This is absolutely fabulous. Loved every minute. It wasn't a 'Love it, love it if we beat them' rant, it was calm, measured and calculated. The timing is spot on, anyone saying we should keep quiet until the end of the season isn't seeing the bigger picture.
There were concerns on another Liverpool podcast last year, based out of New York. The general feeling of the person doing the article wasn't that were weren't capable of winning it as a football team, but that there is more to winning the league now than when we dominated, and he singled out Ferguson and Wenger as the 2 people that used the 'black arts' to the best effect, those 2 pretty much owning the league for the past 2 decades. It's the ability to use mind games, underhanded tacticts, to get under not only the opposing manager's skin, but his players, too.
There are 2 sides to this, our team and our manager. We're just beginning to see, realistically, the first signs of how Rafa's Liverpool will play, if and when Statler and Waldorf actually back him. The second is actually seeing the real Rafa. Tactically superior, shrewd, cunning, and ruthless. He's seen several weaknesses in United, and instead of keeping quiet, he's starting to open the wound further. He, and Ferguson, know we perform better in the second half of the season. That's irrelevant when we're 10 points behind, but when we're top that bodes ominous for the Mancs, and they know it. Rafa's basically put the onus on Ferguson, and put him under pressure to perform, he's daring him to catch us.
Graham Poll recently said the exact same thing on Chappers' podcast: Ferguson influences the referees, he puts them under pressure, he puts the referees association under pressure, even going so far as to say a certain referee last year did not send a United player off because if he had he would have been removed from refereeing the cup final that he'd been allotted, because Ferguson has that much sway with the association.
Rafa's not only picked the scab, he's ripped it off for everyone to stare at. Awesome.
