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Posts Tagged ‘european’

• Sir Alex Ferguson can no longer hide United’s weak points
• Liverpool’s FA Cup victory shows United need to spend

Many emotions coursed through the minds of Liverpool supporters but they would not have included a pang of sympathy for the beaten manager. So jumbled has the football scene become that the late winner in an intense match was not for once the inevitable property of Manchester United. The circumstances, with Patrice Evra badly at fault, might have been dictated by a vengeful Anfield crowd.

The left-back is no innocent party in their eyes, even if an independent commission found only Liverpool’s Luis Suárez guilty of racist abuse in an exchange between the players during a game in October. The eight-match ban encompassed the encounter on Saturday but Evra, the United captain, had to endure punishment on the field. He was barracked throughout, yet the animosity was not based on skin colour.

So far as the home support was concerned, this was traditional antipathy, with the intensity a notch higher than usual. The Liverpool fans even chanted some guidelines. It was explained they were not racist but simply hated “Mancs”. Amid the bedlam and rage, Evra, normally a sound defender, let his concentration snap in the 88th minute.

He took up a position too far towards his left and so created a gap in the middle of the United defence. Andy Carroll met a long ball from his goalkeeper Pepe Reina and glanced it towards Dirk Kuyt, with the substitute’s angled shot finding the right-hand corner of the net. That incident hardly reflected the nature of the match, but there was an insistence to Liverpool that could not be denied.

The comforting prospect of a replay at Old Trafford might have undermined United but there are broader causes behind the defeat. The means available to United are not so great as in times gone by and not even Ferguson will be sure of manipulating them to achieve the desired result. Rio Ferdinand, at 33, cannot appear as regularly as he once did and was an unused substitute.

Paul Scholes acquitted himself admirably but the re-emergence from retirement of a 37-year-old can bring difficulties of its own. The midfielder was positioned in front of the backline and while that prevents him from exercising devilment and imagination on the attack it does allow him to remain on the pitch for longer. However, 90 minutes is still too much and Liverpool’s surge owed something to his substitution with 14 minutes remaining.

Ferguson is obliged to deal in the sort of caution not associated with United. The rate of scoring is still a good one but their firepower can look diminished just when goals are badly needed. United could not achieve anything close to mastery over Basel in the critical Champions League away game and were deservedly eliminated in the group phase.

The injury that ended Nemanja Vidic’s season on that evening in Switzerland has done the sort of damage that cannot be camouflaged. With Wayne Rooney unavailable through injury, Ferguson attempted to get by with just one attacker in Danny Welbeck until the 89th minute, when Dimitar Berbatov was sent on in desperation.

United were the more accomplished side but the impact was small. Liverpool are 16 points adrift of them in the

• Anfield club coming to end of six-year, £12m–a–season deal
• ‘Gap between performance and what the number should be’

Herbert Hainer, the chief executive of Adidas, has claimed that Liverpool’s performances on the pitch – including their failure to qualify for European football for the first time in 12 seasons last year – and a difference of opinion over the club’s commercial worth have seen the German kit supplier withdraw from negotiations for a new deal.

Liverpool are coming to the end of a six-year, £12m-a-season arrangement with Adidas and had opened talks with a view to renewing it, but Hainer is insistent that the Merseyside club have priced themselves out of the market.

“The gap between their performance on the field and what the number should be is not in balance,” Hainer said. “Then we said: ‘OK we will not do it’. That’s the end of the story. It all depends on the success and the effort and the popularity, the exposure on TV, revenue you can generate by merchandising.

“This all has to be brought in line between what you offer and what you get. We thought that what Liverpool were asking and what they were delivering was not in the right balance.”

Liverpool have expressed dismay at the comments and are reported to have reached an agreement with the US brand, Warrior Sports, said to be worth £25m a year – trumping Manchester United’s contract with Nike, which ploughs around £23.5m into Old Trafford every season. They also claimed that Adidas were unable to grasp the global appeal of Liverpool, regardless of the club’s qualification for European competition or not.

Their partnership with Adidas started in the 1985‑86 season and after a 10-year hiatus with Reebok, was revived in 2006.

Sales of the Liverpool’s replica shirts are claimed to reach nearly 900,000 a year, making it the fourth-highest selling kit in the world behind Manchester United, Barcelona and Real Madrid.

Warrior Sports’ parent company, New Balance, won the contract to become the kit supplier to the Boston Red Sox in April 2011, the baseball club owned by Fenway Sports Group – the same organisation now in charge at Anfield.

Liverpool
guardian.co.uk

• Liverpool keen on talks before 11 February fixture
• Uruguayan could return after ban at Old Trafford

Liverpool officials are to request top-level talks with their Manchester United counterparts, in an attempt to defuse tensions before the two clubs meet at Old Trafford on 11 February. That match is likely to be Luis Suárez’s first away from Anfield after his eight-match ban for racially abusing the United defender Patrice Evra.

Kenny Dalglish has no reservations about picking Suárez to start against United, despite his concern over the treatment the Uruguay international may receive from opposition supporters once his suspension has been served. Beyond matters on the pitch, however, there is a realisation at Anfield that the potential for trouble will be greater than usual when the north-west rivals meet, given the fallout from the Suárez affair and therefore a need to respond.

Relations between the clubs, like those between Liverpool and the Football Association, have suffered badly since the 1-1 draw at Anfield on 15 October. Liverpool’s staunch defence of a player who has admitted using the Spanish word negro once during his row with Evra, but was found guilty of using it or negros seven times by an independent regulatory commission, has been viewed by many as the root cause. Liverpool have cast doubt on Evra’s integrity and are adamant that Suárez has been punished for a cultural misunderstanding and his honesty in admitting to using the word when first presented with Evra’s accusation, immediately after the match in October.

Nevertheless, and having accepted Suárez’s ban, Liverpool accept a responsibility to reduce potential flashpoints at Old Trafford next month and intend to contact United on the issue. Liverpool officials are exploring what actions can be taken before the game and there has been no approach to United yet. Talks may even take place at ownership level, where Liverpool’s principal owner, John W Henry, and chairman, Tom Werner, have been closely involved in the club’s stance throughout the affair. The Premier League is prepared to mediate, if called upon. United are open to the prospect of working with Liverpool and will assess any proposals that are made.

Liverpool will also use Suárez’s suspension period to discuss with the FA not only the procedures that led to the striker’s eight-match ban, which the Anfield club believe to be deeply flawed, but measures that can be taken to aid the 24-year-old’s return to the game. The independent regulatory commission and Evra both accepted that Suarez is not a racist and Liverpool believe sanctions should be brought against clubs whose supporters brand him as such.

Their priority with the FA, however, the integrity of which Liverpool have also questioned, is to instigate changes to a system that currently sees the commission members appointed by the FA and given the power to find a player guilty of racist abuse on the balance of probability.

Liverpool’s handling of the entire episode has continued to attract fierce criticism and Piara Powar, the executive director of European football’s anti-discrimination body, Fare, believes the FA should charge the club with bringing the game into disrepute. He said Dalglish had been “undignified” in his vehement support of Suárez and that Liverpool’s reaction had damaged their image across the world.

“This is a lack of respect for the governing body by Liverpool and the FA should charge Liverpool FC and Kenny Dalglish,” Powar said. “I think the FA should come back now and be very clear that Liverpool could be construed to have brought the game into disrepute by the way in which they have consistently undermined the judgment and by Kenny Dalglish’s comments. Liverpool have been too keen to support their man and in doing so have whipped up a sense of paranoia amongst their fans. This is not the Liverpool FC that we have applauded in the past for their support for a whole range of issues. The responses from Kenny Dalglish have been undignified; the way in which they have dealt with the whole matter has been unprofessional. For the club to so aggressively militate against what looks to most people a considered judgment from the FA leads to a potential for anarchy.”

The FA is not expected to charge Liverpool but Powar said the club had suffered for its hardline stance on Suárez. He added: “They have damaged their brand, no question. There is no question that Liverpool do have a global appeal, but I have emails from colleagues in Africa asking me what the hell is going on. I think people will be watching this and I believe there is no question that their plans for global expansion will have been damaged by this. That’s not to say they cannot come back from this but it has done them a lot of damage and they have not conducted themselves in a very palatable way.”

Dalglish, who with Manchester City is interested in Birmingham City’s 17-year-old midfielder Nathan Redmond, said Friday’s FA Cup third-round tie at home to Oldham Athletic offers welcome respite after a troubled week for the club. The Liverpool manager said: “To get back on the pitch after the week we’ve had on and off it is the best thing we can do. It’ll be a great time too for our people to show support for one another – for the players to show their gratitude towards the fans for the support they’ve given us recently, and also vice versa.”

LiverpoolLuis SuárezManchester UnitedAndy Hunterguardian.co.uk