Blue ****e against Red ****e. Why am I going to watch that? It was just a repeat on the 2017 final, anyway. They even picked the same ref and he did the same thing. Azpilicueta letting go of his shoulder means that he's no longer committing a foul. That's when he goes to ground.
When Sanchez gave a " nudge" on their forward in the first half my heart skipped a beat then realised no VAR I enjoyed the game so much more
Pause at 4:44. His hand is on Aubameyang's shoulder as he's going to ground, and he's about to pull it away at that point because he realises he messed up. If someone is running onto the ball at speed and you pull their shirt a bit, then grab onto their shoulder, of course it's going to knock their momentum. At the very least, it was a foul and a penalty, which was what was given. But I do think it's a red card too. Two of the most successful teams in London in a cup final. I think you're crazy for not watching it
It's a tough ask for him to break into the side at the moment, especially in that position. Good to see him getting some minutes and doing fairly well, though.
I remember thinking how pleasant it was to watch, and what a good job the referee was doing. He began by sending a message to the players by keeping his whistle in his pocket, which was: you're big boys, quit moaning. That provided some welcome uninterrupted play. (Of course, I would have been livid had a foul led to a Maccabi goal.) Then he began calling fouls before the fouling got out of hand. I used to be in favor of VAR for football. I thought that if it was used together with rule reform in a carefully planned and well executed way, it would improve the game. I still think that. Now I understand that expecting anything well planned and well executed from the football powers is like expecting differential equations from a toadstool. It's not just the way VAR has made decisions interminable without improving their accuracy. It's that it hasn't been used in ways that could be helpful, like eliminating shirt pulling. If you used VAR to call a pen for all shirt pulls, after a brief blizzard of pens, no one would pull a shirt in the penalty box and the game would be improved.
They need to go back to square one and rewrite the Laws with the objective of all deliberate foul play giving a worse outcome than if the foul had not been committed. It would have weird effects at the start and after that only morons would commit fouls.
please log in to view this image Thursday 3rd November 5.55pm Europa League Group Stage Linzer Stadion A respectable point at Stamford Bridge looked even better, as every team around us also dropped points this weekend. Now we're back into Europa League action and it's a key game in the group. A draw would be enough for us to qualify, due to a superior head-to-head record making it impossible for LASK to overtake us. They also have an inferior H2H against Antwerp, so it's do or die for them in the Europa on Thursday. Can Mourinho do enough to get us through while rotating heavily or will he take less risks this time out? We opened the group with a fairly comfortable 3-0 win against the Austrians at home in October. They've been in excellent domestic form since then though, winning five matches and drawing one, conceding once and scoring 17 goals. They also narrowly beat Ludogorets at home and won 1-0 away to Antwerp, but they lost the return match 2-0 to the Belgians. Discipline problems appear to have cost them, as they've had a player sent off in each of those last three Europa League games. It's something that we should keep an eye on to help avoid a banana skin in this tie. For anyone that's forgotten the first match: Alderweireld and Lamela will miss out again, but there's no news on any other issues yet, if there are any. Grgic is a doubt for our hosts with a muscle injury, while Trauner is suspended, having been sent off against Antwerp in the last match. Lineups for each side's last league game: Spurs: Lloris; Aurier, Rodon, Dier, Reguilon; Sissoko, Hojbjerg; Son, Ndombele, Bergwijn; Kane. Subs: Hart, Sanchez, Davies, Lo Celso, Bale, Moura, Vinicius. League form: DWWWWD. LASK: Schlager; Andrade, Wlesinger, Trauner; Ranftl, Michorl, Holland, Renner; Gruber, Eggestein, Golginger. Subs: Gebauer, Cheberko, Potzmann, Haudum, Madsen, Reiter, Karamoko. League form: LWWWDW. Ref: Not announced yet. I can tell you who the UEFA delegate and the observer are though, rather uselessly. I'll edit this tomorrow, probably. TV: BT Sport 2. How would you like to line up for this one and what would you change from the Chelsea game? Would you stick with much of the same lineup, make a few changes or go for a wholesale switch? Which system and tactics would you use and what are you expecting LASK to go with?
One thing he definitely needs to do to improve his chances is pack on some muscle so he isn't so easily bullied off the ball, as the Ludogorets defenders demonstrated last week
Think it’ll probably be pretty much the same team that played last Thursday with maybe Lo Celso starting over Ndombele. Hart Doherty, Sanchez, Tanganga, Davies Winks, Lo Celso Bale, Dele, Lucas Vinicius
Complaining that the quality of the opposition in the KO stages might be akin to that of the CL. Offset that by the much easier group stages (in terms of starting XI strength required) .