Stats for Brighton vs The Sheikh Mansour Team Possession: 63% vs 37% Shots: 19 vs 8 Shots on target: 6 vs 4 Go on, guess which team has all the better stats?
VAR having another fabulous day - Cavani goal was offside, Cancelo sent off in dubious fashion, Jahanbasch (sp) challenge looked like a red and Werner should have had a penalty, all in a days work for VAR
He looks like he's trying to touch it, so I guess they give the benefit of the doubt to the team in red, oops, I mean the attacking team. You know, like they did for the Leeds game when our former player Kane was in line but given offside.
What are VAR watching, it is clear he does not touch the ball. You get these kind of decisions if you wear a red shirt, particularly if you are from the Northwest. United have been dragged up the league all season long to be fair.
The interesting one was the non-penalty in the Chelsea match where Werner put his foot between the defender and the ball just as he was about to kick it. I don’t think that ought to be a foul either way although a case could be made that the ref was right and Werner impeded Tielemans with contact. Not disimilar to the Eric Dier challenge in our home match against Chelsea where the penalty was given.
This had slipped under my radar. Refs bonus at stake for 'mistakes' which is bound to lead to corrupt decisions. ="https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...paying-mistakes-bonuses-taking-hit-error.html" />
Interesting. It's not untypical for a system that has been designed to make things better having unintended consequences. Two things stand out for me. Firstly the fact that on field refs and VAR refs rotate. Sounds reasonable on paper, but it doesn't acknowledge that VAR might actually be a different discipline needing different skills. But if these decisions are bonus related it's just one more thing that is going to affect a decision, consciously or subconsciously. If they don't pull up their onfield colleague, and potentially affect their bonus, then maybe that ref won't do the same when they're in the VAR chair. Secondly something from that article that didn't even occur to me which I'll just repeat for those that didn't realise. If the VAR ref tells the onfield ref to go to the monitor, then they are more or less suggesting there has been a mistake. Since mistakes cost bonus, there is one more incentive to go with what VAR said. How often does a ref look at the monitor and disagree with VAR? An exception which might prove the rule was in our CL game against City where the ref didn't go with VAR re Llorente's goal. Perhaps it's telling that this wasn't a PL ref? Do CL games have ref bonuses for 'correct decisions'? Conclusion is also twofold. Firstly pay the refs more (yes, more). The PL can afford it and it might just get better people wanting to become refs, perhaps more ex-players for example. PL refs make good money by the standard of society, but get in one year what a player gets in a week. So at the same time as increasing salary, don't make any of the pay bonus related. Demote them if they make too many errors yes, but don't link it to money. This will always have consequences. Secondly have a different set of refs for the VAR which are independent. Make it a new career path if you want, and/or import them from abroad, but the most important thing is to make them independent of other refs and where possible of bias. I think most of us just want fairness and consistency. Yet the only consistency we see is inconsistency - which seems to be less in the case of certain teams where shall we say 'benefit of the doubt' creeps in. We need to give refs every opportunity to be fair, and this bonus system is just another way of it not happening.
How can anyone tell if he touched it? It’s a millimetre call either way. So nobody can be dogmatic about it. Whichever way VAR decided it, somebody would have the opposite view, but that doesn’t make VAR wrong. A decision had to be made. Some pace seemed to be taken off the ball - which is why it sat up so nicely for Cavani to strike it. That suggests he touched it. But nobody can prove me right or wrong.
He didn't touch it. He said so himself. The tweet that's been deleted clearly showed that he didn't and they have that angle. His English is nearly as good as his diving, though. He's more eloquent than most domestic players.
The final 2 CL slots could come down to GD. I demand the boys at the very least make the Lesta game a "relegation decider" in mindset.
If we win tonight and West Ham lose, then our EL spot is confirmed. At that point I'd happily roll over for Lesta so that Liverpool or Chelsea might miss out.