Gerrard Set For Training, Suarezgate News, and Other Friday Notes

By: Noel | December 15th, 2011

Luis Suarez’ future hasn’t been decided yet, but with a ruling expected later in the day it might not be long now, and in the meantime new details from the case and Patrice Evra’s racism charges begin to come out. Plus Liverpool lose out on a potential transfer target who was never really a potential transfer target, and there’s good news to share when it comes to Steven Gerrard’s groin and the man it’s attached to…

* Queue the fireworks. Ready the confetti. Plan the parade route. Because Steven Gerrard is back in town and fit. Almost. For now at least. But whatever way you feel like wrapping it up, Gerrard is expected to return to full training on Monday, and part of the reason for a lack of updates on the player in recent weeks was that he spent time in Abu Dhabi regaining fitness with local club Al Jazira. Nothing like lamb chops and Lamborghinis in the sun to cure what ails you—just watch out for the sand, it gets everywhere. And we don’t need another groin infection to add to the ever-lengthening list of complications.

Sand aside, this latest news raises hopes that Gerrard, Gerrard’s infected groin dong, and Gerrard’s infected ankle may all be ready on schedule for the January return that was his rumoured target from shortly after the latest set of setbacks began. Of course, at this point Gerrard has spent most of the past two seasons injured, and any time he seems about ready to come back seems right about the time a new complication always pops up. Or if one somehow, miraculously doesn’t before he returns, it just means he’ll get in fifty-three minutes of football before hobbling off the pitch with a dyslexic duodenum. Liverpool without Gerrard has sadly become the norm of late, and so as good as it is to hear that he’s one step closer to returning, it will be hard to entirely believe he can play any kind of role in Liverpool’s 2012 until he makes it through at least a match or three fit, healthy, and unscathed.

* It’s not exactly a good bit of news. And it’s not really about Liverpool, if you’re in a pedantic mood. Hell, it’s probably not even especially related to Liverpool if you’re not in a pedantic mood. But it does mean that his name won’t be mentioned in connection with Liverpool any more even if it never made sense for a thirty-year-old striker who took shots at the club last January when Fernando Torres headed to Chelsea to be linked in the first place. Not that it ever seemed as though the player, with wages north of 100k per week and out of form for most of the past year and a half and who has found himself falling down his club’s pecking order, ever would have seemed a good fit for Liverpool if the owners felt they needed instant help up front anyhow. At least not in any sensible world.

Then again, this isn’t any sensible world—this is the world where serious people can seriously suggest that Fernando Torres could seriously be heading back to Liverpool in the new year and mostly it ends with lots of people with short memories thinking it’d be a good idea. Which means that instead of rumours of spending £30M on one misfiring, overpriced Spanish striker who talked about how he wouldn’t want to play for Liverpool in January, we’re now left with just the £20M, misfiring, overpriced Spanish striker who talked about how he wouldn’t want to play for Liverpool in January to speculate on. Which, with apologies to David Villa’s broken tibia—and to you, too, if you hadn’t sorted out that we were talking about David Villa—is sort of an improvement from a Liverpool point of view.

And if you don’t think it actually is an improvement from a strictly Liverpool point of view, I’m sure ~~founding member of football blogging’s axis of evil~~the rumour mongers at Caught Offside will be happy to stuff their nauseating pabulum down your throat until you choke. It’ll probably involve calling Andy Carroll a £35M flop before doing a triple salchow and suggesting that the solution to Andy Carroll being a £35M flop is splashing nearly as much money again on a striker who’s only available because his form at his current club would qualify him for being called a flop by Caught Offside.

* January’s silly season may not quite be fully upon us, but the FA has done its best to give Liverpool an extra special, extended silly season for the holidays. And meanwhile I’m left feeling guilty because all I got for them in return is a sneer and an extended middle finger. Grievances—justified or otherwise—aside, after weeks of endless dragging it appears as though we might finally be coming to the conclusion of Suarezgate. Or at least the Suarezgate that involved Patrice Evra claiming he was racially abused more than ten times within hearing of the referee when the two sides met on October the fifteenth, aka. over sixty days ago. Along with the hope for a chance at the possibility of some measure of closure just over the horizon, new details of the ongoing case have begun to leak out, and while we can’t always completely avoid our biases around here, many of those recently emerged details don’t seem to paint Evra in an especially flattering light:

Shortly after the corner, referee Andre Marriner called the pair together for a lecture. Suárez apologised and attempted to pat the United full-back on the head. “Don’t touch me, you South American,’’ Evra is alleged to have said. To which, the Uruguayan replied: “Porque, Negro?’’

Despite Marriner’s intervention, Evra remained furious. When he caught Kuyt two minutes later, Evra responded to Marriner’s caution by allegedly claiming: “You’re only booking me because I’m black.’’

If that is in fact the only potentially problematic word Suarez used, and if that is in fact the only manner in which he used it, and if it was indeed used in the manner suggested within hearing of the referee, then it’s exceptionally hard to see the case ending with punishment for Suarez. At time same time, it’s actually Evra’s use of “South American” as a pejorative term that seems the far more loaded use of language in that exchange, at least as it is now being reported, while that Evra subsequently charged the referee of racist motivations for booking him only speaks further to a frustrated, angry player spoiling for a fight and seeing sinister motives in every action. Moreover, given the FA’s myriad respect campaigns and that they recently decided to charge Liverpool with failing to control their players for arguing an official’s decision, there seems a case to be made for Evra facing disciplinary action for his words to Andre Marriner regardless of the outcome for Suarez.

We’ll be back later on, either to curse the FA or to grudgingly not-curse the FA. Or maybe to moan about how they’ve found some reason to wait another six weeks before reaching any kind of decision. But in the meantime…

Some Related Liverpool Posts:

Category: Miscellaneous, Premier League, Team News, Transfer News

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Geoff Twentyman

As a word in itself, Negro (from Negroid) describes a person of African descent; a categorisation of race, as Caucasian or Mongoloid. That in itself is not a slur or insult, except the word has become less frequently used since the civil rights movement. The adaptation of that word clearly is used as an insult.

It's funny really, because during the civil rights movement the word 'black' was preferred, and to an extent still, is, but 'black' is just the English translation of the Spanish 'negro'. i.e. its all just language; just an adjective.

The defence that negro is a colloquial term used in Uruguay for "mate" is an interesting one. Some might say that this isn;t the type of scenario that would back that up.
I emigrated to Australia 3 years ago and everyone here calls everyone else 'mate' in all sorts of situations where you wouldn't expect. i.e. I've heard 2 strangers arguing in a pub and one said to the other "Mate, if you keep carrying on, I'm going to have to smash you"
He clearly wasn't his mate!

I suppose I raise this with a set of red tinted glasses on. And of course, I'm not black, negro, brown or whatever the political correct categorisation is, but to me it doesn't seem to be a truly racist incident, although he may have known the term would be inflammatory and that he could use it as a defence.

If he'd used the term that gangsta rappers refer to each other, I'd expect the book to be thrown at him.
Suarez from the car park...

With Evra saying "don't touch me, South American", you could believe that this sentence was designed to provoke an ethnicity based reaction.

With his subsequent accusation of the ref booking him because he was black (allegedly), now that's clearly intimidating the official in true ManUre style.

Don't know what SAF's position is on such behaviour but he's always piled the pressure on officials at every opportunity possible.
Ed

We are actively avoiding the non-news about Suarez.

To cope, get yourself like this:
Suarez from the car park...

sorry, can't join you in that, no matter it does no good.
Ed

I think it does a lot of good.
Waiting for Sterling

Great reference <3
kenny

So no announcement from the FA until the 20th...
Suarez from the car park...

the charge as from the Telegraph:
'alleging Suárez used “abusive and/or insulting words and/or behaviour” towards Evra.'

On that basis, it could be difficult to say that occurred due to its common use in his native language and how 'negro' is not an abusive term unless accentuated with an adjective. In addition, where are the 10 occurrences? Were they ALL missed?

I would have thought the charge would be a directly racist one, which is a slightly different question.

Referring to one's ethnicity as identification is indeed racist, but again, the use of the word or phrase in natural language of Uruguay would have to be taken into account, particularly if he happened to be being conciliatory at the time.

The situation on the pitch can only be described in broad terms, so the key would be how 'native' Luis was being - pretty simple to ascertain I would have thought.

What confuses me about the charge is the FA rules don't allow reference by ethnicity (easy guilty verdict) but this isn't part of the charge.

If it's really true that Evra said to the ref "you're only booking me because I'm black" then that is intimidation of the referee. It begs the question why the ref didn't include that in his report - scared of upsetting SAF?
Red2death

The other part of the charge is that it "included a reference to the ethnic origin and/or color and/or race of Patrice Evra."

Seriously, I don't see how "Porque, negra?" is any more aggressive or racially referential than the original provocation, "Don't touch me, you South American".

Unless it really wasn't about that particular incident and he's going to be punished for those other 9 times which no one heard, no one saw and no camera caught.

It'd be interesting if he's found innocent though. Kenny did initially allude to going after Evra if that was the case. My guess is he won't - but full respect if he does.
McrRed

In particular, the FA HAVE to charge the linesman under their rule as evra has made an allegation that needs to be investigated, namely that he was only booked because he was black.

Won't hold me breath...
Prad

Just when I think the FA can't get any mire inept:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/spo...

No decision on Suarez till Tuesday.
poorscouserbobby

That'll give fergie plenty of time to look at the fixture list.
Zach

this is awful
PDubz18

Statement from the FA:

"The Football Association have released the following statement.

The Independent Regulatory Commission has confirmed there will be no
decision this evening and will continue working through the weekend.
There will be no announcement on any decision before Tuesday 20 December 2011 at the earliest."The longer this goes without a definitive conclusion, the more chance Suarez has for being proclaimed innocent. If the guy really did use racist language toward Suarez, there really would be no question about it. Evra was just being the belligerent guy who thought the world was against him.
ejbauer11

Cannot wait to see Stevie back in action. I can't comment on the Evra thing except to say that if the dialogue is true, I want to kick him in the f'ing junk. In addition to Evra and the FA, would like to nominate the various hacks who refuse to not impose predetermined narratives in reporting of this farce as fellow idiots, though that might be a disservice to John Cleese and village idiots everywhere. God I wish Sunday were here already.
poorscouserbobby

There's something special about a bit of Monty Python that always does good things for the heart. Suarez, He'll receive a fine, but no ban, but a 3 game ban for his... gesture. Anyways, point being, doom doom, we're all going to die, never to win another match. Stevie G will never return to fitness. Carra's been crocked since 2005, Downing will never score, nor have an assist carrol was crocked, is crocked and won't score.. wait, who am I Suarez' dentist? sorry lads bit of an identity crisis there for a moment. But I suspect we won't hear the end of this, nor will we ever hear the end of suarez the racist-worst-diver-ever-who-needs-a-dentist...
KC

All this reading about dongs made me read the "Jonjo wins special gong" article on lfctv as Jonjo wins special dong. And the I thought what dong could he win? And then I realised it said gong. That's what Steven Gerrard's dong is doing to me.
redtrev73

"....it just means he’ll get in fifty-three minutes of football before a hobbling off the pitch with a dyslexic duodenum."

This.

"....the rumour mongers at Caught Offside will be happy to stuff their nauseating pabulum down your throat until you choke."

Also this.

Excellent work, sir.
Suarez from the car park...

What's a pabulum?

Can't believe COScrap is even being mentioned here. Belongs in Davina Mcall country.
Red2death

Well, yea, evidence and all. And Evra does seem racist. But isn't Suarez still guilty? What'll we tell uncle Fergie?
jpr

Get lightly fouled. Steam up. Insult the oppo player, insult the ref. Bitterly complain about being treated badly. Must be an evra/french/fergie thing. The injustice of it all.
Red2death

Arsene(al) doesn't do that though. Must be an Old Trafford thing. I guess we need to cut him some slack. All he wants is to be treated as preferentially as any other Utd player. Is that too much to ask?
Suarez from the car park...

The French, don't get me started, especially if it's about a soon to be out of a job Prime Minister who hasn't got a clue.

As for Evra, what was he so mad about? He was just made to look like an ordinary has been ManUre player. In good company i would say.
Ryan

Who the hell is Steven Gerrard?
ejbauer11

The man responsible for the best memory of my life that doesn't involve a female, controlled substances or francisco cabrera...that should be amended to memories, actually.
Suarez from the car park...

If I was female, I'd definitely do him!
Noel

And if I won a million dollars I'd bugger off and nobody would see me for two or three decades... wait, what was the question?
Suarez from the car park...

It was ' would you do the skipper if you could' !
ejbauer11

The answer probably depends on how many times you made me watch him score that goal against Olympiakos before asking.
Asdf

Some dude who won some European cup sometime ago and used to kiss badges and cameras when scoring and winning against some scums.. don't really remember him though. Has the fella retired?