I wish I did not need to do this blog. Your answer may be, well you really don’t have to. My answer then is, yes I do have to, because when the first incident between them happened I wrote a blog about it, and this is part of that incident.
I was preparing my “line in the sand” story to finish this subject with praise for both players for having put this matter behind them publicly and never talk about it again.
But unfortunately all I did was delete every word I have wrote and started afresh.
All it took for this to be over, was to extend a hand, shake the other guy’s hand and move on.
Now, where I come from, very very close to where Suarez comes from, shaking a hand or greeting somebody is not a sign of affection towards the person you are greeting, but it is a sign of manners.
Nobody, would have said “well Suarez must like Evra because he shook his hand”
We would all have said “Suarez did the right thing and shook Evra’s hand”
Which clearly demonstrates that it is a matter of manners and not affection.
When the whole racism incident took place, I thought Liverpool and Kenny Dalglish, did not do themselves any favour with their stance.
It was like the parent of a very naughty child who looks defiantly at everyone around him and claims his child is the best in the world and has done nothing wrong.
The child senses this and keeps pushing boundaries.
We are all defensive about our own “family”, but defending the indefensible, that not makes us good “parents”, and in fact it sends the message to our “child” that no matter what they do, we will be behind him.
I don’t think for a second that Kenny Dalglish and LFC were expecting Suarez not to shake hands with Evra.
In fact the opposite is the truth, the talk during the week coming from the club was that he would and that would be over.
So a case of our “child” let us down again.
The first time we had Super Nanny showing us the way and she sent our son to the naughty step for 8 games.
But then she left us to handle our child by ourselves hoping we have all learnt from her teachings of what can we tolerate as “parents” and what we should not.
Now LFC has the chance to show us all, that Super Nanny is not needed anymore and that they can deal with their child by themselves.
Now to Manchester United and Sir Alex.
There is obviously a problem in there too. Evra was clearly upset at the fact Suarez would not shake his hand, but the celebration after the game, was not needed. Ferguson should have not addressed the Suarez failure to shake hands, he should have said, something like “we will look at what Patrice has done, a club of our history will not allowed one of our players to behave like that”
That would have sent a clear message to the other team, that Manchester United and its Manager were mature, did not want to be drawn any further into this conflict, and wanted a resolution to it.
Instead he attacked somebody else’s staff member, making it all attacking and nobody disciplining their own.
There is still time for the 2 Managers to find a neutral place to each bring their own player and force a meeting to finish this matter once and for all.
I was preparing my “line in the sand” story to finish this subject with praise for both players for having put this matter behind them publicly and never talk about it again.
But unfortunately all I did was delete every word I have wrote and started afresh.
All it took for this to be over, was to extend a hand, shake the other guy’s hand and move on.
Now, where I come from, very very close to where Suarez comes from, shaking a hand or greeting somebody is not a sign of affection towards the person you are greeting, but it is a sign of manners.
Nobody, would have said “well Suarez must like Evra because he shook his hand”
We would all have said “Suarez did the right thing and shook Evra’s hand”
Which clearly demonstrates that it is a matter of manners and not affection.
When the whole racism incident took place, I thought Liverpool and Kenny Dalglish, did not do themselves any favour with their stance.
It was like the parent of a very naughty child who looks defiantly at everyone around him and claims his child is the best in the world and has done nothing wrong.
The child senses this and keeps pushing boundaries.
We are all defensive about our own “family”, but defending the indefensible, that not makes us good “parents”, and in fact it sends the message to our “child” that no matter what they do, we will be behind him.
I don’t think for a second that Kenny Dalglish and LFC were expecting Suarez not to shake hands with Evra.
In fact the opposite is the truth, the talk during the week coming from the club was that he would and that would be over.
So a case of our “child” let us down again.
The first time we had Super Nanny showing us the way and she sent our son to the naughty step for 8 games.
But then she left us to handle our child by ourselves hoping we have all learnt from her teachings of what can we tolerate as “parents” and what we should not.
Now LFC has the chance to show us all, that Super Nanny is not needed anymore and that they can deal with their child by themselves.
Now to Manchester United and Sir Alex.
There is obviously a problem in there too. Evra was clearly upset at the fact Suarez would not shake his hand, but the celebration after the game, was not needed. Ferguson should have not addressed the Suarez failure to shake hands, he should have said, something like “we will look at what Patrice has done, a club of our history will not allowed one of our players to behave like that”
That would have sent a clear message to the other team, that Manchester United and its Manager were mature, did not want to be drawn any further into this conflict, and wanted a resolution to it.
Instead he attacked somebody else’s staff member, making it all attacking and nobody disciplining their own.
There is still time for the 2 Managers to find a neutral place to each bring their own player and force a meeting to finish this matter once and for all.