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| Wait, what did you say Andy Gray was? |
So, apparently there was a female assistant referee running the lines for the Wolves match. Having noted that she got a potentially tricky call right when judging Meireles onside in the lead-up to Torres' first goal--though she then got a somewhat easier call on Maxi wrong as Torres rippled the side netting before everybody realised the play had been flagged offside--I quickly forgot about her. After all, I was there for a football match, and she didn't do much to insert herself into the narrative of said football match, which was more than could be said for the at times odd officiating of head referee Martin Atkinson--and which is more than can be said any time Howard "Egland's Best Official Ever Hey You Fuckers Pay Attention To Me I'm the Star of the Show" Webb runs things. So good job, move on, who cares, didn't Liverpool just look like awesome and can't you hardly wait for the Wednesday match against Fulham?
Except that it turns out that for those less concerned with Liverpool, it was kind of a big deal. In large part because Andy Gray is a bit of a blowhard and a lot of a moron.
Somewhere amongst talk of how much he loves Roy Hodgson and that Steven Gerrard can never be played off the striker and aren't foreigners cowardly evil-doers and oh by the way Stoke would kick Barcelona off the park on the way to a glorious victory he found time to predict that strictly on account of being female she would manage to screw up at least one major decision, with co-commentator Richard Keys adding the delicious bon mot that Kenny Dalglish would "go potty" following said inevitable fuck up. Which is all kinds of awesome if you enjoy vaguely famous people making themselves look like colossal idiots in a public forum, but somewhat less awesome from the standpoint of the human race's continuing slow march towards equality and freedom and human rights and a better world for all. Or whatever.
The Guardian gives the basic run down, while over at the Arsenal Offside we get a more personal perspective, and EPL Talk gives you the audio.
For me, she got the biggest call of the match spot on--just imagine some of the bad places this still fragile Liverpool might have ended up with their well worked first goal thrown back in their faces--may have gotten a rather smaller call wrong soon after because of pressure from the home crowd after that first call, and otherwise was invisible. If Andy Gray hadn't been an idiot who managed to get every non-Liverpool outlet talking about his idiocy, I would have forgotten there'd been a female linesman by kickoff on Wednesday, which probably would have been best for all involved. So perhaps it's the wrong motivation on my part, but with all of that in mind I rather hope that Andy Gray gets into a whole heap of trouble for this, but mostly because I just plain don't like Andy Gray and his opinion on most things that aren't the Italian national side. And so a part of me would enjoy seeing him get into a whole heap of trouble for something.
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Moving on to other idiocies, the transfer window is still open and lots of stuff may or may not yet happen. The Suarez situation is right about where it was on Friday, ie., nobody has a clue and half the interwebs are talking about an interview Damien Comolli did in December, as apparently he said Liverpool was interested in Suarez but that they hadn't spoken to Ajax about him. Being that it was a nearly month old interview, this was exceptionally old news until the brilliant monkeys over at Goal.com started shouting the quotes as though they'd unearthed a grandly revealing exclusive (that I'm not going to justify by linking to for rather obvious reasons) and it somehow became breaking current news when lots of people failed to notice it was a month old. So, yeah. Suarez. He'll either come, or he won't. He'll either cost in the neighbourhood £18M, or Ajax will insist on a price that FSG doesn't consider reasonable. And maybe Babel will be involved in the whole thing in some way. Or he'll still end up at Hoffenheim. Or he'll start for Liverpool against Stoke.
Fun times.
Elsewhere, Blackpool has turned down a bid believed to be in the £4-5M range for Charlie Adam, but Liverpool are expected to come back with a slightly improved offer. If I had to guess, it still won't be near enough to make Holloway sell his best player, because it really doesn't matter one bit whether Adam was bought for a measly £500k and only has 18-months left on his contract and has had all of six months performing at the highest level and can look lazy tracking back and mumble mumble mumble. The only thing that matters is that if Blackpool stay up they receive close to £50M that they won't see if they get relegated. When Holloway talks of Liverpool needing to put a one in front of that four to even get Blackpool's attention--which has suddenly got certain myopic Liverpool supporters in a snit--one has to wonder if it would even make sense for Blackpool to sell him for £14M.
Even if Adam is set on leaving sooner or later, it would be ludicrous for Blackpool to sell him before the end of the season unless some club was willing to pay well over the odds, and likely while sending a useful player or two the other way on loan while doing it. Meanwhile, that would hardly make sense for Liverpool when one assumes Adam would be part of a four-into-three rotation in the middle of Dalglish's 4-3-3 along with Lucas, Meireles, and Gerrard, and likely not the first choice if everybody was fit and on form. Would he be a good squad addition? Absolutley. Would I be pleased if he signed with Liverpool? Yes. Would he be worth whatever it would likely take to pry him from Blackpool in January? Probably not.
But what the hell do I know, since in the know Twitterati claim his is an all but a done deal, one likely to see its completion soon after Blackpool take on Manchester United tomorrow. In case he does show up, Tangerine Dreaming has the complete Charlie Adam for your perusal.
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Well, that was fun. We should really do it again some time. But in the meantime, can't we all just get along and agree that Andy Gray is a rather sad Glory of '66 sort, as well as a right and utter...