Premier League 2023/24

[DavidMarrio]

Just now, Jimmy said:

Lol the PGMOL have apologised cos Diaz’s goal should’ve stood. 

My dad could have seen that it should have stood and he's been dead for over 14 years

[Hobo]

6 minutes ago, Szumi - A Polack said:

I'll never forget N'Gog conning the referee with the most ridiculous dive ever against Bolton and winning a penalty. "Who needs the cog when you got N'Gog!" still comes to mind! 🤣

I do have a bit of a soft spot for David N'Gog (and also Damien Plessis for some reason.)

I recently found out David N'Gog came out of retirement last season to play for Panonios (for the second time) in the third tier of Greek football. Seems to have retired again though.

[Szumi]

N'Gog and Dani Pacheco for me! 

 

At the end of the day, Spurs didn't deserve the win. But they got it, and fair play to them. They didn't cheat us, or play dirty at all today (a true miracle given Richarlison played & he's the biggest cunt in football for me). They got a handful of awful decisions go they're way, but that's not Spurs fault. Hope you guys keep the good start going and can maybe get a Champions League spot this year. 

[METALMAN]

25 minutes ago, DavidMarrio said:

My dad could have seen that it should have stood and he's been dead for over 14 years

I don’t think I’ve seen one of these before. Is there any value in this sort of thing if they can’t change anything? Football fans don’t really seem the type to go “ah well, they’ve said sorry - let’s cut out the social media abuse now”.

[Colly]

That's genuinely awful on the offside call. Baffling.

[therockbox]

1 hour ago, Colly said:

Don't forget Van Dijk talking himself into an extra match ban.

Yeah although Van Dijk's been noticeably more gobby since the injury, presumably because he knows he's dropped a level and is frustrated at not being as quick as he was.

Statement about the offside was not surprising. The idiots that screech conspiracy every time decisions go against their team mean nothing will ever change though. Fans of everyone should be united against the general incompetence of the officials but instead it's just banter fuel when Liverpool or City or Arsenal or Newcastle or United or blah blah blah get fucked over that week.

[Colly]

Short thread, spicy if true. No source listed at present, but Dale is usually in the know on these things.

 

 

Oh, and having seen the Jones red on a big screen for the first time rather than just my phone, that's red as fuck.

[Lineker]

Bad calls happen to all teams all throughout every season and nobody should be pleased with that fact. But fact it is. I mean when we played last season, Jota should have been sent off for virtually decapitating Oliver Skipp but wasn't. It is part of the game. 

 

However, if you are (rightly) going to embrace new technologies such as VAR, then getting the most basic of calls, seemingly as today's, wrong, is inexcusable. I was sat effectively in line with the incident on the same side of the pitch from a good raised angle and when it went in my first instinct was that it was onside. That was poor. 

 

The Jones red was still the totally correct decision for dangerous play/endangering an opponent. Sorry, but I can't be persuaded otherwise. I was sat with my cousin and his girlfriend who is a Liverpool fan - all three of us were in total agreement. For whatever that's worth.

 

(Ramble over)

[Colly]

I think there does need to be some acceptance that subjective decisions won't always be identical, it just isn't feasible until all games are reffed by a bizarre AI system where they can instantaneously compare to all previous similar incidents and even then there'll be some dickhead with an unrepresentative still image to go viral on Twitter.

What shouldn't happen though is that offside. Completely insane.

I've still no sympathy for Jota at all, whether the contact on the first one is minimal or not, or whether he's meant it or not, he's clipped him from behind on the break, that's a booking (especially if not his first foul). And completely regardless of that, to make that foul while on a booking is asking for a second.

[The Lusophone]

There's no interpretation of the laws of the game where Curtis Jones isn't sent off for that tackle. If it's anything other than a red, it's a wrong decision.

[Szumi]

So apparently VAR isn't allowed to do anything once Spurs restart the match after the "offsides"/check complete. That's a RIDICULOUS rule that I almost cannot believe is even a rule. 

I genuinely feel like VAR realized they fucked up by the time Son scores, and at that point, there's no way they're going to say anything because they'd have to cancel out the Spurs goal AND give Liverpool the goal they legitimately scored. VAR would never cause a two goal swing. 

Maybe we still lose the match after going up 1-0, who knows. But if that goal correctly counts, Son's not scoring a minute later, so who knows how things happen from there. 

[Lineker]

Of course games could be different if our officials could use the VAR properly.

You win some, you lose some, it evens out across everybody. Unless you're Hughes.

 

Don't be LiverHughes, guys 

[Jimmy]

We’re owed about 5 more dodgy decision for the Champions League final alone tbh.

[DavidMarrio]

39 minutes ago, Lineker said:

Of course games could be different if our officials could use the VAR properly.

You win some, you lose some, it evens out across everybody. Unless you're Hughes.

 

Don't be LiverHughes, guys 

I could find a tweet of "England's brave" Harry Kane's tackle on Robbo the other season that should have been a red and other decisions too if we're going down that route. 

I just want to point out. If we're saying that offside decision is a case of "it'll even out" then it's just an acceptance of how bad the standard of officiating is across the league as a whole.

What's the point in VAR if we're still going with the "ah you get some you don't" attitude. Go back to the old way of things and have goal line tech. The whole point of VAR was to go you've made a clear and obvious mistake there. Not muddy the waters more. 

Result doesnt bother me before theres more liverhughes stuff. We're two points off top, playing well and we held on until the very last second with 9 men. I didn't think we would be in this position where we are and I'm made up with the team we have and the quality of new signings like Szoboszlai. 

What bothers me is how bad officiating has come to the point it feels like every game across a match week will have had some fuck up in it and there's no accountability or anything from it cause they all stick up for one another and don't hold their hands up ala Mike Dean saying "ah i didn't wanna put pressure on my mate".

Also where is the consistency. First two match weeks they cracked down on players waving yellow cards. Then it just doesn't exist anymore. Mac Allister against Chelsea, Nunez against Bournemouth....and then poof, it's gone that rule now. 

You'll see a post in here about a bad ref decision every game week. Then Howard Webb will be selective over what VAR decisions are shown going look at the boss job we've done in these 4 incidents. 

My ramble over. 

[Gazz]

How many PGMOL apologies is that so far this season? 3 or 4 in 7 game weeks?

I reckon the VAR was browsing Reddit during the game and did that thing you do when you're not paying attention on a work Zoom call and blurt out any old shit when someone asks you something.

[Jimmy]

Pay referees more and make it a more attractive job. The standard of officiating has been poor this year, and yesterdays fuck up was particularly outrageous, but as VAR and referees continue to have more impact on the product the Premier League puts out, they should be paid accordingly and we might see the standard increase. 
 

Even if the offside had stood, the ref (who doesn’t make the offside decision) is still getting slaughtered online, and by Klopp, for giving two correct red cards. It’s not an enviable position in my opinion. 

Edited October 1, 2023 by Jimmy

[lanky316]

In fairness to those photos, in the Tanganga incident there was a freak power cut that lasted about 3 minutes and just happened to miss a couple of potential Liverpool red cards. At least on the offside call they've done the right thing and apologised rather than making comical Fergie style excuses. 

The standard in general of officiating is poor and every week there seems to be something farcical happening. I was a big supporter of the idea of VAR, something that would level the playing field because fans - and players - knew the officiating pecking order. Patrick Viera in his book said something along the lines of how when they played teams like Spurs or Villa they knew they would be good for a couple of decisions or a soft penalty, when they went to Old Trafford they knew it would be different. VAR on paper is something that would stop that but subjective decisions are clearly still going to be unreliable but if there's a full on discussion around it maybe it would be different, who knows? Rather than it being as simple as "I'm told to look, they're telling me I'm wrong" which seems to be the case now. Were I a referee I'd love the option on a big call to say "okay, I'd like to see that challenge again, I think it's a yellow but I want to check on the contact", but that's not how it's used and it just leads to subjective debates.

Even ignoring any VAR debates, the subjectivity and confusion just makes things worse. The fact that it feels like "by the letter of the law" has also got greyer and more contradictory. It's sort of reached the point where I rarely watch a game without thinking "yeah you never know" when watching a replay of something. In big Spurs games this season we can look at handball as an example, same player involved in incidents, opposite calls (ironically I thought there were more mitigating circumstances in the penalty that was given) and X (formerly known as Twitter) goes completely nuts over it.

Refereeing is an unforgivable job, it's ridiculously hard and now that like politics football supporting seems to have becomes peoples lone identity the partisan nonsense would make it worse. Yesterday they were both red cards, the referee is being bombarded with abuse over those calls and no amount of trying to look at them objectively is going to happen. I don't know the solution, there won't be an easy answer because it's not something that'll ever be able to please everyone, you can't make everything in football a black and white yes/no decision and there will be inconsistencies. 

One thing I will say though is that yesterdays apology was a disgrace. Not a problem with them saying "we got it wrong. and apologise", it doesn't help the teams who were let down by officials to do it but apologising rather than closing ranks and being silent is a much better direction than some shockers of yesteryear. The timing however was bullshit. To come out and issue that statement before Klopp has spoken to the media and while feelings are running high over the game was basically PGMOL declaring open season on abuse to Simon Hooper. It shouldn't happen, but everyone knows it will do and throwing him under the bus like that near enough as soon as the whistle has gone is not going to help matters at all.

[Adam]

I have always felt a Challenge system would work well in football for VAR, but it never even seems to get mentioned. Leave all goals as automatic checks and make it so that if a manager feels he should have had a penalty, or a red card etc. then let them throw the flag down or tell the 4th Official. In the NFL, a coach gets 2 per half and if it's successful, you keep it. Unsuccessful and you lose it.

The onus would then be a little less on blaming referees and more of a tactical element to coaching a game. Klopp could then challenge the VAR offside call and say "well, it's wrong and we know it is" and this wouldn't be as likely to happen.

Or, just sack VAR off entirely because it is too subjective and is essentially just making it so we have two referees on every game.

[Gazz]

2 hours ago, Jimmy said:

Pay referees more and make it a more attractive job. The standard of officiating has been poor this year, and yesterdays fuck up was particularly outrageous, but as VAR and referees continue to have more impact on the product the Premier League puts out, they should be paid accordingly and we might see the standard increase. 
 

Even if the offside had stood, the ref (who doesn’t make the offside decision) is still getting slaughtered online, and by Klopp, for giving two correct red cards. It’s not an enviable position in my opinion. 

I honestly doubt you would. These are already full-time, paid professionals. The standards will only get better by improving the pipeline and at the moment, grassroots refereeing is dying on it's arse. Every week in my league, at my age group alone, they're are four or five fixtures being reffed by parents because the league can't recruit enough qualified refs. No one is interested in getting abused for £30 a time. Even moreso now, as the level of behaviour post-Covid is fucking abysmal.

[METALMAN]

Yeah we should just abolish VAR. Mistakes are going to be made. They might as well be funny ones like Thierry Henry boffing it with his hand against Ireland that time. VAR drama is so boring.