brummie

Broken foot. Due back soon, I think. He was injured for a chunk of last year as well, although when fit, he, like the rest of them, was way off form.

He did really badly for most of last season, but then again, so did all of them. He tends to play the "Hollywood" pass too often for my liking, but it looks as if Lambert might be trying to get him to make better decisions on what ball to play.

That was definitely a start. It's a long, long road, though. Half the squad are either still imbued with O'Neill's approach to the game (big men at back in the middle, big man up front, wingers, nothing else matters), some are kids having to learn to change, and some are new arrivals who will need time to settle. As I said, definitely still be a few really poor performances and results over the course of the season, we've only just started, but Saturday was the first time I've enjoyed a match at Villa Park for a long time.

The prophecy is coming true. Well in brummie. To be honest, you'd have got the same thing from any Villa fan, it was all just so predictable. They've specifically noticed the whole "trying to play on the counter attack at home" thing, mind.

Cracking game at our place on Saturday. We are showing definite signs of improvement the last couple of games. It's so refreshing to have a manager who will change things tactically to match the opponent. We closed Swansea down very well, and always looked to win the ball back when we didn't have it. We're trying to pass the ball around much, much more. It'll be better as he has more time to change the squad to acquire more players comfortable with that kind of approach, but the difference he's made already is pretty remarkable. The new signings, those we've seen, look good. Vlaar and El Ahmadi pass and retain the ball fantastically well, and this is having a rub-off effect on other players, particularly Bannan and Clark. Lowton looks more and more comfortable at this level, too. I am also very impressed with Holman. His work rate is astonishing, he's constantly closing down and harrying opponents. He reminds me a little of the way James Milner was when we had him playing centrally - he at least looks like he could grow into that role. Really, really early days yet, as Lambert himself said, and we will have plenty of set backs along the way, but as long as we don't expect too much from this season, and accept that it won't all be plain sailing, people will be happy with that kind of approach.

On SMB tonight, they were moaning a bit about Sunderland sitting back and trying to play on the counter at home. They'd better get used to that, because that is ALL MON knows how to do, and that's what he's going to carry on doing. The bloke is a relic.

13 shots from the whole team all season. Negative as fuck. I almost spat sick out of my mouth tonight when Hansen likened Lambert to MON tonight on MOTD. Is that true? 13 shots from the whole team all season? We had 16 in one match today. Which is probably what we'd have had across 20 matches under McFuck last year.

Fuck me, I've no vested interest here, but the state of the Sunderland fans in shot after Fletcher's goal. Girl with a Croydon facelift so severe, her tits were hanging off her chin.

I'm not one for hyperbole, but we were excellent today, really excellent.

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread. I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up. It was pretty obvious it wasn't. Not really, take a look through the last few pages for some of the offensive, irrelevant bollocks people have been posting.

It's the Liverpool thread, not the hillsborough thread. I didn't say it was the hillsborough thread, I just wondered if it was posted with reference to what has been discussed on the last few pages. Tooj said it isn't, which clears it up.

Is that posted with relevance to the Hillsborough discussion? Because if it is, there is absolutely no relevance at all.

I've read a few threads on this on various message boards today, and I am both amazed and depressed how so many people, despite having just had a truly independent inquiry given full access to, and having studied 400,000 pages of evidence and state the utter contrary, still persist in going on about ticketless fans, pissed fans forcing entry, etc - do you not realise these are EXACTLY the slurs which the families have put up with for 23 years and which have been so comprehensively demolished today? Why on earth are you letting your dislike of one football club or city poison your rationality like this? Get it into your heads - the fans have NOTHING to be guily about regarding what happened that day. There were NOT bands of pissed up fans forcing entry. There were NOT great numbers of ticketless fans outside. Seriously, what will it take for people to stop spouting this bullshit? I suspect the great majority of those who do are too young to have been a football match attender in the 1980s. or they'd realise that ultimately Hillsborough is not just about Liverpool fans. Anyone who attended matches in that period will have similar stories of dangerous conditions, of terrifying overcrowding, of police hostility, brutality and negligence. Anyone who visited the Sheffield grounds as a fan in that time will be entirely aware of the deserved reputation South Yorkshire Police had at the time in the way they treated football supporters. They were in a great many cases total fucking scumbags, who would frequently look for trouble, not try to stop it. Those in denial today really need to understand this - it could quite easily have been your club, and the people of Newcastle who would have suffered what happened in 1989. Then imagine 23 years of being called liars by important sectors of the media, and the police. Imagine having the police lie and doctor evidence to protect themselves at your cost. Imagine having the people who are supposed to protect you turn on you so overwhelmingly to protect their own backs. Imagine living with that blighting your life for 23 years. Have a think about people sneering about your city because of it. Think about total fucking scumbags like Kelvin MacKenzie continuing to lie about you right to the end, right until he's forced to apologise. How do you imagine that feels? The worst thing about today is finding out just how comprehensively, wilfully, and shamelessly the government, media and police of this country treated those families for a quarter of a century, but I have to say, i find the wilfully stupid denial that so many people in the football community - the very community which was under attack - have even today in refusing to believe what has been spelled out so comprehensively by this report, and by the reaction of the Prime Minister in parliament today. Honestly, get a fucking grip.

There's no evidence of there being lots of fans there without tickets, so it's not a question of them being guilt free - it is a total red herring.

This is from one of the witness statements released today, from a Liverpool fan, and given in April 1989

This was published in the editorial of the first edition of When Saturday Comes to come out after the Hillsborough disaster. Sums things up pretty well. http://www.wsc.co.uk/wsc-daily/1152-september-2012/8991-post-hillsborough-disaster-editorial

This short report from the day is well worth a listen to. It doesn't really get much more poignant than this (even with the music someone has added).

It's hard to really describe what it was like to those who weren't around at the time, and how it made people feel. I was a student at Newcastle Poly at the time, and vividly remember on the Monday morning after, sitting in the student union, reading the papers, as was pretty much every single person in there. It was pre internet, and we didn't have the instant access to news we have now. The papers carried some of the most disturbing pictures I've ever seen, before and since then. You could have heard a pin drop, people were just sat, taking in what had happened, and there was barely a person who didn't have tears in their eyes. As people have said, the way things were in the 80s, it could have been you, it could have been us, it could have been any club, that is the way football fans were treated then, and that is what going to football matches was like. The people who even now probably persist in blaming Liverpool fans clearly just don't get this point. Most things involving football depressingly fall back on partisan finger pointing, especially on the internet, but this was about fans, not Liverpool fans, just football fans. The events that happened on the day were staggeringly awful. The way the families have been treated in the 23 years since then is nothing short of disgraceful - called liars, lied to, and turned on by the people who were supposed to be protecting them. How they've kept their dignity in the way they have for a quarter of a century is inspirational. To now hear some of the things we've heard today, it must be awful. To hear about the doctored evidence, about the alcohol tests carried out on the bodies, even those of children, and more than anything, about the number of people who could possibly still have been saved, I can't even begin to imagine how that must make them feel today.

Too right it is.

England's future is bleak, but it's really not Hodgson's fault. Our problem is the money obsessed PL ensures home grown players are going to struggle like fuck to get established. I read something the other day which listed the English central midfielders who played last weekend and were available for selection last night. This is it. Frank Lampard, Mark Noble, Steve Sidwell, Leon Britton, Lee Cattermole, Jake Livermore, Jonny Howson, Bradley Johnson, Leon Osman, Steven Gerrard, Michael Carrick, Tom Cleverley, James Ward-Prowse. When your options are that limited, it doesn't matter who the manager is, he's not going to achieve much.

Spot on. My uncle was at Hillsborough a few seasons before 1989 and there was a crush. A major problem was only averted due to them opening the gates. I'm sure it's documented in that 'Black & White Daft' book about late 70's to early 90's book. Said it was the panic that made it worse too. Very nearly happened to our fans so it's something that couldve been avoided sadly. My opinions on it that there are several factors that caused the dissaster (no single party to blame) but I just hope that the families find some sort of closure with today's findings. Most people who went to football matches in the 1980s will be able to remember an occasion or two when they found themselves in a pen with far too many people in it, or where conditions made you concerned for your safety. It's really, really hard to explain the way football fans were viewed, were treated by others and the conditions in which we watched the games to people not old enough to remember anything but the game as we know it today. It's also hard to explain the way football fans treated each other, too. That's something that always occurs to me these days when I see away fans walking amongst home fans, in their own colours, something we'd pretty much never have done back then. What happened at Hillsborough could have happened to any of us at the time - that is what conditions and policing were like at grounds back then. The Justice campaign isn't just about Liverpool supporters, it could quite easily have been your club or mine or any other club whose fans died that day. It is about all of us. It's also, disturbingly, not just about football, either. The way those families were lied about, lied to and failed by various sectors of the machinery that runs this country - police, politicians, press - in 1989 and almost every year since then raises some really serious questions with an impact that goes way beyond football.

Well, I thought we played very well. Dion is so biased for us, though.

Oh god, a "the football club" from Lambert just now.

Jesus, how much analysis over this fucking game? Nobody cares about Liverpool any more, Hansen, you fucking douchebag.

Ah, Dion http://news.bbc.co.uk/media/images/38906000/jpg/_38906833_dublin_savage300.jpg