Opinions are absolutely everywhere. You have them. Evidently, I have them. The near forty thousand supporters at the ground each week have them. Most people have loads of them. It’s one of the major things that makes this sport we love seem so fascinating and frustrating in equal measure. The problem that seems to be occurring, however, is that more and more supporters are gaining their opinion from other people, whether it be Sky Sports and the mainstream newspapers, or their ‘more knowledgeable’ friends they watch their football with.
I understand the irony that is screaming out of your screen right now. An opinion piece about taking less notice of other people’s opinion, but what can you do. Here I am writing it, and here you are reading it. I’m going to go ahead and cite the greater good as my reason for being King Hypocrite and move on, muttering under my breath something or other about trying to be too much of a smart arse in my first piece.
My major point is that not enough people form their own opinion about things. Anything really, but here I’m focusing on football. Namely Liverpool Football Club.
A club our size will always have its fair share of people who will challenge the general idea, and supporters who will believe everything they hear. But I feel that, unfortunately, the latter are seemingly more and more obvious as the seasons go by.
Let me take one example of a general idea which has been hammered by the media and opposition supporters galore since Liverpool signing him:
“Mamadou Sakho is a poor player, look how awkward he is on the ball”
The above statement has been said more times than I can remember. The second bit it almost true, but the first bit is absolutely marbles.
Mamadou Sakho is a good player. A player who, if he finds added consistency (which can only be shown in time), can become a great player. I am not a man for peddling stats, I cringe when I hear someone use them in a discussion, but with him in the game the one stat that actually matters has improved drastically; games won. I am in no way attributing our entire upturn in form to him, just like I don’t think we were poor at the beginning of the year because he wasn’t there, but he has played his part as much as anyone.
Sakho’s style of play itself does lend to supporters being a little bit shaken up sometimes when he has the ball. He does have an awkward movement style every now-and-again, but that is it. The way he plays the ball, the way he controls the ball, the way he has this knack for being unbelievably good at slide tackling in the box unlike anyone I’ve seen before, are all really crazy for a defender; but all really, very good attributes to have. However whenever you turn on Sky Sports during a Liverpool game, they never shut up about the fact that he isn’t comfortable on the ball. Alan ‘I can’t talk properly but somehow got the gig talking over the football’ Smith says it so often he could be on commission for it. Niall ‘so friendly it’s annoying’ Quinn isn’t too far behind him either. And here is the problem; these so called ‘football experts’ are paid to tell people what they see about a player or a team that they only watch at best once or twice a month. They don’t see what we see. Us, who make sure we don’t miss more than a few matches a year, see this fella who can start attacks, usher balls out of play and successfully back-heel a pass like an absolute champ and have off players and players at a time. And who do most supporters believe? Yeah, the lads who are getting paid, not the lads who are paying.
Another example I want to use is actually more like a prediction. A prediction that on Thursday, or on Sunday vs Man City, or any game going forward from now on, we will hear a commentator say “Coutinho gets the ball. We all know how good he is from this range” when Coutinho gets the ball about 25 yards from goal.
Yes, it will happen. Mainly because Coutinho has scored a couple of screamers in the last few months, therefore Sky will use that line to fill the void of silence we would all much rather have. I have a theory for when this goal-scoring cliché comes out, and I call it the Cheick Tiote theory.
The Cheick Tiote theory goes a little something like this:
Player does one good thing; he becomes known as brilliant at this thing, even though he’s only ever really shown quality in that form once or twice before. For example; every time Cheick Tiote gets the ball on the edge of the box and has a shot which inevitably misses, a commentator will always without fail say “he’s usually so good shooting from that area of the field” – I have heard this about him so many times. Would you like to know how many screamers Tiote has scored from Newcastle? One. Care to know how many goals in total he has scored for Newcastle? One. If he has such quality at scoring, why is he so shit at it? This isn’t something I blame the player for. It’s a weakness in his game. Just like I’m completely crap at drawing, but like to think I’m quite good at writing. Because he did a goal that was good once, he is heralded as fantastic at it.
We all know that, even with recent improvement, Coutinho’s scoring record is poor, and shooting record is abysmal. But let’s just see how many people jump on the band wagon when the commentators declare the Magician “top class at shooting”.
Finally, I want to use the next and final example as my way of defending this player from almost all football supporters, mainly fans of our club. Joe Allen.
For me, Joe Allen is a player who should always be on the bench for Liverpool, or starting if we have injuries and need him to play. I think he is always a 6/7 out of 10 player. Someone who usually does what he is being asked to do by the coach to the best of his abilities. He doesn’t do it as good as the player he is replacing, but he’s the next best thing. And I think this is why he gets a bad rep.
Here is his game, in a nutshell: He passes well, nearly always finding a man. He harries well, and often gives away a foul. Gives 100% each game. Joe Allen can’t shoot to save his life. And he let’s Jordan Henderson roam throughout the pitch and press on the front foot, like Jordan Henderson does best.
Sound like anyone else in our squad? Yeah, exactly. One of the main lads of the moment, Lucas Leiva. The player he is currently replacing.
Is it just me, or is that what a squad player is for? Doing as much work as the first choice does without upsetting the balance.
The Manchester United squads of old that used to dominate (ah, that felt good to say) was littered with players that, seemingly like Allen, were happy to sit on the side-line and play 15/20 games a season and still be trustworthy when they played. John O’Shea, Darren Fletcher, Ji-Sung Park, Phil Neville, Nicky Butt. All of these very successful teams had players you could count on to come in and just do a job. They would sometimes be great, but always be at least OK. This is what Joe Allen is. A squad player. A damn good squad player at that. But why do people think he is crap? Because not many people see what he does, because it is by and large hugely unglamorous. People only see him when he has done something wrong. Misplaces a pass. Brings down a man. Fails to bury what looks like a simple tap-in. This is where all supports don the “oh for fuck sake” line, and most proceed to call him crap. Whereas the rest of the game he usually goes by not really doing anything. Sitting and letting others play. Recycling and holding. Receiving the ball and popping it off to the left back. He does his Joe Allen-isms well.
It also doesn’t help that he looks like you would find him selling printers to offices on a basic salary with handsome incentives. And he doesn’t have a twitter account. The twitter football fans hate a technophobe.
Next time you hear someone call a player shite, or call him brilliant, but you haven’t seen him play, just wait. Have a little look for yourself and decide how you feel about him. And just remember; it’s fine for the lads to just have a 6 out of 10 game sometimes.
Unless it’s Tom Cleverley. Tom Cleverley is always 3 out of 10. Tom Cleverley is always shite.
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