WE left for Wimbledon at 2pm on Monday. Which is a time most people are normally in work. Lots of Liverpool fans will have had to try to ask for time off, bully workmates into swapping shifts or talk their boss into letting them leave early on what is traditionally the first day back in. At the same time there will have been lots of Tottenham Hotspur fans doing the same for a journey the opposite way. Today it’s the turn of Hammers coming to Merseyside. Football fans who are encouraged to buy in to the ‘magic’ of the FA Cup by TV companies, football clubs and the FA themselves, and then afforded no consideration when the matches are scheduled.
On our way, one of my friends in the car with us received a phone call from the agency he is registered to work with saying his current employer hadn’t taken too kindly to him leaving early and was finishing him up. He had told the people he thought he needed to he wasn’t going to be in that afternoon, but someone else in the company decided it wasn’t on, and then got an employment agency to sack him. This of course says plenty about how companies are able to use and abuse the system of ‘casual employment’ here in the UK, but also what the phrase ‘inconvenienced football fans’ can actually mean for those who go to any lengths they can to watch the football team they love. In a competition that is still valued to them, if not seemingly to the people in charge of it.
But the FA Cup is still great, no matter who tries to mess it up. We entered a tiny football stadium through a gap in a row of houses and were let in by the nicest turnstile operators I have ever come across. Honestly, there were people talking to you like you were a human being and not someone who needed to be shoved in and out of a stadium as quickly as possible. Then we stood (STOOD!) with as many mates as we could round together as possible and watched a 16-stone weightlifter foul our defenders approximately 47 times (but apparently only get penalised for nine of them). Then we won, beating our second AFC in a month. Take that AFCs! Then we stayed to clap off both sets of players because no-one could suggest getting off to ‘beat the traffic’ with a straight face.
But the pitch — by god, the pitch. It must have been the worst pitch Philippe Coutinho had ever played on in his life, and it showed. He spent the first half looking like this was the maddest thing anyone had asked him to do, before finding his feet a little more in the second as the game calmed down and opened up. Manquillo wasn’t sure about the whole thing either, but it was Lazar Markovic I felt sorry for the most.
Having spent the first half being the sole left-sided player on the worst strip of pitch on the ground, he was probably looking forward to playing the second half on a side that at least resembled a pitch you might be able to play football on, before being shifted over to the right when Enrique was brought on. He did pretty well, all things considered, although his tame effort when Liverpool managed not to score from a five on two break showed perhaps why his goal record before joining Liverpool wasn’t all that. It will certainly need to improve if he wants to play in the front three.
So it was understandable why we couldn’t get our passing going, but it was more frustrating why we weren’t better at the heading it away. I’ve yet to see a pitch that stops you heading crosses away, but we didn’t fancy it at all. Emre Can you could sort of understand. He is fairly new to the position and it’s not really what he was brought in for. But this is Wimbledon away, where casually bringing it out of defence was but a dream for another day, so maybe the soon to be departed Kolo Toure would have been a better option. I guess it was a good, different experience for Can if we see that position as a long-term option for him. The other two have fewer excuses though. We needed some back to basics stuff from the pair of them, and they were doing their goalkeeper no favours at all. And my word this goalkeeper could do with someone doing him some favours. He’s begging for favours. He just cost us another goal instead.
So it’s tough, and our defence looks creaky and both teams have got a fella who can’t run up front (but at least theirs is a laugh). I can almost hear the BBC commentators salivating at a giant killing. I can almost hear Vinnie Jones taking all the credit because he went in late on Lucas Leiva on the way in. At that point it’s nice to have a fella who has other ideas. Other ideas get you through sticky situations. Other ideas are what separate good players from winners. Players with other ideas kick the ball in the goal when they get the chance to and have a chat about their options later. Are other ideas taught or born? Do some lads just find a way to win, no matter what? We better hope it’s a skill a few more can develop. Because I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Steven Gerrard might be off in the summer.
At which point all the other ideas might be somewhere else.
I liked their forwards reaction to finally being yellow carded, like pushing defenders over and almost sending them into orbit is allowed.
Nice to hear details of the experience John. Pitch didn’t look that bad on the telly. Danny Murphy reckoned it was a carpet. But he also thought Steven was our best player on the night. I reckon Migs was fouled for their goal. And to be fair he made a great save before that. Still need another goalie though.
Nothing much more to say really. Hope your mate finds something soon.
I think you need a better TV! The pitch looked a real midden from my comfy armchair.
Commentators thought Akinfenwa needed to be given some leeway with his “clumsy” tackling while it just looked like thuggery to me. But then the underdogs always get treated kindly, don’t they?
Sounds like a good trip you had, but as kind as the Wimbledon stewards may be it’s great to see the back of them. Hard to like a club that used to exist on how nasty they were, even after all this time.
I must say as man from the ‘other nasty side’ I find all of this hilarious. This is a mans game; correct me if I’m wrong. Perhaps everyone on the ‘fancy side’, aside from Steve G, wouldn’t have looked out of place in a netball kit. I cannot for the life of me understand how there can be complaints about the pitch; I was there & yes far from being a bowling pitch it certainly wasn’t unplayable unlike…
Akinfenwa. Surely a side that was valued at £230m against a side from League 2 with 30k spent at most, would expect a ‘physical contest’ as your esteemed leader put it.
If this is the spectacle of the Premiership then I’d rather see 11 men beating the hell out of each other in League 2 than prancing around the field like show ponies. Grow some.
I will be honest & say,apart from ‘that’ man, I was hugely disappointed in Liverpool’s play. And this comes from someone who used to watch Wimbledon in the Prem when they were so horrible to other teams. Naughty boys. One of the draws for me was seeing a ‘quality’ team at our ground…I left wondering what that was. If Lambert plied his trade in the lower leagues then why was he so easily shackled by a bald, 35 year old loanee, alongside a young Millwall loanee? The game wasn’t so close because of the battering ram up front, it was largely the wing play.
As for the decision of your club to relinquish the services of the player head & shoulders in skill & commitment, above the rest, surely you have to question how your club is managed.
I have always had a lot of respect for Liverpool fans. I met many more yesterday evening. I am pleased that the hospitality outside the ground was welcoming too, if not in the so called boxing ring of Kingsmeadow. However, if the excuses I’m hearing about a close 2-1 draw is the feeling of most scousers then I begin to lose that respect. It amounts to no less than whinging. Read the history. We’re lucky to have a team…count your blessings you were born with a silver spoon when it came to the team you chose to support.
The Dons are fighters & the neutrals were thoroughly impressed last night. That’s what people like to see. If you don’t have the fight or fire in your stomach I think this will be a long season for you because you are going to need to scrap for success this season…take a leaf out of our book…we know…
Okay
Haha really sorry for moaning about a rubbish pitch but complaining about my own team more.
We are well aware our team needs more fight. But thanks for the lecture
And absolutely devoed to have lost your respect
Good luck for the rest of the season
Mr H has a point about the different sides of the tracks. AFC Wimbledon is so called because the FA allowed Wimbledon FC to be ‘franchised’, re-located to Milton Keynes, parachuted into the football league against the rules and established as MK Dons. F*ck the fans, the local people who benefited from the club being based in London, f*ck the rules – the FA allowed that to happen. And AFC Wimbledon had to start again, at the bottom of the league pyramid structure (no parachutes into the League for them), and established itself with fans at the heart of the running of the club. Like what we want to create with the Spirit of Shankly. We should salute them (and the support for the Hillsborough Justice campaign in the programme and on the terraces from a number of home fans was great!)
It was close, too close, but Liverpool are through and that’s kind of all that matters….kind of….
I thoroughly respect the achievements AFC Wimbledon have made to get to where they are now, but not the ‘physical’ game some of the team played, they seemed to have identified Manquillo as a weakness and some of the tackles on him were outrageous, especially that one in the first 5 minutes, could have broken his ankle.
It was justice that the winner came as a result of their fouling.
Mignolet was very good on the night, give him some credit, he didn’t catch that cross because a Frank Bruno look alike hit him in the face with a right elbow.
It’s not manly kicking lumps out of, or beating up the opposition, it’s cheating, it is manly however to turn the other cheek, not retaliate, not moan and just get on with the game, that’s what we did and I know which brand of football I’d want to watch
What do you expect from a League 2 team? You weren’t playing another Prem team, although I suspect Stoke might have exploited your physical weakness too. A team plays to their strengths & exploits the oppositions weaknesses.
Interesting fact is that Liverpool still managed to commit 10 fouls to our 18. Hardly a massive difference. It’s very sad how it’s expected that non-contact is the way forward in the upper echelons of football.
In pre-season I watched us play Chelsea with Terry, Ivanovic & Matic playing. They were completely up for the physical challenge…did I see them complaining….no…& they’re at the top of the Prem. Arsenal have the same problem as you do…small, skilful players but no-one with any steel. Mourinho has assembled that mix & it works. They narrowly defeated us like Liverpool by one goal.
And finally lets be serious….did you really think a team made up of loanees & free contracts were going to try & out pass an expensively assembled squad? As Dons fans we expected to be rolled over….but certainly not as close run as it was. The plucky League 2 team should be saluted, not derided.
I’m sorry, but aren’t the laws of the game exactly the same in the PL as they are in league 2 as they are for amateur Sunday league?
You have every right to try and kick the shit out of us, the referee has every right to penalise and book your players when you do so and the LFC fans have every right to be aggrieved when the referee fails to do his part in this equation. Particularly in regards to your goal which was a foul on the keeper in any league on any pitch.
And the referee pointed out 6 locations he’d fouled when booking your striker. 6! When I ref Sunday league, persistent infringements means around 3 in a row, not 6! And that’s ignoring the fact that for every foul given against him, one was missed by the ref.
So, almost twice as many fouls despite getting away with many more – including the one on the ‘keeper that resulted in your goal. Fairly significant.
Your attitude of “the opposition is better so we’ll kick them to shit” links directly into punditry’s “they (foreign clubs) don’t like it up ’em” and results in narratives such as “could (foreign fancy-dan) do it at Stoke on a cold Tuesday” and the continuation of the FA’s grit over guile approach to the national team and grassroots football.
Until we stop lauding and applauding this lump and thump style of football, we can forget about creating homegrown coaches and players with the sort of tactics, skill and technique that football fans adore.
If Barca and Germany can out-pass and out-move their way to titles, why can’t teams in the lower divisions? Swansea, Bournemouth and Derby haven’t required thuggery over passing.
Besides, if I wanted to see hoof ball, cynicism, dark arts defending or brawn & fitness over brains & flair, I’d be a Chelsea fan and turn up for my Sunday Shite XI.
Also, why were your 850 fans so quiet Monday night? Shocked by the brutality I hear you cry…I forgot there were away fans there. Had more noise from a handful of Morecambe fans in the past.
Had a belly laugh at this….”who are ya…who are ya”….small time. Credit to your supporters for sticking with the club through the tough times they are a dying breed. I was in all respects a typical cup tie but let’s face it your bouncer up front should have been called on numerous occasions – he wasn’t , we won, moving on. Good luck for the rest of the season.
Then again we don’t get 4 year old kids to knock up our banners, so y’know…swings and roundabouts.
Looking forward to the next round to be honest, Mr H. How noisy 850 fans were is not really of any consequence.
Everything about this game and its coverage other than Gerrard’s goals annoyed me the other night. The referee, the actual football, Danny Murphy. All of it. Other than Ste Gerrard. So most of it.
We could be the best team in Europe and we’d only scrape these 3rd round aways at lower league opposition 2-1 and that’s when we’re not getting turned over. We got beat by Barnsley the week we outclassed Inter and that was at home for Christ sake. It’s just been allowed to become one of our things somehow. I get the pitch complaint but other top flight teams seem to cope with it a lot better for whatever reason or maybe it just seems that way.
I have to say as a Red living down in Swindon and watching them with a season ticket the last 4-5 years, we (my adopted other team) play really good football, same formation as Brendan’s (not so) tricky reds are playing this season and played it the last 2 years. We had Chelsea at home in the cup last year at home, and didn’t resort to kicking seven lumps of sh!te out of them.
I thought the ref was lenient and set his stall out quite early by not clamping down, but sometimes this happens to the smaller clubs at home. Not sure it was a foul on Mignolet, but what do i know from the telly.
At the end of the day it was a hard fought win, we progress, they get some PR and got knocked out, isn’t that what the fa cup is all about?
by the way, if you’re bored on Monday night, watch Swindon away to Coventry, we’re missing our best two midfielders who are away on international duty, but we’re still quite good and not sure why Liverpool recalled Brad Smith who was playing well at left wing back earlier this season
Good article by the way John – as always