The Football Thread.

TeleMaster · January 2023

UnclePsychosis said:

Watched the Liverpool - Wolves game in the pub last night.

1) the offside rule in its current form is a joke
2) VAR is shite. Get it binned.

My understanding is that VAR couldn't see it from a definitive angle so they had to follow the on pitch decision which was offside, and it was regarding Wolves' Nunes, not Toti.

I don't mind this interpretation of the offside rule. I wonder if the officials make decisions more flippantly, or without as much consideration because of the ability to use VAR.

Good win for West Ham yesterday. Amazing strike by Benrahama and hopefully back to some semblance of winning ways.

guitars4you · January 2023

TeleMaster said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Watched the Liverpool - Wolves game in the pub last night.

1) the offside rule in its current form is a joke
2) VAR is shite. Get it binned.

My understanding is that VAR couldn't see it from a definitive angle so they had to follow the on pitch decision which was offside, and it was regarding Wolves' Nunes, not Toti.

I don't mind this interpretation of the offside rule. I wonder if the officials make decisions more flippantly, or without as much consideration because of the ability to use VAR.

Good win for West Ham yesterday. Amazing strike by Benrahama and hopefully back to some semblance of winning ways.

I didn't see any of the game other than the last 10 mins or so - And agree with you about the official flagged for off side and as such they had to go with that call as they could not over ride it - Might be a wrong call, but under such circumstances it was 'the call' - Heard that Salah's goal was also debatable and issues with Sheff Wed and Newcastle with no VAR

TeleMaster · January 2023

Apparently it was the right call. But I haven't analysed it, and don't care enough to lol.

thecolourbox · January 2023

The mighty (cough) West Brom reserves couldn't beat Chesterfield yesterday, very fortunate to get an equaliser in added time to take it to a replay - would rather we had lost it to be honest than to have an extra game in a pointless competition but there we go.

Our goalkeeper showed why he got dropped, reminding us how grateful we are that they made the change in the first team.

It looks like one of our strikers might get a retrospective ban for an elbow, although apparently he was being fouled as well. So ref missed that potential red card for him and also missed a potential red card for chesterfield as well for a bad foul on our defender. VAR or No VAR, the officiating is consistently poor and in this case probably robbed Chesterfield of a deserved win.

Hopefully for the replay we play the under 14s and get out of this pointless cup competition

scrumhalf · January 2023

Well, after Spurs saw off the mighty Portsmouth in a game where both teams seem to have agreed not to shoot more than once per half, we would appear to be Wembley bound.

Last time we beat Pompey in the Cup was in 91, and we won it. The time before was in 67, and we won the Cup. I'm all for tradition, but as a Spurs fan I know that part of our tradition is to arse things up.

joneve · January 2023

Nitefly said:

Sorry, @joneve , but - UP THE POOL!

Haha! Thoroughly deserved win. We, understandably, made 11 changes as the FA cup cannot be a priority this season. On paper, the team was good enough to win but the team were a shambles and you played very well.

Onwards to the Carabao QF on wed and more importantly 3 points required against Leicester next Monday!

guitars4you · January 2023

Good job we played today for 90 + mins - No cohesion at all today from our lads - We missed a penalty, but truth be known we did not deserve to draw

TTony · January 2023

scrumhalf said:

Well, after Spurs saw off the mighty Portsmouth in a game where both teams seem to have agreed not to shoot more than once per half, we would appear to be Wembley bound.

To be as objective as a Spurs fan can be, we weren't particularly good, but Portsmouth weren't good enough to take advantage of that.

Royal seemed to have a half-decent game, Gil is playing himself in, Skipp still looks rusty and needs more game time. Sarr looks like he might be quite good.

I then watched the Newcastle / Sheff Weds game, and I'm not at all sure that we'd have beaten Sheff Weds if that's how they typically play. I was really surprised at the quality of a League 1 team.

UnclePsychosis · January 2023

TeleMaster said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Watched the Liverpool - Wolves game in the pub last night.

1) the offside rule in its current form is a joke
2) VAR is shite. Get it binned.

My understanding is that VAR couldn't see it from a definitive angle so they had to follow the on pitch decision which was offside, and it was regarding Wolves' Nunes, not Toti.

I don't mind this interpretation of the offside rule. I wonder if the officials make decisions more flippantly, or without as much consideration because of the ability to use VAR.

Good win for West Ham yesterday. Amazing strike by Benrahama and hopefully back to some semblance of winning ways.

Salahs goal should never stand in a sensible world. He's offside, and because he's there the defender has to play the ball. But him playing the ball makes Salah onside? That's a joke of a rule.

As for the disallowed Wolves goal - not a man, woman, or child inside the stadium would have been upset with the officials if that had stood. By all accounts nobody in the stadium knew what was going on either.

VAR is the worst thing to happen to football in my lifetime.

munckee · January 2023

TTony said:

scrumhalf said:

Well, after Spurs saw off the mighty Portsmouth in a game where both teams seem to have agreed not to shoot more than once per half, we would appear to be Wembley bound.

To be as objective as a Spurs fan can be, we weren't particularly good, but Portsmouth weren't good enough to take advantage of that.

Royal seemed to have a half-decent game, Gil is playing himself in, Skipp still looks rusty and needs more game time. Sarr looks like he might be quite good.

I then watched the Newcastle / Sheff Weds game, and I'm not at all sure that we'd have beaten Sheff Weds if that's how they typically play. I was really surprised at the quality of a League 1 team.

We (Pompey) would have given you a much better game a couple of months ago. We were top of the table after 10 games and have won one game since resulting in us not having a manager when we played you.

Not like the 2010 semi!

thecolourbox · January 2023

There was a brilliantly brutal tweet from Stevenage Town official Twitter, especially considering they were still losing 1-0 to the Vile at this point. Something along the lines of:

"Philipe Coutinho is substituted. The substitution took longer than usual because he had to be removed from (insert Stevenage defender's name)'s back pocket"

Brilliant

Rocker · January 2023

UnclePsychosis said:

Watched the Liverpool - Wolves game in the pub last night.

1) the offside rule in its current form is a joke
2) VAR is shite. Get it binned.

VAR works very well in Rugby football. Everyone in the stadium can see and follow the decision process. But the players and supporters accept the decision. Few if any in football accept and move on when a decision has been made. [Thinking out loud: does this suggest that Rugby players are more intelligent than Football players?]

bertie · January 2023

Bales' hung up his boots then

joneve · January 2023

bertie said:

Bales' hung up his boots then

Not surprised. He was absolutely abysmal in the World Cup.

thecolourbox · January 2023

Did he hang them in a man bun formation to cover his receding hairline?

bertie · January 2023

Rocker said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Watched the Liverpool - Wolves game in the pub last night.

1) the offside rule in its current form is a joke
2) VAR is shite. Get it binned.

VAR works very well in Rugby football. Everyone in the stadium can see and follow the decision process. But the players and supporters accept the decision. Few if any in football accept and move on when a decision has been made. [Thinking out loud: does this suggest that Rugby players are more intelligent than Football players?]

not sure you can do a direct comparison, there's always been much more respect for the ref in rugby than football, which may itself be down to the longer / stronger links to the amateur status of the game, you can see more "dissent" creeping into the pro game !

The more "stop start" way in which rugby is played lends itself to "review" much easier however Its not the technology its the application of "VAR" that's failing in football, its as piss poorly deployed as FIFA is as a governing body. They need to have a drains up total review of how, when and what can be used, what the framework rules are and who can access/use it

axisus · January 2023

Bale had a pretty stellar career, and won many major trophies. If you want to stand admiring a few medals in old age then that is fine, but, as I've said before, personally I'd rather spend my career at a club where I was a nailed on hero than to be mostly disliked by the fans, not appreciated by managers, hauled off or not played, bit part in the clubs history etc. I'd prefer emotion to materialism.

DrCornelius · January 2023

axisus said:

Bale had a pretty stellar career, and won many major trophies. If you want to stand admiring a few medals in old age then that is fine, but, as I've said before, personally I'd rather spend my career at a club where I was a nailed on hero than to be mostly disliked by the fans, not appreciated by managers, hauled off or not played, bit part in the clubs history etc. I'd prefer emotion to materialism.

Yep me too - you want enough cash to look after family and have loads of options after retirement but once you are at that point it would be more important for me to develop a proper relationship with a club a la Le Tiss / Ledley King etc

MagicPigDetective · January 2023

DrCornelius said:

axisus said:

Bale had a pretty stellar career, and won many major trophies. If you want to stand admiring a few medals in old age then that is fine, but, as I've said before, personally I'd rather spend my career at a club where I was a nailed on hero than to be mostly disliked by the fans, not appreciated by managers, hauled off or not played, bit part in the clubs history etc. I'd prefer emotion to materialism.

Yep me too - you want enough cash to look after family and have loads of options after retirement but once you are at that point it would be more important for me to develop a proper relationship with a club a la Le Tiss / Ledley King etc

Bale had the best of both worlds. Money and trophies galore with his club, and a total hero and all time legend, loved and worshipped by his nation, our greatest player of all time, with Wales, as much if not more than he'd get from any club. What a career for club and country.

Rocker · January 2023

Bale was/is a good football player, he scored lots of great goals, won most of what is worth winning and acquitted himself well both on and off the field. Pity then that his hairstyle made him look like an entrant in Crufts. [I am a bit of a traditionalist who thinks that men should look like men. Not poodles!]

Philly_Q · January 2023

Rocker said:

Bale was/is a good football player, he scored lots of great goals, won most of what is worth winning and acquitted himself well both on and off the field. Pity then that his hairstyle made him look like an entrant in Crufts. [I am a bit of a traditionalist who thinks that men should look like men. Not poodles!]

The last 5 or 6 decades must have been tough for you, @Rocker

I think it's all gone to pot since men stopped wearing hats.

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Philly_Q · January 2023

MagicPigDetective said:

DrCornelius said:

axisus said:

Bale had a pretty stellar career, and won many major trophies. If you want to stand admiring a few medals in old age then that is fine, but, as I've said before, personally I'd rather spend my career at a club where I was a nailed on hero than to be mostly disliked by the fans, not appreciated by managers, hauled off or not played, bit part in the clubs history etc. I'd prefer emotion to materialism.

Yep me too - you want enough cash to look after family and have loads of options after retirement but once you are at that point it would be more important for me to develop a proper relationship with a club a la Le Tiss / Ledley King etc

Bale had the best of both worlds. Money and trophies galore with his club, and a total hero and all time legend, loved and worshipped by his nation, our greatest player of all time, with Wales, as much if not more than he'd get from any club. What a career for club and country.

And now his golf game is going to get really good. I wonder where he and his family will decide to settle down?

Lestratcaster · January 2023

Got the job done vs Oxford, quality assists from Fabio Vieira, who I was a bit worried about earlier in the game, getting knocked off the ball too easily whenever he did get it. Great finishes from Nketiah too, and nice to see Smith Rowe get on. Lokonga is shit though and the starting midfield shows how much we need to strengthen the squad. They were not a patch on Partey - Xhaka - Odegaard. We can't challenge with Lokonga/Vieira (despite his good assists) and Elneny.

TeleMaster · January 2023

History will look kindly on Bale and in X years RM fans will see him as a club legend. But I expect that he doesn't care as much about being a club legend as a national legend, and he absolutely is.

An amazing player.

UnclePsychosis · January 2023

Bale could have had a much more impressive career if he actually liked football.

He's been phoning it in for years. Tbh, I can't really blame him. I'd do a job I hated but was quite good at for £300k a week as well.

UnclePsychosis · January 2023

bertie said:

Rocker said:

UnclePsychosis said:

Watched the Liverpool - Wolves game in the pub last night.

1) the offside rule in its current form is a joke
2) VAR is shite. Get it binned.

VAR works very well in Rugby football. Everyone in the stadium can see and follow the decision process. But the players and supporters accept the decision. Few if any in football accept and move on when a decision has been made. [Thinking out loud: does this suggest that Rugby players are more intelligent than Football players?]

not sure you can do a direct comparison, there's always been much more respect for the ref in rugby than football, which may itself be down to the longer / stronger links to the amateur status of the game, you can see more "dissent" creeping into the pro game !

The more "stop start" way in which rugby is played lends itself to "review" much easier however Its not the technology its the application of "VAR" that's failing in football, its as piss poorly deployed as FIFA is as a governing body. They need to have a drains up total review of how, when and what can be used, what the framework rules are and who can access/use it

I think it's three things,

1) rugby is much more stop-start, so reviewing disrupts the game less

2) the laws of rugby lend themselves to much easier black and white decision making. Whenever I have seen video reffing used in rugby (which admittedly isn't often, because it's a shite game that should be banned) the refs are checking for things like "did the ball travel forward" or "was the ball in his hand when it touched the ground".

3) scoring in rugby is more frequent, so a ref giving a penalty or try "incorrectly" is less of a big deal than in a low scoring game

Football is a much more flowing game, so the interruption is really noticeable, and more importantly fouls are generally much more nuanced. You could ask 100 football people to watch the same tackle as often as they liked, at any speed they liked, and at at angle you liked, and they won't necessarily agree whether it was a foul or not. I bet we could all name multiple VAR decisions that have split pundits, players, and fans. In these cases it's literally impossible to get it "right". It's all interpretation, so let's stop ruining the game by slowing it down and just letting referees get on with it. VAR should only be used for the stuff that was intended - situations where someone is six feet offside, or punching the ball into the net. Trying to get every single decision "correct" is a moronic idea that is killing football.

tony99 · January 2023

TeleMaster said:

History will look kindly on Bale and in X years RM fans will see him as a club legend. But I expect that he doesn't care as much about being a club legend as a national legend, and he absolutely is.

He should be a club legend for them, but Real Madrid fans will never have him as such. Agree he's been a great player though.

MagicPigDetective · January 2023

Real Madrid fans are known for turning on their own players, this is not unique to Bale. Ronaldo, Raul, Zidane, they've all been through it.

https://m.allfootballapp.com/news/La-Liga/6-Real-Madrid-stars-who-have-been-whistled-by-the-Bernabeu/2069644

joneve · January 2023

First league cup semi in over 30 years. Bang average performance but I’ll take it.

axisus · January 2023

HUGE match today for Man U/Man City. Could be season defining for both.

City win and they are still in the title chase
Utd win and it looks like they really are back after a decade of poor managers

Draw probably hurts City more.

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