Manchester United: 08/09 title will be sweetest yet

As United were outplaying, out thinking and totally outclassing a lacklustre Chelsea side yesterday, the United fans at Old Trafford and the 11 on the pitch were making all the right noises – something Rafael Benitez had failed to do on Friday.

Benitez had claimed at his press conference that United’s result against Chelsea would not matter ‘if we (Liverpool) win at Stoke’. Unfortunately for Benitez, Liverpool failed to beat Stoke (17th in the table) for the second time this season and United went on to thrash Chelsea.

United’s fans and players seemed inspired in what was arguably our strongest performance all season. It was as if they had been given the motivation and inspiration to show the rest of the Premiership exactly which team are the Champions. Coincidentally this came after Benitez’s untimely press conference.

For the best part of two months it has seemed like Liverpool fans have been becoming increasingly confident, smug and celebratory as their team has occupied top spot. Despite only being January, the majority of Liverpool fans have been happy to announce how sorry United would be in May and how disappointed Fergie was going to be that he hadn’t equalled Liverpool’s 18 titles.  It was after watching Benitez’s press conference in full and having noticed the premature celebratory mood from Liverpool fans that I thought to myself that when United inevitably lift the title in May, this years Premiership title will be the sweetest yet.

Then I got the feeling I wasn’t the only one. In between the ironic cheers for John Terry, Old Trafford roared and asked; ‘Are you watching Merseyside?’

At his press conference Benitez told the waiting press what he thought about Mr Ferguson as he had scrawled a few ‘facts’ on a piece of A4 which he wanted to share. Admittedly, the timing could have been great, Liverpool could have battered Stoke and United could have lost or even drawn.

Upon first seeing the ‘Rafa rant’ I thought aspects of it were quite funny, particularly the suggestion the Fergie should compile the fixtures and send them to other Premier League managers. I am sure even the most ardent supporter would have chuckled at some of his comments. Then, the hilarity of it really began to sink in as Stoke held Liverpool to a goalless draw on Saturday.

The suggestion made by the press that Benitez was having a Kevin Keegan moment is perhaps a little inaccurate - inaccurate because Keegan could be forgiven. He was caught at a highly emotional moment without the opportunity to prepare a detailed response like Benitez did. He exploded in a rash moment of madness. The fact that Benitez went to the effort of finding examples, scenarios and ‘facts’ shows the man has been truly affected by the mind games from the master.

This carefully documented tirade would surely not have come from a man who is confident that his table toppers will continue their excellent form and win the Premier League. The bait laid by Ferguson should have been brushed of with a simple ‘we are top of the league, end of story’. If Benitez would have left the press conference after his first remarks then his credibility would have most definitely remained intact. Claiming Ferguson was nervous that Liverpool are top of the league would have sufficed in gaining an advantage in the mind-games stakes. As it is, Benitez has heaped pressure upon himself and his team by embracing Ferguson so early in the season.

While United have endured a disjointed spluttering start, Liverpool have, the majority of the time, been playing their best football and have built a small advantage at the top. Recently it had been suggested in some quarters that United were scared and worried about Liverpool being top. This was probably true of the majority of United fans, but, after the annihilation of Chelsea and with Benitez seemingly back to his ‘Tinkerman’ best, United fans are now filled with a sense of anticipation and excitement.

Of the 10 Premiership trophies won since Liverpool last claimed the title, there have been a few which have stood out as being sweeter than the rest. Winning it the first time, winning it in the treble year, last years victory and the title which ended Mourinho’s seemingly unstoppable reign were all special. For me though none of these would compare with the delight United fans will have when we beat Liverpool to the title. United and Ferguson seem to be finding some form at just the right time as Benitez and Liverpool are firing blanks. I suggest Liverpool fans and Rafa Benitez make room in the record books as Mr Ferguson is coming to collect United’s 18th title and, like many other United fans, for me this one will be the sweetest……………………………….

Roll on May.

Craig Malpas

Comments

[Beena]

I suggest the disturbed-one spends a bit more time preparing his team to help them beat the relegation zone team. He'll never compete with the master-blaster when it comes to mind games. At best, he sounded like a five year old who's sister had pinched his ice cream and couldn't see a way of getting it back. Scoucers, just be ready to eat humble pie when the 18th title ends up where it belongs.

[Harry harinordiquy]

Scousers and Mancs arguing the toss over which are the worst bunch of hooligans. What an unedifiying chat.

[chris]

there is good and bad on both sides but 2 statements one from a well known buffoon and the other from a much more respected source in post ATHENS FINAL comment...

Uefa spokesman William Gaillard said: "Incidents involving Liverpool fans were well known to us before the trouble at the final. It's just the latest example. What other set of fans steal tickets from their own supporters or out of the hands of children?(the buffoon)

Phil Hammond, whose son Philip was among the 96 Liverpool supporters who died in the Hillsborough disaster in 1989 and is now chairman of the Hillsborough Family Support Group, has stated: "My heart sank as I stood and watched what was happening. After what happened at Sheffield in 1989 I couldn't believe Liverpool fans, of all people, could do such dangerous things. I honestly feared people were going to get crushed and we were going to have another Hillsborough.

"It was disgusting," Hammond added. "The people who stormed into the stadium are the scum of the earth. They put at risk hundreds of lives and they should be ashamed of themselves. The vast majority of Liverpool fans are impeccably behaved but there's always been a hard core of mindless thugs that ruin it for the rest. It hurts me to say this but I won't be following Liverpool on their travels in the future."

This surely a telling comment on the insanity sometimes perpertrated
when following a football team.
Songs are songs..nothing more.
Actions do speak louder than words..

[Eddïe]

@ Oli

No sweat lad. Shame about the hate though. Seems to be the emotion that underpins your club more than any other. And hatefilled people have a tendency to cross that line.

As for the muppets who commented without bothering to read the thread properly, I will leave them with this thought..."All humans are hypocrites; the biggest hypocrite of all is the one who claims to detest hypocrisy."

....and an extract my original post:

Asked whether Liverpool fans were to blame for the trouble at some of the entry gates at the Olympic Stadium before the final against AC Milan, Platini said: “No, we cannot say that. We cannot point the finger. And, no, they are not the worst behaved in Europe.”

[Peter...]

"Shame you can't understand plain English otherwise you'd have understood that hypocrisy is exactly what I'm talking about."

Oh, dear. Another one who thinks he's in the literati.
And nope, if you were consistent in this principle of yours, hm, let's call it the "water under the bridge principle", you'd have said nowt about incidents involving United fans occurring prior to those you labelled "ancient".
Now you're reeling off yet more little snippets on less "ancient" events - typically the behaviour of a pedant. And effectively an admission of your hypocrisy.

[Oli]

"Having said that, you did sort of start the mudslinging by posting those old chestnuts about "excrement from the upper tier" and "munich gestures" etc."

Well I'm sorry but I stated recent, relevant facts. I saw a policewoman be hit with sh1t with my own eyes and I see the Munich arms (and I said clearly it is nowadays only a minority)every year. You have equally pointed out things about our fans, and you are perfectly entitled to do so.

"And some of your comments smack just a tad of shoulderchip."

Yes, I hate your club with all my heart. And I have no problem with scousers who hate our club back. That's football and it is all healthy until it crosses a line, a line I don't cross and don't want others too. None of our banter has crossed that line at all.

[Eddie]

@ Walshie

Shame you don't listen, otherwise you might seriously learn something about your club.

@ Peter

Shame you can't understand plain English otherwise you'd have understood that hypocrisy is exactly what I'm talking about.

"It continues to this day as witnessed in Benidorm and Stoke in the last 2 months."

HOOLIGANS STICK RIOT PICS ON NET
8th Jan 2009

Man Utd yobs trash Leeds bar in Benidorm
1st Dec 2008

Times 12/02/08
Fans lead backlash over eBay sales of Munich mementoes.

"It may be a minority, but until your own misbehaviour is acknowledged and you get your own house in order, you're hardly in a position to criticise others."

[Peter...]

"I said "ancient, if highly regrettable, tragedy"....which describes it perfectly. It happened 23 years ago, doubtless before you were born...but I'm sure you'll insist on dragging it up when convenient and whenever it suits your agenda."

"But you are in denial about the DOCUMENTED 35-year history of bad behaviour of your own club's fans - starting in about 1971 - which resulted in terrace segregation and partly instrumental in the ban on English clubs in Europe."

.......... Interesting. I'm just wondering when exactly "ancient history" and its suitability to be "dragged up" to fit an agenda, begins and ends for the writer of the above.
Might I be right in saying it's yet another example of his blatant hypocrisy?

[Walshie - Urmston]

Eddie,

You're a self confessed thief and you really do talk too much.

[Eddie]

@ Oli

My comments about "cup finals" and "blame" weren't actually addressed to you, but rather to some of the other contributors who have nothing better to come with than the usual tired old slags and myths.

Having said that, you did sort of start the mudslinging by posting those old chestnuts about "excrement from the upper tier" and "munich gestures" etc. What did you hope to achieve? And how many more years will you be reeling them out? Look at the Pandora's box of manc bitterness you cracked open. And some of your comments smack just a tad of shoulderchip.

At this point I'd just like to say I have nothing against MUFC and I never have. I'm old school. Plus when I was a lad, it was EFC that were our main rivals.

I merely wished to point out that despite the terrible tragedies at Heysel and Hillsborough...no matter who was to blame...along with the UEFA fiasco in Athens (nobody ever mentions that 40,000 LFC fans received a commendation for good behaviour in Istanbul)... MUFC have a far longer and far worse history of misbehaviour than LFC.

Do I really need to teach you to suck eggs? It started in the very early 70s, fighting in most northern cities, trouble at a UEFA cup match that led to terrace segregation, developed into the RA - by far the biggest firm in the country - perimetre fencing, then the Jibbers and Cockney Reds, etc etc ad nauseam. Most of this was pre-Heysel. It continues to this day as witnessed in Benidorm and Stoke in the last 2 months.

In comparison LFC didn't even have a real firm, we weren't organised. We just did a lot of nicking. I was a Kopite in the 70s and I know what I'm on about.

I wasn't in Bulgaria so I can't comment on what Michael Shields did or is accused of doing. Doesn't seem to stop MUFC fans though. Or stop them from posting "Michaels Shields is getting b***ed by q***s" videos on Youtube.

I do know that an innocent Swedish lad was beaten to death by bouncers in Bulgaria last year (with eyewitnesses) but the police didn't even prosecute them, so I'm sceptical about his chances of getting a fair trial.

And sorry, your excuses for Rome don't wash. Why provoke the Roma Ultras on the Pont Duca d'Aosta bridge? The British Embassy advised you against going near it. Two innocent Norwegian LFC fans were stabbed in Roma in 2001. Why charge the perspex barrier in the first place, provocation or not? What would have happened if someone had got crushed or a wall had collapsed? Why wind the Roma fans when they came to OT? Why march though Lille chanting like blurts putting the wind up the locals and giving us all a bad name?

The truth is that some of your fans are just looking for trouble. It may be a minority, but until your own misbehaviour is acknowledged and you get your own house in order, you're hardly in a position to criticise others.

[Oli Winton]

Eddie

"And how many cup finals have you been to in person?"

Every one we have been in since 1990. Including 1996 :)

And I was also at the game in Rome. It WAS the police's fault. Some of our fans did indeed charge the barrier for which they are responsible, but that was after 30 mins of provocation (including a friend of mine having his head cut open by a plastic seat that came flying over the fence) and after a day where 14 of our fans (mostly non-hoolies in replica shirts) were stabbed. This video, for example, shows how a woman minding her own business was attacked and punched repeatedly by police- since then Totti apologised to her and invited her to Rome as his guest bu the police refused to say sorry themselves. http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=2--bs4OEiIg

I was also at the game in Lens. There were definately forged tickets, but that was not the reason behind the crush and tear gas. What you did not hear though, was fans robbing tickets of other Reds as was widely reported from Athens and, the simple fact, is we have not killed anyone and then got our club to build mosaics across the ground to have a murderer freed. And if any of our fans did commit a crime abroad, we would not seek nori get the endorsement from the club for them to be freed, they would be widely condemned by Reds just as over 100 Reds gave evidence against another United fan who assaulted a female steward at Charlton once (which was disgusting). This is my account from the time- http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/feb/22/championsleague.manchesterunited

I'm not saying our two clubs are that different when it comes to misbehaving, but I would say that there is a real irony about Liverpool fans being the only ones to take all the headlines away from on the pitch events in Athens when you would have thought their fans would be the last to risk dfanger or a cruch after those terrible events at Hillsborough (which, just to make 100% clear,I could never make light of or blame Liverpool fans for). There is a difference between a cruch in a horrid away end in Lens behind fences with one gate access, and doing it in a modern Olympic stadium with plenty of room and modern seating.

[adam]

Hysel? Liverpool look for excuses everywhere. It was chelsea. I mean the crumbling stadium. No actually it was juve fans in the nuetral area. typical scouse shirkers. It was the work of your fans, no one else.

[Eddie]

@ Dave L

"typical Liverpudlian"? Thanks for the compliment. Actually I'm a wool. I grew up about 8 miles outside Liverpool in Bromborough. Have you ever been to Liverpool I wonder? Somehow I doubt it.

Your story about Liverpool fans "boasting about forcing their way into grounds" is ludicrous. If you're a MUFC fan, how on earth would you know anyway? And how many cup finals have you been to in person?

You say that "FIFA said Liverpool have the worst set of fans in the UK". Methinks we have already discussed this earlier in this thread. I suggest that you read it before you comment. Could it be you mean UEFA? Actually, it was William Gaillard, UEFA's director of communications - a few days before Michel Platini, his boss, backtracked and said "No, Liverpool fans are not the worst in Europe".

If you seriously mean FIFA, please feel free to post any source or link you like to back up your claim. I'd be very interested to read it. In the adult world we call that "evidence" as opposed to hearsay and myth. Otherwise please don't lower the level of this debate to the playground.

As for the classic "its never your fault" jibe...

Was the riot in Stadio Olimpico not the fault of the Manchester United fans who charged the perspex barrier or was it just those nasty Italian policemen? I clearly remember Gordon McQueen and about half of Manchester blaming the police on TV.

Was the crush in Lens not the fault of some Manchester United fans for buying forged tickets, or was that the fault of the touts, police etc. as well?

@ David Harrison

Thank you for your brief - yet constructive - contribution to this debate. We all have our stories, but that's all they are...stories.

A brief retort would be this one:

BBC 18/10/07
Arrests for football hooliganism have risen for the first time in four years, according to Home Office figures.

The club with the most fans arrested was Manchester United (195)...Manchester United had the most held for public disorder (98).

For 2008, please read the sad details for yourself:
press.homeoffice.gov.uk/press-releases/football-violence

[Giordano Bennetti]

Getting back to the article....

It won't be the sweetest yet. It would be one of the most routine. Arsenal have lost a few players recently and aren't the force they were. Chelsea look a shadow of themselves. And Liverpool are improving but lack experience and have too many mediocre forwards.

If United win the title this year, then the 19th (if it happens) would be the special one as it breaks Liverpool's record.

And peace to Scousers. We have more in common than we like to admit.

[Dave L]

Eddie, a typical liverpudlian, even FIFA said Liverpool have the worst set of fans in the UK. When you get to a cup final you hear Liverpool fans boasting about being able to force their way into grounds without tickets by turning up on mass. Another Hillsborough is arround the corner for Liverpool...and again it wont be your fault will it, its the police, the hosts, the ticket distributors, anyone but yours!!!

[David Harrison]

While we're having a pop at each other, and to add to Oli's brief comment...Let's not forget the Liverpool fans who threw stones etc. at the ambulance taking the horribly injured Alan Smith to hospital a couple of years back.

I was going into Old Trafford a few years back and noted a couple of shell-suited Stevie-alikes walking along the line of bricks on Sir Matt Busby Way which are sponsored by supporters. They were carefully spitting on all those with United players' names on them.

We won 4-0 that day. There's nothing better than answering your critics on the pitch. (Not that I'd told Ruud and co. about this incident, of course...)

[Eddie]

@ WALSHIE

Yes, I've come across hundreds like you posting on YNWA threads on Youtube, which is where I suspect you belong. Always quick to drag up 25-year-old tragedies and milk them for all they're worth, while pointing the finger of blame and denying your own part in this or any other tragedies/hooligan incidents.

First of all, you don't have the decency to quote me correctly (a typical YT tendency), I said "ancient, if highly regrettable, tragedy"....which describes it perfectly. It happened 23 years ago, doubtless before you were born...but I'm sure you'll insist on dragging it up when convenient and whenever it suits your agenda. SAF would be proud of you.

Second of all, nobody's denying the tragedy of Heysel and the part LFC fans played in it. But you are in denial about the DOCUMENTED 35-year history of bad behaviour of your own club's fans - starting in about 1971 - which resulted in terrace segregation and partly instrumental in the ban on English clubs in Europe. Did you know that Old Trafford was the first ground in the country to have perimetre fencing? Luckily, the Red Army didn't get to Europe too often or it would have been a lot worse. Seems it's easier to scapegoat LFC and far more difficult to acknowledge your own crimes.

Heysel was a terrible tragedy, one for which Liverpool fans are partly to blame. I don't know one real LFC fan alive at the time who doesn't feel ashamed. But equally tragic is the fact that "neutral" Juve fans were allowed to buy tickets to section Z on the black market. And equally tragic was the fact UEFA and the Belgian authorities allowed their showpiece to be played in a crumbling deathtrap of a stadium with negligible security and segregation only a few hours from London. It could have happened to anyone, but it happened to LFC.

Your comment about Devon just proves that any muppet can put on a club shirt and call himself a "fan".

RIP the 39
RIP Paul Nixon

@ OLI

Obviously, I agree with you that chanting about Munich is despicable and should never ever happen. You'll probably notice that 95% of LFC songs are tributes to its great teams and players. Nary a mention of "eating dogs" and "dipping bins".

I was a regular in the boys pen at Anfield and then the Kop from 1967 to 1984 and never once chanted Munich. Nor did I see any Munich banners, although I'm not denying they existed because I saw one at Heysel on telly. I haven't seen any Munich aeroplane gestures for about 10 years or more...about the same time your fans started slagging us for them. I did however notice the chanting at the final whistle at Old Trafford in the match on Sunday. Quel ironie.

The bag of excrement story is a popular myth in Mancunia.

Topping the hoolie lists is not down to "having more fans" because 80% of the arrests were at away games. Your away fans are just more badly behaved than anyone else's. Anyone who saw the Red Army marching through provincial towns in the 70s knows the crack.

The same applies to your behaviour in Europe...."victims"?! Your fans charged the perspex barrier at the Stadio Olimpico when Roma scored which was a pretty daft thing to do considering the Italian riot police were lining up waiting to crack your skulls open.

I have video footage of several hundred MUFC fans marching though Lille on the way to Lens, chanting in a very aggressive, arrogant way. It's no wonder the Europeans get nervous when MUFC are in town. Compare their reaction when LFC fans are in town.

The truth is that some people are just looking for excuses for behaving like blurts. So and so did such and such first, ergo they're asking for it. I call it the vendetta syndrome. We have to stop pointing fingers and rise above it.

Better to stick to the footie.

[Walshie - Urmston]

Eddie,

How is the death of 39 football supporters caused by LFC a "tired old fact"? You're a disgrace.

Is the death of millions of people in two world wars a "tired old fact" - we may as well tear down the Cenotaph - it's a waste of time.

Don't gloss over what happened in 1985 - same as you keep commemorating Hillsborough, don't expect Heysel to go away or the shame of a five year ban for ALL English clubs.

I suppose for a Scouser you just move from grieving session to grieving session. It's seamless.

All these United hooligans - prawn sandwich eaters from Devon or moody Mancs?

[Oli]

Eddie, yes United have plenty of hooligans but, as I said before, there is a difference between WHAT things come up when you search. Yours- a fan murdering someone in Bulgaria, ours throwing some bins around at Stoke. As for listing Rome, Lens etc were you at all those? I was. I think our fans were on the whole victims on those occassions abroad (not at Everton though)rather than Heysel (unless you still blame Chelsea).

As for the Munich stuff, that is sad and despicable. Nothing more to be said about it. I sent messages to people on ebay selling them most of whom were selling their own and felt it was their right to do so. Loads were taken by 'neutrals' and corporates- we have 10,000 of them in our ground. But yeh, I am sure there were some idiots among the 'real' fans too. Shame on them. And the reason there were no City ones is that they only made 3000 rather than 100,000 red and white ones. And all the addresses were in Mcr you say- I thought we all lived in Surrey though?

As for topping the hoolie lists, that's only since Leeds fans stopped bothering to follow their team. We also have the most fans by a long way, so having 25 more hoolies than other well supporters clubs is not that surprising.

[Paul F]

And sorry plumpjack, there's another thing! I didn't originally look at that link you provided on the grounds that one muppet does not prove a general point. However having looked at it I was quite surprised to find that it was actually a well thought out, balanced reply to a hugely inaccurate and emotive reactionary article which effectively libelled all English football fans, not just Liverpool ones. You tried to suggest Dave was likening bigotry towards Scousers to anti-Semitism, yet failed to note his comment about the Scouse experience being "microscopic" in comparison.

You make some decent points but much of what you have written is heavily spun.

[Paul F]

Oh - and another thing plumpjack - you do realise "A disinformation job clearly - yet how willingly the corporation ran with it." is exactly what happened with the Sun after Hillsborough don't you? Their sources were a Tory MP (enough said) and a police force under the command of a man who through "freezing" (Taylor's word) was incapable of making decisions that might have avoided or mitigated the disaster, but who was sufficiently compos mentis in the hours that followed to start trying to avoid the blame by lying to Graham Kelly about the gates being broken down.

[Paul F]

Plumpjack - by "allegations" I'm sure you meant to say "lies" when talking about what the Sun printed. No? How does a hypocritical, economically motivated, and qualified to the point of meaningless, retraction 15 years too late make Liverpool "untouchable"? You may have some valid points about the attempted buck-passing after Heysel, but if we are to get onto Hillsborough you have a proper detailed report to give you the best unbiased view of the facts. Despite the Taylor Report, I'd guess at least half the country still believe at least some of the stuff the Sun printed.

[PlumpJack]

Walshie - what's interesting I think is the way remembering Hillsborough has superceded Heysel in the public calendar. Understandable perhaps, yet to arrive at a plausible explanation we need only compare with the truly horrible Bradford fire of (I think) 1985, only four years before, but which is now all-but forgotten in media circles.

Paul F - you make some fair points. However my intention was not to make Liverpool fans appear worse than others, but simply to have them recognized as being as bad as any of the worst, something a BBC love-in of over four decades wilfully resists (though it's less bad than it was).

In the immedate aftermath of Heysel, for example, the BBC joyfully reported 'rumours' of the trouble being caused by travelling Chelsea fans. Liverpool FC, not to mention assorted 'celebrities', talked up this partiuclar angle for all they were worth until the truth could no longer be denied. A disinformation job clearly - yet how willingly the corporation ran with it.

As to 'self-pity' this accusation could just as easily be levelled at United over Munich, which the club has increasingly exploited for sentimental (and commercial) reasons in recent years. But it's only been attached to Liverpool - and been made to stick - very recently.

What's more it's done nothing to hamper Liverpool's status as untouchable, which has all ready forced Boris Johnson to demean himself, just as it forced the Sun to retract its allegations regarding misbehaviour at Hillsborough - and even though former Sun editor Kelvin Mackenzie has since made it clear that he stands by every word his newspaper printed.

But there is another aspect to all this, for with self-pity goes a worrying sense of entitlement. You do what we want, when we want it or your reluctance will be construed as evidence of bigotry. Take this staggering example. http://www.jewishcomment.com/cgibin/news.cgi?id=13&command=shownews&newsid=992

A website set up by and for ex-pat Jewish Americans concerned at what they see as increasing hostility to them over here, possibly because of the Iraq war, is a curious place to find them discussing Heysel. Mercifully Liverpool fan 'Dave' appears to believe scousers have a special understanding of the Jewish mindset, not least because of the terrible hostility and intolerance Liverpool people have to endure from the rest of the country. Yes, you read that aright.

So it seems this is where we are at. 'Dave' is perfectly serious. His contribution carries with it no suggestion of humour. And while many will be amazed at such self-importance I am not among them.

Liverpool and Manchester stuck together once upon a time. As recently as forty years ago United fans actually applauded City after they'd pipped us for title (yes, I'm a United fan). Pat Crerand remembers Manchester fans being fairly happy about Liverpool or Everton being successful once they knew their own clubs had missed out. Of course then we were all in 'Lancashire', and that meant something.

Where we agree Paul, I suspect, and it's really the substance of my complaint, is on the role of the media in turning people against one another. Forces intent on fracturing England into violently opposing regions have made progress.

Recently, when Jamie Carragher retired from England duty, one Liverpool fan posted to this paper of his support for the player and describing himself as a 'Scouser, but not English'. I think that's sad. For all the BBC talk of a 'Scouse, Geordie, Cornish (delete as appropriate) nation' it's clear what they're up to and that no-one really thought this way until encouraged to do so over the last few years.

Thus football rivalry is to some extent a metaphor for the regional politics currently being promoted at the behest of the EU. I'd like to think we could yet defy these forces, bury our differences and even retrieve our sense of proportion, but I doubt 'they' will let us rest now.

Shame because, so far as this instance is concerned at any rate, I have to say I liked Benitez at first. I particularly envied Liverpool the moral authority he accrued when in the wake of the Pardew-Wenger touchline spat some time back he chose to remind us that we had a responsibility to any watching children.

It was a contrast with Ferguson, whom I have always mistrusted and disliked. I'm just sorry Benitez has chosen to sacrifice that element of moral authority and to no discernible purpose.

Sorry to bang on.

[Eddie]

@ OLI and WALSHIE

Now now lads, I know that the truth hurts sometimes, but why would that make me "obsessed with united" (presumably you mean MUFC?). I just read some of the rather bitter posts on this thread and decided that enough was enough.

Some of them seem to be dragging up ancient, if highly regrettable, disasters involving Liverpool FC that took place more than twenty years ago! Still milking them for all they're worth, are we?

Try viewing the world with BOTH eyes open for a change, then do about 5 minutes of research - instead of posting the usual tired old "facts" and unsubstantiated myths = slags.

You're obviously both in denial because Manchester United fans (+ RA) have a history of misbehaviour far worse than LFC's stretching back far longer...more than 35 years, in fact.

I just googled "Manchester United thugs" and "Manchester United yobs" and came up with two reports from the last 6 weeks in about 10 seconds! It's not rocket science. Imagine how many I could come up with if I put my mind to it. Rome? Lens? Everton Valley? Villa Park?

This one really makes me sad:

Times 12/02/08
Fans lead backlash over eBay sales of Munich mementoes.

"Some fans claim that their scarves were stolen before they got to their seats... their disappointment turned to anger as word spread that adverts for the memorial scarves had started to appear on eBay within hours of the final whistle."

"Ironically, there was just one scarf in the colours of Manchester City on sale among the plethora of United scarves listed...Most of the offers were listed by fans living in Manchester."

(We "don't rob our own players", but we rob our own fans.)

BTW, you might be interested to know that Manchester United fans topped the football-related arrest stats by a mile for the past two seasons. That's Home Office research, not hearsay and hypocrisy.

[Oli]

Eddie, bit of a difference between throwing a bin in the air at Stoke and posting it on youtube and some of the things Liverpool have done (Heysel, Shields/Sanky etc).

I have EVERY sympathy for the Hillsborough disaster and I find it horrific that anyone could mock it or blame it on the fans themselves, but then you have to question why Liverpool fans behaved as they did in to get in to the European Cup final in Athens in 2007 almost causing another disaster and yet again shaming English football?