It's a conspiracy!

Or is it?

Having briefly mentioned this on another thread I thought I’d give it its own space and see if anyone is interested.

We all feel that we have been screwed over several times by refereeing and VAR decisions this season - to the extent that it could seriously affect the final destination of the title.

Other teams have their own issues with refs and VAR, so are we guilty of only noticing it when it affects us and over-exaggerating it?
Have refs got it in for us, are they suffering from subconscious bias, or are they just not very good?
Are we casually ignoring bad decisions that go our way?

Probably a forlorn hope I know, but I’d be interested in a sensible discussion on the topic, where rather than just make claims, we could present a cogent argument in support of them.

If any visitors should stumble across the thread, I’d be interested in hearing their side of the story too - with the same proviso that they make a case, rather than just descending into the usual tribal ritual of slagging each other off. Be football fans first, and club fans second.
In the long run, it benefits all of us to have a higher standard of just and effective officiating than we’re seeing at the moment.

 

we all know that there's certain things that have gone on.

imo eventually some former ref will sell his story to the press about how he got lots of gifts for favours form the middle East.

however in general there's some absolutely rank standards in English football refereeing and it's more common to see the atrocious standard than see the corruption.

After all the corruption is only needed a couple tines to make all the difference

 

I think refs going to the ME is a really bad idea and should never been allowed. Even if there's nothing dodgy going on the suspicion will always be there. It's not enough for authority figures to be clean, they have to be seen to be clean, and demonstrably so.

 

I think there is a lot of credibility in the issues that surround Paul Tierney

many of the others I believe it’s just poor officiating and due to us creating a lot of chances and it being our club it seems to effect us more

however I once saw and article on the many many issues we have had with Tierney and he is the one that Klopp singled out

I do think there is something where he is concerned

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy just don’t think he likes us - and that must make refereeing us a little bit tricky

 

It's just **** ups by officials no reason for it to be anything else.

Unless the lizard people are real and then it's deffo a conspiracy.

 

This, we've just had the major ones

 

I’m sure someone with some physiology degree may be able to provide some insight as no matter what and how unbiased people are, unconscious bias is a thing and will go in refs minds.

Klopps mentioned about Tierney before specifically and although I doubt he consciously makes decisions against lfc, in his subconscious I’m sure there are prob examples of 50/50s where he’ll lean towards the opposition.

At the same time, you’ll get some refs who def favour the bigger teams especially at home with the crowd.

Then again, I’m sure you’ll also have some refs that will want to be seen to not be favouring the big teams and therefor overcompensate.

I think every team will think they are hard done by most just because those errors stick in the mind more.

Much like we all remember our players more fondly, our goals scored and our comebacks and performances better than opposition.

I think on the whole, var hasn’t helped refs as just confused things more with some on field refs thinking var will correct it if they’re wrong, but var then not getting involved because they say it’s not ‘clear and obvious’. Then on other occasions var looking at the smaller picture rather than whole situation and judging the a scenario on 0.5 second clip not the whole incident with common sense.

I think if you’re held lees accountable for your performance because you have someone elsewhere to tidy up your mistakes, human nature says you’ll take less care. If I know if I make a mistake at work but my colleague will be there to check, I won’t take that extra minute to make sure it’s right

 

This is a very long read, if you can be bothered. It lays out the ways in which Liverpool are refereed differently to other teams. Tomkins, the author, says he doesn’t see it as a conspiracy but there is definitely something going on.
https://tomkinstimes.substack.com/p/objective-data-liverpool-are-refereed

 

I don't trust Tierney or Anthony Taylor - the rest I think are just varying degrees of inept.
Trial by television exposed the amount of human error present decades before VAR came along. VAR can help in sorting out some issues, but it seems actively engaged in trying to find any reason at all to rule goals out, imo.
I've no doubt VAR was developed with the best of intentions, but it was never thought through properly, imo. It ruins the immediacy of the experience for me, and does nothing to eliminate subjectivity. I'd happily scrap it, though I know that won't happen.
I'll also repeat something I've said before, I have some sympathy with refs having to deal with cheating players - diving, feigning injury, screaming abuse at the ref is not what I want to see. With only a few minutes gone on Sunday, Fernandes screamed "**** off!" at the ref because something didn't go his way, and there were no repercussions.
Football has a lot to do to clean up its act, and all sides need to take a look at themselves.

 

And refs have to take some blame for that last point. They don’t book players consistency - game v arsenal jones or eliott was booking for throwing arm up in the air, but odegaard complained about 5 times and nothing happened.

If they booked everyone for same moaning it would soon stop after 1/2 a season when players are being banned. But they do it for 5 games then stop.

Same with yellows for time wasting, that stopped after 10 games with a few players booked.

Same with diving. They don’t help themselves because historically they’ve not given fouls if players don’t fall over. Being fouled and staying on feet rarely results in a foul so players have to unnaturally fall over to get the fouls which leads to more diving. Again, no yellows for actual dives on a consistent basis - no restrospective bans for diving or going down clutching face when haven’t been touched (Ben white at weekend v Brighton).

a lot of stuff that refs / prem / fa need to sort out that I think all fans would be super on board with and after the initial outrage for 6 months while players being booked and sent off and banned for stuff, they'll soon learn that cheating doesn’t work.

 

I am convinced thst eventually some ref will talk in some forum, be it a podcast or whatever about their career in the 2010s and 2020s and will admit they were given gifts of all sorts.

we had that out of refs form the 1990s talking about being uefa ref and a free for all..

 

Reminds me of some data saw last year at some point and was focussed on Salah

was a graph showing number of touches by an attacker in a game and how many fouls they received. Generally the trend being the more touches, the more fouls you get. Seems to make sense.

Grealish was a massive outlier on one end in that although he had a lot of touches his foul to touch ratio was massive.

However Salah wasn’t even on the graph, he was such an outlier you had to extend the graph beyond the natural to fit him in because he received so many few fouls compared to how many touches he had. Now could say that’s party down to his strength and dribbling that he can actually hold off players but fact he was off the chart def looked odd.

 

I think due to the sheer amount of money involved and how big the gambling scene is with football. (you seem to be able to bet on anything in the game these days) I do feel there is probably some dodgy things going on. How big is anyones guess. I would guess refs dont get paid a lot and not to hard to get in contact with. So if offered so much to give a yellow card to a certain player I am sure some would take it. But I do feel the standard of officiating has dropped significantly since VAR has been introduced.

 

Bent af

 

Consistently inconsistent appears to be the issue .

VAR for all its uses just adds additional level of ambiguity when its needed to be there to assist. Has it improved the game where its currently being utilised?

 

Again, not claiming conspiracy but some more interesting data, this time regarding fouls for and against (this season) reveals the following. -

called for, called against, aggregate

Liverpool .. 298 360 -62 fouls
Arsenal .. 296 267 +29 fouls
City .. 293 231 +62 fouls
Villa .. 379 327 +52 fouls
Spurs .. 398 320 +78 fouls


This shows an almost 100 foul swing between Liverpool and next closest, Arsenal. You could argue that Liverpool play more pressing style but so does Arsenal who aren’t even close to the imbalance. You could say well Liverpool play dirty which just isn’t true, especially since Fabinho and Milner left and Thiago has been out all season . It’s just odd.

Another regular pattern of note, possession/foul ratio. For example in the Sheffield game possession was 80% - 20% and fouls 20 - 6. When you have that much possession, it’s almost impossible to out-foul the opponent by that much. Compare that to city v Arsenal - possession 73% - 27%, fouls 9 - 20, or Spurs v Everton 61% - 39%, fouls 6 - 18, numbers you would expect. The attacking team is usually not the one committing the fouls.

 

Summary = Bent AF
Especially Tierney which we all knew anyway

 

Ffs
lol
But mine was a tribute to you

 

Im not joking when i post that.

This seasons ref antics have cemented that for me.

Ita not inconsistent, its no incompetence, its bent af refs paid by citys owners

 

Whoever the ref was when we played city at their place had just come back from an officiating trip to the ME and as you say, all paid for by city's owners. They're not even trying to hide it.