Match Day Thread Vs Aston Villa (H)

this is why I say feet. Lot easier to measure the foot. Saying that, against Leicester they measured manes shadow of his foot rather than his actual foot and worked out that played people onside so even though doesn’t come flawless lol

 

What infuriates me is that they make it sound like science, as it is with goalline technology. But offsides have become completely subjective. There is no consistent measure of when the ball is struck, elbows are measured by some, tops of biceps by others, and I've seen at least three other occasions apart from Bobby at Villa last season where those lines just are not parallel at all.

 

Was that not Bobby's foot?

 

Trent's goal was offside too...

 

Possibly. Couldn’t remember exactly who

 

I was actually quite happy with that performance. Bar a 20-30 mins after we equalised, we were significantly better than the dross we have seen recently at Anfield. We forced errors, we created chances, should have been out of sight in the first half.

It wasn't a great performance - it was riddled with mistakes, wastefulness, sloppiness. But it reminded me of last season - dominated for most parts, should have been easier had we converted earlier one, and we showed balls to fight back.

Fabinho back in midfield really does make a difference - we can sit higher and sustain that pressure on the opposition for longer periods. That alone is what forces the opposition to make mistakes.

Trent was poor for most of the game but this what he possesses - match winning ability. Salah was very good and scored another crucial goal - almost single handedly carrying our attack and cements his status as our best attacker. Bobby was excellent though - deserves a lot of praise for his performance. The less said about Gini, Milner and Phillips, the better.

 

VAR is not the issue - it's the idiots who use it and how they have implemented it. Other leagues in Europe, including the CL are using far better than the PL. It's not perfect but it actually does solve for more issues than it causes.

The use in offsides in farcical. What other leagues do is they increase the thickness of the lines on the ground - if those lines drawn on the attacker and defender overlap, then it's not offside. It's a margin for error.

Can't say with this 100% authority but it does feel like every offside decision involving us is heavily scrutinised. The Jota offside just highlights it for me - they wanted this to be offside. They had made the decision beforehand and picked the frame, and drew the lines accordingly.

 

If you later watched the west ham game you would have seen oliver apply the rules totally different. one goal ruled offside, the other on. neither should have even needed looking at. We still stopped and watched the farce. One the lino should be dropped for.

Oliver didn't even bother place the lines "properly" like the guy VAR cheating us. he justs said its blatantly obvious and called it.

 

when VAR was being introduced it was promoted as a tool to help referees avoid factual errors. Stuff they missed during the various phases of play. For example the linesman missing an clear offside, a player going for a dangerous tackle, the wrong player being carded etc.

All well and good. However they overlooked one important fact. The VAR introduced decision making and judgement by the Var official. They have to decide whether to send the pitch referee to the monitor or not. They have to decide whether the incident is critical or bad enough. And because the quality of our officials is so variable ranging from very good to frankly appalling, we now run into disaster. A clear high kick which nearly took the head of a player off was not even seen as a foul by VAR. Worse he didn’t even ask the pitch referee to check. Another one decided a flick of hand that brushed against a face in the build up of a move that led to a goal should be reviewed. Introduced doubt in the mind of the pitch referee about his original decision. And after looking at it half a dozen times, decided that flick was indeed a foul. How did this brush of the face affect the subsequent play and the goal ? The pitch referee called it right first time but because a colleague questioned his judgment he reversed it.

The subjective decisions of VAR officials now have far more impact on the outcome of games than have been originally envisaged.

 

I've seen this claim made before, but all I see is complaints from fans and players in other leagues as much as ours.
It's a failure, but like most bad things people will eventually get used to it, and the game we were brought up with will become a distant memory.

 

It's become refereeing by committee.

 

It does work better in other leagues but as I say, it's not perfect. The bigger concern is that refs are still making awful decision even with video evidence available. There needs to be a serious review of their performance.

 

If only someone had said VAR would be **** @Libby

 

The pitch referees must have the confidence and courage of their convictions. Re last night a good and confident referee would have looked at the slow motion and said” I was right the first time I saw this.” And let the game continue. He was right the first time in deciding that the player was making a meal of it. Why Son stayed down as if hit by Mike Tyson only he will know. I would have given him a card for play acting.

 

Shame the other weekend results went against us. 4th still looks a good way off

 

I think the results were pretty decent for us. Leicester losing means that there are 2 CL spots up for grabs instead of 1. Spurs lost as well.

Chelsea, Spurs and Leic all have to play amongst themselves and have some tough fixtures.

I think as long as we win all of our games, then we get top 4 ... big ask!

 

at least 2 others had already done the same one being Rashford . Mane for us has done it a number of times this is just being made a fuss of because of the goal and the VAR element .

 

That was always going to happen and was my main argument being it was introduced. Why make a decision that could be controversial when you can let play go on and see the "correct" decision be reached regardless?

 

Trouble is, they are under enormous pressure because millions of people are going to see the same incident over 729 different angles and at varying speeds.

 

It's embarrassing and deserves punishment. As does intentionally returning to the pitch to get treatment on a injury and therefore stopping play. Both ****housery plays.