Entitled fans or realistic fans?

[RonnieTodger]

"old crusties" is one of the best things I've read on this forum

[foxaholic]

9 hours ago, Bourbon Fox said:

It's as if some people think football is a randomised lottery.

 

Given our position, squad, quality etc it is reasonable to expect a win on balance of probability against the team that's bottom with one point out of a possible 30.

 

That isn't entitlement, the league is literally an average of wins over time. We win more often than them. Not that football doesn't throw up some glory and ignominy along the way but it's reasonable to anticipate a win. 

 

In the same way, I don't EXPECT us to beat Liverpool on balance, although of course it's possible.

We used to do it regularly  even doing the double when we got relegated

[mozartfox]

8 hours ago, SO1 said:

The good feelings you got from writing that are the same reasons I'm still here (on the forum). Nothing good comes without contrast. Negativity/Contrast will always exist. I just have to remember not to make others problems my problems.

We are a Forum, so censorship has no place. But sometimes I wish we had 2 ‘Match’ Threads.  The ‘sane and realistic’ thread and the alternative ‘Nostradamus’ thread.  But I suspect after 5 minutes they would merge🤡.  But hay-hoe this Forum is still a wonderful platform.

[Bourbon Fox]

13 hours ago, Captain... said:

You can lose a game of football despite being the better team on the day with the better players on the pitch. It happens a lot. It's a low scoring game that hangs on fine margins. 

Yes - but to expect to win with better players doesn't make you entitled

[Guest SO1]

1 hour ago, mozartfox said:

We are a Forum, so censorship has no place. But sometimes I wish we had 2 ‘Match’ Threads.  The ‘sane and realistic’ thread and the alternative ‘Nostradamus’ thread.  But I suspect after 5 minutes they would merge🤡.  But hay-hoe this Forum is still a wonderful platform.

An "Alternate Universe". Sounds like an excellent idea. Perhaps we exist in more than one place at the same time.

As you say the black hole always wins. We all get sucked in eventually.  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Okpb0-VWntk

[murphy]

1 hour ago, Bourbon Fox said:

Yes - but to expect to win with better players doesn't make you entitled

I suppose we can expect to beat Fulham for instance just like we could have expected to beat Newport County.  Man City could equally have expected to beat us but didn't. From a neutral perspective that makes football interesting.  Sometimes the underdogs win and we should know.

 

For me the reaction to defeat on here is what shines a light on the entitlement of some fans.  The despair and aggression in a lot f the posts.  We don't just expect to win, we demand it.

[gurru991]

I bet on Premier League games every week & just betting the favourites will not get you there.  Leicester will beat Man C & Fulham will beat Leicester, it's what makes the Prem so exciting. As a fan you think you can pick a better team than the manager & you fully expect to win all the time. It doesn't always work that way but I don't think slagging off our players and coaching staff is overly productive. I personally don't care for the nasty & negative comments on our players.

[nnickn]

lots of people bet on premier league matches and turn a profit, it is why skybet, laddys etc limit punters to £1 stakes or outright ban them.

At the end of the day, UK bookmakers only want to cater for the naive with excess leisure money.

As soon as their software identify's them as not stupid they ban them

Edited 8 December 2020 by nnickn

[Stadt]

It’s the manner of defeats that frustrates me, we barely looked like scoring in the Villa, West Ham and Fulham defeats. I’m fine with losing but it’s when we’re so amazingly lacklustre that winds me up. We have one of the best finishers in the world and quite regularly we’ll create minimal chances for him. It’s not entitlement to feel like your team should play reasonably, even in defeat. 
 

Take the Liverpool game, they had a host of injuries - to be honest I thought we should have won prior to the match, which I realise now is probably too demanding but what was unacceptable is just how easy we made it. This passive style of play most of the season is understandable but when isn’t working it’s horrific. With a very talented squad not playing horrifically is even below the bare minimum.

[Babylon]

6 hours ago, Stadt said:

It’s the manner of defeats that frustrates me, we barely looked like scoring in the Villa, West Ham and Fulham defeats. I’m fine with losing but it’s when we’re so amazingly lacklustre that winds me up. We have one of the best finishers in the world and quite regularly we’ll create minimal chances for him. It’s not entitlement to feel like your team should play reasonably, even in defeat. 
 

Take the Liverpool game, they had a host of injuries - to be honest I thought we should have won prior to the match, which I realise now is probably too demanding but what was unacceptable is just how easy we made it. This passive style of play most of the season is understandable but when isn’t working it’s horrific. With a very talented squad not playing horrifically is even below the bare minimum.

I haven't listened to Rodgers talk, but Rob Tanner keeps intimating that we're setting up as we are purely down to the injuries. Which means the manager doesn't trust certain players or is trying to protect them by playing far more defensive than we normally would. Add in the fact we're missing our two starting full backs, which is a big loss when so much of our attacking play lasts season came through them. 

 

It's frustrating, but if that's the case it's at least somewhat understandable that we're currently set up as we are and not creating a huge amount. I was shocked the other day when I looked back and saw that in nearly a whole year we've only been able to start N'didi, Maddison, Tielemans 3 times and I've not even looked to see if the team included Ricardo. I'd wager perhaps just once or twice it did. 

 

That's a huge miss when you think how important that axis was around how we were playing when things were going well. 

[Les-TA-Jon]

10 hours ago, Bourbon Fox said:

Yes - but to expect to win with better players doesn't make you entitled

Expecting to win in those circumstances doesn't make you entitled, no. But it's how a fan responds to an unexpected result that determines whether they're entitled or not. 

 

If the fan in question is magnanimous, accounts for the wider context of the match itself, events in game, available players and injuries etc, along with a recognition that the sport is inherently random and determined on fine margins, with countless, countless evidence of unexpected results, then fair play. 

 

But if they moan and whine and hyperbolically demand players dropped and managers sacked then yes, I'd argue that betrays a sense of weird, entitlement, born from a lack of a wider perspective. 

[Jimbo]

On 06/12/2020 at 18:37, foxinsocks said:

I just want a team who are set up to win

I really do not understand these types of comments. I get it that we all have our own ideas and thoughts regarding selections and tactics etc but we're not the ones paid to put them into practice.

 

No manager, at any level, sends a team out to not win a game. Even in a scenario that sees Newport County up against Man City would the Newport manager send a team out to not win the game. They would be set up in a way that the manager believes is the best possible way to get a result from the game. The manager may be realistic in his expectations of the result, but not a chance in hell he "sets up" to not win the game.

 

Brendan sends us out, every single time, set up to win a game of football. Just because the formation is the same doesn't mean that the tactics are. I too, sometimes get frustrated at the team and the way we play, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and sometimes a manager gets his selections and tactics wrong. But, I feel I have to reiterate, a manager would never set up not to win.

 

This comment for me is a view of a very entitled fan.

 

I feel that the minority of fans may have raised expectations. Not so much entitled, more of a less realistic perspective. 

 

I do believe, and have said before, that we live in a fifa generation and I genuinely think it has a huge impact of the views of "real life" football. I'm guilty, still in my older years, of not getting a result I would expect on football manager, quitting and starting again. This of course does not happen in real life, there's no reset button. Although they are the minority, they are always the loudest and still far too many people do not view the bigger picture and take the infinite number of variables into account. 

 

Single results and performances happen, flash in the pan instances. For 90 minutes I lose touch with the bigger picture. I sit and grumble, I shout my ideas at the tv (I can't wait to get back in the ground and shout them from the stands as if they'd make any difference) I moan and slate players like I'm some retired professional who was at the height of the game back in the day. But when the final whistle goes I analyse our performance like a top statistical, scientific boffin, and the result is then done, after reading the melt down on here following a bad result. Then I sit a see the bigger picture. Yes, it can be disappointing to realise the results we should have expected from games like Villa and Fulham would have is top of the league, but real life meant we couldn't restart and have another go. 

 

The fact remains, and its not an arguement to just fall back on, we finished in our 2nd highest position ever last season, no matter how disappointing the finish was, and this season we're keeping up with the early runners and acheived our objective in Europe earlier than we may have done. 

 

Our realistic aim right now is not to be the "elite" but to close the gap to the elite. It's to be genuinely recognised as one the the best teams in the country, it's to challenge the establishment and to be able to sustain it. But it's a long journey and teams of our size cannot go all gung-ho about trying to achieve it. 

 

If we go through the next few years with sustained European football, whether that be the Europa league or higher (a couple of goes at the champions league would be nice) then we'll be ready to take the next step. At that point we may have more of a reason to become a little more "entitled" with raised expectations guaranteed to take over. But right now, realistically, we're performing at the top end of our expectations, and in the bigger picture, we ultimately have to be very happy with that 

Edited 8 December 2020 by Jimbo

[foxinsocks]

59 minutes ago, Jimbo said:

I really do not understand these types of comments. I get it that we all have our own ideas and thoughts regarding selections and tactics etc but we're not the ones paid to put them into practice.

 

No manager, at any level, sends a team out to not win a game. Even in a scenario that sees Newport County up against Man City would the Newport manager send a team out to not win the game. They would be set up in a way that the manager believes is the best possible way to get a result from the game. The manager may be realistic in his expectations of the result, but not a chance in hell he "sets up" to not win the game.

 

Brendan sends us out, every single time, set up to win a game of football. Just because the formation is the same doesn't mean that the tactics are. I too, sometimes get frustrated at the team and the way we play, but hindsight is a wonderful thing and sometimes a manager gets his selections and tactics wrong. But, I feel I have to reiterate, a manger would never set up not to win.

 

This comment for me is a view of a very entitled fan.

 

I feel that the minority of fans may have raised expectations. Not so much entitled, more of a less realistic perspective. 

 

I do believe, and have said before, that we live in a fifa generation and I genuinely think it has a huge impact of the views of "real life" football. I'm guilty, still in my older years, of not getting a result I would expect on football manager, quitting and starting again. This of course does not happen in real life, there's no reset button. Although they are the minority they are always the loudest and still far too many people do not view the bigger picture and take the infinite number of variables into account. 

 

Single results and performances happen, flash in the pan instances. For 90 minutes I lose touch with the bigger picture. I sit and grumble, I shout my ideas at the tv (I can't wait to get back in the ground and shout them from the stands as if they'd make any difference) I moan and slate players like I'm some retired professional who was at the height of the game back in the day. But when the final whistle goes I analyse our performance like a top statistical, scientific boffin, and the result is then done, after reading the melt down on here following a bad result. Then I sit a see the bigger picture. Yes, it can be disappointing to realise the results we should have expected from games like Villa and Fulham would have is top of the league, but real life meant we couldn't restart and have another go. 

 

The fact remains, and its not an arguement to just fall back on, we finished in our 2nd highest position ever last season, no matter how disappointing the finish was, and this season we're keeping up with the early runners and acheived our objective in Europe earlier than we may have done. 

 

Our realistic aim right now is not to be the "elite" but to close the gap to the elite. It's to be genuinely recognised as one the the best teams in the country, it's to challenge the establishment and to be able to sustain it. But it's a long journey and teams of our size cannot go all gung-ho about trying to achieve it. 

 

If we go through the next few years with sustained European football, whether that be the Europa league or higher (a couple of gosbat the champions league would be nice) then we'll be ready to take the next step. At that point we may have more of a reason to become a little more "entitled" with raised expectations guaranteed to take over. But right now, realistically, we're performing at the top end of our expectations, and in the bigger picture, we ultimately have to be very happy with that 

Jim, it is frustrating when we feel mistakes are repeated that cost us points.  Yes  managers dont set out not to win... but they do set out not to lose.

I feel... and it's a valid opinion... that Rodgers is too cautions in games we should win easily.

 

Edited 8 December 2020 by foxinsocks

[Jimbo]

1 hour ago, foxinsocks said:

Jim, it is frustrating when we feel mistakes are repeated that cost us points.  Yes  managers dont set out not to win... but they do set out not to lose.

I feel... and it's a valid opinion... that Rodgers is too cautions in games we should win easily.

 

But it's not as simple as that though is it?? No game is easy at an elite level. There are no games that we should "win easily" again this is a very "entitled" statement and you're completely disrespecting the opposition. 

 

Cautious tactics in a game may not have started out as cautious tactics, and the opposite could be said, we could actually setup to be "cautious" and end up completely dominating in terms of the result i.e. Man City

 

In our current situation we are regarded as one of the high end "mid table" sides and our reasonably new found respect means that teams will set up "cautious" against us and we are now seen as a team, if you get a result against us then that's an achievement (I get the irony of me sounding entitled with what I'm saying) 

 

 

[UpTheLeagueFox]

We sometimes lose to teams we think we should beat.

We sometimes win against teams who think they should beat us.

 

And the same goes for every club in the country.

We're doing very well. Try and enjoy the moment a bit more.

[foxinsocks]

1 hour ago, Jimbo said:

But it's not as simple as that though is it?? No game is easy at an elite level. There are no games that we should "win easily" again this is a very "entitled" statement and you're completely disrespecting the opposition. 

 

Cautious tactics in a game may not have started out as cautious tactics, and the opposite could be said, we could actually setup to be "cautious" and end up completely dominating in terms of the result i.e. Man City

 

In our current situation we are regarded as one of the high end "mid table" sides and our reasonably new found respect means that teams will set up "cautious" against us and we are now seen as a team, if you get a result against us then that's an achievement (I get the irony of me sounding entitled with what I'm saying) 

 

 

I see what you are saying... yet I believe that to win you have to go on believing that you will do so... not timidity

[Jimbo]

Just now, foxinsocks said:

I see what you are saying... yet I believe that to win you have to go on believing that you will do so... not timidity

But you're assuming that we go out to be timid. Just because we don't play well does not mean we didn't go out believing we could win. 

 

A little story from when I used to play rugby. Years and years ago my team somehow made it to the county Cup semi finals. We believed we could win, a final at Welford Road was within touching distance. 

We lost, badly. Really, really badly. Worst defeat I've ever experienced. We got absolutely obliterated. We played Lutterworth (bear in mind this was an u16's game and I swear to this day some of their players drove themselves to the game) and it was a cricket score, and I don't think we made it to their 22. 

 

Me being competitive never thought we couldn't win every time we played them after, no matter how much that result hurt me, every time we played them I always, always went out onto the pitch thinking we could win any game, no matter how good and much more experienced the other team was. That's the mind set of every single sports person at every level in every sport. Anyone who plays any sport in any form of competitive nature believes they can win. Anyway, we did beat Lutterworth a few years later. 

 

No sports person ever goes out to not win. 

 

The problem we have, for me personally, is our urgency in some games. Sometimes we look like we could up the tempo, that's the thing that frustrates me the most. But every time we've sent a team out it's to win a game. And right now, we've won more than we've lost, we sit amongst the early front runners and have acheived our 1st objective in Europe, yet some people aren't happy because we're not top of the premier league having won every game. 

 

Sometimes we win when us fans don't expect us to, sometimes we lose when we really should win. But that's football. 

 

[Vazman]

12 hours ago, murphy said:

I suppose we can expect to beat Fulham for instance just like we could have expected to beat Newport County.  Man City could equally have expected to beat us but didn't. From a neutral perspective that makes football interesting.  Sometimes the underdogs win and we should know.

 

For me the reaction to defeat on here is what shines a light on the entitlement of some fans.  The despair and aggression in a lot f the posts.  We don't just expect to win, we demand it.

This forum is excellent, I love reading both sides of the arguement there is truth in everyone's thinking in their own opinions, and we should all respect that.

 

Everyone is entitled to say there are reasons and mitigating circumstances why we may lose, and play badly, and it's not the end of the world, just like those who come on here to scrutinise team selection, tactics, or poor performances from the team or individuals, are entitled to say it without fear. 

 

The unifying unentitled point is, that we all want our team to succeed, it is a fine line between enthusiasm, expectation and entitled, but at the end of the day LCFC is a great club and I suspect the envy of many, we all have alot to be pleased about going forward, and to be annoyed about in the past, I for one will remain  positive with a hint of seriousness and humour as I continue to enjoy reading the posts from both sides of the argument, up the FOXES! 

[RonnieTodger]

You'll see how entitled our fans are when we're back in the ground. 

 

I think if we lost to any team outside of the "top 6", the players would get booed off at home.

[Corky]

29 minutes ago, RonnieTodger said:

You'll see how entitled our fans are when we're back in the ground. 

 

I think if we lost to any team outside of the "top 6", the players would get booed off at home.

I think people underestimate how similar the ground and the matchday threads on here are most of the time.

[HighPeakFox]

7 minutes ago, Corky said:

I think people underestimate how similar the ground and the matchday threads on here are most of the time.

Damn right. I often feel contempt for some of the attitudes I hear expressed in the ground. Especially as it is often people who appear to be barely watching the game. 

[VLC86]

41 minutes ago, RonnieTodger said:

You'll see how entitled our fans are when we're back in the ground. 

 

I think if we lost to any team outside of the "top 6", the players would get booed off at home.

There is a fine line between under performing and meeting expectations. Realistically, we should be beating teams outside of the top 6 at home at the minute.

 

We have no excuse really. A top manager and a great squad when the majority are fit. In all honesty as a one off we could lose to anyone, that’s the premier league but as long as we give it a go and play well then the vast majority of rational fans can accept a one off result.

[Stadt]

8 hours ago, Babylon said:

I haven't listened to Rodgers talk, but Rob Tanner keeps intimating that we're setting up as we are purely down to the injuries. Which means the manager doesn't trust certain players or is trying to protect them by playing far more defensive than we normally would. Add in the fact we're missing our two starting full backs, which is a big loss when so much of our attacking play lasts season came through them. 

 

It's frustrating, but if that's the case it's at least somewhat understandable that we're currently set up as we are and not creating a huge amount. I was shocked the other day when I looked back and saw that in nearly a whole year we've only been able to start N'didi, Maddison, Tielemans 3 times and I've not even looked to see if the team included Ricardo. I'd wager perhaps just once or twice it did. 

 

That's a huge miss when you think how important that axis was around how we were playing when things were going well. 

The injuries are hugely important, but the team we put out against Fulham was still far better than their’s. Not just under Rodgers but our whole team has the propensity to play far worse than the sum of our parts 

[HighPeakFox]

2 hours ago, Costock_Fox said:

In all honesty as a one off we could lose to anyone, that’s the premier league but as long as we give it a go and play well then the vast majority of rational fans can accept a one off result.

And the vast swathes of irrational ones?

[Nick]

On 06/12/2020 at 18:56, StanSP said:

What's frustrating for me is everyone is always focusing far too much on the negative. After a win its always about who didn't play well, who should be replaced, who should be sold, who should be our manager. Everyone is far too reactionary and totally miss the bigger picture. 

 

Yeah fine if you think that but dare to question it and you're labelled an apologist for Rodgers. The people giving out the criticism don't like it when they're criticised themselves. That's what annoys me the most. 

 

Someone posted earlier about comments before the season potentially being in a scrap fighting for points, lucky to qualify for Europe and not being anywhere near top six. 

 

But we're nearly a third in to the season, in the top 3, qualified for European knockout stages and have bagged some superb results. I don't doubt we could have picked up more points but the expectation that we could have played some pretty football that makes us look like peak 1970 Brazil with the fixture list and injuries is too far-fetched. 

 

And no, that's not being sanctimonious for calling those out who expect the world and are surprised when it's not given to them. Need to take stock on where we are as a club, where we've come from and what is to come. We are in a place where some of us wouldn't have even dreamt off merely a decade ago. Think some fans just need to embrace where we are a little bit more and enjoy the good times as much as possible. Too many are overly negative. They don't just criticise but they go on asking for changes without offering up any solutions, even when asked. 

 

 

No shit! I barely write negative posts and yet after the last game I stated that when we get out full backs back we need to be playing a lot better to compete for the higher places in the League and I got lumped in to a load of massively negative reply’s in a post and a satirical response from your good self! 😂 

 

Overeaction works both ways y’know!

 

The thing about that game (and the previous one) was not the result or the fact we dominated- it was that we were very frustrating to watch. And it should be safe to comment on that. 
 

😬