Talk:2008–09 Liverpool F.C. season/GA1

GA Review
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Reviewer: No Great Shaker (talk · contribs) 14:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

GA Review
Hello. As I have just nominated one article, I'm happy to review two in return, and I've chosen 2008–09 Liverpool F.C. season and Australian cricket team in the West Indies in 1998–99 which are next to each other in the sports section. Hope to provide some feedback soon. No Great Shaker (talk) 14:38, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Basic GA criteria

 * 1) Well written: the prose is clear and concise.
 * 2) Well written: the spelling and grammar are correct.
 * 3) Complies with the MOS guidelines for lead sections.
 * 4) Complies with the MOS guidelines for article structure and layout.
 * 5) Complies with the MOS guidelines for words to watch (e.g., "awesome" and "stunning").
 * 6) Complies with the MOS guidelines for writing about fiction – not applicable.
 * 7) Complies with the MOS guidelines for list incorporation.
 * 8) Complies with the MOS guidelines for use of quotations.
 * 9) All statements are verifiable with inline citations provided.
 * 10) All inline citations are from reliable sources, etc.
 * 11) Contains a list of all references in accordance with the layout style guideline.
 * 12) No original research.
 * 13) No copyright violations or plagiarism.
 * 14) Broad in its coverage but within scope and in summary style.
 * 15) Neutral.
 * 16) Stable.
 * 17) Illustrated, if possible.
 * 18) Images are at least fair use and do not breach copyright.

For reviews, I use the above list of criteria as a benchmark and complete the variables as I go along. No Great Shaker (talk) 14:57, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Comments
I needed to make a lot of amendments but this was never far away and it now ticks all of the boxes above. It's a very informative summary of the season at Liverpool with a good mixture of narrative, stats and illustration.

More care should have been taken with the lead which nearly let the nomination down but I decided to resolve the issues myself rather than outline the issues here. My first impression of the lead was that it had been written by one football fan talking to another, which isn't good if the reader is someone with only a passing interest in, or no knowledge of, the sport.

There were problems with grammar (e.g., "and... and..."), spelling (e.g., "Midlesbrough") and wording that should have been checked beforehand. I must mention excessive use of "the club" to the extent that it became a cliche when it was better to say "the team", nothing at all or just "Liverpool". Anyway, I've fixed that and I've also replaced several instances of "loss" with "defeat" because that is the correct word to use in respect of losing a match or a battle or whatever: a loss means losing something that is tangible.

The second paragraph of the lead needed attention because "a few players" was a weak expression given that the narrative confirms the exact total as eight. For departures, only Carson and Crouch were mentioned but not Finnan, Kewell or, most significantly, John-Arne Riise who was one of Liverpool's greatest left backs.

In the fourth paragraph of the background section, the stuff about Chelsea was out of scope so I removed it. That paragraph needed to be written from a Liverpool perspective. Manchester United were the pre-season favourites and that needed to be stated, instead of the emphasis on Chelsea, to make clear that United were the team Liverpool needed to beat.

There were a couple of expressions that smacked of POV. One was "below par" which is a golfing term inapplicable to football as there is no indication of what par might be. Does it mean reached the semi-final or even won the competition? The other one is saying that the 2007–08 season was unsuccessful for Liverpool because it depends on the measure of success: Liverpool did reach the CL semi-final and finished in the PL top four to qualify for the CL again. For anyone else at the time, except Manchester United and Chelsea, that would have been considered a very successful season.

Anyway, those were the issues but I resolved them. The article now meets the GA criteria and I'm happy to pass it. Well done. No Great Shaker (talk) 23:45, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the review . Much appreciated, as were the amendments to the article! NapHit (talk) 12:42, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hello, NapHit. No problem. I enjoyed reading the article as I remember a lot of the matches, especially that crazy game against Arsenal. All the best and take care of yourself. No Great Shaker (talk) 14:02, 1 April 2020 (UTC)