[quote author=Avvy link=topic=43861.msg1278623#msg1278623 date=1296901363]
Why this Liverpudlian's got more respect for Gary Neville than for Torres
By Brian Reade
.
I should have despised Gary Neville with all my partisan heart.
When he admitted to hating everything about Liverpool I should have felt the urge to burn effigies of Dot Cotton on Sir Matt Busby Way. Instead I admired his honesty.
Loathing is what most red Mancs feel towards Liverpool and what most red Scousers feel towards them. It's been like that since the late '60s and it will never change. So why not admit it?
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I should have empathised with the Kopites who reported him to the police for running the length of Old Trafford to celebrate a late winner but I didn't. I just thought if John Aldridge and Phil Thompson had taken the kind of stick he'd taken, they'd have done the same.
Because, like Neville, they used to stand on the terraces, get what their club is about, and would play for nothing other than the honour of putting on the shirt. They're called real heroes.
Instead, for the past 15 years Liverpool have possessed too many badge-kissers whose first response on hearing Anfield had been burned down would no doubt be "my wages weren't in the office were they?" They're called plastic idols.
They feign a deep love for their club but are always found out because it's the one subject fans have total authority on. Fernando Torres has just discovered this.
He may have tried a PR-driven, damage-limitation exercise yesterday, but two of his quotes after joining Chelsea were so classless and insulting they instantly destroyed the huge respect most Liverpudlians had for him and rendered his time at Anfield virtually meaningless.
"The target for every player is to play for one of the top clubs in the world and I can do it now, so I'm very happy," he said. Yet when he signed for Liverpool they'd just been in a second Champions League final in three years. They reached another semi-final in Torres' first season which put them top of UEFA's European rankings. Which is effectively top of the world.
So how could he say that, after leaving fans who adored him, indulged him and who were reeling from the shock of his transfer request thrown in half-way through his contract, with three days of the window left? How could he say it after claiming he identified so intensely with Liverpool FC, the city and its culture that he would never sign for another English club?
He could say it because the words came, not from his heart, but a rehearsed script whose aim was to keep his latest paymaster happy.
Torres also told Chelsea TV that their fans "always showed respect to me when I came to Stamford Bridge." A quick Google of those fans snarling at him and giving him the hand sign showed how shamelessly insincere his words were.
Liverpool didn't miss their plastic idol on Wednesday and they won't miss him in the future. Others will come along to join the real heroes like Steven Gerrard, Jamie Carragher and Dirk Kuyt. Men who are often damned with faint praise by being patronised as a "great servant."
Well give me a player who sees himself as a servant ahead of one who sees himself as a master. A master of the only thing that matters to them. Their destiny.
Give me someone like Gary Neville, who says what he thinks without fear. Things like: "United and Liverpool are the ones with the real tradition, history and power. Others can try, but nobody breaks into that bracket. And they never will."
Enjoy those plastic flags Fernando.
**
At least we got to the bottom of one mystery this week. The rumours were correct.
It clearly was Pepe Reina who put that Liverpool scarf around Fernando Torres' neck as he held the World Cup for the cameras after last year's final.
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Good article.