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The Footie Thread

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Swango1980 said:
With the way the laws of the game are, I agree it is a red card. Because I've seen players from other teams get red for similar.

But I don't agree with the laws of the game on this one. I think you give a red card if a player has done something dangerous, when they really should have known better. When they should have known they could severely hurt an opponent, thus the red card is punishment, and hopefully makes them think twice about doing it again in the future.

But in this case, that wasn't true. Rashford did what every other footballer does, and try and get themselves between the ball and the opponent. 99% of the time, there is no contact with anyone or contact happens at a slightly different point of time. Maybe he trods on the opponents foot, maybe the opponent treads on his foot, etc. But last night,. in this moment of time, his studs make contact with the ankle. As VAR can freeze this image, make it look just as bad as a high wreckless lunge with no care for safety, they do so and force the referees hand. A referee who was pretty much on the spot in real time and did not see it as a red. Next time Rashford plays again, no doubt he will still make similar actions. And I'm sure we will have players for every team do the same thing in pretty much every game, it is just most of the time they just won't happen to make contact with an ankle.

Football is a game where players predominantly use their feet, and the ball is usually on the ground. It is inevitable that the sole of a players foot will occasionally make contact with another players ankle. Sometimes this might also be painful. But a lot of the time it is a complete accident, and to me an occupational hazard of being a footballer. Dishing out reds for accidents, when it is fair to say they had no idea they could hurt someone for their action, is harsh in the extreme. VAR is deciding football games as far as I see it
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They've basically removed intent from the consideration now, because you can't see intent on a slow-motion replay or a paused image. It used to be the case that the ref decided if the player intended to leave one on him or whether it was an accident. Now that's deemed irrelevant and they just look on the screen to see where the contact was, if it's studs on ankle then you're off, whether you meant it or not.
 
nickjdavis said:
Howe was limited in his team choices though....8 of the 25 man CL squad were unavailable due to injury/suspension. The only regular starters on the subs bench (only named 8 on the bench) were Almiron and Gordon. Two of the other subs were keepers. Three of the remaining subs, Miley, DeBolle, Parkinson are 17,20 and 18 yo respectively, and only Miley I believe has seen competetive first team action previously. That left Dummet as the only experienced player on the bench.

Botman, Targett, Burn missing from defence.
Tonali and Barnes, Anderson from Midfield
Isak and Murphy missing from attack with Wilson carrying an injury.

Squad depth is still too shallow to compete across 3 or 4 fronts. CL football arrived at least a season too soon.

No arguments though that Dortmund outplayed us comprehensively in the first half and it was inevitable in the 2nd what would happen, the way we were pushing for an equaliser. Milan beating PSG was a bit of a blow as it makes it all a bit tight for third place in the group and the possible fall back of Europa League football.
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I still have never really rated Howe at setting up a defence (ironic considering he used to be a defender)

Last year pope and tripper were excellent signings that paper over some issues

His teams are normally always great going forward tho
 
For me, it’s long, long overdue that some of these on field referees grew a pair and, when sent to the monitor, they stand by their original decision.

If VAR is intervening in decisions which are subjective by their very nature, then it must follow that VAR cannot always be correct.

Yet I have only once seen a referee refuse to be swayed by VAR. Which rather suggests to me that, in the “big” moments, referees no longer have the autonomy to make decisions.
 
A big part of the problem nowadays is that t players feel agrieved if a decision goes against them by the on field ref and practically beg for VAR to be involved in the hope they can get the on field decision overturned .
 
pauljames87 said:
I still have never really rated Howe at setting up a defence (ironic considering he used to be a defender)

Last year pope and tripper were excellent signings that paper over some issues

His teams are normally always great going forward tho
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The defence is normally solid, it certainly was last year, 33 goals conceded, same as City and better than everyone else, and this year only City, Arsenal and Liverpool have conceded fewer goals. They were one down and conceded a second chasing the game, easy enough to do.

As @nickjdavis posted, the squad is paper thin, they have a hefty injury list, this is a year too early to make a proper challenge in a very tough group. Nothing much wrong otherwise.
 
Norrin Radd said:
A big part of the problem nowadays is that t players feel agrieved if a decision goes against them by the on field ref and practically beg for VAR to be involved in the hope they can get the on field decision overturned .
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Indeed. But I think even the players have sensed that the onfield referees are now acting cowardly and not acting on those big decisions. So they probably know that VAR is the one that truly makes the calls on those big decisions, thus if they think something like that should be going their way, they are immediately calling for VAR to act. They'll also make it clear to the onfield referee, so if the ball goes out of play then at least the on field referee has a sign that he needs to delay the game, and ask VAR to look.

If the players didn't react at all, the onfield referee may simply assume there is nothing at all to check, and allow play to continue immediately.

Plus, as many of these decisions are subjective, if the players can kick up a big enough fuss about it, I'm sure they reckon they can sway the VAR to feel the players may have a point about their discontent, and therefore get the onfield referee to review it. If their reaction can just push the VAR from 55/45 against them to 60/40 for them, that is probably all the encouragement they need to give to influence the decision.
 
pauljames87 said:
I still have never really rated Howe at setting up a defence (ironic considering he used to be a defender)

Last year pope and tripper were excellent signings that paper over some issues

His teams are normally always great going forward tho
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I felt the same as you when he was at Bournemouth, it was a bit gung-ho and his team regularly conceded 60-70 goals a season, which is mad, and really inevitable that they'd go down eventually. He's done very well at Newcastle though, perhaps just because of the opportunity to work with better defenders, such as Schar, and Botman who he's brought in. Bournemouth never really had a decent centre back other than Aké who of course moved on to City in the end.
 
Orikoru said:
They've basically removed intent from the consideration now, because you can't see intent on a slow-motion replay or a paused image. It used to be the case that the ref decided if the player intended to leave one on him or whether it was an accident. Now that's deemed irrelevant and they just look on the screen to see where the contact was, if it's studs on ankle then you're off, whether you meant it or not.
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You just need to compare a few recent challenges.

The lad from Spurs jumps in to a 2 footed tackle from behind on Sterling. Luckily, there ends up being no real contact so no injury. But it could have been nasty. The Spurs player saw exactly what was in front of him, went absolutely flying into that tackle and he could easily have caused damage if Sterling's movement was different. But no red card, as he luckily didn't hurt him. Romero kicks an opponent, but apparently petulance is fine, as long as it isn't violent and could hurt someone.

Havertz flew into the Newcastle player last week. No studs in the ankle, but it was clearly a nasty challenge that could have still really hurt the opponent. No red card.

Rashford accidentally makes contact with opponents ankle from a standing position. Red card. And players from other teams will have also got reds for something they had no intent to do, or reason to think that could be an inevitable outcome.

We can also talk about players throwing elbows into opponents faces, and not getting red.

To me, a red card for violent conduct has been simplified as follows by officials, especially VAR: "Did the player's studs hit an opponents ankle? If yes, red card. If no, no red card". I don't think the decision making is any more complex than that. At some point in the future, a player will get elbowed and become unconscious. They'll not give a red card and be crucified. Then for the following week, they'll send off every single player who accidentally makes contact with an opponents head with their arm.
 
Swango1980 said:
You just need to compare a few recent challenges.

The lad from Spurs jumps in to a 2 footed tackle from behind on Sterling. Luckily, there ends up being no real contact so no injury. But it could have been nasty. The Spurs player saw exactly what was in front of him, went absolutely flying into that tackle and he could easily have caused damage if Sterling's movement was different. But no red card, as he luckily didn't hurt him. Romero kicks an opponent, but apparently petulance is fine, as long as it isn't violent and could hurt someone.

Havertz flew into the Newcastle player last week. No studs in the ankle, but it was clearly a nasty challenge that could have still really hurt the opponent. No red card.

Rashford accidentally makes contact with opponents ankle from a standing position. Red card. And players from other teams will have also got reds for something they had no intent to do, or reason to think that could be an inevitable outcome.

We can also talk about players throwing elbows into opponents faces, and not getting red.

To me, a red card for violent conduct has been simplified as follows by officials, especially VAR: "Did the player's studs hit an opponents ankle? If yes, red card. If no, no red card". I don't think the decision making is any more complex than that. At some point in the future, a player will get elbowed and become unconscious. They'll not give a red card and be crucified. Then for the following week, they'll send off every single player who accidentally makes contact with an opponents head with their arm.
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Yeah. They've definitely tried to remove the humanity and common sense from every decision and make it all black and white so it suits the VAR screen. Unfortunately football is played by human beings, so that doesn't work for me.
 
No surprises in the England squad!

Bit of a shame that Gordon isn't getting a look yet but the rest is as id expect from GS.
 
Orikoru said:
There's another England squad already?? Can't they just sod off and let us get on with the proper football?

Edit: Having just seen it - did he just copy and paste the previous one? Yawn.
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That's pretty much what he has said in his presser....
 
It is really saying something that I'd rather see Man Utd struggle every week (as a fan of them), than have to go through another international week. The only saving grace is it is a chance to see Bellingham and Kane play, but it is scant consolation
 
Orikoru said:
Really? "I don't even watch football anymore so I just picked the same as last time." Gareth finally being honest to what we all knew anyway?
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In fairness, since the last England game Al-Ettifaq have played 4 matches. They've had one win, one draw and 2 losses. So it looks like Henderson has really taken that league by storm, and would probably step into any international side in the world if he qualified.....

Man City have had 5 games. Phillips appeared in 3 of them, coming on in the 90th minute, 71st minute and 61st minute. It seems like Pep now really trusts him, so long as it is only for a few minutes and City have already pretty much tied up the game.
 
Swango1980 said:
It is really saying something that I'd rather see Man Utd struggle every week (as a fan of them), than have to go through another international week. The only saving grace is it is a chance to see Bellingham and Kane play, but it is scant consolation
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It gives our injured a week of recuperation without missing a game.
It's also a week without watching Dalot!
 
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