Tomkins on Torres decision

When people email, text and Tweet me that Rafa was definitely wrong to take off Torres at Birmingham, I ask "how do you know?"

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There's a chance that this wonderful striker, who was clearly tired and not really in the game, could have pulled a rabbit out of the hat, as he did at Villa.

There's also a chance that he might not - as was the case at Wigan, when he stayed on and missed good chances.

And there's a chance that, given he was clearly leggy after a tough shift in Portugal, and given his problems this season (not to mention how injuries occur more readily to tired, over-stretched players), he might have pulled a muscle.

Then where would we be?

Now, those who think Rafa was 100 per cent wrong fail to see such alternatives.

There's also an alternative where Torres stays on, improves, plays a blinder, but the team lose; what would it have been blamed on then? As at Wigan, Gerrard played in central midfield, so it couldn't have been that.

But there would no-doubt be some 'simple' explanation proffered.

Don't get me wrong, I'm not saying taking off Torres was the right - or should I say, 'obvious' - thing to do. However, unless you can rewind time and play the game with every alternative scenario, we'll never know.

At least at Wigan, when he missed four really good openings, Torres was getting the chances. You could see him maybe popping one in.

At St Andrews it was surely no coincidence that the fresh legs of Ngog helped the Reds carve out their best openings. To say "Torres would have scored if he'd still been on" is to ignore that the chances weren't coming when he was.

Yes, Ngog missed them, but the time to worry about strikers is when they're not getting the chances. After all, you need to be creating them, either as a team or as individuals, to even hope of scoring.

Let's be clear: Ngog, still only 20, is a very promising young player; one who showed maturity and intelligence in almost everything he did against Birmingham. Vitally, he never hid, despite the boos from the home fans.

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He missed a header as soon as he came on, but it was a very good effort that was inches past the post. He then curled a shot wide, almost identical to the one Torres missed in the first half against Sunderland last week. And he missed a one-on-one, as Torres did in Portugal, and as all strikers do.

But it was Ngog's pace, and freshness, that allowed him to 'make' these chances happen. He also created openings for others, and despite not scoring for a while, his goals-per-minute ratio remains excellent for a youngster learning the game (indeed, it's excellent in general).

Anyone who regularly watches the Reserves can see he's head and shoulders above that level, and almost always scores, last season and this. Of course, if he had yet to play in the first-team, everyone would look at his massive superiority at that level and say "he has to be in the first team".

Liverpool played their best football after the change, and suddenly things started to happen. As I said, Torres could have repeated what he did at Villa Park; but also, what happened at Wigan, or what happened when he limped out of games.

But what winds me up is the certainty of those who know something is wrong. Everything with them is definite, set, pre-determined.

Maybe life is easier this way; but keeping an open mind is very different from sitting on the fence.

These are presumably the people who said Nani would never make it at Man United, or that after two years on the periphery, Malouda would never come good at Chelsea.

Indeed, I can easily name 20 of the Premiership's best players who were either written off in their first year or two as a player, or who, at the age of 20, weren't even good enough for the top flight, let alone a top club. But maybe it takes imagination to sense that players will develop?

(Another example: in his early 20s, Sami Hyypia was rejected by the mighty Oldham Athletic.)

Ignorance can be wilful, or it can be natural; after all, we can't know everything, or even be remotely expected to.

Personally speaking, I try to arm myself with as many facts as possible, to avoid being ignorant of the issues at hand. I played the game to a decent level, and come from a footballing background. And I spent a good few years as a regular at Anfield.

I watch games, read books, listen to interviews, undertake research and analysis and speak to hundreds of fans each week. Mostly it makes me realise just how much there is that I will never know.

And even if I did have a flawless knowledge of the game, there will always be aspects of a manager's job that no-one but he himself, and his closest staff members, will be aware of: injuries, budgetary issues, attitudes in training, stamina levels, concerns in the players' personal lives or with their general confidence, and myriad other details that affect, in some way or other, each and every performance.

All clubs monitor players scientifically these days. But as fans, we cannot. Perhaps we think we know more, because we are told more: but often it's a cluttered, contradictory message from outsiders, who may well also be out of touch.

In this sense, I am aware of my ignorance. I am also aware that my own ideas about football have never been tested in the real arena, where things can go wrong through no fault of your own.

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Therefore, I write with respect when analysing the methods of top managers, not with the delusions that I know better.

But the problem with truly ignorant people is that, paradoxically, they think they know best.

Ben Goldacre, scientist, author and myth-debunker, gives a wonderful explanation of the Dunning-Kruger Effect, which deals with this very phenomenon.

"...one of my favourite psychology papers: 'How Difficulties in Recognising One's Own Incompetence Lead to Inflated Self-Assessments' by Justin Kruger and David Dunning. They noted that people who are incompetent suffer a dual burden: not only are they incompetent, but they may also be too incompetent to assay their own incompetence, because the skills which underlie an ability to make a correct judgement are the same as the skills required to recognise a correct judgement."

In other words, ignorant and incompetent people are not only unable to recognise true skill in others, they also have an inflated idea of their own ability - because they have no way of knowing that they don't know better!

These are the people that say "I could do that job. How hard can it be?" Because, of course, if you don't know how hard something really is, you will of course think it's not that difficult.

Now, much of the fun of being a football fan is making judgements on every last issue. This is undeniably a key part of what makes supporters tick.

But we also need humility, over the fact that we are viewing through a fog. At best, we might only have 50 per cent of the facts: we may see what's going on out on the pitch (although we don't have Prozone and other technical wizardry to help analyse movements), but not the other issues mentioned earlier.

But even then, the top managers are at the summit because they, and their staff, can analyse things better than we can. They view football on a higher level. It doesn't mean they're always right; but equally, it often means that a lot of criticism is just noise in the dark.

Just as I can watch a game of chess with a knowledge of all the moves the pieces can make - therefore I 'understand chess' - I do not know any of the strategies.

I could watch chess for two hours a couple of times a week for the rest of my life, and never get close to appreciating the subtleties; after all, the grand masters have been playing six, seven, eight hours a day since they were knee-high to grasshoppers. They've studied under experts. They think in a different way to us mere mortals.

If someone says to me "I think the manager got that wrong", that seems like a fair expression of opinion, even if it's an opinion undermined by a lack of all the facts.

But if someone says "he was definitely wrong" or "he's lost the plot" (usually said by people who've never once grasped a plot), that, to me, is the ultimate expression of ignorance.

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The views expressed in this article do not necessarily reflect the views or position of Liverpool Football Club.