This is a video showing the work that went into some Fernando Torres wallpaper (or desktop background as some people will call it). All in all it took the artist around nine hours to complete, using the Photoshop package.
You can see the finished article here: http://img260.imageshack.us/img260/2796/torreswipcopyeo9.jpg
The artist, “Macphisto80″, says:
Liverpool’s record signing painted in photoshop with a Spanish theme. Real time work was 9 hours. Some recording was lost due to PC problems, hence the sudden appearance of the badge on the home shirt, and the corrections to the left hand and details to the flamed Liverbird in background. First use of layers on this one, 6 in total. The timelapse is maybe a bit too fast in parts, but I had to keep the video as short as possible, and for some reason, the video editor wouldn’t stretch the ratio for me.
If you live in England, probably in fact if you live in the UK, you’ll know that England have a friendly tonight. For Liverpool fans it’s probably not worth watching. Jamie Carragher told Steve McLaren he was sick of waiting for his chance. Peter Crouch is suspended for the next competitive match so probably won’t play this friendly. And Steven Gerrard, with his fractured toe, is sitting it out.
That’s great news for Frank Lampard. I won’t say he’s a bad player. That doesn’t mean I think he’s a good player, I just decided not to say he’s a bad player. But more and more people are starting to realise that playing Lampard and Gerrard together for England doesn’t work. Lampard isn’t really able to play the more defensive role in midfield, and that role is considered by most to be a waste of Gerrard’s talents - he can play there, but he’s far better playing the more creative and attacking role. So people are suggesting Lampard be dropped.
Yes - people are saying Lampard should be dropped from England’s squad! It doesn’t particularly bother me, but I know some people do care. So to help, here’s a video someone posted on YouTube. I hope it helps you to choose.
Liverpool’s draw with Chelsea at Anfield yesterday felt like a defeat. Liverpool were the better team for the ninety minutes, created more chances, had more of the ball, actually played to win – but lost.
Referee Rob Styles failed to handle the game. Obviously whenever a referee awards a penalty in a game he’s going to get some stick from some fans – but when someone like Andy Gray is actually taking sides for Liverpool in such a situation you really can tell the referee got it wrong.
Often in football we hear a referee being referred to as a “homer”. Fans often claim that’s how refs work when they officiate at big grounds like Anfield and Old Trafford – any cry of “handball” or “offside” from the home fans actually influences the referee to give the decision to the home side. But that’s not seen as much these days. Nowadays we seem to have referees who over-compensate and actually give the benefit of any doubt to the away side.
However it seems that Rob Styles is a different type of referee again. At Old Trafford last week he sent a Reading player off who’d been on the field for something like seven seconds. Still adjusting to the pace of the first game of the season, his first attempt at winning the ball was an attempted block against United’s Evra. Evra quickly got rid of the ball, the Reading player accidentally caught Evra. It wasn’t two-footed, it wasn’t high, it was a genuine attempt to play the ball. Styles just reached for his red card and sent the player off. Up until that time Reading had been holding on for a draw but were capable of actually causing an upset and getting a breakaway goal, like Manchester City did yesterday. Styles brought the chances of that happening to an end, and probably helped Chelsea too in the process, because those tired Reading players had to face Chelsea a few days later. Chelsea won that match.
Before anyone reads suggestions that aren’t here, I don’t believe Styles is being paid by Chelsea to help them, I don’t believe he’s a secret Chelsea fan, I don’t believe his assistance to Chelsea is due to anything more than the fact that he’s not capable of refereeing Premier League matches. He seems happy to hit the headlines, and fails the test of any good referee in that he’s actually noticeable.
In yesterday’s game he was unbelievably inconsistent. Forget the penalty he awarded to Chelsea’s new Arjen Robben, Florent Malouda, who threw himself at Steve Finnan. He was just yards away from the incident; he knew Malouda had jumped from outside the area to collide with Finnan who was inside the area. He didn’t consult his assistant (I don’t think he ever does), he just awarded the penalty. He allowed persistent fouling from some players to go unpunished; he booked others at the first sign of trouble. Jermaine Pennant and Jamie Carragher got booked for dissent – John Terry touched foreheads with Fernando Torres and got a telling-off. He did book Essien for dissent – but then realised he’d already booked Essien so pretended he hadn’t actually made that second booking.
Just before half-time he saw Mikel Obi jump on the ankle of Fernando Torres. Torres needed treatment and struggled in the second half as a result. Styles saw it because he stopped play to allow Torres to get the treatment. Obi wasn’t punished at all for it.
Sky wanted to speak to him after the game. He refused. He knew he’d performed poorly.
Obviously a referee will make mistakes in every game. It’s part and parcel of the game. The players make mistakes too – any fan can look back at defeats or dropped points and point to one of their own players who caused the problem. A striker missing a sitter, a defender giving away a needless penalty, a German keeper making yet another clanger. When that happens the fans are unhappy but feel it’s something that can be fixed. Drop the player in question, or accept the player in question does far more good than he did bad with that one mistake. But at least your manager can sort it out the way he sees fit. There are also those games where a wonder goal loses you the points – again the supporters accept this, as disappointing as it may be, and in some cases with some clubs that wonder goalscorer may be joining your club next transfer window. But when a ref messes up – it’s an awful feeling of injustice.
It’s time that referees were given help. Technology could be brought in for incidents like yesterday’s penalty. If the referee has any feeling it may have been a penalty he should stop the game, get it checked by a video official, then the game restarts. It won’t work straight away, but given time and a fair trial it will work sooner or later. Red cards can be included in the list of incidents that are checked before being finally being decided. In incidents of diving a retrospective ban should be applied to a player found guilty. Timekeeping is another issue which often causes controversy – there is no consistency at all in the game where timekeeping is concerned, maybe it’s time that a separate official took care of that.
Despite all of this, Liverpool learned a valuable lesson yesterday. At least I hope they did. The lesson is that some days you really are up against 11 opponents and the referee. Some days the referee really does seem to have a vendetta against you, or the idea that any 50-50 decisions should go against you. On those days you need to be able to fight back, keep plugging away and make sure the referee can’t continue to ruin your day. Liverpool’s spirits clearly dropped yesterday after that award, and although they did keep plugging away, against an opponent who clearly wanted to escape with that one point, they didn’t have as much fight as they’d had before. Also a one-nil lead isn’t enough; you need to make it a wider gap as quickly as possible.
Liverpool’s next league game is away to Sunderland. It’s the kind of game that Liverpool would drop points in last season, and with former Manchester United skipper Roy Keane as Sunderland boss there’s perhaps more of an edge than there otherwise would be. Liverpool are capable of beating Sunderland by quite some margin, but they’re hurting after their defeat on Saturday. Following that game is the Toulouse Champions League qualifier second leg, arguably the most important game of this half of the season. Liverpool’s away goal is good, but not enough to relax and again Liverpool need to be ready to fight hard to win through the Champions League itself.
And we need to be ready to fight against eleven opponents and the officials, because the game will always have its bad referees, unless we introduce technology.