Monday Moronacy
Notes on the weekend.
Mortality is rubbish
Yes, this is about me. Rio Ferdinand, though. Last season, he’d miss his customary run of games and come back in like nothing had happened, but not no more, as the Peckham Bard might say. Given the runaround by the admittedly useful Suarez this weekend, he’s hardly had a decent game all season, and while not suddenly rubbish, and while not having Vidic to do his dirty work hasn’t helped, he’s no longer a provider of reliable excellence – the only reason to pick him ahead of Smalling is because he’s been good in the past. And this is where it gets depressing: I’m accusing an elite athlete of being beyond his physical peak when he’s the same age as me, and when I have oh so much left to achieve. Might be time for a John Kennedy Toole.
He’s not racist: You’re biased!
Let’s keep this simple. You don’t know if Patrice Evra is telling the truth, I don’t know if Luis Suarez was racist to Patrice Evra throughout the game. Only the two players really know. What should happen is that an investigation finds it did happen, it didn’t happen, or they aren’t sure. Three ugly things have happened for sure, though. One, Liverpool fans deciding there’s no way their man is a racist and anyway, Evra has a history of falsely playing the race card (he doesn’t). Two, Manchester United fans deciding that Suarez definitely is a racist, because he done a handball and a bite. Three, and ugliest of all, the suggestion that Evra should be banned. Of course he should be if it’s proven he lied, but this all brings to mind the focus on the less pressing problem of fake rape accusations, rather than the problem of hundreds of thousands of rapes that go unreported or unprosecuted. Kick racism out of football, but only if you know at the point of reporting it that you can definitely prove it.
You mean nothing
Ftbllrs: unless you’re Denis Law scoring against Manchester United or Robbie Fowler scoring against Liverpool, the refusal to celebrate a goal against a team you think you might once have heard of must stop. Last week it was Daniel ‘Danny’ Sturridge physically taking a hold of himself, this James ‘James’ Milner and Sebastian ‘Seb’ Larsson; once, twice, nay thrice nonsense. When I started writing this, I convinced myself I’d be standing up for joyous expression, but, echoing life, it’s already morphed into vitriol. Thus, ftbllrs: we don’t care for your purported sensitivity to our purported needs, and we don’t care about you.
The original tinkerman is back
If you leave your two best players out of a game away to a principal rival, your team might struggle, and shonuff, Manchester United struggled. After uncharacteristically consistent selection resulted in some brilliant early-season performances, it stood to reason that Fergie would soon see fit to remind everyone of how clever he is. He is, but he didn’t.
Poor Dimitar Berbatov
Poor Dimitar Berbatov.
