RED WATCH: Predictions tie me up in knots

Mar 20 2008 by Nick Smith, Liverpool Daily Post

MAN UNITED; Everton; Arsenal; Arsenal; Arsenal. As he-who-must-not-be-named up the East Lancs once elegantly said: “It’s squeaky bum time.”

I’ve decided to adopt Rafa’s mantra, and take one game at a time, having tied myself in knots trying to determine the optimum yet realistic combination of results which will leave our season alive at the end of it all.

After three successive defeats, maybe we’re due a point or three at Old Trafford this weekend. There are few more gut-wrenching sounds than hearing the ‘Bright Side of Life’ chant from the prawn-munchers, and on the whole the trip to Hogwarts is usually a thoroughly unpleasant experience. The occasion seems to bring out the worst in both sets of fans, as recent events have testified; when a polystyrene cup becomes something to be feared, you know you’re in dangerous territory.

But the most important thing both fans and players can carry into the game is belief: our last few performances against United have lacked the conviction that we can actually win the game. Confidence must now be high, we’ve a settled formation (we hope), and we’ve got Torres.

No better time than this to add to his tally of two away league goals this season. Wish I hadn’t looked that up now.

Meanwhile, proof positive that football fans have selective memories came with the apparent torrent of complaints from Liverpool supporters that flooded the Sky Sports phone lines over Andy Gray’s comments during the Inter away game.

Gray was accused of being anti-Red by virtue of (a) criticising Burdisso’s sending off, (b) failing to celebrate Torres’s goal adequately, and (c) being a bluenose. Now clearly Gray was misguided on all three counts but to accuse him of bias is perhaps being a tad over-sensitive to apparent slights on our glorious club. After all, it was not so long ago that Gray was being ‘outed’ as a Liverpool fan by Kopites at the derby game for celebrating Gerrard’s late strike against Olympiakos with the cry “you beauty”!

At worst he was being a bit one-eyed over the Lucas/Burdisso challenge, and I confess I didn’t hear his apparent indifference to Torres’s wonderful strike as I was running round my living room screaming like a banshee at the time. Anyway, it’s a bit rich for us to be complaining about a solitary Evertonian assaulting our lugholes when Hansen/Lawrenson/Redknapp/Souness and McAllister dominate our TV screens.

Having just realised that I’ve placed myself in the bewildering position of defending Andy Gray, let me quickly add that I’m only too aware of the paranoia that can afflict passionate (almost said fanatical there) supporters when watching their team, or indeed their close rivals, on the telly. I’m fed up with cleaning up the drool from my carpet after Man United Champions League games, when the gushing ITV commentators move into overdrive, purring at every Scholes shot that comes within 20 yards of the goal and every unnecessary stepover from Ronaldo.

I’m cheesed off with so-called experts’ snide speculation over how many goals Torres might have scored if Benitez had played him more often, not bothering to check that he has only truly rested him twice. But worst of all, I’m driven to apoplexy by their double-standards: one minute berating referees for missing so-called ‘horror’ tackles; the next blaming them for over-zealous application of the laws, because the defender they’ve just sent off didn’t intend to break his opponent’s leg, it was just that he moved away too quickly.

Pass me that phone.