.

Postscript 04 Jan 2012

Well, well, looks like I over-estimated the capacity of Liverpool F.C. to see beyond their own parochial interests and regain a little dignity from a situation that has left their reputation – and that of Dalglish and Suarez in particular – in tatters.

But no; the wagons have been pulled into an even tighter circle and they have decided to move on without any  apology to the affronted party, without any acceptance that Suarez was guilty or that their response to this problem has often been crass and inappropriate in the extreme. It’s not often that I am guilty of over-estimating Liverpool F.C., but here is one such occasion.  Mea culpa.

Had the situations been reversed, I would like to think that my club would have had the wisdom and humility to see that more was at stake here than just their own narrow interests and over-developed persecution complex.  As mentioned previously, they did so back in 1995 over the Cantona Affair and managed to handle it just about right.  When Cantona returned after a much longer ban, it was with a sense that justice had been served and that he could resume his career with a clean slate.  He did so and although his absence probably cost us the Premiership Title that year, the following year we did the Double with Cantona scoring a brilliant winning goal in an otherwise drab FA Cup Final against Liverpool.  Eric won numerous Player of the Year awards and both player and  club were feted for their phoenix-like revival.  Football moved on.

Can’t see that happening with Goofy, no matter how good a player he is.  Liverpool’s aggressive and unrepentant stance over this sorry affair will ensure that upon his return, Suarez will no doubt be treated as a Martyr and another member of the pantheon of Merseyside Victims  at the Dipperdrome, whilst everywhere else he will be treated as a racist, even though he probably isn’t.  Last night, the City fans were singing ‘Where’s your racist gone?’  to their Scouse counterparts and this will no doubt continue for the rest of this season and probably beyond.  Serves ‘em right, frankly. 

Dalglish and Co may reject the views of the F.A. Commission, but the ‘Court of Public Opinion’ has already made its mind up and though Patrice Evra isn’t exactly a popular figure outside of Red Manchester, most people – except for Dipper fans - understand that he had a genuine grievance here; one worthy of some contrition and some kind of apology from Suarez and LFC, neither of which it seems will now be forthcoming.  This was a moment for Liverpool as a club and for Suarez as a human being to show a little class and even I am surprised at how far short of the mark they have fallen with their intransigence and their arrogant, delusional self-interest.

It will be interesting to see how the F.A. respond to the scorn poured on their Commission by Worzel in particular; if managers can be charged with Disrepute raps for abusing referees, surely Dalglish has a case to answer for his arrogance and contempt towards the governing body?  On the other hand, the F.A. may just want to let the whole thing quietly subside.

Another curious aspect of this concerns the total silence of  LFC’s American owners over this issue.  NES probably have a greater appreciation of ‘race’ issues through their involvement with Baseball in the USA and you would have thought that a little of their accumulated wisdom might have trickled down from on high and into the ears of Dalglish and the players.  John Henry will know that this affair has left a severe dent in Liverpool’s reputation, and further damged their relationships with both the F.A. and with Manchester United.

The latter is a real concern as what used to be a healthy local rivalry becomes increasingly toxic by the year.  Suarez is due to be back for the Old Trafford game next month and I would imagine that police forces in Greater Manchester and on Merseyside are already gearing up for what is likely to be a powder-keg of a day.

Post-Postscript 14 Jan 2012

To use an over-used cliché, you couldn’t make it up…

Just when the F.A. thought that things couldn’t get any worse, we get what must seem to them to be the F.A. Cup Fourth Round Draw from Hell…..QPR v Chelsea and Liverpool v United.    Just when they were hoping that the whole ‘racism in football’ issue would dry up and blow away.  No chance of that now.  Suarez, Evra, Terry & Anton Ferdinand  are back under the microscope.

  To be honest, I have been in a state of shock about this for the last 10 days.  At the very least, these fixtures – especially the Liverpool/United tie – raise a whole raft of issues that will no doubt mean that any and every public utterance from either side ahead of the Cup game will be subject to intense media scrutiny.  From here, with a favourable wind, I can almost hear the sound of sacrificial knives being sharpened in the Street of Shame.

Suarez has issued a half-arsed and general ‘apology’ that satisfied nobody and merely highlights his and his club’s contempt for  Evra, the F.A. and Manchester United – and probably in that order.  Fergie has commented sarcastically about Liverpool’s predilection for making large and empty public statements.  Clearly, his view is that ‘peace talks’ at board level will not alleviate the tribal toxicity that Dalglish et al have let loose – and he’s probably right. 

Things are coming to the boil and by the end of this, the result of a couple of football matches (the Cup game and subsequent Premiership game at Old Trafford in early February) may be the least of our worries……

The safest bet – being as ITV will almost certainly broadcast the Cup game live on free-to-air TV  – would be to play it ‘behind closed doors’, but that would undoubtedly be seen as an acknowledgement by the football authorities that the fans are out of control and the police and stewards will be able to do little or nothing to control them if there are any flashpoints.  No doubt if that should prove to be the case, Kenny Dalglish will be as disinclined to accept any responsibility as he has been throughout this whole sorry mess.  Pretty classy for someone who witnessed at first hand what happened at both Heysel and Hillsborough.  

If the abuse one (black)  Oldham player got from the Kop during a recent cup tie is anything to go by, what kind of reception can Patrice Evra expect to get – assuming he is picked to play?  And if he doesn’t play, what does that say about the levels of snarling vitriol that Liverpool FC have effectively sponsored and encouraged throughout this affair?

You would like to think that Liverpool and United fans alike will be aware of the fact that – more than ever – the world will be looking on and  that they will consequently show some restraint and some maturity.  However, Dalglish and Liverpool have already set the tone ahead of this match and in an atmosphere of resentment, loathing and parochial prejudice, does anyone seriously believe that an outbreak of peace is likely?