FOOTBALL will forever and a day throw up games such as the one witnessed at Anfield this evening.
Such is the nature of this sport that the best team over the 90 minutes are not guaranteed to be rewarded with a victory.
When Steven Gerrard saw his well-placed spot-kick pushed away by the imperious Ben Foster in front of The Kop with 13 minutes to go, the writing was on the wall.
And it hardly came as a shock to me when first Gareth McAuley headed in from a corner a few minutes later before Romelu Lukaku tagged on a second for the Baggies as we chased to try and pinch a point from a match where we should have had all three.
It certainly wasn't for the want of trying; this was no gutless effort that the debacle against Aston Villa most certainly was in the run-up to the festive season.
Some 14 efforts on target from a total count of 23, plus 13 corners shows this was a side intent on attacking throughout the contest.
But in West Bromwich Albion goalkeeper Foster, we came up against a player who was having one of those "tell the grandchildren" matches.
His stops from Gerrard - twice (including the penalty) - and one from Jordan Henderson's cute flick from a brilliant move created down the right flank were simply incredible.
Just like John Ruddy and Michael Vorm last season at Anfield, Foster produced a string of stops that rightfully earned him the man-of-the-match accolade.
And that tells you everything about tonight's contest. When the opposition goalkeeper is handed that honour, you absolutely know it's been one of those games.
I thought Brendan Rodgers got it spot-on in his post-match comments. He was right - the players did try their best and he certainly couldn't fault them for effort.
I avoided the moan-ins because listening to to the knee-jerk jerks is really a waste of your life.
So two super displays against Arsenal and Manchester City that gleaned just two points have been followed by this disappointing home reverse.
It certainly makes qualifying for the Champions (sic) League a more difficult task and it would require us to go on a remarkable winning streak while hoping other sides above us drop points.
Of course that's possible - anything in football is possible - but for now all we can focus on is the Europa League.
And in my book, I think that should be the primary attention of our efforts right now.
A fourth place finish or lifting our ninth major European trophy in May in Amsterdam?
C'mon, do I really need to answer that one?
Monday 11 February 2013
Thursday 7 February 2013
Carra has called it a career
THE word 'legend' is banded about so frequently these days, particularly on Sky Sports and TALKSport, that it seems to have lost its true meaning.
Journeymen footballers who have clocked up barely a couple of hundred matches playing for a whole raft of clubs since 1992 (which, as we all know, was when football officially started in this country) are given the 'L' word next to their name when even the word 'great' - a rank below in my book - could hardly be justified.
But there is no doubt in my mind that the word 'legend' can quite comfortably fit in the same sentence when describing Liverpool Football Club player Jamie Carragher.
The long-serving Reds star announced on Thursday lunchtime that this season will be his 17th and final one as a professional footballer. All 17 of them spent at Anfield.
All Reds fans knew this decision was coming one day - and Thursday, February 7, 2013 just happened to be that day.
In many ways, it sums Carra up as the sort of man we all know he is. To avoid any speculation about his future with the club, talk that could well have disrupted the team at the business end of the season both in Europe and fighting for as higher-placed finish as possible in the Premier League, Carra has stopped the debate before it has even begun. A brilliant move by a brilliant player. As timely a block as any one of the countless ones he has performed defending the Liverpool goal since he made his debut way back in January, 1997 - it tells you how long ago that was as John Major was still in Number 10, Everton had only gone two seasons without winning a trophy, I had been married less than 12 months and no-one had ever heard of Simon Cowell (apart from Sinitta, probably).
Fast forward a little over 193 months and more than 700 appearances later and you have in Jamie Carragher one of the greatest-ever careers for Liverpool Football Club.
From a Bootle lad who grew up an Evertonian before becoming a committed Liverpudlian, Jamie has come a long, long way. His achievements wearing that red shirt are well-documented with his defensive heroics in Istanbul on that unforgettable late spring evening in 2005 cementing his title 'legend'.
His work off the field too has been nothing short of magnificent with his 23 Foundation, a charitable body helping causes in Merseyside, a wonderful legacy.
And it is with '23' in mind that I believe that Liverpool Football Club should do Bootle's great son the real honour of being the first player in the club's illustrious history to have their shirt number officially retired.
Back in the summer of 2009, in a series of offbeat sporting features I wrote for the Football Echo - 'Left Field' - I argued the case that it was time for football clubs to start to follow the American sporting tradition and retire shirt numbers for those players who truly merited the honour.
The Stateside sport I follow in particular, Major League Baseball, has numerous examples of this, with the team I have supported for almost 30 years, the San Diego Padres, having five former players' jersey numbers retired. There's a prize if anyone can name that famous quintet... no, there isn't, but at least it caught your attention!
Now is the time for Carragher's 23 to be retired. Who else - apart from Robbie Fowler's very early days - can you picture wearing that number?
What a great thing that would be and a very worthy recipient of such an honour.
They say no player is bigger than the club - that's true, of course. But some players truly deserve being honoured more than others. And what better way than to say thanks for a wonderful career - you will never be forgotten here. And we're going to show it by retiring your shirt number.
I just wonder whether even now Messrs Henry and Werner are thinking about this idea, bearing in mind all the numbers that have been retired at Fenway Park over the years.
So the sun is about to set on Jamie's glittering career. Sadly for him it will finish without a Premier League winner's medal - but it certainly wasn't for the want of trying on his part.
And he can console himself with the fact that just like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman always had Paris, he'll always have Istanbul.
Journeymen footballers who have clocked up barely a couple of hundred matches playing for a whole raft of clubs since 1992 (which, as we all know, was when football officially started in this country) are given the 'L' word next to their name when even the word 'great' - a rank below in my book - could hardly be justified.
But there is no doubt in my mind that the word 'legend' can quite comfortably fit in the same sentence when describing Liverpool Football Club player Jamie Carragher.
The long-serving Reds star announced on Thursday lunchtime that this season will be his 17th and final one as a professional footballer. All 17 of them spent at Anfield.
All Reds fans knew this decision was coming one day - and Thursday, February 7, 2013 just happened to be that day.
In many ways, it sums Carra up as the sort of man we all know he is. To avoid any speculation about his future with the club, talk that could well have disrupted the team at the business end of the season both in Europe and fighting for as higher-placed finish as possible in the Premier League, Carra has stopped the debate before it has even begun. A brilliant move by a brilliant player. As timely a block as any one of the countless ones he has performed defending the Liverpool goal since he made his debut way back in January, 1997 - it tells you how long ago that was as John Major was still in Number 10, Everton had only gone two seasons without winning a trophy, I had been married less than 12 months and no-one had ever heard of Simon Cowell (apart from Sinitta, probably).
Fast forward a little over 193 months and more than 700 appearances later and you have in Jamie Carragher one of the greatest-ever careers for Liverpool Football Club.
From a Bootle lad who grew up an Evertonian before becoming a committed Liverpudlian, Jamie has come a long, long way. His achievements wearing that red shirt are well-documented with his defensive heroics in Istanbul on that unforgettable late spring evening in 2005 cementing his title 'legend'.
His work off the field too has been nothing short of magnificent with his 23 Foundation, a charitable body helping causes in Merseyside, a wonderful legacy.
And it is with '23' in mind that I believe that Liverpool Football Club should do Bootle's great son the real honour of being the first player in the club's illustrious history to have their shirt number officially retired.
Back in the summer of 2009, in a series of offbeat sporting features I wrote for the Football Echo - 'Left Field' - I argued the case that it was time for football clubs to start to follow the American sporting tradition and retire shirt numbers for those players who truly merited the honour.
The Stateside sport I follow in particular, Major League Baseball, has numerous examples of this, with the team I have supported for almost 30 years, the San Diego Padres, having five former players' jersey numbers retired. There's a prize if anyone can name that famous quintet... no, there isn't, but at least it caught your attention!
Now is the time for Carragher's 23 to be retired. Who else - apart from Robbie Fowler's very early days - can you picture wearing that number?
What a great thing that would be and a very worthy recipient of such an honour.
They say no player is bigger than the club - that's true, of course. But some players truly deserve being honoured more than others. And what better way than to say thanks for a wonderful career - you will never be forgotten here. And we're going to show it by retiring your shirt number.
I just wonder whether even now Messrs Henry and Werner are thinking about this idea, bearing in mind all the numbers that have been retired at Fenway Park over the years.
So the sun is about to set on Jamie's glittering career. Sadly for him it will finish without a Premier League winner's medal - but it certainly wasn't for the want of trying on his part.
And he can console himself with the fact that just like Humphrey Bogart and Ingrid Bergman always had Paris, he'll always have Istanbul.
Friday 1 February 2013
Two contrasting stories about money
REMEMBER that campaign from back in 2005, I think? Make Poverty History.
There was a big gig at Hyde Park and all the usual suspects were there playing to highlight a cause to do just that.
That laudible but ultimately impossible dream was brought to mind sharply this week when I read a story that just disgusted me.
I guess many of you would have seen the story of a 28-year-old woman who went on an evening out with her pals at a London nightclub - and racked up a bar bill of, and I'm looking at a copy of the till receipt prinited in Thursday's paper, £30,676.25.
Absolutely obscene.
Heiress Tamara Ecclestone was the partygoer in question as her night out consisted of 28 bottles of Cristal champagne (£450 per bottle), two magnums of Cristal, one Jeroboam of Cristal and seven bottles of Cristal Rose.
Yep, do you get the impression she's got a thing for Cristal?
And flaunting her ridiculous wealth made possible as she's the daughter of billionaire F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone.
In Ms Ecclestone's defence, she did give a generous tip - £4001.25 - but the whole story made me so angry.
You wonder with that sort of behaviour what world individuals like Ms Ecclestone inhabit because it certainly isn't the one that I know.
So yeah, Make Poverty History? You're having a laugh, right?
That story really angered me but within hours there was something to cheer the heart.
I'm no fan of the Beckhams - especially "Posh" whose miserable face gets on my nerves every time I see that bloody pout.
But I was delighted to read that David is donating all of his £3.4m salary for joining PSG on Transfer Deadline Day to a kids' charity in the French capital.
Of course, he doesn't need the money as he and his missus are millionaires many times over.
But the principal of his action was spot-on and it would be nice to think this would kick-start other people in a similar position to follow suit.
What a week's wages, for instance, of a leading player for Everton or Liverpool could do to the grassroots footy in Liverpool. I've seen with my own eyes some of the facilities the children have to use in Merseyside and to think £50,000 was on its way to helping schemes would be so welcome.
I'd like to think poverty would be made a thing of the past one glorious day, but although David Beckham's action was so good I fear tales like that of Ms Ecclestone's obscene excesses will never go away, sadly.
There was a big gig at Hyde Park and all the usual suspects were there playing to highlight a cause to do just that.
That laudible but ultimately impossible dream was brought to mind sharply this week when I read a story that just disgusted me.
I guess many of you would have seen the story of a 28-year-old woman who went on an evening out with her pals at a London nightclub - and racked up a bar bill of, and I'm looking at a copy of the till receipt prinited in Thursday's paper, £30,676.25.
Absolutely obscene.
Heiress Tamara Ecclestone was the partygoer in question as her night out consisted of 28 bottles of Cristal champagne (£450 per bottle), two magnums of Cristal, one Jeroboam of Cristal and seven bottles of Cristal Rose.
Yep, do you get the impression she's got a thing for Cristal?
And flaunting her ridiculous wealth made possible as she's the daughter of billionaire F1 boss Bernie Ecclestone.
In Ms Ecclestone's defence, she did give a generous tip - £4001.25 - but the whole story made me so angry.
You wonder with that sort of behaviour what world individuals like Ms Ecclestone inhabit because it certainly isn't the one that I know.
So yeah, Make Poverty History? You're having a laugh, right?
That story really angered me but within hours there was something to cheer the heart.
I'm no fan of the Beckhams - especially "Posh" whose miserable face gets on my nerves every time I see that bloody pout.
But I was delighted to read that David is donating all of his £3.4m salary for joining PSG on Transfer Deadline Day to a kids' charity in the French capital.
Of course, he doesn't need the money as he and his missus are millionaires many times over.
But the principal of his action was spot-on and it would be nice to think this would kick-start other people in a similar position to follow suit.
What a week's wages, for instance, of a leading player for Everton or Liverpool could do to the grassroots footy in Liverpool. I've seen with my own eyes some of the facilities the children have to use in Merseyside and to think £50,000 was on its way to helping schemes would be so welcome.
I'd like to think poverty would be made a thing of the past one glorious day, but although David Beckham's action was so good I fear tales like that of Ms Ecclestone's obscene excesses will never go away, sadly.
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