Suarez/Evra racism case.

[Uncle Spike]

Not that any action by another team or player should make a difference to how we conduct ourselves, but Evra acting like the first rate c*nt that he is at the end, and Siralex spouting his hipocritical b*llocks about "should never play for the club again" actually softened some of the flak we could have taken.

Yes, I agree. Up until that point United hadn't put a foot wrong, and if the PR battle was represented in terms of a tennis match, we were Love-Six, Love-Six, and Love-Five down in the final set.....

But then Evra and Sour Alex went and f**ked up the final game on their own serve!!!

Only a tiny crumb of comfort, and still a horrendously poor PR performance by Liverpool compared to an almost perfect display by the mancs. But nice to see their basic character still reveals itself, and they can't keep it covered up ALL the time.

Personally, I think it's time to move on from this pile of cr*p. Lets learn the lessons and do the one thing which all Liverpool's enemies/detractors won't want to see us do...... and do all our talking on the field for the rest of the season. A trophy and a Champion's League place is still possible, if we really get our act together..... and that could be a trophy more than the Mancs end up with....

In my opinion, that would be the best possible reply by Liverpool FC, so lets go for it!

[Samarkand]

And United/Ferguson makes the first PR misstep with the call to tell Liverpool how to handle Suarez.

As I said at the time, Spike.

[CT Red]

I think I know what's coming next from Luis..............and I just can't get enough.

Wot he's forming a Depeche Mode tribute band

Hope there is enough going on with Tevez,Rangers, Arry,Wolves etc to keep the hacks busy for this week

Onwards to Sunday....no slip ups!!

[Nomer the Red]

And by the way. I am bored of it now. I'm not about to hang the guy out to dry for making a mistake. The original incident can be debated forever and he has the right to stand by his opinion.

However, he's made a mistake last weekend, but god knows I've made enough and most people seem to forgive me. I can't play football like that lad though.

So he's apologised and for me that'll do. On with the football.

I think I know what's coming next from Luis..............and I just can't get enough.

This is the last I'm going to say on this because you are right, time for us to move on.

I too am not upset with Suarez; in a way I actually respect him for snubbing Evra but just not at the expense of the club. Personally I'd probably punch the little tit while I was at it.

One thing i know for sure though, I will be getting my Suarez #7 kit soon.

[Red All Over]

...
The club should have seen what coming? That Suarez was going to lie to them? And what's this nonsense of 'giving Evra and United more power'? Suarez was then and is now an employee of Liverpool Football Club.

LFC complied with the Premier League's handshake edicts as did United. Neither side had the option not to do so without permission from the PL which was not forthcoming for a whole host of reasons, not least of which was the belief that the handshake would be the beginning in drawing a line under things and the beginning of the end of this sordid affair. Suarez f*cked that one up all by his own self and I don't need to see 16 seconds of Zapruder super slow motion to tell me that, no, it really was Evra who withdrew his hand. Complete unadulterated bollocks that one; Suarez glided his hand onwards, refusing to shake Evra's. As DR says, end of.

Where the PR blunder comes in is Liverpool's handling of the affair from beginning, middle to end. Dalglish makes himself look like a tit defending Suarez on Saturday doing his Wenger-esque, 'I didn't see it'. Only to correct himself the next day. So no one told him between the time of the non-handshake and the interview that Suarez had f*cked things up? Dalglish is not now and never was the man to handle this except with the blanket, 'I support Suarez'. Unless Suarez f*cks up the handshake. Which he did. In which case Dalglish replies as Ferguson did when asked about Evra's celebrating - 'he shouldn't have done that'.

But this ridiculous notion that this whole affair was some sort of conspiracy concocted by United and the FA in a dastardly Machiavellian scheme to disrupt Liverpool is not even worthy of Glenn Beck at his best or worst.

All United did was play the ball, very ably served to them over and over again by a piss-poor Liverpool, play that ball very well. The 'power' that Evra and United supposedly had was given to them by Liverpool.

What the club should have seen coming is that they should NOT have promised a hand shake even if Suarez had signed it blood and promised his first born son etc. Nothing was gained. It was a question that never should have been answered to those outside of Kenny, the Team, the Management and the Owners. By releasing that information LFC set the scene that LFC could not overtly manage the outcome.

Is it bad that he said to Kenny in whatever way he would shake Evra's hand and it didn't happen, yes. However, for a club that allegedly prides itself on keeping things tight to its chest, this was a huge gaffe on their part. Have to think of all the possibilities and probabilities, no matter what a player promises. Easier to laud after the fact in the post match press interviews.

The scenario of not releasing the information in the public domain last week means that even though Kenny would be disappointed that it didn't happen the press (and other fans) haven't been fed information to brow beat the LFC family.

FTR I don't really see the point of fans wanting Kenny back last season if it wasn't an issue for the opposition. It either is or isn't; there is no paranoia of a machiavellian scheme that is just smoke and mirrors to elevate a stance. I'm glad we all see things with different perspectives. Somewhere in the middle of all of it is the truth.

Like others I hope CL restart, Rangers, Tevez, means a quiet week for our club and I hope that the Ajax Europa match this week is quiet with storming home win.

[Samarkand]

What the club should have seen coming is that they should NOT have promised a hand shake even if Suarez had signed it blood and promised his first born son etc. Nothing was gained. It was a question that never should have been answered to those outside of Kenny, the Team, the Management and the Owners. By releasing that information LFC set the scene that LFC could not overtly manage the outcome.

Is it bad that he said to Kenny in whatever way he would shake Evra's hand and it didn't happen, yes. However, for a club that allegedly prides itself on keeping things tight to its chest, this was a huge gaffe on their part. Have to think of all the possibilities and probabilities, no matter what a player promises. Easier to laud after the fact in the post match press interviews.

The scenario of not releasing the information in the public domain last week means that even though Kenny would be disappointed that it didn't happen the press (and other fans) haven't been fed information to brow beat the LFC family.

FTR I don't really see the point of fans wanting Kenny back last season if it wasn't an issue for the opposition. It either is or isn't; there is no paranoia of a machiavellian scheme that is just smoke and mirrors to elevate a stance. I'm glad we all see things with different perspectives. Somewhere in the middle of all of it is the truth.

Like others I hope CL restart, Rangers, Tevez, means a quiet week for our club and I hope that the Ajax Europa match this week is quiet with storming home win.

Sorry, and not for the first time, you have the optics in this one hopelessly and completely wrong. And completely, across the board, on this whole situation. There are rose tinted glasses and a blind refusal to see what has been happening and what is being seen by neutrals. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

In your opinion LFC shouldn't have said that the handshake would take place. Or at least not guaranteed that it would. How, in the name of God, does this one work?

Premier League hoopla mandates the team handshake. There's no way around it, mascots and all, except if the Premier League decrees no go or, I suspect, but don't know, if both teams say, 'we don't want'. No way, no how the PL was ever going to agree to no handshake. Even with the most malicious of beliefs, I have to think that United wanted this all behind them also and thought a handshake the best Blatteresque way to draw a line. Allowing for malevolent motives, no way no how would United allowed LFC off the hook by agreeing to no handshake. So the only way for no handshake would have been for LFC to ask for one. Which United and every inbred muppet with a Twitter account would have broadcast from the highest of high towers as loudly as possible.

The whole entire story would have been, 'back to Old Trafford where Liverpool have indicated that they will not shake hands with their opponents today'. In every reading this would have been markedly worse than any T-Shirt business, and would have been presented as 'Liverpool refuse to shake hands with a black man racially abused by a Liverpool player'.

Claiming that LFC could not guarantee Suarez' compliance with the handshake gets into even more dodgy territory. Suarez is an LFC employee and if he does not comply with LFC policy, we're into Tevez type stuff with the very real probability of a severely pissed off Suarez. And what message does the send? That Suarez will not shake hands with the man whom he was found guilty of racially abusing? Yeah, I know not the case necessarily, bit we're talking optics here. In every way and in every universe, including even Glenn Beck's universe, LFC not guaranteeing Suarez' hand makes this problem exponentially bigger. Suarez is bigger than the club and Dalglish?

In the middle of all this is Dalglish who has stoutly and stalwartly defended Suarez. Who patently and completely hung him out to dry. The only thing I'm surprised about at this stage is that Suarez wasn't found with broken legs in The Sandon car park with Dalglish's Range Rover squealing off down Belmont Road. Suarez has undermined Dalglish to such an extent that Henry & Co will be taking advice on Kenny's suitability to run this ship. They have to be, otherwise they will be negligent. This affair has severely compromised Dalglish within the Club and in the game itself. Ayre is probably on his way out and Comoli is also compromised. All of this, every bit of it, happened without the slightest or deftest touch from Ferguson or the FA. If Liverpool were a millipede, they would have already run out of feet to shoot. And the best answer you have is that LFC should have indicated that they couldn't guarantee Suarez would shake Evra's hand?

I'll stake my professional life on this one. If LFC had somehow indicated that the handshake wouldn't take place or they were looking for a variance from tradition, we'd be in a whole amount of deeper crap. Ninth Circle Crap. If I were advising United and the LFC stance had come through - first thing, get Evra in front off a camera with tears in his eyes talking about how he was racially abused as a kid and thought he had left it all behind him when he came to England and on and on. Next up Ferguson, with a 'common sense' Rodney King appeal that 'why can't we all get along? It was nowhere as bad as all this in Glasgow and Glasgow was bad'. And then Liverpool find themselves in a hole where they can't even see the sun.

But go ahead, keep looking for split second stop/start video frames in the Zapruder Conspiracy World that prove Rooney had a spectre on his shoulder, Ferguson couldn't see his reflection in a mirror and Evra pulled his hand away. And that the best and only solution was for Liverpool Football Club to unilaterally decree that Luis Suarez, their employee, could not be be relied upon to shake the hand of Patrice Evra?

And that's why your optics here are wrong, wrong, wrong. Wrong in this whole situation. This has long since ceased to be a case of right or wrong, it's PR. And if you don't believe that, Liverpool are now coming off worse than their main sponsor, Standard Chartered. A bank. Liverpool Football Club have less credibility than a bank right now. And that's after LFC encouraged and believed that Suarez would shake Evra's hand. What credibility level had they indicated that they wouldn't ask for/couldn't guarantee a Suarez handshake? Can you find a credibility level lower than the moral authority of a bank these days? Liverpool Football Club are now taking moral guidance from a bank? Ye Gods!

And your best take and best solution was to not guarantee a handshake at all? To repeat, Liverpool Football Club have less credibility than a bank right now.

[Samarkand]

This Liverpool news page changes as new stories happen. But at the time of linking, there were 25 stories; 15 of them related to Suarez/Evra. That's the type of PR damage of which I'm speaking. Yes, as the new stories come in, the Suarez Evra stuff will move down the list, but have no doubt this affair will stain the Liverpool brand for quite some time.

[Big Dave]

How about Limerick form?

There once was a player named Suarez
Whose actions much aggro did cause
By not shaking the prick's hand
Liverpool don't look so grand
And the forum discusses this crap without pauses

[STL]

How about Limerick form?

There once was a player named Suarez
Whose actions much aggro did cause
By not shaking the prick's hand
Liverpool don't look so grand
And the forum discusses this crap without pauses

early contender for post of the year 2012 right there. Brillant.

[Red All Over]

Truthfully Sami, I don't think the first meeting of two players after such a high profile incident should be on the field. I think the FA/PFA/EPL are remiss and that this has been a gaping holein their proceedures long before this issue. There should have been mediation and a PR directive from FA/PFA/EPL (all bodies involved) on top of such a case. That would have been the adult and civilised thing to do. In the end football is a workplace and no workplace worth its salt would send people to work together* without a game plan agreed by both parties after such an incident (*together as in playing on the field in a contest for the benefit of the league, not necessarily on the same team).

I just don't think people should promise things they have no way of ensuring. Don't promise to shake someone's hand because you don't know if they will extend theirs back. All anyone can promise is to extend your own hand.

It seems as though there was an emphasis on getting it done as quickly as possible.

Hindsight he should have stood their with hand extended.

Came across this blog that I didn't know if would be on people's radar whilst reading another NYT article (presume everyone can find the article if they so wish) http://www.lacelesteblog.com/?p=5615

BTW I absolutely agree that this has been woeful, amateur hour, PR from Liverpool. I fully expect a clear out as I expect that JWH expected to leave the team in capable hands and own from afar with just necessary input. I expect there are some very serious meetings planned in the next week to 10 days.

This issue is not going away, it will be rehashed again at the next match with MUFC home/away/cup it won't matter. I hope they have and are developing a comprehensive plan to directly and indirectly deal with making all these lemons into lemonade (lemon scrub, margaritas, etc...) hmmm can you make rose coloured glasses cleaner out of lemons