BG

Agreed, think Maldini's point about protecting the potential revenue from the stadium naming was a shrewd one.

Hard not to like Spearing but personally I think that assessment is a bit on the generous side. I've never seen anything from him personally which make me think he's going to look like the best midfielder on the pitch at places like OT or Stamford Bridge.

Yeah I agree, we let them write the media narrative with zero attempt to counterbalance it. The Labour 83 thing was me. I agree with your post, especially the point about leadership from the top which has been notable by its absence.

1. It's been a disaster - we needlessly raised the stakes and lost with no plan B. The established narrative is now our player is a racist, our manager/the club don't acknowledge the problem, our player refuses to shake the hand of the victim of racial abuse. Those aren't the full facts of course but that's what is now widely believed. 2. Keeping silent yesterday was hardly 'not giving an inch' - in fact all it's achieved is to entrench the version of events given by Ferguson to media yesterday.

Henry Winter clearly likes Dalglish (he ghost wrote his autobiography I think) and he's clearly about as sympathetic to Dalglish and Liverpool more generally as just about any broadsheet writer. It's couched differently from many other pieces but his general view isn't really all that different.

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Labour, circa 1983.

Tottenham have a very good run in. I think of their reaming 13 games they've got Arsenal and Chelsea away and United at home before the end of March. The eight games they've got in April and May all look very winnable. They're definitely not out of it if they have six good weeks from here.

Interesting. Shame we haven't got our version of events out there. Watching it full speed I agree with whoever said it looked like two people unsure if the other would shake their hand.

Bit early for that in my view. I think I said about him a few months ago that I thought he had a good game basically (good touch, passes well, decent movement etc) and the hope is that he kicks on much as Lucas did (albeit in a different role) and the fear is that he doesn't and is much like Jenas - one of those players who should have been better than they were.

Hard Summer coming up for the journos if Mourinho comes back. Be difficult for most of them to decide who they want to fellate more.

Need a big turnaround in our home form. At the moment I wouldn't be confident we'd dispatch a decent Championship side consistently at home if they came set-up for a draw. Doable but we really need a few to pick up their game a lot. Win the cup final and kick-on I hope.

Need it in a super-slow motion...

Think Ayre has generally done very well since taking over but I think he didn't grasp the seriousness of the situation and has never got a hold on it at any stage. IMO once the accusation was made he should have been personally involved and should probably have overseen our response himself and been the only club employee to talk about it. Personally think that would have definitely turned out better for the club and probably for Luis himself too.

I agree to some extent it's hard to win a media war with them (partly as there are so many United fans writing for newspapers, partly as they're scared of Ferguson denying them access) but IMO if you don't even try to rebut things you just ensure your view doesn't get heard. (It's much like the situation Labour always faces up against a predominantly right wing press - you just have to fight harder to get your voice heard, if you give up then only their voice gets heard).

I think a back our man strategy is fine - as long as you push it through. By choosing not to appeal we didn't push it through. We abandoned the fight for his innocence whilst still trying to claim we thought he was innocent - that was never really going to cut it as a strategy as it was so obviously open to the 'why didn't Liverpool appeal' question. Don't use Twitter but I agree on your general point that sports writing is full of opinion (hence they struggled so badly to report the Redknapp court case as they had to report facts...) but that's the environment the club operates in - unfortunately the club have to live with that.

b******s. That's just a counsel of the doomed. We've an uphill battle on the whole incident given our man was found guilty but if you say nothing you have no chance of influencing what's written. Ferguson has just set the agenda for the next few days on the story and we're just letting that happen. Yep.

I agree that would have been the sensible thing to do though a kind of modified Blatter handshake and move on approach was never likely to get much of a hearing given the outrage Blatter's initial comments caused...

It's obvious we had and have no real strategy: the T-shirts were a mistake (should have worn anti-racism T-shirts and made loads of Luis' admirable work in South Africa, Bellamy's charity etc etc), not appealing if we had such misgivings about the process and so strongly believed our man was innocent was a mistake, allowing the handshake incident to develop was a mistake as it allowed Ferguson an open goal, and now not responding to Ferguson effectively setting the media narrative for the next three days too is an error. Failing to rebut his arguments just means our side doesn't get a hearing.

Totally agree. We've been all over the place on this.

It's a statement of fact. If you think the club have handled the incident well you're deluded. Everyone is against Suarez and us now (as you say), the narrative is that Suarez is a racist, that the club have backed a racist etc. As you say no-one is supporting the club - that's because the way we handled it was a disaster from start to finish. The handshake thing today was another chapter in that tale, as is then avoiding the press conference after Ferguson has used the gift of the non-handshake to set this week's narrative.

Agree, but the club's whole strategy on the Suarez incident has been a disaster from start to finish.

Is totally and utterly correct.

The manager bought him. KD has to take the rap for the bad buys, just as he takes the credit for the good ones. Everyone at the club has been incredibly clear who has the final word on players coming in.

My thoughts: - Gerrard was too deep for much of the game. - Spearing showed serious naivety on their second goal - he just panicked when all that was needed and what Hamman and Lucas would have done was to turn away from the player and shield the ball. - Given Kelly's availability I'd be very tempted to put Johnson at right mid. He's quicker, better on the ball, more of a threat, a better crosser and better defensively than Dirk (who brings little more than the odd goal in a big game). - Thought not starting Bellamy was an error - We were poor for most of the game but I thought we were pretty disgraceful once the second goal went in. Until Suarez's goal we looked like we'd just accepted the defeat. - Increasingly hard to avoid the view that KD has spent a lot of money on players (excepting Suarez and Enrique) who haven't improved us and in a couple of cases look like they're worth about a quarter of what we paid. Henderson looks periodically promising but was a bit of a luxury purchase given the laring problems in the squad. - Suarez should have shaken Evra's hand. The club's handling of the whole incident has been a PR disaster from start to finish, this was yet another error on that front.