When all said and done, despite battering Chelsea in the first leg and then coming out second best by the thickness of a Rizzla paper last night, we still lost. We still lost, they still won, and when they are picking up the trophy at Wembley nobody will remember (except perhaps some of us) how well we played. Through a variety of methods, from time wasting to putting the referee under pressure (both players and manager), from diving to stamping to strategic fouling, they managed to prevail in the end.
Cheating b@stards? Well yes, but we have IMHO a choice between being the paragons of virtue, upholders of the beautiful game (naïve in other words) or looking at areas where we can give ourselves a better chance of winning these tight matches. We can I guess take some solace in Costa's retrospective ban (which he must surely get) but we are hardly going to be beneficiaries of that are we? Will it be left to us and Arsenal to plough a lone furrow, upholding not just the game itself but the actual "spirit" of the thing?
I have in mind some areas in which we could put some thoughts into being more "effective", here they are in no particular order.
Phillipe Coutinho. ; We have in our ranks a lovely little footballer, one of the finest in the league. At the moment though in comparison to similar players in terms of stature and skill (Hazard being the glaring example), he is too easy to play against. Time and again he is "fouled" and fails to exact the most he could from the situation. Many talked of Henderson being "lucky" to stay on yesterday (and he was in all honesty), but his handball was only a precarious for us because he had been booked for a "tug" on Hazard. A "tug" is always a booking if the referee sees it, and he had no choice but to see this one because the moment Henderson put his hands on the Belgian he stopped and looked at the referee. Compare and contrast in the second half when Coutinho brilliantly turned Fabregas only to be hauled back by his shorts. Our fella battled on and away from the Spaniard but to what end? If he stops it's Fabregas who is booked and is walking a tightrope. I'm not advocating that Coutinho dives here, I'm merely making the point that he says to defenders "if you foul me in any way I'm going to make sure I get you the full punishment for it". Suarez was the arch exponent of this, and with handballs in the box in particular he simply used to stop dead in his tracks and give the referee no option but to give it. If Coutinho can adopt this mind set, he'll be impossible to tackle in and around the box. He'll become a better player and we will reap the benefit.
Emre Can when stamped on by Costa. ; Should still be laying there now if the referee hasn't sent the ugly tw@t off. Nobody saw it, but they sure would have if Emre had screamed and stayed down. It would have got quietly "referred" to the fourth official while Emre was receiving treatment, and Costa would have been sent off. Had he taken this course of action rather than jumping up and calling him a C***, (understandable and spot on accurate but it doesn't win you games) we'd all be chasing tickets for Wembley now. Once again not advocating we "invent" a foul, nor "dive", just that when we see an opponent lose his discipline and do something like that, we ensure he pays the price. Ask yourself this, what would Costa have done if Can had done it to him? What would Mourinho and Terry done, there would have been absolute f*cking uproar.
Brendan Rodgers . How the f*** was Mourinho allowed to get into the referees ear in the tunnel without our man being in there? Come to that, how the f*** was Mourinho allowed to get into his ear in any case? Will the FA do anything about it? will they f***. Brendan should have known that Mourinho was going to jump up and down about the penalty they didn't get, and he should have been ready to go ballistic in the tunnel over OUR agenda (ie that Costa shouldn't have been on the pitch in the first place). Mourinho shouldn't have been able to get a word in sideways as our man was all over the ref making HIS points. Not knowing or not caring that the Chelsea manager was going to get in the referees ear was plain stupid and Brendan needs to wise up.
There are more but the post is already a book (and I have a life to lead, kids etc) so I'll let it go for now.
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