Liverpool winger Stewart Downing has revealed that he does not engage in one of the longest-running player traditions at Anfield.
Many of Liverpool's top players touch the legendary 'This is Anfield' sign before going on the pitch, including the likes of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Pepe Reina.
Fernando Torres always used to touch the sign, as did Rafa Benitez when he was manager; and it goes without saying that Kenny Dalglish always touches the sign.
Downing, however, sees it as a 'superstition', so he doesn't get involved:
"I've seen a few of the lads touch it, but I don't. I don't really have any superstitions; I think you've got enough to concentrate on before the game"
The creatively bereft midfielder hasn't scored or created a goal for Liverpool in over 15 hours of football; perhaps the universe is taking revenge on him for disrespecting one of the club's most enduring symbols...?
Some players believe that touching the sign brings them good luck, so perhaps Downing should change his policy and start taking part in the tradition.
After all, he clearly needs all the luck he can get at the moment :-)
Jaimie Kanwar
Many of Liverpool's top players touch the legendary 'This is Anfield' sign before going on the pitch, including the likes of Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Pepe Reina.
Fernando Torres always used to touch the sign, as did Rafa Benitez when he was manager; and it goes without saying that Kenny Dalglish always touches the sign.
Downing, however, sees it as a 'superstition', so he doesn't get involved:
"I've seen a few of the lads touch it, but I don't. I don't really have any superstitions; I think you've got enough to concentrate on before the game"
The creatively bereft midfielder hasn't scored or created a goal for Liverpool in over 15 hours of football; perhaps the universe is taking revenge on him for disrespecting one of the club's most enduring symbols...?
Some players believe that touching the sign brings them good luck, so perhaps Downing should change his policy and start taking part in the tradition.
After all, he clearly needs all the luck he can get at the moment :-)
Jaimie Kanwar
Can i just state and being ultra critical here. I think the player is absolute garbage for the price we paid for him. Came on for England tonight and he was just as bad as he's been for liverpool. Very mediocre player, functional wihout being brilliant. For 20m quid i expect a top class game breaker. Realy poor buy.
ReplyDeleteHe gotta shave his head.
ReplyDeleteyes if he touches the sign that will make the difference.
ReplyDeleteyou couldnt be more right want are kenny and co thinkin
ReplyDeletevery ordinary player seems to have blagged his way through footbal
ReplyDeleteWe should have paid 20 mill on Adam Johnson, hopefully we will go in for im in Jan, and yes maybe if Downing starts touching the sign he will get some luck, the guys been hogwash since he signed. His best performace was probably against Sunderland in our first game and only for the first 20 mins
ReplyDeleteWe shouldn't have bought any wingers at all .... we should have gone for wide forwards like Suarez is one and play a 4-3-3 formation.
ReplyDeleteSell Carroll and Downing for a total of 20-30 million pounds and try to get Lavezzi, Higuain, Ramirez and Hoilett .....
We could also sell Johnson for around 10-12 million pounds and try to get Maxi Pereira for free, as he will be out of contract in the summer ....
We then would have great attacking options;
WF// Suarez/Lavezzi/Ramirez/Hoilett/Bellamy
CF// Higuain/Kuyt
--Ramirez----Suarez----Lavezzi--
-------------Higuain------------
Bench// Hoilett/Bellamy/Kuyt
Who would keep hold of Carroll and Downing when you can get players like the ones mentioned above .... ??
The only way in which not touching the sign is at all interesting or relevant is in how it may or may not influence Downing's mental state as a pre-game ritual. As the guy says: he doesn't subscribe to pre-game rituals, so why would it have an impact? I'm sure most of the article is a bit tongue-in-cheek but to suggest that he's being disrespectful seems a bit over the line for me.
ReplyDeleteDerek Llambias, the man who brokered the deal that made Andy Carroll
ReplyDeletethe most expensive Englishman in football history, has sensationally
claimed: “He’s worth f*** all!”
The Toon MD’s disparaging verdict
on England striker Carroll (below) came when he was giving a group of
Newcastle fans an insight into the £35million deal that took the England
striker to Liverpool in January.
Llambias insists that Newcastle got the better of the deal.
The
Anfield club’s first bid was £30m and Llambias told the fans: “I have
to admit that £30m for Andy Carroll is a lot of money.”
When one supporter asked him “Is he worth £30m?” Llambias responded:
“No — he’s worth f*** all.” He then explains that after rejecting the
£30m offer, Newcastle refused to sell even for £35m unless Liverpool
paid the entire fee up front.
A move that forced Liverpool to ask
Chelsea to increase their first instalment of the £50m they had already
agreed to pay for Fernando Torres!
Llambias explained: “It is about control.
“We had the control. We knew the Torres deal was there.
“We drew that f****** deal, perhaps the ultimate.
“So £30m? F*** off! Don’t waste my time and I slammed the phone down.
“£35m? Everybody including Pardew [manager Alan Pardew] all agreed.
“But
the £35m they wanted to pay over four years. It was rubbish. Mike
(Ashley) said — and he is a brave boy Mike I promise you — get all the
£35m up front.
“We got it all up front and then they never paid us on time and we charged them 12 grand f****** interest.”
What an Absolutely fantastic read..........
We are officially Newcastles prison bitch.
ReplyDeleteErrm Downing should touch Carroll's 'lucky to be at Liverpool' head.
ReplyDeleteclueless. oh bcause we really got hundreds of millions to blow
ReplyDeletemore pointless crap
ReplyDeleteGive over. Stop taking everything so seriously. Do I have to include smily faces after every sentence to illustrate the light-hearted nature of the post?
ReplyDeleteMaybe, you sure as hell don't manage to get it across with your writing
ReplyDeleteAm I serious? Do I need to include a wink with that?
yes, kenny and comolini like to keep patting each other on the back.....but honestly, the pair of them are pretty much useless when it comes to spotting talent, and deploying it on the pitch.
ReplyDeletecarroll, at 35 million....and it was all paid up-front? Bloddy ell. The worst piece of business in the history of english football. The lad isn't worth 15 million.
Downing should just respect the players tradition of the club. Perhaps this is just symptomatic that of his lack of understanding of what it means to play for the club.
ReplyDeleteNo big deal. If we play badly we lose.
ReplyDeleteOnly fcking kk could pull something like this off..depressing
ReplyDeleteMike ashly must have thrown Andy Carroll down in the shower and kk was asked to pick him up and sign him
ReplyDeleteMMaybe he doesn't touch the sign cos he knows he ain't good enough
ReplyDeleteYou not feeling well today? You haven't mentioned the L word
ReplyDeleteWhen I heard we were going to sign him and then pay 20m, my head was in my hands. You can see why, I've never rated downing, I've made my way up from pub football at 16 to semi pro standard at 21 and always believe in my ability. When you play as a winger, you only on occasions have your back to the opposing goal (for instance - when holding up play or looking for a one two). If you observe Downing carefully he spends majority of the time standing flat footed with his back to the goal, yeah he's made the occasional run and got a decent ball in the box. But honestly I have always seen him as an average player if that, nothing special and what summed it up was his pathetic effort with his so-called left feet from 10yards went 90 degrees against Nowich. I'm right footed but actually can hit the ball sweeter with my left foot and I'm no professional...says it all. God we miss players like Mcmanaman, who was a legend and went on to produce for Real Mardrid as he also got feed up with Liverpool's lack of ambition. Until we buying players like man city, man utd and chelsea have over the years, there will be many more downings coming to Anfield...believe me as I followed liverpool since the John Barnes era. Hopefully Daglish does not become a victim of our declining club which once graced the english game.
ReplyDeleteDowning please continue to one thing right.....dont touch the "This is Anfield" there's a good lad!!
People on here are a joke. So theres an article that is focusing on Downing yet you've managed to drag Andy Carroll into discussion.
ReplyDeleteIm bored of retards commenting on this site. Grow up for crying out loud. Weve got Carroll and he is staying. He will bang in goals before the end of the season and that will be the day when i want to see your comments.
Pathetic..
In your opinion Jaimie, which is worse?
ReplyDeleteRafa signing Keane, or Kenny signing Downing?
Rafa sold Keane when he wasn't working out. Do you think Kenny has it in him to be as clinical?
I'm just conscious of the fact that Benitez was criticised a lot in the media etc for this piece of business, but I'd like to know what people think of Downing and Dalglish by way of comparison.
burn him..
ReplyDeleteI think signing Downing is the worse decision. At least Liverpool had Torres to compensate; we currently have no one on the left wing who can do the job, so if Downing isn't scoring or creating goals from the left, no one is (bar Bellamy, who hardly plays anyway).
ReplyDeleteAdditionally, Keane was a proven Premier League goalscorer; in the year we bought him, he'd scored more goals than anyone in the league. Keane's failure was mainly (IMO) down to Benitez; Downing has been practically everpresent since he arrived, so his failure is down to him.
TOUCH THE SIGN AND YOU HAVE THE LUCK YOU WANT
ReplyDeletedo u think higuain and lavezzi would leave the champions league to join us you are dreaming
ReplyDeletelavezzi and cavani why not. cavani is not happy in napolli.
ReplyDeleteWe should take them to court and sue them, get our money back for selling a poor product or just return it to the seller it has n't been a year yet and get back our money that way!!!!!!!
ReplyDeleteIf he tried to touch it he'd probably miss.
ReplyDeleteZero goals. Zero assists. £20 million paid.
I believe Benitez described Keane as something along the lines of 'the most tactically-inept player' he's ever worked with. And I wouldn't argue with him there. Keane was too slow to play in that team and he tried to overcompensate for this lack of pace by dropping deep and attempting to create attacks - it always looked as if he was saying "Right - enough of this bollocks - give ME the ball!"
ReplyDeleteIt became a problem of his own making in my opinion, and I think it's a little unfair to blame Benitez for Keane's inability to alter his playing style, or reach a level of fitness or pace conducive of our style of play at the time.
Cue criticism from this site's omnipresent Irish lunatic...
With regards to Downing, his creative plus-points prior to his signing for LFC were similar in terms of respect from other clubs - I mean, he was held in high regard due to his assists, professionalism and drive. He also at times showed a good attitude when it came to getting involved and grabbing a game.
Coming to Liverpool was a step too far for a player of Keane's physical standard - look at the lean fitness and pace that we had in attack at the time - and at the moment it looks similarly ominous for Downing.
I personally COULD see the point in signing both players at the time as they had previously proved useful, but whereas Keane suffered due to pace and awareness (IMO), Downing's problems are in his head (like a few of Kenny's signings).
Sorry to say this again, but Downing has 'Glen Johnson Syndrome' - promising start but gradual loss of confidence leads to unrecognisable player to the one we signed.
Very poor buy and is playing shite ,so have a bit more respect TOUCH the bloody sign and your luck might change.The way your playing you need all the luck you can get.
ReplyDeletenothing to do with luck crems,so many fans knew downing was shite before
ReplyDeletewe bought him yet comolli thought he was worth 20 million,4 players bought
who need to grow some balls,henderson carroll adam and this gutless wonder
kenny please sell this rubbish and buy some class!
Tbh mate, I think your a wannabe journalist who is shit at writing articles and therefore has to use to the stupidest stories to make a post, who cares who does or doesn't touch the sign, its what they do on the pitch, not off it.
ReplyDeletethat's his favorite show.
ReplyDelete"The creatively bereft midfielder hasn't scored or created a goal for Liverpool in over 15 hours of football; perhaps the universe is taking revenge on him for disrespecting one of the club's most enduring symbols...?"
ReplyDelete- or maybe the common sence is showing it's self to people who were saying we are getting better player than Juan Manuel Mata.
I will not argue that Mata would sign for CL-less Liverpool or that all the money LFC spent on transfers since Torres left would be better just to get Kun Aguero and the private jet for him to take him back to Argentina after every game, if he wants, no.
I will just say that you should never delude yourself in the "Downing over Mata way" no matter how much you love LFC or respect KD.
No. We should have paid it for Boudebouz. Now there is an exciting attacking winger! Imagine him and Suarez getting it on? Unstoppable. Unfortunately the powers that be preferred a mediocre English buy.
ReplyDeleteNo all we needed was Boudebouz!
ReplyDeleteDOWNING YOUR GARBAGE!!!!
ReplyDeleteman city will probably muscle us out of the deal though
ReplyDeleteDoesnt deserve to touch the sign
ReplyDelete11 games into a career with us and some of you jokers are calling him all sort. It's a disgrace. Not every player is going to be a Luis, Kenny or Aldo. Remember Crouch? For all that was said about him during his drought after he signed, he kept his head down and eventually the goals, confidence and touch came. Lucas? Every fucker gave him so much bile it's a surprise to see him still here. Now he's one of the first names on the team sheet. Instead of getting on the lad's back, fucking give him some support. In the first few game she was one of our best players, always looking threatening and linking up play, which is something we have been in dire need of since Macca left in 99. He showed some of his potential for England tonight and if he can carry that into the game against Chelsea some of you lot will be back tracking quicker than anything. Fair enough if by the end of the season he hasn't pulled his finger out give him all the curses you want. The team hasn't started the way it wanted to, especially since we have a lot of new faces that haven't even been here 12 months. They're all still gelling, we're in a state of transition with the King at the helm. Get behind them, stop dreaming about signing fucking Pele and get on with it. Jesus H Christ.
ReplyDelete