David Hodgson

Behave yourself. People are people and will say any old sh.t to get out of trouble if the occasion arises. Of course they are. There are few red lines they won’t cross. Ffs Holgate is a nasty enough piece of work that he seriously endangered Firmino with his initial actions. Why would making a false claim be beyond him ? Suarez was deemed to have intended racism because he approached the situation with Evra in bad faith . Holgate could be viewed similarly. My best guess ? He sees Firmino raging at him , he hears a foreign word that he vaguely recognised as offensive and has an ‘a’ sound at the end (probably ‘puta’) and thinks ‘angry Latino swearing at me, he’s probably routinely calling me racist names, they’re like that, and I’m in trouble here anyway, let’s just guess that he’s said ‘n.gger’. So he makes his claim - on a balance of probability in his mind - and quickly realises he has to stick firmly with the accusation or look very bad .

Obviously it would be lovely if it was all just a silly misunderstanding. I’d agree though that salaciously and tribally we’d all deep down like the other chap to be exposed as the baddy. I think the presumption of malice is far from unreasonable . 1) Holgate has clearly committed a very bad foul and is motivated to misdirect. 2) apparently no witnesses mishear the way Holgate alleges he does . 3) there is yet to emerge a narrative that would demonstrate why a confusion was possible. What is the word he misheard ? 4) also , given the time taken to hear this case, it would be surmisable that Holgate himself had long since ruled out the possibility that he simply ‘misheard’. He’s stuck to his guns. So based on all that’s in the public realm , it’s not hard to see why people might suspect something underhand has gone on here . Of course, as we hear more, theset views may change.

I wasn’t talking about a public apology. I’d broadly agree it would serve little purpose and probably just enable racists. However, that doesn’t preclude anyone having a firm opinion that Firmino may have every right to feel very very aggrieved or coming to a conclusion that on a balance of probability that Holgate has done Firmino an injustice. And in this environment we should be able to say it without the go-to being ‘ah but I can see through you’.

There are mad racists who are precisely like that. Then there are reasonable rational people who are observing what is a case of a possible injustice. The two become unfortunate bedfellows when they happen to reach the same conclusion, but it is utter nonsense to assert that just because the Venn diagrams overlap on this occasion that the latter are covertly part of the former tribe. Better to have the courage of conviction than to merely stay entrenched in a camp out of vain fear of being deemed guilty of a thought-crime by a technical association. And that's possible without ignoring a wider responsibility not to enable the frothing racist pack.

Haha. ‘Ref , ref , he called me a honky and - I’m pretty certain - a ‘jive turkey’ as well.’

The wider picture is that football is still struggling to come to terms with dealing with racism in a sport where it's been common currency since forever, and that it has no chance of dealing with the quite possible nuance that a player may one day make a false accusation of racism. These seem to be the incontestable facts, in sequence : - Holgate does Firmino a terrible mischief - Firmino launches an angry foul mouthed tirade at Holgate - None of the many witnesses hear anything racist from Firmino. - Holgate accuses Firmino of calling him the N word. In the midst of this there is motive. Firmino is motivated to give a verbal volley to Holgate. Holgate is motivated to get himself out of big potential trouble. In Firmino's case - no one thinks his tirade was racist. In Holgate's case - he apparently hears something that really doesn't appear to have been spoken. IF Firmino genuinely didn't say the N word, then the balance of probability does switch towards Holgate wilfully seeking a diversion. I suppose I'd quite like to hear exactly what Holgate said and an interpretation of how its plausible that he misheard Firmino.

The desire stems from the fact that he's malicious Evertonian scumbag who tried to hurt our Bobby. IF Holgate made a knowingly false accusation of racism then that's a truly appalling thing. I hope to god he didn't, and I confess that in the wider scheme of things we may be better off not knowing.

Interesting angle that. Even if Firmino uses a racist word, the context is different than if it’s used a by true blue Brit . It’s relativism but not gone mad.

Whilst that is all funny as f*ck, no doubt, I don't like the image of Mane as affable divvy. I think he plays with enormous intelligence and that he's a bright guy. Klopp made some interesting comments about him last year. Said something along the lines of how Sadio had carefully watched all of our games remotely whilst he'd been at Afcon and that he'd had really interesting insights on them. That the players really listened to him in his critique of their January form.

It would be nuts to go anything but full strength for West Ham. 10 days rest since Porto and 7 days til Newcastle. Footballers need to play actual football matches. Only question is, what's our best midfield ? I think it's Henderson, Can and Lallana. Klopp may prefer to pick Chamberlain and give Lallana half an hour.

Yeah. And there's the suspicion that if he later wants a move, sulks a bit, gets pictured in a Real Madrid shirt etc, and quickly becomes a hate figure, that the 'go-to' will again be his religion. There were hints of that with Sterling's treatment towards the end of his Liverpool career. And Sammy - I don't think he's waving his being a Muslim in our faces or flagging it up for applause or approval, it's just who he is. I just think there's an undercurrent of 'he may be a f*cking Muslim lads, but at least he's our Muslim eh !'.

This is all bang on the money. The fact that - as stated above- its a sh*t song, should be the final verdict on it.

This is a good argument but it's not clear cut that it's just ok. The suspicion that it doesn't come from ' a good place' remains. And 'the Muslim community' is a large disparate group of human beings. Like with Spurs and the whole 'yid' thing. Many Jewish people are tickled by it, others find it at best patronising, at worst downright offensive. This Salah song is in that ball park. I just wish our fans could have left the reference to his religion well alone.

Firmino was never poor. He looked a player from the off. He started off with an injury and went under the radar a bit after that. That night he banged in two against Arsenal you could see he was a player of the very highest level. After that it just became a case of how best to accommodate his skill set. Lallana was a disappointment until Klopp moved him back into midfield. He simply didn't have the pace, power or finishing consistency to be a front 3 player.

Mo Salah can’t wait He can’t believe the state Of all the s***e English sides As he scores another one again Mo doesn’t look back in anger as he wheels away Mo Salah can’t wait He can’t believe the state Of all the s***e English sides

Mignolet has been a plague over our club. Let’s just be grateful that his reign of terror seems to be over.

It’s f.ucking awful.

He’s awesome . An essential signing .

I'm not sure on this one. He's got genuine pace and a good whipped in ball on him.

Cos we're just going to buy no one in the summer now ?

Absolutely. There's nothing to be weary of here, except it not actually happening. Part of me would like to see it built as one long shelf, and become the new (inverted) Kop.

Nah they're not. They just had to chase the game. They created little. Apart from when we're tearing Man City apart.

Mane's form dip is massively overstated. Hes still scored goals and hes always a threat, always contributing. He's not playing on the side of the pitch that's ideal for him this season, and he's no longer the go-to ball, given Salah's form. Despite these things he's doing fine. This is mad. The negativity. From everyone. We weren't great yesterday but Tottenham are no slouches. A bit more luck in the first half and I think we'd have overrun them. We weren't tired second half, we'd just decided to see the game out as a 1-0 and were doing a good job with that until Wanyama's fluke. If the ref doesn't give that stupid decision on Van Dijk (who was fantastic btw) then we win thanks to a great goal and mainly talk about how in control of 4th place we are.

There’s a good piece in today’s sunday times by Jon northcroft about this. Showing how our Firmino and Salah have played considerably less minutes this season than their peers (de Bruyne, Kane etc ).

I know what you mean. In 2011 I thought of it as Jan - August, and also in 2013, but this winter's window was definitely an extension of the summer. Both in terms of ins and outs.