我思我论/黄翠妮专栏】沙登虐猫事件在2月24日上载后引起公愤，网友更在短短的八天内揪出真凶，犯下虐猫行为的邹筱薇不堪社会压力，而透过当地议员欧阳捍华和张念群召开记者会，向大众道歉。
根据各大媒体报道，在3月6日记者会召开前，保护以及爱护动物组织30名人士向邹筱薇兴师问罪，而雪隆照顾和爱护动物协会主席茨万（Chelvy M.）更恫言要打断邹筱薇的手脚。
邹筱薇必须为虐猫一事负上责任，并接受惩罚，因为没有人有权任意践踏其他动物的生命权。然而，茨万以及30名爱护动物反暴力人士非但没有正视问题，却成了鼓动使用暴力分子。这与杀人犯不应该施以死刑的道理是一样的，若我们认为杀人是残暴的，那我们就不应该诉诸残暴的行为来对付杀人犯。
此外，我们的社会常理所当然地以为“以其人之道，还治其人之身”， 就是对施暴者或是罪犯最佳的惩罚，可是往往这只能平息一时的怒气，却无法解决根本的问题。其他的事件，如2009年11月发生的掠夺匪被逮，群众与警方围殴事件更凸显问题的严重，而执法单位缺乏人权意识，更发生警察枪杀16岁少年阿密努拉希案件。
不应蔑视人权动用私刑
我们能够理解动物爱护者对邹筱薇的愤怒，但是最令人意外的是，身为捍卫生命权利的爱护动物者，竟然恫言纠众殴打皱氏，不但目无法纪，更枉论对人权的尊重。
联合国1948年通过的《世界人权宣言》阐明人人皆有生命权，并表明“任何人不得以被施以酷刑，或是残忍的、不人道或侮辱性的待遇或惩罚”。
这表示个人的人权不可因为其犯下的罪行而被剥夺，最邪恶与最善良的人皆受到人权的保护。因此，无论是掠夺案件，还是邹筱薇虐猫案件，人们皆不能因个人的愤怒而滥用私刑，因此茨万的行为可被视为藐视人权。
此外，掠夺匪被逮后面对罚款或监禁，其刑罚固然有阻吓作用，但治标不治本，唯有减少失业率才能减少罪案。兽医局执法组已经表示，邹筱薇触犯《1953年动物法令第44条法令》，因此可能被控，这虽然对社会有所警惕，但我们也必须正视虐猫事件的原因。这不外乎人们从不把动物的利益与我们摆在平等的位子。
马来西亚动物福利组织、马来西亚动物与福利协会、马来西亚残障人士动物疗法协会以及捍卫自由律师团指责欧阳捍华在3月6日的记者会上以“这只是一只猫”为由，要求社会原谅邹筱薇，该言论似乎认为动物的生命价值不比人们来得重要。
众生皆平等
1977年国际动物权利大会通过《世界动物权利宣言》，第一条就阐明：所有动物都生来平等，同样享有生存的权利；第二条则阐明 ：每个动物都有被尊重的权利。人类，和其他动物物种一样，不能侵犯、消除其他动物或剥削它们的权利。人应该用自己的良知来为动物服务。每一个动物都有被人体谅、善待和保护的权利。"
《世界动物权利宣言》与《世界人权宣言》有异曲同工之妙，《世界动物权利宣言》之所以诞生是因为动物主义者认为一个人从出生开始就有生存、自由活动、教育和工作等权利。同样的，动物是地球以及大自然的一份子，也应该享有自己的权利。
今天我们社会倡导保护弱势群体，尊重同性恋、保护儿童、妇女、老人和残疾人士，同时也应该把动物视为弱势群体来对待。人与人之间不应该拥有阶级之分，而人与动物也皆平等。若要防止虐待动物事件，就必须启蒙大众，生命的价值是不分贵贱的。
正因此1982年联合国大会通过的《世界自然宪章》指出："生命的每种形式都是独特的，不管它对人类的价值如何，都应当受到尊重。为使其他生物得到这种尊重，人类的行为必须受到道德准则的支配。"
黄翠妮是博特拉大学传播新闻系学生，马来西亚青年与学生民主运动（学运）组织秘书。
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
日本這個民族
林明華‧
星洲日報／雲淡風輕‧作者：林明華‧《星洲日報》執行編輯‧2011.03.14
日本大地震並引發大海嘯浩劫的場面，震驚了全世界。但災難之外，網上也流傳著許多讓全世界贊嘆的故事和畫面……
災難發生後，東京到處都是黑壓壓的人頭，人人臉色凝重，但沒有爭先恐後的鏡頭，沒有互相踐踏的慘象，更沒有趁火打劫的場景。靠近車站的大學、旅館紛紛免費開放，讓無法返家的人過夜。除了所有販售機都免費供應飲料和餐點外，還有餐館送來了熱騰騰的咖哩飯！
一名在日本工作的中國人在他發佈的相片後面，寫下了這則感言：“東京街頭盡是步行回家的人群，仿佛數百萬人都一起走上了街頭，但都自動列隊默默前行，秩序井然，毫無喧嘩，我在開車，路上塞車，但也毫無喇叭聲，眼前的一切，仿佛一個場面巨大的無聲電影。”
震後的東京，手機通訊一度癱瘓，歸心似箭的人們記掛著家人的安危，紛紛擁向免費電話亭，一名中國留學生拍下了這張照片：電話亭里只有一人正在打電話，數以百計的人在亭外排隊等待，但一點也不見混亂。
還有3張相片，一張顯示，避難的人們都自動自發地站在道路兩側，道路交通絲毫不受影響。另一張，一群人整整齊齊地分坐在樓梯兩側，沒有一個人擋住走道。第3張攝於幾個小時後，人散了，但地上沒有一片垃圾。
網上還有大馬人的留言，他們看見經歷過相當於1萬顆原子彈襲擊後的日本，整個馬路只是整整齊齊的裂成兩道，不禁自嘲：震後的馬路，竟然比馬來西亞現在的還要平！
還有一張相片，幼兒園的孩子們都被疏散到建築物外，每人頭上都戴著特制的護頭罩。
中國網民看後感慨，在汶川大地震中，最先受難的，是那些埋葬在豆腐渣校舍下的孩子。
台灣網友則折服於日本媒體的自律和專業。災難一發生，日本所有民間電視台都捨棄廣告效益，在報導中完全不加插廣告。NHK的主播跟記者的聲音雖然有點顫抖，但仍不失冷靜，既不誇張，也不煽情，更不作假。所以，人們看不到災民呼天喊地的畫面，看到的都是他們最想知道的最新災情，以及須如何應對災難的有用資訊。
一名日本網友說：“說句心裡話，雖然我在日本，但其實慶幸是發生在日本，不然死傷人數肯定很恐怖，我相信全世界只有日本才可以把死傷降到最低！”
拋除戰爭的怨恨，世人也不得不由衷地認同：日本這個民族，確實有他偉大的一面！
星洲日報／雲淡風輕‧作者：林明華‧《星洲日報》執行編輯‧2011.03.14
日本大地震並引發大海嘯浩劫的場面，震驚了全世界。但災難之外，網上也流傳著許多讓全世界贊嘆的故事和畫面……
災難發生後，東京到處都是黑壓壓的人頭，人人臉色凝重，但沒有爭先恐後的鏡頭，沒有互相踐踏的慘象，更沒有趁火打劫的場景。靠近車站的大學、旅館紛紛免費開放，讓無法返家的人過夜。除了所有販售機都免費供應飲料和餐點外，還有餐館送來了熱騰騰的咖哩飯！
一名在日本工作的中國人在他發佈的相片後面，寫下了這則感言：“東京街頭盡是步行回家的人群，仿佛數百萬人都一起走上了街頭，但都自動列隊默默前行，秩序井然，毫無喧嘩，我在開車，路上塞車，但也毫無喇叭聲，眼前的一切，仿佛一個場面巨大的無聲電影。”
震後的東京，手機通訊一度癱瘓，歸心似箭的人們記掛著家人的安危，紛紛擁向免費電話亭，一名中國留學生拍下了這張照片：電話亭里只有一人正在打電話，數以百計的人在亭外排隊等待，但一點也不見混亂。
還有3張相片，一張顯示，避難的人們都自動自發地站在道路兩側，道路交通絲毫不受影響。另一張，一群人整整齊齊地分坐在樓梯兩側，沒有一個人擋住走道。第3張攝於幾個小時後，人散了，但地上沒有一片垃圾。
網上還有大馬人的留言，他們看見經歷過相當於1萬顆原子彈襲擊後的日本，整個馬路只是整整齊齊的裂成兩道，不禁自嘲：震後的馬路，竟然比馬來西亞現在的還要平！
還有一張相片，幼兒園的孩子們都被疏散到建築物外，每人頭上都戴著特制的護頭罩。
中國網民看後感慨，在汶川大地震中，最先受難的，是那些埋葬在豆腐渣校舍下的孩子。
台灣網友則折服於日本媒體的自律和專業。災難一發生，日本所有民間電視台都捨棄廣告效益，在報導中完全不加插廣告。NHK的主播跟記者的聲音雖然有點顫抖，但仍不失冷靜，既不誇張，也不煽情，更不作假。所以，人們看不到災民呼天喊地的畫面，看到的都是他們最想知道的最新災情，以及須如何應對災難的有用資訊。
一名日本網友說：“說句心裡話，雖然我在日本，但其實慶幸是發生在日本，不然死傷人數肯定很恐怖，我相信全世界只有日本才可以把死傷降到最低！”
拋除戰爭的怨恨，世人也不得不由衷地認同：日本這個民族，確實有他偉大的一面！
五十步笑百步？
星洲日報／溝通平台‧《星洲日報》讀者：陳威汕‧2011.03.12
拜網絡所賜，虐貓女的事件曝光以後，此女頓成過街老鼠，更連累家人。我沒有上網看她如何殘忍的對待小貓，類似破壞心情的畫面我都選擇不看，以免折磨自己。
我認為這種虐待弱小動物或小孩的行為，是出於懦弱、無知，甚至於野蠻。一個失衡、壓抑和不文明的社會，遭殃的往往是最貧窮、弱小的人――如小孩、殘障者，當然也包括動物。
虐貓女的行為令人討厭，可幸的是她終於“自首”認錯。無論是基於輿論壓力、良心發現，抑或不願連累家人，她公開認錯不失為有勇氣的表現。希望經此一事，她日後不要再犯下嚴重錯誤。
然而比較起來，掛著雪隆愛心及關懷協會主席頭銜的傑萬的言行舉止，與虐貓女的虐貓行為一樣野蠻。
若說虐貓女需要接受心理輔導，傑萬先生又何嘗不是？傑萬揚言：“我們要弄斷她的腳跟腿，讓她嘗嘗這痛苦的滋味。我不打女人，我會叫其他女人打她！”。語畢，其他所謂的愛護動物活躍分子跟著起哄，有者甚至要衝上行動黨服務中心捉拿虐貓女。
這群所謂“動物的代表”行為極野蠻，無理和自大。我不明白虐貓女召開新聞發佈會公開道歉以外，為甚麼還要特別向這群人當面道歉？難道就因為他們是某某關懷動物協會或活躍分子？就因為關懷，所以能夠野蠻有理？就因為活躍，所以頓時成為代表？
雪隆愛心及關懷協會一群人的粗暴言行，真令人難以理解。
拜網絡所賜，虐貓女的事件曝光以後，此女頓成過街老鼠，更連累家人。我沒有上網看她如何殘忍的對待小貓，類似破壞心情的畫面我都選擇不看，以免折磨自己。
我認為這種虐待弱小動物或小孩的行為，是出於懦弱、無知，甚至於野蠻。一個失衡、壓抑和不文明的社會，遭殃的往往是最貧窮、弱小的人――如小孩、殘障者，當然也包括動物。
虐貓女的行為令人討厭，可幸的是她終於“自首”認錯。無論是基於輿論壓力、良心發現，抑或不願連累家人，她公開認錯不失為有勇氣的表現。希望經此一事，她日後不要再犯下嚴重錯誤。
然而比較起來，掛著雪隆愛心及關懷協會主席頭銜的傑萬的言行舉止，與虐貓女的虐貓行為一樣野蠻。
若說虐貓女需要接受心理輔導，傑萬先生又何嘗不是？傑萬揚言：“我們要弄斷她的腳跟腿，讓她嘗嘗這痛苦的滋味。我不打女人，我會叫其他女人打她！”。語畢，其他所謂的愛護動物活躍分子跟著起哄，有者甚至要衝上行動黨服務中心捉拿虐貓女。
這群所謂“動物的代表”行為極野蠻，無理和自大。我不明白虐貓女召開新聞發佈會公開道歉以外，為甚麼還要特別向這群人當面道歉？難道就因為他們是某某關懷動物協會或活躍分子？就因為關懷，所以能夠野蠻有理？就因為活躍，所以頓時成為代表？
雪隆愛心及關懷協會一群人的粗暴言行，真令人難以理解。
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Hodgson: No-one to blame but himself
http://tomkinstimes.com/2011/01/hodgson-no-one-to-blame-but-himself/
In any season, some ‘winnable’ games will not be won. You can’t win ‘em all. Sometimes, shit happens. C’est la vie, as Robbie Nevil put it. But having dropped points at home to Blackpool and Sunderland, and away at Everton, Wigan and Stoke, the fixtures against Newcastle, Wolves, Bolton and Blackburn were supposed to be where the balance was redressed. “We’ve played the hard teams” was the (semi-valid) excuse at the start of the season, even though performances were often well below acceptable standard, with timid tactics and aimless hoofing.
While not perfect, the Liverpool squad – and especially its strongest XI – should be good enough to do much better than the uninspiring, turgid dross that’s being served up. It’s so bad that there were 10,000 empty seats at Anfield for the traditionally well-attended New Year’s Day fixture – it was the worst weekend attendance at Anfield since 1997, when the Anfield Road end was being redeveloped. And now, for the first time in Premier League history, the Reds’ superb traveling support did not take up the full allocation for Ewood Park; one-third went unsold (even after that win against Bolton). People are voting with their feet.
Within three games of last season, just months after Liverpool’s best league campaign for two decades, the knives were out for Benítez. (Apologies to those who bristle when I mention the Spaniard, but try as I might, I see no way of writing about this season without comparing it to the recent past. And as the mass media keep blaming him, his name is being brought up by pretty much everyone.)
In the end, he was replaced, after the team finished 7th. Of course, there was more to it than that, but in almost all of the media post-mortems, the league position was deemed unacceptable for the squad at the manager’s disposal, and his time had been called in the press and on TV since the autumn of 2009. The same people telling us this were largely those who believed Roy Hodgson was the answer. Well, some of us didn’t believe it then, and certainly don’t now.
Benítez’s football was ‘boring’; yet the side never scored so few goals as they are doing under Roy. He ‘rotated too much’; yet Roy left out Agger and Aurelio away at Blackburn (as well as Kuyt), in order to bring his favourites into the back four: far less-cultured defenders. (And of course, Roy is not juggling the massive undertaking of a Champions League campaign, for which you can’t put out the kids and reserves.) Kyrgiakos was bought to be the 4th-choice back-up, not to play ahead of Agger, while Konchesky can neither defend nor attack with any real conviction.
And as a result, both Wolves and Blackburn have claimed they set out to stop Liverpool passing from the back. Why? Perhaps because Hodgson picked only one technically gifted defender (Johnson). Perhaps Agger was tired after the Bolton game, but as he was fit days earlier, he could have played against Wolves and Blackburn and maybe sat out the one in between. Instead, he played just once, with Hodgson insisting he ‘rested’ the big Greek; and after all, when he was fit at the start of the season, Agger was either left-back or left out.
To make matters worse, Hodgson says the team was too ‘offensive’ in its approach at Ewood Park. Yes, that’s been our problem: too attack-minded.
Konchesky, of course, is simply not Liverpool class. As Hodsgon brought him with him from Fulham, he probably gets more criticism than he deserves – blame, by proxy – but he does symbolise all that’s wrong about the new manager’s methods – it’s just so glaringly mid-table. The fact that he thought Konchesky would be good enough, and that he cost around £5m (which, at 29, makes it even more expensive, relatively speaking), says a lot about how ill-prepared he was for the job. Soundings from Christian Purslow didn’t help.
At Blackburn, Fulham and Liverpool, Hodgson’s league win-percentage hovers around (or below) the 35% mark; it seems that he’ll get the same results with the 2nd-most expensive squad in the country (Blackburn, 1998/99: see Pay As You Play for details of how this was the most expensive side relegated in the Premier League era), the 5th most-expensive squad (Liverpool, now) or the bargain basement buckaroos at Fulham. Is it really all a coincidence? Is it really a coincidence that he won only one away game with Fulham last season, the same amount he’s won at Liverpool? With the Reds averaging fractionally over a single goal a game, is it a coincidence that Fulham only scored 39 goals in each of his full seasons there, a low total even for a mid-table team?
Hodgson claims he wants to build the team in his image, but the players he has brought in, and those from the squad he favours, go together with his game plan to produce the dullest brand of football possible. His one good signing, Meireles, has been inexplicably stranded on the right wing in several home games where points were dropped. And Hodgson (along with Christian Purslow) let go Aquilani and Insua, two of the Reds’ top assist-makers in the league last season, and players younger than any of Hodgson’s own purchases. Cole, who was supposed to replace the clever Benayoun, has had very little impact.
A team in Roy’s image, you ask? Well, he took a large chunk of Kenny Dalglish’s title-winning Blackburn side, reshaped it, and managed just nine points from the first 14 games of the season they got relegated. Remember, Blackburn’s relegated side was by then very much ‘Hodgson’s team’. He’d bought Kevin Davies (£17m in today’s money, aka Current Transfer Purchase Price), Nathan Blake (£10m CTPP), Christian Daily (£13m CTPP), Callum Davidson (£6m CTPP), and various other overpriced duds. Compare that to how, just a few years earlier, Dalglish spent similar amounts in today’s money on Alan Shearer, David Batty, Tim Flowers and Colin Hendry, to take the league title to Ewood Park.
Despite it being ‘his’ team – and not only that, he had set the tone with the first third of the season – somehow Brian Kidd gets the blame for Hodgson’s shortcomings, even though he won 26 points from his 24 games that followed. So, Hodgson escapes the blame retrospectively there, even though he was in charge for the most important part of the season (the start; it’s not like he left the summer before). On Match of the Day last night, the commentator said that “Hodgson led Blackburn to 6th in his one full season”, with no mention of his role in the relegation.
Now at Liverpool, despite making several signings and releasing several others, it’s all Rafa’s fault? Who is making the team defend so deep and kick so long? Whose job is it to organise and inspire internationals from Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Holland, England and other established footballing nations? As I’ve said before, Benítez got his share of the stick last season; he was sacked for doing far better than this, at a time when the divisive ownership issue was still a cloud over all our heads. Hodgson hasn’t even got that excuse anymore.
Rafa didn’t bequeath a top three side, partly because Gillett and Hicks turned us into a selling club around the time the club finished 2nd. But even with Hodgson yet to spend fortunes, there’s enough top-class talent to do better than 12th in the table in January. A large portion of this squad finished as runners-up 18 months ago.
I actually thought Liverpool were fairly impressive against Bolton, even though their opponents were always in the game, and had chances to add to their goal. But to hear Roy Hodgson speak, you’d think the slip-ups versus Wolves and Newcastle were the exceptions, and us fans were being fickle. Well, with just seven of 20 games won, unfortunately it is victories that are the clear exception.
“If fans are going to expect to [beat the bottom-of the league team] that’s very dangerous. If they’re going to do that they’re going to be in for a lot of disappointments,” said Hodgson to reporters after the defeat against Wolves. “I don’t think one should be so disrespectful to [Wolves], to say it’s unacceptable to lose to another team in the same league.”
This is ‘respect’ gone mad. Liverpool never lost to such teams at home in the previous six seasons. Wolves had the worst away record in the country, and one of the worst records at Anfield of any visiting team.
And yet, in Roy’s world, “if we’d beaten Wolves, you [the press] would be asking me about the Champions League”.
Yes, he did indeed say that.
A few days later: “If Steven Gerrard had scored that penalty [against Blackburn] we might have salvaged it.”
Now, ifs, buts and maybes are something we all call upon from time to time. But in Hodgson’s example, the first ‘if’ needs to be ‘if we had not been completely abject’ in the first place. I’ll allow an ‘if’ to people who are unfortunate.
‘If’ Liverpool hadn’t lost nine league games, and won only seven, things might be better. But they’re not. The Reds currently sit 11 points adrift of the top four, 10 adrift of the top five, and 20 adrift of first place; by contrast, West Ham, at the bottom, are only five points behind.
I keep hearing about ‘deadwood’ in the squad – apparently (as I can’t bear to watch it any more) that was the excuse made for him on The Sunday Supplement at the weekend – but it was very much Rafa’s team that beat Bolton, with the best football played when ten of his signings (plus Gerrard) were on the pitch. (In fairness, Hodgson re-signed Aurelio.)
With Konchesky and Poulsen bombed out, Cole on the bench and Hodson’s one good signing, Meireles, limping off, it was a chance to see what the ‘deadwood’ could do. (I guess the supposed deadwood includes Maxi, who was inexplicably dropped vs Wolves, in a tactical own goal: defensive midfieder played on the wing in his stead…)
But at Blackburn, it was back to route one. The back four was back to its most basic, brutal form. If you don’t put passing players into the team, you will concede too much possession.
To hear Roy speak after the Bolton win, you’d think all the ills of the world had been remedied. But it was still a case of falling six further points behind Spurs over the festive period. The gap to 4th was five points, but it quickly became eleven.
After 10 games, I awarded our season’s performance three out of 10, in keeping with the number of league victories. After 20 games, there’s a slight improvement (seven wins), although as these were easier fixtures on average, you could be even harsher. However you look at it, it’s still, on average, a case of winning one out of every three league games. At best under Rafa (two seasons) we won two out of every three; at worst (last season) we won 1.5 out of every three.
Most Liverpool fans knew Hodgson was wrong to start with. While he didn’t get an especially warm welcome, he was afforded enough grace to impress the Kop before its fears were confirmed. It’s easy to say that we’re ‘turning’ on him, but he was an appointment driven by the media, many of whom were London-based and therefore not necessarily trusted around Anfield.
Elsewhere, Martin O’Neill isn’t being blamed for Gérard Houllier’s struggles, despite a similar fall, and similarly dull football. No-one was blaming Hodgson when Fulham were in the relegation zone. And as I noted earlier, Hodgson escapes blame for a relegation that was not only his team, but he was behind the failure to win more than two of the first 14 games. He dug the enormous hole, not Kidd.
And when Benítez inherited a squad and a team that in my opinion was worse than the one he left behind (the Reds won fewer league points in Houllier’s final season than Rafa’s), he reached two cup finals, one of which – the Champions League – was won. And this was from a manager who obviously didn’t ‘know the league’ like Hodgson did; after all, Bolton weren’t going to surprise Roy. He’d spent the last three years working in the Premier League.
Six years ago this month, there was a ‘crisis’ at Liverpool. The Reds were 5th in the league (more-or-less where Houllier left them: 5th in 2003, 4th in 2004), 1-0 up in the semi-final of the League Cup (2nd leg to come) and in the knockout stages of the Champions League. But they lost away at Burnley in the FA Cup. Benítez was castigated for not understanding English football. This will always stick in mind, as a kind of benchmark for how he was perceived and treated.
When Benítez finished 2nd in 2009, the line was that the league title was ‘blown’ – even though, based on the cost of the side, the Reds had massively overachieved. Rafa was ‘negative’, he ‘drew too many games’ – despite winning 25 and losing only two that season.
This isn’t about Benítez, but comparing the way that ‘good seasonal performance’ in recent times were slated, and ‘bad seasonal performance’ now is being excused. What’s the benchmark? What’s acceptable for Liverpool FC right now?
Last season, 7th was seen as a ‘disaster’ for the club (and I acknowledged that it wasn’t good enough), whereas now, 12th is somehow the fault of the previous manager and the squad he left. Top international players like Reina, Torres, Gerrard, Carragher, Kuyt, Johnson, Maxi, Aquilani, Skrtel, Agger, Mascherano …
But it’s not just the league position. It’s the agricultural football. It’s the defeatist utterings. It’s the criticisms aimed at the fans. It’s the kowtowing to his mates in the LMA. It’s the constant self-protection and self-aggrandisement that saw him lie about the relationship between Benítez and Dalglish, not to mention the way Kenny was dismissed as a candidate for the job in the summer.
Though we’ve seen little of it, deep at heart Hodgson may well be a decent man. And at the right club, he’s more than a decent manager. But at the wrong club – where victories are expected more often than once in every three games – he can be dreadful.
In any season, some ‘winnable’ games will not be won. You can’t win ‘em all. Sometimes, shit happens. C’est la vie, as Robbie Nevil put it. But having dropped points at home to Blackpool and Sunderland, and away at Everton, Wigan and Stoke, the fixtures against Newcastle, Wolves, Bolton and Blackburn were supposed to be where the balance was redressed. “We’ve played the hard teams” was the (semi-valid) excuse at the start of the season, even though performances were often well below acceptable standard, with timid tactics and aimless hoofing.
While not perfect, the Liverpool squad – and especially its strongest XI – should be good enough to do much better than the uninspiring, turgid dross that’s being served up. It’s so bad that there were 10,000 empty seats at Anfield for the traditionally well-attended New Year’s Day fixture – it was the worst weekend attendance at Anfield since 1997, when the Anfield Road end was being redeveloped. And now, for the first time in Premier League history, the Reds’ superb traveling support did not take up the full allocation for Ewood Park; one-third went unsold (even after that win against Bolton). People are voting with their feet.
Within three games of last season, just months after Liverpool’s best league campaign for two decades, the knives were out for Benítez. (Apologies to those who bristle when I mention the Spaniard, but try as I might, I see no way of writing about this season without comparing it to the recent past. And as the mass media keep blaming him, his name is being brought up by pretty much everyone.)
In the end, he was replaced, after the team finished 7th. Of course, there was more to it than that, but in almost all of the media post-mortems, the league position was deemed unacceptable for the squad at the manager’s disposal, and his time had been called in the press and on TV since the autumn of 2009. The same people telling us this were largely those who believed Roy Hodgson was the answer. Well, some of us didn’t believe it then, and certainly don’t now.
Benítez’s football was ‘boring’; yet the side never scored so few goals as they are doing under Roy. He ‘rotated too much’; yet Roy left out Agger and Aurelio away at Blackburn (as well as Kuyt), in order to bring his favourites into the back four: far less-cultured defenders. (And of course, Roy is not juggling the massive undertaking of a Champions League campaign, for which you can’t put out the kids and reserves.) Kyrgiakos was bought to be the 4th-choice back-up, not to play ahead of Agger, while Konchesky can neither defend nor attack with any real conviction.
And as a result, both Wolves and Blackburn have claimed they set out to stop Liverpool passing from the back. Why? Perhaps because Hodgson picked only one technically gifted defender (Johnson). Perhaps Agger was tired after the Bolton game, but as he was fit days earlier, he could have played against Wolves and Blackburn and maybe sat out the one in between. Instead, he played just once, with Hodgson insisting he ‘rested’ the big Greek; and after all, when he was fit at the start of the season, Agger was either left-back or left out.
To make matters worse, Hodgson says the team was too ‘offensive’ in its approach at Ewood Park. Yes, that’s been our problem: too attack-minded.
Konchesky, of course, is simply not Liverpool class. As Hodsgon brought him with him from Fulham, he probably gets more criticism than he deserves – blame, by proxy – but he does symbolise all that’s wrong about the new manager’s methods – it’s just so glaringly mid-table. The fact that he thought Konchesky would be good enough, and that he cost around £5m (which, at 29, makes it even more expensive, relatively speaking), says a lot about how ill-prepared he was for the job. Soundings from Christian Purslow didn’t help.
At Blackburn, Fulham and Liverpool, Hodgson’s league win-percentage hovers around (or below) the 35% mark; it seems that he’ll get the same results with the 2nd-most expensive squad in the country (Blackburn, 1998/99: see Pay As You Play for details of how this was the most expensive side relegated in the Premier League era), the 5th most-expensive squad (Liverpool, now) or the bargain basement buckaroos at Fulham. Is it really all a coincidence? Is it really a coincidence that he won only one away game with Fulham last season, the same amount he’s won at Liverpool? With the Reds averaging fractionally over a single goal a game, is it a coincidence that Fulham only scored 39 goals in each of his full seasons there, a low total even for a mid-table team?
Hodgson claims he wants to build the team in his image, but the players he has brought in, and those from the squad he favours, go together with his game plan to produce the dullest brand of football possible. His one good signing, Meireles, has been inexplicably stranded on the right wing in several home games where points were dropped. And Hodgson (along with Christian Purslow) let go Aquilani and Insua, two of the Reds’ top assist-makers in the league last season, and players younger than any of Hodgson’s own purchases. Cole, who was supposed to replace the clever Benayoun, has had very little impact.
A team in Roy’s image, you ask? Well, he took a large chunk of Kenny Dalglish’s title-winning Blackburn side, reshaped it, and managed just nine points from the first 14 games of the season they got relegated. Remember, Blackburn’s relegated side was by then very much ‘Hodgson’s team’. He’d bought Kevin Davies (£17m in today’s money, aka Current Transfer Purchase Price), Nathan Blake (£10m CTPP), Christian Daily (£13m CTPP), Callum Davidson (£6m CTPP), and various other overpriced duds. Compare that to how, just a few years earlier, Dalglish spent similar amounts in today’s money on Alan Shearer, David Batty, Tim Flowers and Colin Hendry, to take the league title to Ewood Park.
Despite it being ‘his’ team – and not only that, he had set the tone with the first third of the season – somehow Brian Kidd gets the blame for Hodgson’s shortcomings, even though he won 26 points from his 24 games that followed. So, Hodgson escapes the blame retrospectively there, even though he was in charge for the most important part of the season (the start; it’s not like he left the summer before). On Match of the Day last night, the commentator said that “Hodgson led Blackburn to 6th in his one full season”, with no mention of his role in the relegation.
Now at Liverpool, despite making several signings and releasing several others, it’s all Rafa’s fault? Who is making the team defend so deep and kick so long? Whose job is it to organise and inspire internationals from Spain, Brazil, Argentina, Holland, England and other established footballing nations? As I’ve said before, Benítez got his share of the stick last season; he was sacked for doing far better than this, at a time when the divisive ownership issue was still a cloud over all our heads. Hodgson hasn’t even got that excuse anymore.
Rafa didn’t bequeath a top three side, partly because Gillett and Hicks turned us into a selling club around the time the club finished 2nd. But even with Hodgson yet to spend fortunes, there’s enough top-class talent to do better than 12th in the table in January. A large portion of this squad finished as runners-up 18 months ago.
I actually thought Liverpool were fairly impressive against Bolton, even though their opponents were always in the game, and had chances to add to their goal. But to hear Roy Hodgson speak, you’d think the slip-ups versus Wolves and Newcastle were the exceptions, and us fans were being fickle. Well, with just seven of 20 games won, unfortunately it is victories that are the clear exception.
“If fans are going to expect to [beat the bottom-of the league team] that’s very dangerous. If they’re going to do that they’re going to be in for a lot of disappointments,” said Hodgson to reporters after the defeat against Wolves. “I don’t think one should be so disrespectful to [Wolves], to say it’s unacceptable to lose to another team in the same league.”
This is ‘respect’ gone mad. Liverpool never lost to such teams at home in the previous six seasons. Wolves had the worst away record in the country, and one of the worst records at Anfield of any visiting team.
And yet, in Roy’s world, “if we’d beaten Wolves, you [the press] would be asking me about the Champions League”.
Yes, he did indeed say that.
A few days later: “If Steven Gerrard had scored that penalty [against Blackburn] we might have salvaged it.”
Now, ifs, buts and maybes are something we all call upon from time to time. But in Hodgson’s example, the first ‘if’ needs to be ‘if we had not been completely abject’ in the first place. I’ll allow an ‘if’ to people who are unfortunate.
‘If’ Liverpool hadn’t lost nine league games, and won only seven, things might be better. But they’re not. The Reds currently sit 11 points adrift of the top four, 10 adrift of the top five, and 20 adrift of first place; by contrast, West Ham, at the bottom, are only five points behind.
I keep hearing about ‘deadwood’ in the squad – apparently (as I can’t bear to watch it any more) that was the excuse made for him on The Sunday Supplement at the weekend – but it was very much Rafa’s team that beat Bolton, with the best football played when ten of his signings (plus Gerrard) were on the pitch. (In fairness, Hodgson re-signed Aurelio.)
With Konchesky and Poulsen bombed out, Cole on the bench and Hodson’s one good signing, Meireles, limping off, it was a chance to see what the ‘deadwood’ could do. (I guess the supposed deadwood includes Maxi, who was inexplicably dropped vs Wolves, in a tactical own goal: defensive midfieder played on the wing in his stead…)
But at Blackburn, it was back to route one. The back four was back to its most basic, brutal form. If you don’t put passing players into the team, you will concede too much possession.
To hear Roy speak after the Bolton win, you’d think all the ills of the world had been remedied. But it was still a case of falling six further points behind Spurs over the festive period. The gap to 4th was five points, but it quickly became eleven.
After 10 games, I awarded our season’s performance three out of 10, in keeping with the number of league victories. After 20 games, there’s a slight improvement (seven wins), although as these were easier fixtures on average, you could be even harsher. However you look at it, it’s still, on average, a case of winning one out of every three league games. At best under Rafa (two seasons) we won two out of every three; at worst (last season) we won 1.5 out of every three.
Most Liverpool fans knew Hodgson was wrong to start with. While he didn’t get an especially warm welcome, he was afforded enough grace to impress the Kop before its fears were confirmed. It’s easy to say that we’re ‘turning’ on him, but he was an appointment driven by the media, many of whom were London-based and therefore not necessarily trusted around Anfield.
Elsewhere, Martin O’Neill isn’t being blamed for Gérard Houllier’s struggles, despite a similar fall, and similarly dull football. No-one was blaming Hodgson when Fulham were in the relegation zone. And as I noted earlier, Hodgson escapes blame for a relegation that was not only his team, but he was behind the failure to win more than two of the first 14 games. He dug the enormous hole, not Kidd.
And when Benítez inherited a squad and a team that in my opinion was worse than the one he left behind (the Reds won fewer league points in Houllier’s final season than Rafa’s), he reached two cup finals, one of which – the Champions League – was won. And this was from a manager who obviously didn’t ‘know the league’ like Hodgson did; after all, Bolton weren’t going to surprise Roy. He’d spent the last three years working in the Premier League.
Six years ago this month, there was a ‘crisis’ at Liverpool. The Reds were 5th in the league (more-or-less where Houllier left them: 5th in 2003, 4th in 2004), 1-0 up in the semi-final of the League Cup (2nd leg to come) and in the knockout stages of the Champions League. But they lost away at Burnley in the FA Cup. Benítez was castigated for not understanding English football. This will always stick in mind, as a kind of benchmark for how he was perceived and treated.
When Benítez finished 2nd in 2009, the line was that the league title was ‘blown’ – even though, based on the cost of the side, the Reds had massively overachieved. Rafa was ‘negative’, he ‘drew too many games’ – despite winning 25 and losing only two that season.
This isn’t about Benítez, but comparing the way that ‘good seasonal performance’ in recent times were slated, and ‘bad seasonal performance’ now is being excused. What’s the benchmark? What’s acceptable for Liverpool FC right now?
Last season, 7th was seen as a ‘disaster’ for the club (and I acknowledged that it wasn’t good enough), whereas now, 12th is somehow the fault of the previous manager and the squad he left. Top international players like Reina, Torres, Gerrard, Carragher, Kuyt, Johnson, Maxi, Aquilani, Skrtel, Agger, Mascherano …
But it’s not just the league position. It’s the agricultural football. It’s the defeatist utterings. It’s the criticisms aimed at the fans. It’s the kowtowing to his mates in the LMA. It’s the constant self-protection and self-aggrandisement that saw him lie about the relationship between Benítez and Dalglish, not to mention the way Kenny was dismissed as a candidate for the job in the summer.
Though we’ve seen little of it, deep at heart Hodgson may well be a decent man. And at the right club, he’s more than a decent manager. But at the wrong club – where victories are expected more often than once in every three games – he can be dreadful.
Amazing...Roy Hodgson
Roy Hodgson having so many Pundits, Fellow Premier League Manager supporting him to do a good job in Liverpool Football Club is just amaze me.
Why? Because he is English, and good person, i think. Otherwise i just can't think of anything to explain.
Even ex-Liverpool players are supporting him to continue to be a Liverpool Manager, where at this point of time i just don't see any possible of turning Liverpool to a correct direction.
(In Roy we trust! Keegan, Barnes and McManaman insist Hodgson can survive sack
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1344625/Kevin-Keegan-John-Barnes-Steve-McManaman-Roy-Hodgson.html#ixzz1AGcfiKFI)
Being a Liverpool fan for the past 24 years (i even choose The University of Liverpool to further my study and stay there for two years), the 2010-11 season is the only one so far that i hope Liverpool FC to loss (for the sake of the future of LFC), In order to have more and more reason to make Roy Hodgson sacked. I just hope all this will over asap, ASAP......then we can have a fresh start again.
Will new Manager worst than Hodgson, i don't think so, i just don't see that will happen...
Why? Because he is English, and good person, i think. Otherwise i just can't think of anything to explain.
Even ex-Liverpool players are supporting him to continue to be a Liverpool Manager, where at this point of time i just don't see any possible of turning Liverpool to a correct direction.
(In Roy we trust! Keegan, Barnes and McManaman insist Hodgson can survive sack
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1344625/Kevin-Keegan-John-Barnes-Steve-McManaman-Roy-Hodgson.html#ixzz1AGcfiKFI)
Being a Liverpool fan for the past 24 years (i even choose The University of Liverpool to further my study and stay there for two years), the 2010-11 season is the only one so far that i hope Liverpool FC to loss (for the sake of the future of LFC), In order to have more and more reason to make Roy Hodgson sacked. I just hope all this will over asap, ASAP......then we can have a fresh start again.
Will new Manager worst than Hodgson, i don't think so, i just don't see that will happen...
110106 GOSSIP
Liverpool boss Roy Hodgson and West Ham manager Avram Grant moved closer to losing their jobs after humiliating defeats on Wednesday.
Full story: Daily Mail
Hodgson is the bookmakers' favourite to be the next Premier League manager to lose his job followed by Grant. Chelsea's Carlo Ancelotti and Aston Villa's Gerard Houllier are third and fourth in the market. (Racing Post)
Full story: Daily Mail
Hodgson is the bookmakers' favourite to be the next Premier League manager to lose his job followed by Grant. Chelsea's Carlo Ancelotti and Aston Villa's Gerard Houllier are third and fourth in the market. (Racing Post)
West Ham set to sack Avram Grant in Premier League bloodbath with Roy Hodgson, Carlo Ancelotti and Gerard Houllier all on the brink
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1344577/West-Ham-set-sack-Avram-Grant-Roy-Hodgson-Carlo-Ancelotti-Gerard-Houllier-brink.html
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