what has THFC done to upset you as a matter of interest ?

The thing with Balotelli is he's too inconsistent to be relied upon. He invests far, far too much energy into being cool, mysterious and eccentric. If he just concentrated on football for a spell he'd do okay, but as it is now, City can't throw start him in a big match and be confident he'll perform like they can with Aguero and Tevez. He'll never be a regular starter for City, so one wonders why they bother with him? Guidetti that couldn't get a game for them scored 20 in Holland last season and could do the bench job and minor cup rotation just as well. Why pay a 6 figure salary to a ticking timebomb?

You said players should stay on their feet at all times to maximise their chances of a crack at goal. Torres did that, but in doing so was massively off balance and the incident resulted in the ball being cleared off the line.

If Torres had not fought to stay on his feet and gone down then he'd have had a free kick or pen and the defender would have been at risk of a red card. Torres did what he was supposed to do, and because he did he lost out because of it.

The truth is that both defenders and attackers are pushing the rules as far as they can to gain advantage. If a striker attempts to stay on his feet whenever he can defenders will just know that they can push him far more without risking a pen or a booking. A defender who knows the slightest contact on a striker will be risking a pen will be a lot more wary of shoving him off the ball.

Nothing really. In fact, Tottenham have been pretty generous to us in my time.

On reflection, I'd say that my dislike of Tottenham is actually about 10% of my dislike of Liverpool.

Have a look at the context of why I said it. I was specifically replying to the claim that you can't blame Suarez for diving because he's not being awarded penalties when he is legitimately fouled because of his reputation. That makes no sense. If a player genuinely believes he is being victimised and will not be awarded a penalty even when he is fouled, then in those specific circumstances the only sane solution to come up with is to try and make sure you stay upright as much as possible and get your shot/pass off, not to throw yourself at the ground regularly in the hope that you get a dodgy one to balance things out.

At no point was I debating the validity of penalty claims or whether or not a player should need to be upended before they get one.

Quote: Lord God Jose Mourinho "Nothing really. In fact, Tottenham have been pretty generous to us in my time. On reflection, I'd say that my dislike of Tottenham is actually about 10% of my dislike of Liverpool.'" strangely enough, although I love seeing The Gooners getting well and truly stuffed the team I really don't like is Villa ! I think it goes back to the time of Doug Ellis who always came over as a smarmy git ! a totally irrational reason to dislike a team when you think of it ? he was knighted for his services to charity recently and if you read the wiki page he was actually a remarkable man so maybe I should not bear grudges and respect The Villa like the other teams ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ellis even more irrational is my respect for Mr Wenger - Houston, I have a problem !

Quote: Lord God Jose Mourinho "Nothing really. In fact, Tottenham have been pretty generous to us in my time. On reflection, I'd say that my dislike of Tottenham is actually about 10% of my dislike of Liverpool.'" strangely enough, although I love seeing The Gooners getting well and truly stuffed the team I really don't like is Villa ! I think it goes back to the time of Doug Ellis who always came over as a smarmy git ! a totally irrational reason to dislike a team when you think of it ? he was knighted for his services to charity recently and if you read the wiki page he was actually a remarkable man so maybe I should not bear grudges and respect The Villa like the other teams ? en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Doug_Ellis even more irrational is my respect for Mr Wenger - Houston, I have a problem !

It really isn't hard to grasp. I remember when we played Birmingham a few years back, David Ngog won us a penalty by 'diving'. He was running in the box, a defender was coming across, the defender slid and clearly got in Ngog's way, Ngog got to the ball, touched it forward then 'dove' over as though there was contact. There wasn't contact, but he wasn't getting to the ball because he would have been clattered by Carsley (I think it was Carsley), if Ngog planted his foot there was a good chance Carsley's outstretched boot would have gone right through it. It looked awful on Ngog's part, he wasn't touched but acted like he did, but if he didn't avoid the contact he would have been fouled and possibly injured. The bad moment in it all was Carsley's challenge which was rightly penalised, people seem to forget that.

I wasn't actually talking about Bale's situation precisely when saying contact isn't always required, but I can see why some players go down without contact.

still can't decide on the Bale incident but the question I would ask is - is diving considered as cheating or just gamesmanship ? I reckon the reason Rogers is defending his man is because he feels it's a part of he game nowadays and although it is wrong to try to deceive the officials it's fair-game to try to win by any means and if you get caught then so be it
We all recall many years ago the 'Hand of God ' incident but was that cheating or gamesmanship ? We also saw a few days ago the great Miroslav Close scoring with his hand for Lazio at Napoli but owning up to the ref after scoring that he actually pushed the ball in with his hand with the ref changing his decision and disallowing the goal - his team went on to lose that game but Maradonnas effort won them the game so who was right and who was wrong ?
Was Ireland robbed of a World Cup spot beacause of Henrys' cheating or gamesmanship ?

Think you've hit the nail on the head there with how complex it is. Rightly or wrongly, it appears to me though that, as a society, we've decided that diving to gain a penalty is worse than, say, a defender tugging at a shirt i.e. that it's against the spirit of the game and sportsmanship. Technically they may be the same offence but over here, in the UK, that kind of niggle seems to be accepted as what we feel is okay as fans. I guess this is where the splits occur. When you're own player decides to dive it can force some fans to back him i.e. usually the ones for whom their club is bigger than the game (why would they defend it otherwise?). The social contract between players who take part is that you expect there to be a bit of niggle but not complete abandonment of all integrity to win. Some players push the latter and feel that's all that matters, but we have already decided as fans that we don't want those sort of shenanigans in our game. We don't want win at any cost anymore and that has to be a good thing.

I don't think most people would argue with that. The goalie commits himself into possibly making a foul so that's his Russian roulette. What we appear to be talking about is when a player is fabricating something out of nothing. It's deceitful and I'm not so naive as to say that we can outlaw it because we can't. However, it does start with the players and the players will only adapt their own behaviour when they are pressured into changing. That pressure comes from other players, managers, FIFA and the fans. If teams booed their own players when they do it, I'm pretty sure it'd stop tomorrow, but they don't. So it continues. When you get players of the quality of Steven Gerrard realising it's a valid tactical choice then you know you've got a problem.

So, Wills and Kate have opened England's new training facility, today.
It's a good job a certain pair of central defenders weren't present, with their sexual proclivities, or Kate would've needed more hands, than an octopus has tentacles.
However, was Rooney in the background, to try and balance the sex-pest equilibrium?
Mind you, with Rooney's reputation, he'd be more likely to ask Kate for her mother-in-law's phone number.

Vilification of Suarez is wrong according to Rodgers.

Siege mentality continues

Rogers does have some points.

The problem is that after he spends the week talking about Suarez not getting the decisions he merits, Suarez then throws himself down to the ground in a ridiculous manner to try and get a pen.

Suarez has been backed to the hilt by two LFC managers. And then he's gone and screwed them over straight away by creating more stupid stories. Dalglish stood up for him totally over the Evra incident. Then Suarez goes and refuses to shake Evra's hand when it was offered to him. Rogers complains bitterly that Suarez doesn't get the decisions, Suarez is then caught in a ridiculous tumble.

Rogers just needs to STFU over this right now because it's a battle he just can't win.

Has Welbeck got significantly less negative reaction to dives that have lead to pens? IMO yes, definitely. But it's not something you can really argue about this week when you've just been busted for it.

Hopefully Brandon Rogers career trajectory mirrors those other "manager of the moment" bosses Owen Coyle and Phil Brown.

Paul Lambert's doing great at Villa as well, isn't he?