20 Jan 2013

"It's refreshing" - Houghton hails Rodgers for tough stance on Suarez

Liverpool coach Brendan Rodgers took the first step towards saving the club's soul yesterday when he publicly condemned Luis for cheating. Until now, Rodgers had given Suarez the benefit of the doubt, but the Uruguayan's confession during a TV interview provided irrefutable proof that Suarez is, in fact, a cheat, and Rodgers responded in a manner perfectly befitting a manager of Liverpool FC. Now, he needs support from the fans, and especially ex-Reds, and Anfield legend Ray Houghton is the first to come out and publicly support Rodgers for his tough stance on Suarez.

In an interview with TalkSport, Houghton - who played an integral role in the success of Kenny Dalglish's late-1980s 'dream team' - praised Rodgers' 'refreshing' response to the Suarez admission, and urged the club to fine the Uruguayan. He said:

"It's refreshing. We don’t want to see matches won by cheating, and we’ve seen that a few times this season. It’s down to the managers to come out and say ‘there’s a way you’ve got to behave at a football club and if you’re diving around it doesn’t represent the club well’, and Brendan has done the right thing. He’ll deal with it internally and I’m sure he [Suarez] will get a fine".

Houghton also blasted the FA's laissez-faire approach to cheating, and called on football's alleged governing body to take serious action to 'deter players from doing it'. He barked:

“I don’t want to see any more diving [or] rugby tackles in the box, so FA, deal with it. Give the powers to the referee to send people off. Or retrospectively, give them [players] a three games ban [for cheating], if they do it again five games and then ten games. I tell you what, managers will soon stop it".

Houghton is spot on here. Where is the deterrent *not* to dive, or blatantly cheat in other ways? There is none. Instant red cards for diving would definitely stamp it out in the long run, but will the FA have the balls to institute such a rule?

I personally favour a Monday morning panel approach; a group of senior referees/official with no club affiliation (Sorry David gill, that rules you out), with the power to retrospectively ban players/fine clubs. Putting power in the hands of refs is a good idea, but they're way too inconsistent in the application of the existing rules to be trusted with such a power.

On the issue of Rodgers and his public criticism of Suarez - the severity of the punishment taken behind the scenes is (arguably) not really relevant. What matters here is Liverpool have publicly restated their intolerance of cheating, and that is vital.

Practically every news provider on the planet will carry Rodgers' comments, and this spreads the message across the globe that cheating is unacceptable at Liverpool FC.

It also creates valuable debate at all levels of football; everyone has an opinion, and those in the game who despise cheating will - like Houghton - come forward and say so publicly, which creates even more pressure on players not to cheat.

Apart from David Moyes at Everton (who publicly chastised Phil Neville for diving in the recent Merseyside derby) Rodgers is the only other Premier League manager to publicly condemn one of his own players for cheating, and that is laudable.

Whether Suarez gets fined, banned or just a ticking off doesn't matter; Rodgers has drawn a public line in the sand; the world knows that Liverpool FC will not tolerate cheating, and it is always important for the club to reiterate that.

After the last eighteen months of pigheaded defensiveness, PR disasters, laughable conspiracy theories and embarrassing victim mentality, my faith in what LFC stands for is returning.

There's still a *long* way to go, but the club is thankfully on the right path.

Jaimie Kanwar

NOTE: Please stick to the Comment Policy (Click to read)


49 comments:

  1. not sure a fine or ban will be punishment enough for some people i suggest a public hanging,would be more fitting for some

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  2. BR's comments are just some good PR, he saw the "invented foul" that day, but conveniently ignored it. We all did, it was almost comical.

    Houghton is right, retrospective punishment is needed, but will be difficult to apply fairly.

    What if Alfe-Inge Haaland had dived out the way of Keane's assault on him and somehow gotten a free kick? Would he be guilty of cheating or merely self preservation?

    Bale dived this season to avoid Guzan's follow through on a 50-50, as it turns out, Guzan dummied him, making Bale look foolish.

    Should Bale have taken the full contact, if it came, and risk a broken leg?

    There will be debate for most decisions, except for the blatant Pires, Rooney, Gerrard ones in the penalty box.

    I guess you are right though, it will be reported around the world that Liverpool have reprimanded one of the leading players in world football.

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  3. Come on now, let's not act as if this means anything - when manager's start talking about such incidents immediately after games, and not just when a player is silly enough to own up to it, then we can start to applaud the manager's stance.

    Until football crawls away from this backwards attitude and embraces video replays to review contentious decisions then all of this ridiculous cheating will continue unchecked, with MOST players at the top level continuing to embrace the opportunity to con the referees (and us, the fans) at every opportunity.

    Goal-line technology won't make the slightest bit of difference of the grand scheme of things. We need the officials to have the same benefits as everybody else watching the games.

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  4. didnt the ref punish luis for that , if so , i thought you couldn't be punished twice for the same crime

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  5. I love luis the footballer & his will to win but he has let this great club down at times with some of his antics & is his own worst enemy, its a shame he cant just be appreciated for his god given football skills, some of the tricks he did again yesterday were breathtaking & its that he should be getting plaudits for instead of constant negative articles, but like i say, he doesnt help himself, its good to see lfc didnt try to blindly defend that interview he gave, to be fair i think he,s staying on his feet a lot more, lets hope his partnership with danny is what grabs the headlines in the second half of season :)

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  6. I certainly don't want this to be the little something that grows big to result in Sua's departure. Not sure if public condemning was the perfect idea...

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  7.  I was beginning to worry jason...i hadnt seen a thread about suarez and cheating for 24 hours

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  8. I can just imagine him now, sat on his sofa looking at his massive self portrait and thinking to himself "I am the saving grace of this club, I am the second coming of the messiah" while trying to turn his glass of water into wine, and cutting up his loafs... lol

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  9. If he can make allen look like a 15mil player that will be his biggest miracle, lol, i hope the lad comes good but its clear our strongest 11 shouldnt include him at the moment

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  10. Hi jamie. I wrote a pretty long reply on the above article but its not gone through, there was nothing offensive in it, is it in moderation or did you not receive it? Pain in the arse if it just got deleted somehow :)

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  11. This site is getting boring. 90% negative articles and ball bashing. Would like to read articles about football not slander and he said she said

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  12. Mate the wine and loafs would be dwarfed by the miracle of turning Allen into a £10 million player let alone 15 lol

    And Sneijder would apparently cost us including transfer fee £11 million on a 2 and half year deal, his shirt sales would pay that back lol

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  13. Chill mate, theres plenty of positive articles, the sites about football, opinions & a bit of banter

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  14.  Suarez scored and played brilliant again yesterday, you must have been gutted Jamie haha..

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  15. Steikt - if you don't like it, leave.

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  16. Sorry for the delay in this going live. It caught by the word filter.

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  17.  20 goals and counting for everyone's favorite little genius..

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  18. Buying Sneidjer is a no-brainer. We can talk about the money he would cost, his wages, but you can't put a price on the value that someone who has won trophies at the highest level would bring. How do you put a price on a winning mentality, experience and pulling power?

    BR still talks too much, but at least now, some of the correct words are tumbling out of his mouth. His acceptance that we need more experience in our ranks, especially in light of Sneidjer's availability, has made me think better of him.

    Unfortunately, I'm not sure FSG are listening. We shall see.

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  19.  But why after Liverpool played a master-class yesterday, you haven't
    wrote a positive article? I'm all for criticism when Liverpool have
    played poorly, but there was so much positives, like Henderson finally
    playing like the player Kenny paid all that money for or Downing too. Suarez & Sturridge looking class together? Lucas slowly returning to form?

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  20. I am getting sick of you and your selective vision. I wrote a positive article three hours after the game, praising the team etc, so stop talking rubbish. If you post anything else bitching about the site, you'll be banned.

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  21.  If you don't like criticism JamieK then why don't YOU stop writing...!

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  22. I was listening to Aldridge yesterday and he was very critical of Rodger's speaking too much about the issue. He felt he would have been better to keep the comments to a minimum and just say it was being dealt with internally. As many have mentioned , if Rodgers genuinely had an issue he would have dealt with it at the time as the dive was obvious. He didn't! So what does that say? It says to me that his issue is more with Suarez being so open about it. Rodgers did mention something about players are not normally that honest unless they have finished playing.
    Out of interest Aldridge mentioned that he often went down under minimal contact. I think an obvious example of this would be the FA cup final against Wimbledon. I can't remember him ever being referred to as a cheat though and he is still seen as a legend.

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  23. Lol, love it, you sound like the grinch today jamie, you got a hangover or something, ouch!!

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  24. Jaimie, you know where I stand on this BR can show how tough he is all he likes.
    I know that you have advocated many times here that you would rather NOT have Suarez (cheats as you put it )at Liverpool (correct me if I'm wrong).
    So IF as I suspect at the end of this season LFC get a bid of let's say 35million a profit on his original price.
    You wont be surprised if I hold you to account on that.
    As much as I understand your ethical stance, I'd be happy to name at least 3 occasions where LFC have won a trophy or title by 'dubious means' ergo, simulation,handball etc, in which it didn't stop you from celebrating the win.
    This is not personal Jaimie but I'm going to demonstrate the inconsistency, in your stance on 'cheating'.

     

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  25. Half the problem is they are listening, just to people who don't seem to know what they are on about and its costing them in more ways then one

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  26. i know its like a good bowel movement best kept regular

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  27. whats the point of highlighting the good things....its the negative aspects which need to imrove if the club is to improve..plus its more fun...if we all just came on singing praises the site would cease to exisist in 24 hours due to no one commenting....its good to squawk in the words of hawkins

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  28. suarez gets air and news time because it sells .....im all for him being all over the papers and internet and tv...it keeps the reds in the news which in turn helps sell more shirts and attract more sponsors which in turn funds the club...YNWA

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  29. you mean he is not the messiah i,ve just been on another thread getting stick off his deciples i was thinking about becoming one and changing my name to something more bibicale but judas had already gone,and don,t even get me started on the bloody portrait,truely the sign of a self obsessed person

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  30. agree only his father could make that happen,the big almighty,

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  31. agree m8 some of the correct words are starting to tumble out of his mouth,now if he could only say them in the right order we will reallly start getting somewhere

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  32. agree with L4red its only a bit of banter m8 just skip the parts you don,t like,i do

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  33. Come on now, it will be years before that starts to happen!

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  34. Not sure these 'people' of which you speak know anything about how to build a successful football club.

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  35. maybe he will not be our manager them

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  36. on another subject gerrard says he would love to see sniejder at anfield but admits his wages could be a stumbling block,think this might tell a story ,hopefully sniejder will take a paycut

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  37. If FSG's still in control, there's a chance he will. If we get new, football-savvy owners, he won't.

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  38. totally agree unless he starts to turn it round quickly and to be fair at least hes seen its time to drop allen

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  39. More and more Jamie i visit other LFC sites for articles about football, not slander.
     

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  40. Would you admit that you seem to focus on negative things related ot Liverpool?? I wrote a long comment in regards to this and you deleted it yesterday. Atleast I'm not the only person who see's it!! Why haven't you wrote on article reporting the game? Why haven'y you wrote an article about Gerrard being near back to his best? You just focus on the negative stuff!! What about Sturridge? You just report on  x pro's putting us down and focus on us 'Missing out on players to lower teams'!!

    I do like some of your stuff but recently it's just been a whole load of negativity!!

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  41. Rarely does Jamie actually talk about real football. Its all gossip and he said...she said,..... bullshit on this site with the odd stats thrown in (which i sometimes like). And don't forget he always throws the wrong starting 11 and then tries to edit it before anyone see's!!  Im guessing this comment won't be shown, like lots of my comments! Why i don't know...I have never personally insulted Jamie on this site or anyone else. I just say it the way i see it and I'm guessing Jamie doesn't like to hear the truth. I would love to see you write an article on Stevie G and his best role. Attacking mid or deep lying. EVerybody seems to be saying that he is much better  attacking but his best games recently have been playing from deep..(not defensive)!!

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  42. Really Jamie ? You have some vendetta against Suarez . The premier league abounds with players that try and con the referee . Its reality . And hey if you want to play Mr Goody two shoes , than at least be even handed and critize all the others . At least Suarez admitted it . As far as it being a reflection on the club than than every manager in the premier and every club is guilty of trying to con the referee.

    Just one simple example . Managers tell their players to always appeal for a corner or appeal its not one depending in whose box they are . Ever See all those hands go up in appeal whenever the ball goes out , thats umm cheating Jamie , . Ever see all that shirt tugging in the penalty area thats umm cheating Jamie . See any incidents where an attacking player claimed handball when it clearly never was . Just happened yesterday and today too .

    So be even handed Jamie . Go on your crusade to clean up football or at least point the others out too. One would think that Suarez s the devil incarnate , acccording to your blog. At least Suarez doesnt go about kicking players and breaking legs . And if you study the games and stats you will know that there are far bigger 'cheats' in the premier league .

    Suarez is the most creative and talented player Liverpool have had in a long time

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  43. I wonder if Reading will be offering a replay to Newcastle this morning after realising Lefondre clearly handled the ball when he scored his equalizer. For some reason the media missed that opportunity for a witch hunt. Ah no, Lefondre is English....

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  44. Some people won't be happy until Suarez leaves the club. If we didn't have his this season, we'd be languishing close to the bottom of the league in a relegation scrap. For some people, though, this would be ok as playing honestly without any people who, now and then, make a dubious decision to maybe gain an advantage on the field is what they want to see.
    Personally, I want to see Liverpool Football Club win everything. If we have a couple of contentious decisions go our way on the road to achieve this, then so be it. This will be in parity with every other club who has won trophies. 
    No team is perfect. No player is perfect. If people can't get their heads round these two facts then, I'm afraid, they are following the wrong sport.

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  45. totally agree we will win dubious means over a season but we will also lose trough these deccisions as well

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  46. Its the double standard that exists in the English Premiership and the media at the moment. Its only an issue if Suarez does it . Far worse gets done by other teams and players  in the premiership. The media frenzy around Suarez being a bad guy is pure hypocrisy . Nothing even handed .

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  47. this is absolute codswallop. Suarez only admitted to what everyone knew and was plainly obvious. He tried because he wanted us to win.

    What about Ramirez yesterday? Thats an extra 2 points for Chelsea unfairly gained because he dived blatantly. There is a high horse and we need to jump of it.

    Did anyone mention that the WWF wrestlers at stoke kicked shit out of suarez? Did anyone mention the Norwich defender who battered his head? I have seen Suarez all season being kicked black and blue - so if he gives some back so what!

    Its pure unadulterated racism. When Phil Neville dives oh we can have a chuckle about it - he is a professional and look how awful the dive is, when gareth bale dives oh its because he is wearing usain bolts boots so anyone who touches him he can fall over in an olympian manner, whn le fondre handles the ball into the net oh it was accidental and no he isnt a cheat it was just unavoidable.

    Yes there is an urgent need to call a spade a spade but use the same stick for everyone. Sometimes there is nothing better that i would like if suarez packed his bags - because we dont deserve him. We have an inherent desire to be mid-table and mediocre. 

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  48. yes you are right, this dive months ago, we al saw it, why has it taken so long for he manager to come out and condemn it.  It was an embarrasing dive.  

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