29 Nov 2023 09:40:25
More awful VAR calls in Newcastle v PSG last night and the absolute nonsense of sin bins for tactical fouls. For me, a tactical foul is part of the game. It seems they don’t want any fouls at all and players to curtsey as another dribbles past them.

And this rubbish about protecting the referee they are not mistreated at all. What do they want players and staff to bring chocolates and flowers to them, as well as the brown envelopes they receive? The lawmakers are ruining football. It is beyond ridiculous. VAR has to go. You cannot be referring to video every 2 mins it doesn’t work and hasn’t worked in any league.

VAR is defunct and so are the lawmakers themselves. In a couple of year's time, I doubt any of us will recognise the game we all loved. It will have been ruined by people who have never even played the game and would have changed into a different sport all together.

Can football be saved? i really don’t think so it’s on a slippery slope and sliding into the abyss. Enjoy it while you can lads, because like most things in life nowadays, it is going to be mutilated by the people running it.

1.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 13:07:37
Tactical fouls part of the game eh? Seems to me like a bold stance to take.
The coaching of players to spot the potential of a counter attack and simply foul the player breaking away is cheating, hence why a free kick and yellow card should be given as a result.
Is stopping a certain goal with your hand ‘part of the game’.
Also referee’s certainly are mistreated. Yes they have struggled badly this year in particular. But they are still human beings. Would you go to work everyday to have a group of overpaid kids running up to you and shouting dogs abuse at you? If their mics were broadcast every game the sport would require an 18+ age restriction because simply reading the lips of the players screaming at them is enough to tell me what is being said.
The Newcastle game last night, as much as it might upset people who felt they were hard done by was a penalty. Its only in England that the ball deflecting from a body part onto the hand/ arm negates a penalty.

2.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 13:11:42
NBG, I have no idea how supposedly smart people who claim to know better than the rest of us can go into a room, brainstorm collectively on how to improve officiating and then come out with the absolute rubbish ideas they are proposing.

3.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 13:32:02
It was a bad call at an even worse moment in the game but I’ve seen much worse VAR decisions than that.

It did hit his arm and his arm was extended but the ref should’ve taken the deflection off his body as a mitigating factor.

I’d say Quansah’s disallowed goal against Toulouse was a worse VAR decision as they actually gave a decision from the wrong phase of play which we are categorically told they are not supposed to do. Mac hand-balled it no question but they are actually not following their own protocol by going back to a previous phase of play after a goal is scored.

I agree though that something has to be done I’m fed up of discussing officiating after every game and I don’t just blame the refs and VAR for that. It’s got to a point where the media know they will get more clicks by creating controversy so even Akanji grabbing Ali’s arm whilst he’s jumping to catch the ball is suddenly controversial.

Every time VAR makes any kind of decision it’s all over Sky Sports with all and sundry giving their opinions on it and to create controversy they will always have people arguing both sides. Why do Carra and Neville always disagree on everything? Because it creates controversy and they count on people jumping on board and picking a side. It’s a joke.

4.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 13:39:51
A tactical foul is part of the game and a yellow card is sufficient so each player cans do this once a game I don’t think there is anything wrong with that and yes stopping a goal with a hand is also part of the game and is duly punished with a red. To dream of a game that is free of any wrongdoing is preposterous and frankly, sounds boring as hell.

They are trying to sanitise the game of any enjoyment and even make tackling extinct. These people are similar to people in government and will come up with any hair brained scam to ruin and break something that was fine in the first place. Refs are fine, mate. It’s only a bit of shouting and most of the time players just telling the ref some home truths I see nothing wrong with how they are treated whatsoever.

Football is not about referees they should barely be spoken about and blend in to the shadows, yet all we do is harp on about crap refs and crap VAR. It’s called Football not Refball. Let’s get back to the original game instead of this modern day woke nonsense version we have now. Sin bins in football is beyond a joke, but I doubt it will be the last ridiculous idea this lot have. Maybe let’s give the ref a taser to use if anyone argues his decisions. What d'ya think? ?‍♂️.

5.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 15:01:24
"Why do Carra and Neville always disagree on everything? Because it creates controversy and they count on people jumping on board and picking a side. It’s a joke. "

THIS! . @BP, now you are catching up with how propaganda works on Sky and in the football media in England.

Also, notice that on the Akanji foul on Alisson vs City, it was Carragher who started this rubbish about it not being a foul and the whole thing spread like wildfire.

Had he said it was a foul on AB1, he would be accused of being biased for LFC BUT Sky know that as well so him saying it wasn't a foul would cause the controversy whereas any play like that has been a foul on a GK for 20 years and counting, no arguments.

6.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 16:39:58
Loved Carra as a player. As a pundit he's just plain garbage, sounds bitter to me when he's on Liverpool games. Lost all respect for him over the spitting incident.

7.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 17:14:15
Exactly Oli.

It started with Carra when Mane got sent off against City and Neville criticised the ref saying he’d ruined the game and that Mane had to go for the ball in that situation.

Everyone agreed with Neville until Carra comes out with his campaign (and it was a campaign he was everywhere telling anyone who would listen) saying it was a red card. It was so obvious that Carra was only saying it to cement his position as unbiased towards Liverpool and to create a furore that the gullible fans would get onboard with.

It drives me insane.

8.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 17:41:03
I just don't get how people are still howling about VAR and crying for it to be removed. It's like screaming at your umbrella for making it rain. VAR is not some black box or flawed in itself - it's just a second layer of officials making decisions and it's the current officials that are the problem.

OP here seems to have some other delusions fueling their opinions, but I've seen lots of otherwise reasonable people blame VAR for the current state of officiating and say it needs removed. Again, this is like smashing your umbrella to fix the rain. If you think there's too many poor calls from the officials+VAR, imagine what it'd be like if you just had poor officials and no process of reviewing their initial calls. The current officials are the problem.

I hate to dilute my point but I don't want these two separate issues conflated: the officials should be protected from the players/ managers, but they are far too protected with no accountability for their performance. There is no system of review or consequence for being a poor ref which is part of the reason they have become so poor (I think the other part is money i. e. corruption but that's a different post) . They have to be held accountable, but obviously not by players/ managers.

9.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 18:28:26
Football is the best sport in the world. Lately Everytime they tweak it, it gets slightly worse.

But VAR, that’s seriously ruining it. And “sin bins” would kill it off.

10.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 19:42:39
Wait, Mane kicking Ederson in the head wasn't a red card? Laughable, how blinkered can you be.

11.) 29 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 20:43:08
Thunderbird once more you miss the point. I’m not saying it was or it wasn’t a red card, I’m saying that when it happened Neville said Mane had to go for the ball and Ederson stuck his head in the way. The ref then gave the red based on the outcome of the challenge and not the action of the challenge.

Nobody had a problem with that until Carra (who was new in the job and supposedly a Liverpool fan) said hang on that was dangerous and is a red card.

At the time it probably wasn’t a red card because the bar was really high for a straight red to be given back then. It would normally have to be something violent and deliberate for the ref to give a straight red and they were rarely given. That was an accident, Mane had to go for it and Ederson was either brave or stupid to put his head in to that challenge.

You could even say that the Mane challenge and the subsequent argument of whether it was a red or not was the starting point and since then we have slowly seen the bar for red cards get lower and lower until today when we are seeing 2 or 3 red cards each weekend.

These days intent and aggression don’t seem to have anything to do with it. It’s the outcome of the challenge that is punished rather than the action itself which was exactly what Neville was complaining about at the time. Curtis Jones’s tackle at Spurs vs Udogie’s 2 footed tackle against Chelsea being a case in point. Curtis’s challenge was not intentional or overly aggressive yet he gets sent off because of the outcome whereas Udogie jumps in 2 footed with intent and aggression but because Sterling jumps out of the way the outcome is palatable so he only gets a yellow. You can’t tell me that Jones’s tackle was worse than Udogie’s.

For me as an ex player, red cards should be for serious foul play and should be very rare as they have too much influence on the outcome of a game to be dishing them out like sweets like they are these days. It’s skewing the league table because in many games the result is more down to the decisions rather than the football being played.

12.) 30 Nov 2023
29 Nov 2023 22:07:21
Who is this everyone you are referring to? Neville was commentating on the game and Carragher was doing the post match analysis, there was literally about 1 hour between their opinions. Assuming you were watching the game how did you have time to canvass everyone's opinion on the red card?
It seems to me that anyone that has a different opinion to you has that opinion for some ulterior motive, maybe it's just that you could be wrong once in a while.

13.) 30 Nov 2023
30 Nov 2023 02:12:26
There’s a bit of the ‘everybody’ and ‘everyone’ sneaking into posts lately @TB2.

In the same way that posts should always be read with the first three words being ‘in my opinion’, even if they aren’t actually there, perhaps we need to read everybody / everyone as being followed by ‘except those who don’t’ even if they are not actually there either.

14.) 30 Nov 2023
30 Nov 2023 06:31:56
How anyone can condone technical fouls is beyond me, it’s cynical and cheating. You talk about players being allowed to do it once and being given a yellow which prevents them from doing another. That’s flawed for 2 reasons.

1. Players often get away with their first 1 or 2 (rodri and Fernandinho are masters of this) .

2. What about when that cynical foul happens right at the end of the game and so they gladly take the yellow? See Chiellini on Saka in the euros final.

15.) 30 Nov 2023
30 Nov 2023 14:53:51
Tactical fouls are a part of the game though, for some players and clubs more than others - if it's a blatant pull back etc, then a free kick and a yellow card.

The issue is that certain players are pulled up on these fouls and others ignored - I mean if you look at Rodri or Fernandinho, how many of these fouls do/ did they commit per game and how many times was a free kick even given let alone a yellow card? Multiple deliberate fouls per game ignored - why?

Again, the issue is consistency.

Consistency being three-fold:
1: consistency in decisions for the same type of incident - a blatant pull back should be a free kick and a yellow card, end of
2: consistency in decisions no matter the teams involved - if an incident is a free kick and a red or yellow card for Burnley, Everton or Wolves then it should be the same decision for Liverpool, Chelsea, Man Utd and Man City - club involved should not matter
3: consistency in where these decisions occur - if a decision for an incident is given at Goodison or Villa Park then the same rules should apply at Old Trafford or the Etihad.

16.) 30 Nov 2023
30 Nov 2023 20:02:16
Wrong on what Thunderbird? I’m happy for you to prove me wrong if you can but I really don’t know what you are referring to because your response is just childish and pedantic.

If you want to have a debate we can have one but you seem too preoccupied with my choice of words rather than actually countering the point I’m making.