Mails: Waxing lyrical on *that* Giroud goal
Date published: Monday 2nd January 2017 2:48
Well done all. Back to work tomorrow and hopefully two Mailboxes a day. Send your lovely stuff to theeditor@football365.com…
On *the* goal
Giroud, you sexy bastard! Say what you want about the perceived lack of quality matches this season but goodness me, we’ve been treated to some absolutely spectacular strikes.
Last week’s Winners and Losers eulogized over Mkhitaryan’s goal for all the right reasons and perfectly captured why people are so enamored with football. An outrageous piece of skill that deserved all the coverage it got. Storey must be a prophet as he even mentioned that the goal was “the type you see once or twice a season” but even he must have been surprised by how soon the next one would come along.
Giroud’s goal took everything about that Mkhitaryan goal and upgraded it. A more important goal to open the scoring instead of a meaningless goal in a victory, check. A significantly better build up, started by Giroud’s magical flick, check. A higher level of technique being required, owing to the the additional height of the ball, being surrounded by more players instead of being in open space and having no pace on the ball, check. The pace, strength, anticipation, athleticism and technique on display all made the goal perfect. Even the ball hitting the bar as it went in automatically made the goal that much more sexier.
The ingenuity required to even come up with that, let alone watch the ball onto your heel at that height, generate the pace and precision on the strike and perfectly execute it was incredible. It is skill like this that makes football special and transcends sport into art. Take a bow, son.
Falooda in NY
Please don’t
I’m really looking forward to six mailboxes in a row with people arguing which one was better.
Aidan, EFC, Redditch
Weekend thoughts
*Maybe this really is a different West Brom. After a soporific first 40 minutes at Southampton, they allowed a corner kick goal, then proceeded to dominate the game through neat passing, aggressive defense, and fluid midfield play. Chris Brunt, Hal Robson-Kanu, and Matt Phillips did a decent impression of Lallana-Firmino-Mané, and Robson-Kanu scores worldies as long as there’s a Cymro in charge. Would Tony Pulis do any worse with Man City than Pep Guardiola? (OK, that was mean.)
*Manchester United are playing better than a José Mourinho team has done for some time. Can’t wait for the matches against the rest of the top six.
*Here’s a proposition: let’s get every Premier League follower in the English-speaking world to contribute ₤5 to Bournemouth so they can buy Jack Wilshere. It’s such a pleasure to see him playing injury-free in a system built around him. Going back to Arsenal, at least if Wenger’s still in charge, will be two steps backwards. Oh, and Alfie Mawson is trying to grow a moustache for the second time. It’s going about as well as the rest of Swansea’s season.
*It’s not looking good for Hull City. I’ve been backing them strongly the past month, and they’ve been playing so well, but they don’t seem to have enough to translate performances into wins. Mike Phelan didn’t help himself against Everton by failing to make a defensive substitution when the game was crying out for it. But I’ll keep hoping.
*André Gray might be the most improved player in the league from week one, so his nifty hat trick wasn’t a surprise. The surprise was how really awful Sunderland were. Vito Mannone failed the first post-Pickford test, Papy Djilobodji disintegrated as soon as partner Lamine Koné went down injured, and the midfield were simply overwhelmed. David Moyes tried three formations and nothing worked, and against a team allowing more shots on target than any in the league, they didn’t get one until the 71st minute.
Peter G, Pennsylvania, USA
Mignolet has his confidence back
Been meaning to write this since he was re-instated, but I don’t think there has ever been any doubt about Mignolets ability as a goalkeeper. People always say he’s a good shot stopper but…
After Karius’ ‘blip’ people were clamouring for Hart to be signed (I’m sure the English rags would love it) but it completely ignores one important thing. The first statement Klopp made about his long term vision for the squad when he arrived, was to give Mignolet a five-year contract. At the time people said this was to get a good fee for him but that didn’t seem right. A poorly performing keeper will not get a good fee regardless of how long he’s tied down for. It seems Klopp might just have seen something in him this whole time.
Now after some time watching from the bench Mignolet seems to have developed a thicker skin, grown in confidence and looks ready to hold down the number 1 spot for the foreseeable future. Watching him juggle the ball around Aguero yesterday seemed to show this and he is controlling his penalty area with much more confidence lately too.
Of course, this will only last till he drops a boll*ck (probably against Sunderland tomorrow), and we see how deep this new found confidence goes.
Eoin K, Cork (biii)
How it feels to be an American supporter
In response to a specific question raised by a fellow F365 reader several days ago regarding the personal experiences of American supporters of European football clubs, I wrote an email that was so heavily edited that roughly 40% of my original words had been removed.
What was left intact was a very reasoned and cogent if ironic point regarding the nonsense of the notion of a causational relationship between the performance of Swansea and the nationality of the manager. The problem was the email was written specifically in response to that previous prompt and thus the redactions mean that to publish that particular submission under my name without obtaining my permission (or even providing notification) is borderline plagiarism. But this isn’t the New York Times, the playing field isn’t level and all things being equal it’s not really the end of the world. (MC – We do occasionally cut down long emails, just for ease of reading. Sorry if that offends/annoys, but it doesn’t constitute plagiarism. Anyway, let’s carry on.)
So, here is what it feels like being an American who has been a passionate dedicated and often drunken supporter of Liverpool for exactly a decade now:
I own three “kits”. A “genuine” Carlsberg sponsored red Mascherano beauty that got my ass saved from a beating seeing the Pogues play Roseland in Manhattan. Bless the scouse heart, but my soul doesn’t bleed for the posh boy who took a swing at his WAG and connected with my head instead. I’ve got an Alnso. Not a typo, had to go down to the actual post office and convince them it wasn’t…whatever contraband equates to these days.
But last year I bought a custom one because in my heart of heart’s I’d like to believe that the player whose time at the club I can most identify with is Lucas. So I spent my $125 to get all the real badges and meaningless tinsel and hopefully the number doesn’t fade off in the dryer but that’s not what really bothers me about it.
The idea that I could be Lucas, an outsider whose original sin was in his own slightly later words not being a “proper Brazilian”. A player who simply refused to go away, who despite sometimes facing appalling abuse from the crowd stuck around and has finally earned the respect and the pride that comes along with being referred to as a “club servant”.
The reality is altogether different. If being an American supporter of Liverpool FC as passionate and dedicated as any fan anywhere has a singular right to be I feel a special closeness with Michael Owen. If I committed any sins (and Owen certainly did) it was in my early 20s and even though I’ve repented publicly, the nature of xenophobia means that I also know I’ll never be accepted and, in the end, I mostly walk alone.
Is that a rational way to feel? How can I be expected to feel rationally about treated as less equal than having less valid opinions than and finally often being written off as less intelligent than someone else for no other reason than the geographic location of my birth life and maybe death. The simplest most uncomfortable reality is that there is no actual defense for ANY argument that’s logic is fundamentally based upon an inherently prejudiced point of view.
What is my experience of being an American supporter of an English football club? I’d say that there’s no singular experience that can sum it up, because in the end I still support and care about Liverpool as a club (and an ideal; surprise an American socialist) in the face all different types of idiocy. Xenophobia is just racism in blackface; it’s just as insidious and the emotional trauma it can cause hurts a white middle class American from Washington DC because that “American” is still a person.
The misogynistic treatment of a female Swede who’s a mate and fellow Pool supporter (currently residing in Southhampton of all places) is just as deplorable in a different way for different reasons.
My experience is that there is no experience involving discrimination that does anything but cause feelings of pain, frustration and often times even alienation.
Matthew LFC Washington DC
Garth Crooks: What a douche
Oh for the love of my licence fee, can we please get Garth Crooks off the BBC? His entry for Andre Gray on ToTW is nothing more than a complete load of toss.
For those who haven’t read it, let me break it down. Garth was “a little more than perturbed by the severity of the punishment imposed by the Football Association for his inappropriate Twitter remarks”.
Garth (we all know you read this) they weren’t just inappropriate; they were claiming he wished gay people would burn and die, you know inciting homophobia and violence? It was also a four-game ban, one more than for a straight red card and substantially less than Terry and Suarez received for racist comments made.
He also claimed that he found it sad that the “governing body had no room for redemption.” This makes literally no sense. Redemption is, I believe, always possible, but that does not and should not mean the offender shouldn’t be punished for something. If someone commits a crime and a substantial amount of time has passed, that doesn’t exonerate them for crimes in the past. The same logic applies here.
But my final gripe is with the claim that he was “an immature teenager” which conjures up images of a 14 year old on a park bench getting skulled on white lightning and embarrassing himself, or a 15 year old acned boy listening to Slipknot claiming “no-one understands me, I hate you!”
Let’s do some basic maths shall we? Gray was born on 26th June 1991 (cheers Wiki!) and the tweets were the 9th of Jan 2012. Gray was 20 at the time he sent them, hardly an immature teenager. It’s concerning in this day and age, with the information available at your fingertips, how you can get fundamental facts so incorrect. We may live in a post truth society at the minute, but you expect the Beeb to actually check some facts.
Sam, LFC, North Yorks
Allardyce: Living in a greenhouse
I must say that I agree with Big Sam’s annoyance about fixture congestion but for him to be annoyed with money and greed makes him look totally, totally braindead.
Chris, Croydon
EmoticonEmoticon