The Tomkins Times » Idiot of the Day

Idiot of the Day – überstupid

Paul Tomkins — Sun, 11 Apr 2010 16:06:35 +0000

Sometimes it’s entertaining to read the foolish words of others, and let them hang themselves on the rope of their own stupidity.

I need add nothing to this, as it’s a classic. The lad can use English – but common sense has yet to find a home inside his brain. Indeed, this email was so deranged and hyperbolic it actually made me chuckle.

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Idiot of the Day – 28th January 2010

Paul Tomkins — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 11:42:54 +0000

As requested by subscribers, my encounters with the clinically insane.

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Idiot of the Day – Oct 19th 2009

Paul Tomkins — Tue, 20 Oct 2009 08:52:45 +0000

As I’m going to be away this week, I wondered if anyone else wanted to do their own riposte to this? Or just read and weep at the kind of emails I regularly receive at a time like this.

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Idiot of the Day #2 – Forum Muppet & Friends

Paul Tomkins — Mon, 02 Mar 2009 19:10:03 +0000

I wondered why I kept getting referral links from the BBC football website.

Here's why – idiots are on the loose, and some tit called Tomkins is in their sights.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/606/A48119439

Watch out on the official Liverpool website for Rafa's official mascot/cheerleader, Paul Tomkins, whittle on about stats, Man Ure, zonal marking and a bit more about Man Ure. The phrase 'Polishing a Turd' must've been coined for this fella. I stopped reading his articles a few months back, but no doubt he'll come out today or tomorrow with a biased article, completely ignoring the fact that we play horrible football, that Rafa has bought more duffers than Houllier, that Kuyt doesn't warrant a place on the bench nevermind the starting 11, and that Rafa's attitude over the past few months has no doubt has an effect on the team.
The team were woeful on Saturday….. FACT
We play horrible, at times unwatchable, football. FACT
Some of the team, we won't name names, KUYT, are shocking buys, who are detrimental to the team, I don't care how much of a workhorse he is. If he's out of position then he's only hindering play. FACT
Playing Skrtel where he did hindered the team. FACT.
El Zhar will never make it, FACT.
Babel has lost all confidence due to Rafa's lack of man-management skills. FACT
Did I mention Kuyt is rubbish?? That's a fact no-one can disagree with.

Tomkins, take a leaf out of Rafa's book and only deal in facts, not figures.

Once Tomkins has the nerve to write what most fans think, then I'm afraid he's wasting his time. There are too many turds at Anfield, but I don't want them praised and polished every week. I want them flushed out, like all turds should be.

Quality, eh? Why don't I put as much thought and skill into the pieces I write? Who knows. Other fans weighed in with their digs, as I’ve come to expect, including the United fan who was spamming my blog.

Still, one poster had a response I smiled at:

Regardless of what I think about Tomkins, none of the statements you made, ending with the word 'FACT' are actually facts, they are just opinion. Get yourself a dictionary. Then read it from front to back – it might keep you occupied and off this board for a while.

For the record, I have nothing good to say about Saturday's defeat. I did submit a considered reply to the above thread about me, merely to put my point, but moderation means it was refused. Which is very funny, considering what I was replying to. Maybe I might have offended one of the people being offensive about me?

Thank you for contributing to 606. Unfortunately we've had to remove your content because it broke one of our House Rules.

Postings to BBC messageboards will be removed if they:

* Are considered likely to provoke, attack or offend others
* Are racist, sexist, homophobic, sexually explicit, abusive or otherwise objectionable
* Contain swear words (including abbreviations or alternative spellings) or other language likely to offend

With that in mind, I'll post it here.

However, by using my right of reply (which the BBC so kindly denied me), it should not be inferred that I am taking people like this seriously – but it does play on my larger concern that people like this take themselves seriously.

I'm a "coward" and I "do not have the nerve" to think like the kind of United fans who hung banners around Old Trafford in 1989/90 telling Ferguson to piss off. I am going against the angry masses, therefore I am wrong. Okay, sure.

Then there's David, the friend of this blog, whose post calling me a sad little man who is dying appears to have been deleted, but made me laugh all the same.

Anyway, my reply:

Noticed a few people clicking to my blog from here over recent weeks, so thought I’d post a few thoughts.

I couldn’t care less what the fans of other teams think about me. I don’t write for them, I write for Liverpool fans; most United fans certainly won’t like what I write, or agree with it. I don’t expect them to. That’s football.

Of course, Liverpool fans are a pretty wide-ranging bunch, from the intelligent right down to the frothing village idiots that all teams attract. I accept that I will not appeal to a proportion of Liverpool fans, but that I will appeal to more than enough to make it worth my while.

What I write for the official site is edited. I have criticisms of players edited out if I make them. I accept that. What I write is designed to fight the flow of OTT criticism in the media and from rabid fans who are either too passionate or too stupid to assess the situation with any clarity.

But I prefer to look at the bigger picture anyway. Liverpool have done well enough in the league to qualify for the Champions League every season under Rafa, bar his first, when he won the European Cup. While I’d rather the Reds were the current European champions, instead of United, it’s no mean feat that Liverpool are ranked #1 based on the five-year coefficient.

Arsene Wenger is a wonderful manager, but he’s fallen well behind Liverpool since Rafa’s arrival, and is struggling to even make the Champions League. The only two teams to have finished regularly above Liverpool have squads that cost far more to assemble (go work out the figures if you don’t believe me), and in Ferguson’s case, far longer to put together. When United won the league in 2007, they had 14 players who pre-dated Benítez (Rooney included, though he was signed at the time Rafa arrived), and still have 9 now I believe. What 14 players from 2004 would have helped win Liverpool a league title in the next few years? Traore? Biscan? Le Tallec? Diao? Diouf? Cheyrou?

Liverpool continue to do much better in Europe and in the Premiership than in the two years before Rafa arrived – meaning he inherited a very average team and has improved it significantly. He has spent a lot of money (around £188m), but has also recouped a lot (around £108m) because he has needed a fast turnover of players, trying to improve the squad each season and quickly weeding out his flops to try someone else. He has also raised a lot of money due to progress in the Champions League, without which Liverpool would really have financial worries. All this has been done against a backdrop of two warring owners based on the other side of the Atlantic.

His best buy, Torres, has failed to start 16 of the 27 league games this season, and yet Liverpool have still had a good campaign, if not a great one after recent slip-ups. I don’t expect Arsenal to be at their best without Fabregas or United without Ronaldo. Yes, Liverpool have struggled lately, hence my most recent blog, but to be averaging over two league points per game and to have just won away at in-form Real Madrid suggests the team isn’t *that* bad. Rafa’s win % remains as high as Bob Paisley’s in league games, but that’s not good enough to win the league right now; but I’m not sure who could do better.

Rafa may well have bought more duffers than Houllier, but he’s also bought far more successes. Wenger has bought countless turds, so has Ferguson, but they’ve won titles in part based on the few they got 100% spot-on. Mourinho bought countless turds too, but he added Drogba, Essien and Carvalho to an already strong squad. That’s how it goes.

In my book Dynasty I asked long-standing fans like Brian Reade, Oliver Kay, Vic Gill (Shank’s son-in-law and a player under the great man) to rate all the players signed by each manager. Those contributing also included a man who went to Anfield for the first time in 1936, and another whose first game was shortly after, so it’s a wide-ranging group of knowledgeable Reds. Together, they rated Rafa’s signings fairly highly. In particular, the spine of players is rated incredibly highly: Reina, Agger, Skrtel, Mascherano, Alonso and Torres. Of course, if Rafa had been backed fully in the transfer market, he might have had Simao, Alves and numerous others too, but they were deemed too expensive at fees Chelsea and United could regularly afford to pay.

“Kuyt is rubbish, that’s a fact that no-one can disagree with” is the kind of opinion masquerading as fact that I rally against. Writers of such nonsense will never see that it is nonsense, so it merely makes me laugh. I can’t teach intelligence. Kuyt isn’t perfect but he serves a purpose. He’s not prolific, but he’s scored countless vital goals in the last two seasons.

Onto United:

David – ‘The Kaiser’ – I ‘banned’ you for spamming my blog, having made three posts in almost as many minutes. Feel free to say what you want about me on here on or your United forums, but I am not offering a service to United fans to rant, rant and rant in quick succession. The Liverpool fans who read my blog don’t do that, so I don’t see why I should let you. What you wrote was also largely illogical, as other posters noted.

My view on United is that they are at present a sensational team, albeit one scraping a few results – but I do think Ferguson intimidates officials (can’t blame him, it’s they and the FA who need to be stronger), and that Ronaldo gets away with kicking opponents when other players don’t.

I think Ferguson has done a brilliant job over the years, but he already had the makings of a title-winning squad before Rafa arrived, as I’ve been pointing out for a while now. He’s also been able to buy more top-class footballers in the £20-£30m price bracket and pay better wages to help attract them. So it’s not really an even playing field, is it? Ferguson could not break Liverpool’s monopoly until Graeme Souness was in charge. So why should Rafa be able to break United’s when they still have a great manager and long-term continuity and stability?

I have never belittled United, beyond the odd bit of sarcasm; the piece you objected to was largely about how much worse Ferguson did in his first five years when compared with Rafa.

So to compare Rafa with a fully-established Ferguson seems a little unfair, when Ferguson at the same stage was struggling (three out of his first four seasons were mid-table or below) and having to endure banners telling him to go. I also made the point that United would struggle a lot more without Ronaldo, because he’s such a good player; just as Liverpool have struggled without Torres this season. Last year United struggled whenever Rooney was absent, too, but this season, after spending £32m on Berbatov, they have more depth.

So yes, I am a turd-polishing, sad little man, if that helps you feel better. I’m not dying, however – as far as I know. But you can live in hope.

www.paultomkins.com – support my writing by buying my books. Compendium is available only from my website, while Dynasty and others are available through Amazon and other retail outlets.

"Tomkins not only shows why he is a prolific, talented writer but also cements his status as very knowledgeable and passionate Red. In my opinion this is Tomkins' best work to date; a thoroughly excellent read."

Vic Gill, Shanks' son-in-law and former LFC trainee

“The project that Tomkins has taken on here is highly ambitious: assessing each of Liverpool’s managers since Bill Shankly. He does this in his own irrepressible style of analyzing in detail every area that falls within a manager’s remit. And whilst Tomkins has a talent for such a task, where he excels here is in approaching each manager without any apparent pre-conceived ideas.”

Paul Grech, Squarefootball.net

"A unique analysis of the club's managers, which is no mean feat given the extensive bibliography of the club… informative … another perspective on the last 50 years at Liverpool."

Programme & Football Collectable Monthly

****

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Idiot of the Day

Paul Tomkins — Thu, 12 Feb 2009 12:57:38 +0000

Anyone who emails me idiotic nonsense will go into my hall of shame known as ‘Idiot of the Day’. I happily enter into constructive discussions when I am able to, and admit my mistakes, as I did with my most recent blog. But idiots are idiots are idiots.

I'll use this as a blog to show what I hate about certain Liverpool fans and morons who can't be bothered to properly read what I say, and don't even understand how to use our own language properly. (Spelling and punctuation are designed to help people understand what you are saying, so they don’t have to spend 15 minutes trying to get what you mean. I did not have a privileged education; I made the effort to learn off my own bat.)

Of course, this idiot may actually be a Manchester United fan in disguise, but I’ll take him at his word.

This 1,200 word email is the best since my French friend emailed me a few weeks back. Kudos, Thomas Radwell (email: thomas.radwell@hsbcib.com). You are my Idiot of the Day!

Paul,

I've been reading your articles for a couple of years now and feel that the time has come where I MUST email you.

Whilst I appreciate being a die-hard Liverpool fan, you feel the need to be 'protective' over your team but I find it infuriating that you NEVER, EVER, EVER have a single word of criticism of them. [Er, that’s a blatant lie, go back and read the earlier blogs; censorship on .tv prohibits me making certain criticisms on the official site, as you’d expect.]

Its [it’s] ridiculous, if they were truly as good as you make them sound they would not only be Champions of the Premier League but they would also have won the World Cup, Ryder Cup and Wimbledon.

You make out that there is some global conspiracy against Liverpool and Rafa and there isn't. Liverpool rightly get alot [a lot] of criticism because as a team who 'must be challenging' for the title every year… they are still miles away from Man Utd who are still, by far and away, the bench mark. [Miles away? Two points, at time of writing.]

(PLEASE NOTE I AM A LIVERPOOL FAN AND THE VERY SIGHT OF MAN UTD MAKES ME WANT TO PUKE…but I can still be honest about it.)

[Doth he protest too much?]

I agree that they are not lucky as I genuinely believe there's is no such thing (it's an excuse for losers!) [no such thing as luck? Wow, it must be a made-up word] but that also means that they not unlucky which you've pointed out many time when they've been unable to break down a s1ht side like Fulham or West Ham at home. You'll bemoan refereeing decisions against Liverpool or bemoan a teams stifling tactics as if they don't do it to teams like Man Utd or Chelsea. Teams have every right to stick 10 men behind the ball [I’ve never denied that] and if Liverpool cant deal with that then that is LIVERPOOL'S problem…no one elses [Aww, so close with the correct use of an apostrophe and then you go and blow it].

I'll [all?] I'm asking is that you say it, HOW IT IS, it's the excuses that wind me up and Rafa loves an excuse. It doesn't mean you're not a real fan if you criticise them, criticism is good. Rafa rightly gots [new word on me, that] a lot of criticism because when they are bad ………….. [it should be three dots, not a random amount] they are ABSOLUTELY SHOCKING!! some of this years [‘] draws have been woeful. They look so bereft of ideas and incision ….sometimes YOU KNOW they won't score. [Why, are you another psychic? The spirits are obviously strong here...]

The reason why Man Utd win 1-0 late on and get praised whilst Liverpool do the same and get cained [interesting word] is because a poor Man Utd are still so much better than a poor Liverpool'.

Liverpool have to start being SO much more convincing. You can see they've been gone into a few of these 'Must/should win home games ie Fulham, Hull, West Ham', they knew they HAD to win and the crowd certainly knew and they floundered under the expectation. Remember Man Utd have been winning the league for the last 16 years so have earned the right to be praised and so, are rightly hailed (whether you and me like it or not). The next 13 games are all 'must win' and you'll see their challenge falter…..they just wont be able to deal with that. [Who? Man Utd? Liverpool? Try helping me by reading your own words first.] The burden of not having won the league for 20 years (whilst Man U have cleaned up) hangs like a dark cloud over the whole club and clearly affects the players.

I also note that the second Rafa does something you always justify it and say 'yes, he was absolutely right to do that'. Whilst defending him is admirable, its also a bit misguided. I've just read the 'Why Keane Had to Go Article' as a perfect example. You were pleased they signed him and never had any criticism of hm , the second he gets sold you come out and say 'oh yeah, I always thought that. Alarm bells were ringing'. If they were ringing then why didn't you say BEFORE he sold him. That transfer was the biggest farce ever.

[I did say the alarm bells were ringing. I seriously criticised Keane’s finishing in a couple of games. Go back and read the blogs throughout the season. I felt he was a good signing in the summer, but it wasn’t working out.]

Another issue is resources (constantly reminding about how Chelsea and Man Utd have so much more money than Liverpoool…Boo-Hoo). You are man who loves looking at statistics (most of them obscure and irrelevant)…we can all dig out historical data to back up ANY argument. Im sure if I looked hard enough I could make a case for Bolton being just as good as Man U (based on relative levels of resources, expectation levels, fan base…whatever). Rafa has had MORE than enough money (over £150 million spent, Ive checked it – see attached and SO many rotten purchases in that,

please try to justify purchases of Kromkamp, Josemi, Gonzales who he chased for 2 years, Dossena, Voronin, Zenden, Pellegrino, Nunez. Barraghan the list goes on).

[The players you’ve listed cost a combined £14m, or half a Seba Veron/Andrei Shevchenko. All managers make crap signings; see my list of Wenger’s and Ferguson’s over the years. It’s the ones you get right that matter: Torres, Reina, Alonso, Skrtel, Agger, Mascherano, Riera, Kuyt, Arbeloa, Aurelio, et al. Barragan was a 17-year-old bought in for £200,000 and sold for a fee that could rise to over a million, for a talented lad who was homesick.]

5 years is more than enough time to mould Liverpool into a title winning team (what he was ultimately employed to do) and they have not even been in one title race yet. Please note, the title race does not begin until February being top of league in December does not count.

[Right, okay.]

All the first 6 months of a season does is determine whether team can even ENTER the title race. So the title race (and the REAL pressure which will choke them) starts now. Please dont throw the high points totals over the last few seasons as a counter argument. Amassing a big points total and scrapping it out week-in, week out at the business end of the season with a genuine chance of winning the league are 2 very separate entities. Its [it’s] all very well going on a good run when all you can hope for is 4th place. Try winning the last 7 or eight games of a season to actually win the league………..its a completely different kettle of fish. I think Liverpool will finish 2nd or 3rd this year but the real test of whether

true progress has been made will be in these last few games. Watch my words, they fall out of the title race and Man U will have it wrapped up by Easter.

I don't think he's cr$p manager, he cant be having won 2 leagues with Valencia and a Champions League with an average team but the Premier League is a different animal and I'm afraid to tell you……………he falls short. I'd love to be proved wrong and for you to come back to me in May saying'HA-HA ..told you you non-believer' but I dont think you will.

Keep writing the articles because part of me is addicted to fact that they are guaranteed to wind me up.

No doubt you'll come back at me with some blinkered 'Liverpool are the greatest and I'm just to blind to see it' response.

[No, not at all. I’ve never said Liverpool are the greatest. I’ve said Manchester United are currently stronger, although the gap has narrowed massively since 2004.]

P.S This attachment lists even more signings…I couldn't be bothered to go beyond Mark Gonzalez. Thats a £170 million there! They may have made some money back (not much) [Yeah, half of that amount is ‘not much. Plank] but nobody could possibly complain about a lack of resources and not having enough money.

Im so sick of that winey [what, whiney, or are you referring to the alcoholic drink you’re abusing?] excuse. Whilst we're at then all of the other teams in the entire world could complain about a lack of resources as being a obstacle to success. Thats [‘] why Wigan won't win the league this season.

[It’s all relative. Liverpool have good resources, but less than Chelsea (until very recently) and Manchester United. And if Everton, with a £12m striker and a £15m midfielder, aren’t expected to be above Liverpool in the league, then why should Liverpool, without the £30m players United and Chelsea have/have had, be above them? I repeat: Liverpool are no paupers. But their rivals have spent more.]

Regards and nothing personal. [Obviously...]

Tom

www.paultomkins.com

Vic Gill, Shanks' son-in-law and former LFC trainee

Paul Grech, Squarefootball.net

"A unique analysis of the club's managers, which is no mean feat given the extensive bibliography of the club… informative … another perspective on the last 50 years at Liverpool."

Programme & Football Collectable Monthly

****

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