JRC

It is Brain Science, though

How is it twisted round? You used a clause in conjucntion with aniother clause, but its meaning still stands on its own as referenced. And as I quoted the whole post and commented on the other clause - which you, respecter of context, do not appear to have to have taken into account - I reject the accusation.

Let me get this right - you think that any opinion is valid, and defend the right for them to be expressed, no matter whether they are grounded in analysis or reason or objectivity? You also complained long and hard and often late last year that you were being shouted down, disparaged and patronised for expressing a contrary opinion to some. Except when the opinion expressed is different to yours, such as any defence of Rafa, in which case, not only is the very expression of it tedious and ridiculous- no matter how well argued or not - but it is evidence of some kind of cognitive dissonance, and your favourite contribution to the psychological canon, self-delisional super fannery. Great work.

Because that's terrible right? Defending someone? Daring to put up counter arguments? Having the temerity to have opinions different to your own, and even giving reasosn for them? The 'point blank refusal to accept' argument is pretty tenuous as well, as there are few Rafa defenders on here so fundamantalist, but I suppose your 'a lot' qualifier covers the detail to be debated.

Maybe. But he still chose to say what he said in the manner he did in he time he had, and that is what is being discussed, bot what he might have said. You may be sure, but that's just your opinion... I wouldn't, no. Nor if they were talking about anyone other than Liverpool, even though in either case, the arguments against what was said, or p*ss-poor Sky punditry, would not be any less valid. I don't endorse poorly expressed or ill-considered or empirically refuted positive opinions, but they don't bother me - I offer no excuses for being partisan on matters LFC - please don't wave the 'SuperFan' accusation you've recently unfurled again, I accept that is the nature of (nearly) everyone who posts here - but that is not to imply that my criticism, when I choose to make it, does not require substantiation or reasons. One thought - not directed at you - is that I accept that Redknapp is entitled to his opinion, and the fact that that he is an ex-red imposes no moral obligation on him to be supportive; yet the format on Sunday was not simply that of independant pundits, it was undeniably that of 'representatives' from each club, captain and ex-captain. Terry, as a current player, was never going to offer anything outspoken (although tbf he accepted Cole made a meal of the penalty; but still said it should have been given), whereas Redknapp can - but was there not perhaps a structural imperative that he didn't go off as he did? It was certainly more striking coming out as it did- like an MP crossing the floor - more so than if it had been Gray, or in a wider studio discussion with other pundits present.

no, that's an example of a crass and ill-considered interjection being challenged. That didn't happen on Sunday, it was as stage managed as PMQT. Jamie coul;d easily have given his opinion and backed it up with some argument, insight, logic, evidence, reasoning (or, and I'm not holding my breath, Keyes could have challenged him) - but instead he worked his way through an easily recognisable set of cliches; as John has said, in a bizarre character-shift manner, as well. Having an opinion doesn't make it valid in anything other than an empty, valueless way - it is the content that is important, and becomes valid by being validated, or at least supported or justified.

btw, did I imagine it, or did Goals on Sunday do a bit on Zonal the weekend before last. Peter Reid was, unsurprisingly, dead against it - which is a point in its favour, as far as I'm concerned. I think it was Spurs they were covering (so is Ramos introducing it there? Interesting to see how that goes down, as he is something of flavour of the month), but Paul Boardman threw in something like 'we've all seen how Liverpool have got it wrong with Zonal Marking...". Now if he was referring to recently, when we have conceded a surprising number of goals from set pieces, then he may have a point, but does that mean he acknowledged - implicitly or explicitly, I don't know, having only just turned over and only half listening - that for, what, the previous 2 years, we had got it pretty well right on Zonal? Or was he just rolling out the usual guff in defiance of the facts? And him being such a legend as an ex-Red as well...

Pretty facile response, that. There's a difference between having an opinion and the expression of it, or the arguments used to support it, or the logic whereby that opinion is justified or validated or confirmed (or refuted). And for sure, how nice a bloke he is, or good a player he was (I loved him, tbh), or how fit his wife is (and tbh...) counts for very little in that assessment. It's f** all about not being able to handle the truth, it's about a debate and a discussion and differences of opinion. So maybe I should be patronising and suggest that 'some of you can't handle the debate' - which is not really a good position to be in on a forum, unfortunately.

tbf, the various scenario you gave indicate more that Rafa assesses a set of competing parameters in making his decision - maybe too many, I'm not arguing that point - complex, rather than random. I suspect he doesn't use a bingo ball machine to decide who is playing. I do think, though, that some of the criticism of Rotation from the media is 'random' - the non-acknowledgement, and lack of criticism, of the extent to which Wenger, Ferguson, Grant et al do rotate, and in Ferguson's case, lose matches when their top players are rested; pundits sighing that Benitez has made 5 changes (against West Ham) again - without mentioning that the previous game had been Havant, when a) it was a game no-one could really object to rotation and b) we played cr*p to a man, so hardly anyone deserved to be picked for the next game. The line-up was not massively different to the previous League game, iirc. I suspect Wenger made many more than 5 changes both before and after the Spurs LC semi-final, but that's not party to the same comment. Same against Reading - lots of huffing and puffing from Alan Green about being unable to name Rafa's team prior to the game, yet he could have written Reading's down before he walked in: until someone pointed out that they had already used more players than us this season, which fact he just ignored and carried on as if the point hadn't been made. It's not that there isn't an argument to be made, it's that it's so shoddily made, accepted, set in stone an regurgitated unthinkingly.

I had to laugh when Gray claimed, after Gerrard played a pass to Babel but he made a different run, that it was down to rotation; yet his whole theme throughout the game was that Chelsea were giving the ball away far too much - more than us - and sloppy in possession. Which clearly can't be down to rotation, because they don't do it, of course. BTW, I don't think there is a specifically anti-Liverpool bias in the media, I don't question that they give the same kind of easy-shot, agenda-driven non-analysis to the other big clubs, depending on who is flavour of the month, or the latest object of the pack mentality, and we have put ouyrselves in a position to be shot at. It's just that I only CARE when it's about Liverpool, or can be bothered (or, tbf, have the detailed knowledge and recollection) to highlight the bias, oversights, limitations, illogicality or inadequacy of their positions. I'm not on here to fulminate in rage against them all, just to share my contempt with others who share most of my prejudices. And if you can't do that on an LFC forum etc. etc.

That's what got me. Could he explain then why we were so poor in the early CL games, and played a weakened team at home vs Marseille, when we were doing pretty well in the League? Not that Keys would ever have asked that. And tossing Terry the bone - "And which would you prefer, the Premiership or the CL?" just to rub the point in begged the question about which would Roman prefer? Jamie may well believe every word he spoke, and he may well be right, but it was a you-toss-em-up-and-I'll-knock-em-out-of-the-ground kind of interview, happy to elicit the anticipated response.

I saw him on Sunday, and was surprised, not by the opinions - anyone who spends any time on here will have heard everything before - but the way he expressed himself. He started off as if he was going to be reasoned and analytical, but almost allowed himself to get worked up into something 'quotable' by Keys; like he saw the opportunity to shake off a reputation for being bland - although it's always easiest to take the kind of line he did when there is no-one there to take issue or dispute what you say - and neither Terry nor Keys were ever going to do that.

Agger & Skrtel = Hansen & Lawrenson. Only better. *Closes eyes really tight and crosses fingers on both hands

It only says 'Very unlikely'...mind games, perhaps? Straw clutching, I know...

Lucas shone away at Newcastle, at least until he tired later on, and allowed Gerrard to do some of his best stuff. That in a 4-3-3 that saw Dirk have his best game this season as well. He clearly has promise and potential to burn - but it's fair to point out that his on-pitch time here only allows us to get excited about what may be to come rather than what actually is at the moment.

Except that when he changed his mind about retiring, all the spin copming out of OT was that it was because he felt he hadn't done as well in the Champions League as he should, and he wanted to win it again to prove his credentials at the highest level; at which point he tried changing them round tactically to be more 'European', and they struggled. When Chelsea imploded last year and United took full advantaget to win the title - I'm not saying they didn't 'want' it, just that I suspect they thought Chelsea were likely to dominate for a few years, and the opportunity was somewhat unexpected - the tack changed to Fergie wanting to get past our record as his driving ambition. I'm sure that's true now, but the message has clearly changed due to circumstances - although he is allowing himself some treble talk again.

Isn't that self-contradictory?

I thought the idea may be to get Aurelio to push on, Lucas tuck in (after a nice goal from Left-side/Centre last week) and Stevie get forward behind Crouch and Torres, or beyond for Crouch's flicks even - but it certainly never flew; was Aurelio pulled because he didn't step up, or was he injured?

I wouldn't be surprised if Hicks promised to do that

As Chairman, didn't he still have a fiduciary responsibility to the other shareholders to let the Board consider the bid, independantly of his own decision as an individual who to sell his shares to?

Didn't it all change round while we were down in London for the West Ham game? Anyone up for believing in synchronicity, kismet, happenstance etc....?

Excellent post, and I think the above is the crux of the matter; what you think above may well be true, but the financing and the model do not preclude that they do in fact subsidise investment in players to a greater or lesser extent to ensure the continued increasing value of the asset. (Which is not to say they will, of course) Whilst HR's £70M my be disputed, what is true that they have so far sanctioned expenditure - whether covered by sales, increased revenue or not - that could otherwise have gone to paying themselves a dividend and covering their interest payments and more. I'm not lauding them for that, btw, just acknowledging it.

Actually, my post was predominantly supportive of your position...don't know why I bothered...I mentioned 'firesale' because someone is bound to bring up Leeds, but the point was that running the assets down, if they think it will be worth 5 times as much in 5 years, doesn't make sense

Or even - "hey, that means you're using MY money to buy YOUR business!" I don't see that this latest 'revelation' says anything different from what has been doing the rounds. G&H will take the dividend for themselves. Whether they use that to pay their loan interest or not is up to them. In fact, doesn't the statement explicitly say that any shortfall will be funded by them - again whether by cash, or loans or whatever, it's their problem, their responsibility. So the club is not liable for the loan, but whatever profit they can take as dividend will allow them to cover their own payments as far as possible. There is nothing new or different in that from what was being discussed and explained last week, nor, I suspect, from how DIC intended/intends to operate. The real issue, I accept, is whether G&H run the club in such a way to maximize their dividends on an annual basis - firesale of players, no purchases, price hikes - or take a longer view - invest in new players (ANY outgoing spend on players reduces their capacity to take a dividend, whatever the net spend figure or other income streams we have) to ensure 'success' (and I accept the concerns about what would constitute success to them) up to the point that new stadum revenues come through and the 'Brand' is valued at £1Billion or whatever they believe their goal is. Probably, tbh, somewhere between the two extremes, as running the asset down simply doesn't make sense, but their track record, Hicks' in particular, is not encouraging.