ECHO Comment: "Fears of Witch-hunt Against Liverpool FC" part 3

[catcherintherye]

Problem with the doped-to-their-gills hypothesis is that everyone in the prem would have to be doing it, with large scale tacit acceptance from those in charge (tacit acceptance from the fans is a given). Like Lance Armstrong was a prominent cheat in an ocean of cheats - the entire peloton was on EPO late nineties and it was fully endorsed by all teams and tacitly accepted by the UCI.
Given the testing regime in prem football is actually half-decent, seems unlikely one club could go out on a limb here.

Weight loss drugs could be massive in football and seem easier to blur into the grey area of permitted medications. I reckon we'd all be surprised if we stood next to some of these centre half or centre forward 'beasts.' Prob a lot slimmer and slighter than you think.

Weight loss drugs are a great masking agent.

 

[catcherintherye]

yep somewhat fair, but I think the fact that he was hated was important, also relative to football, it is not big business.

Im torn on football, if there is full whack doping, it is collective and across the league(s), which makes me have my doubts.

With LCFC, there are some "olympic style" pointers such as sprinting ability coming from nowhere, miraculous injury recover (kante and Vardy), the fact that all of these stats stopped as soon as they had to compete in Europe & their struggles to find a manager post Claudio R which would raise an eyebrow. I hope it was the impossible dream.

I'm not really sure he was hated. I mean maybe it was just my age group, but most people I knew had his live strong band and he was enormously respected. We had school assemblies on how wonderful he was etc. To be honest, the appreciation went far beyond any football club, particularly Liverpool, whoa re far more hated than Armstrong was (even if my experience was a bit niche). He was big business though, and it didn't protect him.

I think we have to be really careful with football. The initial idea if one team does it they all do is a sort of fatalistic statement that is quite dangerous. Likewise so too are some of the suggestions re Leicester or Liverpool. It's not my thing to engage in them. If I see solid evidence I'll make a firm comment, but until then I go for the innocent until guilty line where all are concerned.

 

[mahermi1]

Have Liverpool suffered the most injuries ?
Sky sports news headline. OMG, they've gone about three years with hardly any, the team has picked itself.
The only thing more regular than their line up our their penalties. Sky has become redman tv.

 

[catcherintherye]

in 2018/19 he ran more km per 90 minutes than any player that played a significant number of minutes. He’s a year or two younger than I thought but the point remains that 33 year olds should not be physically outperforming players 10 years younger than them. Look at other players of Milner’s era: Rooney Scholes Barry Lampard even Gerrard they all slowed down, they kept their quality but past 32 they had all adapted how they played and had to move away from the high octane stuff. Even Messi and Ronaldo have declined and they’re the greatest of all time. Milner has been better the last couple of seasons than he was at City and Villa. He came on at right back at the weekend and snuffed out one of the fastest wingers in world football with ease.

Why do people think it’s natural? How many other 34 year olds are still performing in the premier league at league winning level without slowing down?

Just to play devils advocate here a bit though, he had a lot of sub appearances in that season if I remmeber. Most of them where he would come on for 20-30 minutes and run around like a headless chicken. That is always going to distort the facts.

 

[Noisy noise annoys]

Have Liverpool suffered the most injuries ?
Sky sports news headline. OMG, they've gone about three years with hardly any, the team has picked itself.
The only thing more regular than their line up our their penalties. Sky has become redman tv.

Our squad was so thin recentky we had two keepers on the bench

 

[catcherintherye]

According to them, it's the fixture pile ups fault that injury prone defender Joe Gomez has (surprise surprise) got injured again. Lots of anger and ire at the FA, yet surprisingly little at their own club for trying to negotiate an extra 20-30 games, on top of the existing season, in addition to enormously more air miles that it would bring. I mean if footballers are breaking down at the current schedule, how does anyone think they are going to survive an entire season full of interational games played out every midweek? Potentially on different continents?

Unsurprisingly, the rather elephant in the room is being ignored on this one, that their own clubs greed, and their own managers stupidity in not resting injury prone players (but rather running them into the ground) is not commented on. If his knee is that weak, that just standing around training without nobody around him has triggered it, just shows how much in the red zone the lad was. He's not capable of standing up to the rigours of a ful season, even 8 games in. If you can't do that at 23, unfortunately it's a very big problem.

Ledley King was much the same.

 

[Black Belt Jones]

I'm not really sure he was hated. I mean maybe it was just my age group, but most people I knew had his live strong band and he was enormously respected. We had school assemblies on how wonderful he was etc. To be honest, the appreciation went far beyond any football club, particularly Liverpool, whoa re far more hated than Armstrong was (even if my experience was a bit niche). He was big business though, and it didn't protect him.

I think we have to be really careful with football. The initial idea if one team does it they all do is a sort of fatalistic statement that is quite dangerous. Likewise so too are some of the suggestions re Leicester or Liverpool. It's not my thing to engage in them. If I see solid evidence I'll make a firm comment, but until then I go for the innocent until guilty line where all are concerned.

He was hated by the powerbase of cycling (Belgium, France, Italy) because he was an outsider and he was arguably not that good off the gear. As you prob know PEDs don't give a uniform extra 10% to everyone, there's a distribution of responses, so you got water carriers like Bjarne Riis winning grand tours in the 90s.

The RS defying medical science is a conundrum but I think it's perfectly OK to just look at this from a broader common-sense perspective - the biggest sport in the world, by participation, commercialisation, audience, you name it, has zero issues with PEDs? When niche sports like pro-cycling that no one cares about, relatively speaking, are going to town on them? Clearly something has to be up there.

 

[Homer Jay]

According to them, it's the fixture pile ups fault that injury prone defender Joe Gomez has (surprise surprise) got injured again. Lots of anger and ire at the FA, yet surprisingly little at their own club for trying to negotiate an extra 20-30 games, on top of the existing season, in addition to enormously more air miles that it would bring. I mean if footballers are breaking down at the current schedule, how does anyone think they are going to survive an entire season full of interational games played out every midweek? Potentially on different continents?

Unsurprisingly, the rather elephant in the room is being ignored on this one, that their own clubs greed, and their own managers stupidity in not resting injury prone players (but rather running them into the ground) is not commented on. If his knee is that weak, that just standing around training without nobody around him has triggered it, just shows how much in the red zone the lad was. He's not capable of standing up to the rigours of a ful season, even 8 games in. If you can't do that at 23, unfortunately it's a very big problem.

Ledley King was much the same.

Ledley Kings knee was knackered 2 minutes in to his premier league debut following a “tackle” from Rory Delap. It had nothing to do with being run in to the ground, it was severe cartilage and nerve damage that meant that he wasn’t able to train most days yet somehow managed to be the best player on the pitch most weekends that he made it on there.

 

[Tin-Tin]

He will really struggle to adapt to Klopp's style, and already is. As for your 2nd option, Salah.

Normally i'd say yes, the problem this year is who has the money to pay £100mill? Barca and Real dont. PSG cant spend big either. Cant see Bayern and City wont happen.

Have Liverpool suffered the most injuries ?
Sky sports news headline. OMG, they've gone about three years with hardly any, the team has picked itself.
The only thing more regular than their line up our their penalties. Sky has become redman tv.

Maybe thats why the injuries now, you cant flog the same players for 2-3 years and expect them to hold up. Firmino is getting a bit of a rest as he's in bad form. They cant afford to rest Mane or Salah so one of them will be next

 

[derek duvall]

Normally i'd say yes, the problem this year is who has the money to pay £100mill? Barca and Real dont. PSG cant spend big either. Cant see Bayern and City wont happen.



Maybe thats why the injuries now, you cant flog the same players for 2-3 years and expect them to hold up. Firmino is getting a bit of a rest as he's in bad form. They cant afford to rest Mane or Salah so one of them will be next

We’ve been saying that for ages but it never happens

 

[No8Bally]

Wasn't due to a tackle either apparently. Just turned funny or something. Could be correct.

It was Pickford under his invisibility cloak

 

[PaulPowersTash]

Look at Milners body structure. Looks like the anabolic steroid master of the universe. See shapes like him around the gyms of the world. You will have to wait for them to open again to have a peek lol

Exactly this. The change in his body shape since he left City is truly off the scale!
And he runs further, for longer and is quicker. Not bad for an asthmatic...

 

[catcherintherye]

Normally i'd say yes, the problem this year is who has the money to pay £100mill? Barca and Real dont. PSG cant spend big either. Cant see Bayern and City wont happen.



Maybe thats why the injuries now, you cant flog the same players for 2-3 years and expect them to hold up. Firmino is getting a bit of a rest as he's in bad form. They cant afford to rest Mane or Salah so one of them will be next

They will have to sell him for less. Maybe Mane too.

 

[catcherintherye]

Ledley Kings knee was knackered 2 minutes in to his premier league debut following a “tackle” from Rory Delap. It had nothing to do with being run in to the ground, it was severe cartilage and nerve damage that meant that he wasn’t able to train most days yet somehow managed to be the best player on the pitch most weekends that he made it on there.

Yes. However he never got over the problems, however good a player he was. Gomez is also extremely injury prone.

 

[catcherintherye]

Looks like Gomez has done a tendon in his knee, same as Gbamin did, and kept him out from August to June. Obviously some complications for Gbamin but could well be injured until next season.