Are we mugs?

[Nicey]

I'm ****ed with all this talk about Mascher and Alonso, if the pair of them leave this summer, crawling on their hands and knees towards a large bucket of cash, I will end my relationship with the game. Their bank accounts must be bursting whilst us supporters struggle to keep our pathetic jobs. We struggle to pay our bills and worry about keeping our low paid jobs whilst our heroes sit chewing the fat forever looking for more...Sitting in their mansions, working a few hours a day, not settling into life in the UK...if you can't settle into life on a £100k a week you haven't tried hard enough. Its bull****, it comes down to nothing more than greed. They want a bit more sun or a house on the coast. If you gave this lot an ice cream with a flake and strawberry sauce, they'd want gold sprinkles or they'd throw it back in your face.

I've started to detest the game and over the last few years as things get worse, I'm looking for alternatives. I certainly can't continue giving my support to this team and this sport. Being a supporter is becoming a joke, the joke is most definitely on us.

Excuse me if I'm being daft, but do the majority of us actually love our jobs? Do we go to work thinking great, another day in the office??? No, real life is a struggle. Its mundane, its boring, its stressful, its ****. We work to live, we put up with **** wages and **** working environments because it pays the bills. If you're earning several million pound a year, and for 10 or 15 years only, you're in heaven.You're one of the luckiest muther****ers on the planet...but then thats not enough for some. They forever want a little bit more.

Alonso has been bitching and moaning about this for a couple of months now. He hasn't put in an official request because the greedy ****er probably doesn't want to forfeit his transfer fee. Mascher, as someone has already said, was happy as feck to move to england a couple of years ago, and happier still when LFC gave him a lifeline from West Ham's bench. Now all of a sudden, he's not happy and wants to move to Barca....and would you adam and eve it, he's so gutless he won't even say it himself, he's going through his agent. You can bet that both also don't want to kiss goodbye to the transfer fee, and therefore won't hand in a transfer request, they'll keep making statements and Barca will eventually get their man.

Modern footballers are scum, do they deserve our worship? I'm starting to doubt it. The joke is on us the supporters. Ticket prices and Sky subscriptions increasing to help pay these feckers ever increasing wages whilst the rest of us face redundancy, some are evening taking pay cuts to keep their businesses afloat. Are we mugs, are we fools?

I've rambled too much, I'm totally deflated and very close to kissing goodbye to this game for good, but if I should leave then the saying is that there's one born every minute...

Great post mate but to be honest I would be more upset with Masher than Xabi. Xabi is 27 Spanish and the team his Old Man used to play for are in for him who also happen to be the biggest team in the world who have just signed a pletra of Galacetcos and its World Cup year ... Hes given us 5 very good years ... well 4 and I would love him to stay but I wont hate him if he goes to Real Madrid.

Masher on the other hand really does ****ing owe us, he could not even get off the bench at a **** West Ham team, we took a gamble on him, believed in him and brought him out of the Mire he really does need to Man up and bring his women in line. That said I can imagine the Visa issue must be a ****ing knightmare

[badpiggy]

load of bollox to me. to use xabi and masher as mascots of the worst type of whiny moneygrabbing ****pigs is way off the mark.

i don't care what spin has been put on the situation but the worst case scenario is that xabi and masher may leave because of situations anyone would have to consider as a big personal isssue to deal with and make a call.

[EwarWoo]

Assuming yoru assumptions based upon guesswork based upon part of one side of the story from the media is correct, great post.

Otherwise nice way to show the loyalty you're accusing 'em of lacking.

Hysterical kneejerk?

[Nicey]

Yeah look I firmly beleive that Xabi would be happy with any outcome as he has said and I get that. He good a good head on his shoulders and I know he can see things for what they are. Masher also I have made no judgements on that said .. it would be best if he rains his ****ing agent in then ... not the best look in the world

[Norbs]

Great post mate but to be honest I would be more upset with Masher than Xabi. Xabi is 27 Spanish and the team his Old Man used to play for are in for him who also happen to be the biggest team in the world who have just signed a pletra of Galacetcos and its World Cup year ... Hes given us 5 very good years ... well 4 and I would love him to stay but I wont hate him if he goes to Real Madrid.

Masher on the other hand really does ****ing owe us, he could not even get off the bench at a **** West Ham team, we took a gamble on him, believed in him and brought him out of the Mire he really does need to Man up and bring his women in line. That said I can imagine the Visa issue must be a ****ing knightmare

Are you sure that Xabi's dad played for Madrid?

[Fan65]

Makes you wonder what really happened between Rafa and Alonso a couple of years ago that made Rafa willing to unload him. How about he staked his claim that he wanted to go to Real then. If my memory serves me right wasn't there talk of him being tapped up back then. Now Rafa is holding out for the best deal and rightly so. I don't blame Alonso for wanting to go to Real, the attraction isn't only the money after all. If he genuinely doesn't like being here then why not angle for a move to a top club with ambition in his own country. He's been great for us (most of the time) and he's helped put us back up there as a realistic contender. When Rafa gets the right deal for him he can be replaced of that I'm sure, Rafa thinks Barry could have replaced him, well there's a lot more players out there better than Barry.

I still think Lucas could do it. And I think the Alonso money is for Silva.

But who can second guess Rafa. Bless him.

[Van Halen]

Great post.

I agree, a lot of sense in your post. I love Liverpool FC, the city the culture etc etc. The money these guys earn these days is obscene. All I ask of our players is to give 100% every game. Too many mercenaries at Anfield never did that (Diouf etc). Nowadays Masch works his socks off and in my opinion is worth every penny.
I was in the Bradford City fire in 1985 and lucky to be alive. The Bradford City players at the time (including Stuart McCall and John Hendrie) were earning £350 a week!! McCall went on to Everton and was on £5,000 a week. Then came Rupert Murdoch and sky and the rest is history.... Good post mate.

[Reece]

Whilst I agree and emphasise with a lot of your post Tony, I also agree with the person who said that a lot of it is still based on assumptions, not least on a persons character. If everything we read last season was true you might of expected Xabi to have thrown his toys out of the pram, but instead he knuckled down and was brilliant last season.

Whilst I wouldn't say I "love" my job, I do like it, and am lucky enough that I work just down the road from where I live, in a town where all my family and friends are. So I'm happy. A lot of things contribute to whether a person is happy or not, and it doesn't matter how rich they are. You have to consider your loved ones and if they are happy or not. I doesn't matter how rich you are, if you live in an area that you can't settle in then money doesn't really come into it does it?

I think most people would seriously consider offers that are offering them more money too. I could easily earn more money if I got a job in London for example, but I'd personally have to weigh it up with the negatives of commuting, working longer hours etc, and for me it would have to me a significant amount to make me to do so. But you can't expect everyone to be the same way, and I can't really begrudge people for being money orientated. You can't expect every player to have the mindset of a Jamie Carragher, especially when they are from another country and thus have no attachment to Liverpool per se.

Money in the game has got to ridiculous levels no doubt about it, but I'm sure it's always been the case that players would be tempted with moving to another club if offered more money.

[Rafael Benítez Maudes]

Someone send alonso that post.

[Reece]

Someone send alonso that post.

I'm sure it will convince him to stay

[FatTony]

xabi and masher may leave because of situations anyone would have to consider as a big personal isssue to deal with and make a call.

This is what I don't understand. They're not living in a war zone, their lives and health are not in danger, they're not earning a poor wage meaning that they're going without. They are in fact earning more money in a couple of months than we will earn in an entire lifetime. If they're moving for more money (which I believe to be part of the problem, especially based on Alonso's quotes last month before all this began to kick off "When you see your contract down by 30 per cent you cannot be happy. I cannot do anything"), then that is a real sickener. Its not a case of it being a big personal issue, its just greed. They're already swimming in a pool of money, to have more would simply be a case of filling the pool up until it overflowed. If his (Mascher) wife is unhappy here, why was she ok to stay here until Barca showed an interest? You have to ask what has suddenly become a problem. If it is only that she wants to move to a sunnier climate or cannot be arsed to make one phone call per week in relation to her residency status (as someone else mentioned) then that is not an issue, its a mere inconvenience and a temporary one at that. There is a huge difference between this an moving away to allow you to put bread on the table. We all have to make sacrifices to earn a crust, this is what I mean. A lot of these guys seem to believe that this is not the case.

I'm not saying that these two are the worst culprits, but they're currently our players and they're currently making the moves. If anyone thinks Mascher's agent is shouting his mouth off without any say from him then I think thats wishful thinking.

Ewarwoo. Its not based purely on guesswork, its based on quotes from the players and their agents. If you want to believe that these stories have no truth in them whatsoever then fair enough. On your point about loyalty? My entire post is adressing that issue, is loyalty to your club a mugs game in this age?

[Matt]

Great post Tony

I'll be honest, I don't think I'll ever fall out of love with the game but when your talisman is up in front of a jury and your midfield engine room looks set to up sticks and leave, it's a pretty disheartening time.

I just hope it won't drag on for too much longer and Rafa obviously knows he can't afford to let it so I'm sure we'll see the situations resolved shortly.

[rudedog]

Sorry, but it is based on guess work - you've heard a few things from 'the media' and have just filled in the blanks yourself.

For all you know, Mascheranos wife has been unhappy here for a while.

You are taking one quote from Xabi about the tax situation and building your whole 'greed' case against him based on that. The tax situation may just well be one of many reasons why he wants to go home.

When you talk about making sacrifices to earn a crust, perhaps they consider that by living and working in the UK they have already made those and now want to reap the benefits ie - by choosing where they live and work.

[EwarWoo]

On your point about loyalty? My entire post is adressing that issue, is loyalty to your club a mugs game in this age?

Swings and roundabouts.

Is it reasonable to expect their loyalty when we're condemning them at the slightest excuse?

Personally, as far as I'm concerned, they're part of my club, they've been damn fine servants of the club, and they have my loyalty until there's firm evidence they don't deserve it rather than based on guesses and conjecture.

Call me gullible or a mug if ya like but loyalty happens to be as important to me as all these knee jerks seem to say but don't actually demonstrate.

Sorry, but it is based on guess work - you've heard a few things from 'the media' and have just filled in the blanks yourself.

For all you know, Mascheranos wife has been unhappy here for a while.

You are taking one quote from Xabi about the tax situation and building your whole 'greed' case against him based on that. The tax situation may just well be one of many reasons why he wants to go home.

When you talk about making sacrifices to earn a crust, perhaps they consider that by living and working in the UK they have already made those and now want to reap the benefits ie - by choosing where they live and work.

[robbielad9]

Very well written and thought out post mate. Its almost a rant but contains an awful lot of what most on here have been thinking lately, although i'd stop short at walking away from the game!