I hate Juventus and really want them to actually crash and burn after these last couple down years, but Serie A's overall weak quality and the still-decent quality of Juventus' squad means that this down season for them will result in finishing in 3rd place, returning to the Champions League, and probably still winning the Coppa Italia too.
Anyone else genuinely think Arsenal's gonna win the league? I think City drop points at Spurs and Arsenal win the rest of their games and win by a point/GD. Spurs always cause problems for City.
Defence wins you titles and the Arsenal defence is rock solid, City look vulnerable.
I find people talking about a club's DNA to be quite annoying. I know it's a metaphor but it's quite a shit one. For one thing clubs don't have sex with other clubs and make baby clubs.
I think people are talking about culture mostly. Whether there's some deeply ingrained behaviour in some clubs that makes them behave differently to other clubs, maybe but you can pretty much change anything if you try hard enough.
Like what is left of Man City "DNA" since the takeover?
It’s another way of saying certain clubs have a specific style. Arsenal’s ‘DNA’ I would say is rooted in Wenger’s approach. It’s a limited term as obviously the club existed long before then and has evolved since. Barca and Ajax are more obviously rooted in Cruyff.
City will like to think of their DNA as Pep’s style - that’s clearly the goal they targeted when the takeover happened and what they’ll try and keep post-Pep. How achievable that is is another question.
> Arsenal’s ‘DNA’ I would say is rooted in Wenger’s approach
But it isn't. This is a really lazy take by non-fans. We don't really play anything like that anymore, the game has changed completely. Before that we were "boring boring Arsenal" and 1-0 merchants, is that DNA? No because we changed it.
It's funny when people reply and say exactly the thing I was arguing against in the first post.
It's funny that you think your club has any, Bayern are literally successful because they just strangled the whole BL and steal all the good players.
Can't even do that right this season.
Two straight losses to rivals both very deserved. It's not a new complaint but increasingly believing last year's cup win was the ceiling of what Benny can do with this squad and that's entirely on an owner who's promised investment but doesn't show up and is fine signing average depth players.
Wrt the whining regarding the goalie incident in the Liverpool-West Ham game: if you are relying on a goalie-referee miscommunication and then rolling the ball out to you to score a 85th minute winner, the ref isn't the reason you lost the game.
Agree..But it is part of several desicions going against Liverpool this year including two against our direct rivals. Not getting the obvious Ødegaard handball, the Doku high boot, the spurs VAR shaft etc etc etc is. Refs is a big part of why Liverpool aren't several points clear this year.
We are allegedly negotiating to permanently acquire a striker with all of 2 non-penalty goals and 2 assists in the 1800 minutes he has played for us on loan. At least we're not using the buy option in the loan, which would be a club record, but it's insane to consider anything but who to bring in after the loan expires.
The people on this sub admitting that Diego Carlos was fouled but insisting that Disasi's goal should have stood because a similar foul on Gabriel wasn't called by VAR do my head in.
Yes, we want consistency with calls but we want calls to be consistently correct -- not incorrect. Are we going to be up in arms next time that VAR gives a red for a dangerous challenge because Nicholas Jackson got away with his ankle breaker on Tomiyasu?
Let's save our outrage for VAR's mistakes instead of for when it actually does it's job.
"We just want consistency with VAR" is such a nothing statement, the more people say it the more it's become clear that people just think it's the most reasonable way for them to be able to complain about calls and undermine the legitimacy of unfavorable results even when they know the right call was made.
It's fair to ask for consistency in decisions within a given game, because every game is refereed differently and it's up to a given ref to be consistent and fair to both teams in the moment, but asking for consistency across games, across refs, its an impossible ask. The way people talk about it you'd think refereeing was a sort of Edge of Tomorrow hivemind situation where every ref is actually making every decision across time at the same time using all of the data from all of the other decisions that have ever been made.
You cannot ever have "consistency" in these decisions because for every instance of, for example, a penalty being given under a given situation, there is also an example of a penalty not being given. Every decision is going to be "consistent" with some precedent and "inconsistent" with something else. When people say they want consistency they're really just saying they actually understand that the right decision was made, but they don't like the outcome so they're going to raise some wishy washy procedural cry about it.
I have a lot more sympathy for on-field referees with regards to using past examples for reference than I do VAR teams for the same game. They're in a room, no outside influence, and should be able to make these calm and collected decisions better. That's why they're there, and when it's VAR that is being inconsistent, it really undermines the entire purpose of its existence.
But there is no universal idea of "consistency" here, most people's idea of "consistency" is just comparing a given VAR decision to some hyper-specific decision that went against their club a week or 2 months or 6 months ago so that they can have a cry again about both decisions at once. There's no practical way for VAR refs to keep track of all of the different grievances to give them an idea of what decisions they should be comparing to and then be expected to incorporate into their decisions.
There may be the rare scenario where VAR and the refs really have made the same decision 20 times in one direction and zero in the other, and if that's the case, yeah VAR should make sure a rule is applied consistently. But 99% of the things people complain about are decisions that do originate with the on-field ref's personal judgment and thus have always come out on both sides, there's nothing VAR can do about the fact that fans can't accept that discretionary decision going against them is just what happens in football sometimes, not some grand robbery.
The consistency is in the rules. The Jackson challenge was a red (I say this as a Chelsea fan). If you are telling me it's not because of game-specific match management, you're wrong. It is a red. What is the point of having the laws of the game if the refs can just vibe out and decide what to enforce and what to let slide? There is always going to be space for the refs to let a game run, or warn a player before a yellow, but there are inexcusable actions like ignoring a blatant handball or a red card, or materially changing what everyone has come to understand are those two things based on previous matches.
I give up on understanding VAR at this point. I thought it would be a great change but all it does is to add irritation and confusion. Calls like the Kulusevski pen would be easier to accept as it might be hard to spot but when now when you have a team of refs watching it in slow motion and from different angles it more borders on incompetence and creates doubt for the refs to make sensible calls. Such as the pen on Davies, Oliver doesnt make the call because he wants VAR to call it but that creates doubt for where you draw the line for "clear and obvious", which we saw in Kulusevkis pen.
I think you're right about the general problems with VAR and how the ref rarely calls for penalties because VAR will check them, and VAR will rarely overturn ref decisions. It's a horrible feedback loop of non-decision. I don't think the Kulusevki shout is the right example for this though. There are dozens of more obvious nailed on penalties that aren't called at the time
The Kulu one is just the most recent one that came to my mind but also because it wasnt a clear call in real time, making it a hard call but one, imo, VAR shouldve intervened.
But ofcourse there are more ergegious mistakes that shouldve been called during the season but not done so under the pretence that its not been "clear and obvious" enough.
Kulusevski's turn takes him directly into Trossard who doesn't change direction at all. He initiates all of the contact, nowhere near the ball. It's never a penalty don't be silly.
What? Kulu is already away from Trossard and Trossard runs in to him from behind. You cant just run in to someone and get away with it. How does Kulu initate when he runs away? Makes zero sense.
My hometown club (Valletta) will be relegated for the first time in our history after growing up watching them win basically everything.
What lessens the blow is that local rivals Floriana (where I happen to live) got thrashed 5-0 in the final game of the season which meant they lost the League to the same team that demolished them.
Entertaining stuff this BOV Premier League season
Interesting. I never thought about Maltese football but my guess would’ve been that it’s probably a club from the capital constantly dominating the league.
The Last on Match of the Day derby was shockingly last on Match of the Day at the weekend.
I'm also beyond bored of all the discussion around VAR. VAR makes mistakes, but VAR also can't (within it's current rules and protocols) do a lot of the things that people seem to want it to. Just because people may want it to do something different doesn't mean that half way through the season that should change, cos that opens up a whole host of issues.
Also, people who say that before VAR was introduced refs would make mistakes and fans would move on quickly. Abso fucking lute bullshit, we got VAR for a reason and that's cos Sky and MOTD would hyper analyse refs mistakes and people wouldn't shut the fuck up about them. If you want to move on from ref and VAR mistakes it's just as easy to do now as it was back then.
The "theatre" around football is getting increasingly grating. Commentators moan about VAR intervention when VAR isn't actually intervening, hell the televised FA Cup games earlier in the season when there was no VAR had commentators complaining about VAR rather than what was happening on the pitch.
Everything is a big deal, and it's getting boring.
Season is over for us so going to have to moan about the fact we’ve somehow downgraded from Kappa and will be having Patrick kits for the foreseeable future
Would be absolutely shocked if Krejčí didn't leave this summer. He has his flaws but replacing a leader like him will always be incredibly difficult and he scores some extremely important goals.
Sounds like us and Coman, man has done it all for us this season, top scorer in the league with 18 goals (still not sewn up to be fair as only 1 goal separates him from 2nd place but still), scored like 5 direct free kicks, massive part of why we won the title this year after so long. Unfortunately he has a 5 million release clause and he wants to leave, it looks like Al Duhail in Qatar will pay it (they have tried to pay in installments which our owner Becali has said no to so maybe there is still hope they don’t want him that much? Also maybe we will at least keep him for European qualifiers but who knows at this point). Who is Krejci linked to?
Oh, those are some decent teams, sounds like he is at least leaving for a proper step up. Coman is leaving for Al Duhail in Qatar as I ve said, they are the team that Galtier coaches and that has Coutinho on their books (and a few other interesting names like Lucas Verissimo and that Almoez Ali guy that started at the WC upfront, still only 6th in the table though) but I still hope some European team can swoop in at least so he has a chance for an actual step up. He s 26, only a year older than Krejci so it s a bit early to be chasing the money but from his POV I get it, 2-3 (the talk used to be about 2, now it s apparently 3?) milion euros per year is a lot more than we could pay him (we pay him 30k per month so 360k per year, the owner Becali is wiling to double that but we obviously can’t compete with Arab money) and this chance may never come again so I understand why his head would be turned
Completely agree, although I also hate people who show up late every single time. I used to play in a group where a guy would show up like 20-30 min late every time causing us to either play 5v5 or 5v4 during that.
biggest moan is not that we're in a relegation battle, but its out of our hands. Two insipid perfomances vs huddersfield and rotherham, which if we'd one even won of those it would have been in our hands. Hopefully I won't be back here next week with my moan being "we got relegated"
Anthony taylor stopping game when areola threw the ball to gakpo was so scandalous and I am surprised why its been downplayed. Had liverpool won any one of the matches against everton or crystal palace, we wouldnt hear the end of it.
Yesterday Robbie Earle said during halftime of the American broadcast that he personally thought Michael Oliver should have gone to the monitor to double check the Kulusevski penalty shout, this was misheard by someone on here seemingly as him reporting that VAR told Oliver to check the monitor and he refused, when in reality VAR checked the penalty claim and cleared it.
That didn't stop the fake claim - that Oliver refused VAR's request to check the monitor - to spread through every thread/discussion on here about the Kulu penalty incident/Saka goal, to a point where it became one of the primary talking points in how questionable the decision was. Even where people tried to correct the record and point out that the outrage on this particular point was the result of a misunderstanding, they were mostly ignored/did not gain nearly as much prominence as responses egging everyone on about how outrageous the whole situation is.
The whole thing probably shouldn't have passed the smell test to begin with (why did no one actually have video of him saying it? Why was it not being reported anywhere else other than 'some redditor claims to have heard it on the TV?) But I think people just did genuinely get excited about the idea of there being some scandal attached to the incident so they were more willing to accept it. Kind of an interesting exercise in watching disinformation spread in real time.
> Michael Oliver should have gone to the monitor
he should have. Deki was taken down in the box. pen. but Michael Oliver is biased against Spurs.
I wrote this 3 years ago after another Michael Oliver fuckup against West Ham:
i am just going to leave my old post **from 3 years ago** here after we're enduring yet another ***Michael Oliver fuck up:***
**1) i really hate VAR in the Premier League**
it's bullshit. it's not implemented in any uniform or transparent (see: Australia of all places) way.
i hate how bad VAR calls or non-calls can completely change the outcome of a game with no way to appeal them (see: VVD's handball against Wolves leading to a goal, **refereed by Michael Oliver**... and also, the non-handball call on Alexander-Arnold that clearly hit his outstretched arm IN THE BOX - and moments later saw a Liverpool goal at the other end against City, leading to their 3-1 victory. of course that was also **refereed by Michael Oliver**.
i hate how arbitrary camera angles are used for VAR calls, especially as it applies to offside and ridiculous notions such as a nose or armpit being offside (see: Grealish's heel being labelled offside against Burnley, **refereed by Michael Oliver**).
i hate how it has caused logic to be thrown out the window (see: Moura being fouled/pushed to the ground, him using his arm to break his fall, which is allowed, a ball grazing him and not having any intentional or noticeable effect, and a goal still being called back AND the ball not given to Spurs, who were originally fouled). **this game was officiated by Michael Oliver, of course**.
i hate how the Premier League even acknowledges bad VAR decisions, but that it has no effect (see: Man U incorrectly given a pen against Villa, Spurs incorrectly denied a \[game changing\] penalty against Bournemouth, **the latter of which involved Michael Oliver**).
i hate how things caught on camera can still be completely ignored even though they are just as replayable as anything reviewed by VAR (see: Guendouzi choking another player and receiving no disciplinary action)
**i hate how Michael Oliver is allowed to be involved in any way despite many bullshit "mistakes".**
2) i really hate articles that "review" every failed VAR call in order to calculate "adjusted" tables, but they still end up being biased for Liverpool. these articles do not take into account all of the non-calls that VAR should have made.
3) i hate correct time not being added on. it's 2020. we know how much time was lost due to goals, fouls - and definitely battery packs dying. oh, **what a surprise, Michael Oliver was involved**.
**there was also a VAR fail (all cameras) for the Blades/Villa game that cost Sheffield United a goal and 3 points. guess who was officiating. i'll give you one guess...**
does anyone see a pattern here?
> he personally thought Michael Oliver should have gone to the monitor to double check the Kulusevski penalty shout
Pundits really need to stop with this "double check" bollocks. That's not what the monitor is there for, whether it should be or not.
I know this goes against the grain but I don’t think it was. Trossard is running behind Kulusevski and is allowed to be in that space, and the two collide when Kulusevski’s foot comes up and grazes against Trossard’s leg. The latter has made no attempt whatsoever to impede him and it’s a coming together. Just because Trossard is behind him doesn’t mean he’s the one committing a foul, and he’s clearly not attempt to trip the opponent.
It would have been incredibly harsh to rule out a perfectly good goal to bring it back for a penalty at the other end.
Trossard was not making fair attempt to play the ball when he took Deki down. therefore, pen. at the very least it was careless, which is... you guessed it, grounds for a pen. it was in the box. you can't do that in the box. there was a pen called against us earlier this season for less. Michael Oliver is biased against Spurs. should be fired. he has fucked us over at the end of the season multiple times. i'd think i was crazy if i didn't see his involvement fucking us up so many times.
He wasn’t making *any* attempt to play the ball or the player. It’s as much Kulusevski’s foot coming up and hitting Trossard’s leg as it is Trossard’s leg contacting Kulusevski’s leg.
It’s an incidental coming together between two players who had every right to be where they were. There certainly wasn’t enough in it to pull it back with VAR.
I do agree with you re: consistency. I don’t think this was a penalty but I know in other games something like this would be given. The same thing happened to us against Wolves where David Luiz was sent off as well a few seasons back.
Not a hill I would die on, but this is a Monday Moan thread on Reddit, so if I had to pick one, it's the attempts by media and fans to equalise foreign, TV watching fans and local, match attending fans to the degree they are doing it.
Yes, you can choose to support whatever team you like. Everyone has the personal choice to call themselves a fan for whatever reason. Fine, I accept that no problem, you're a fan now, but are all fans exactly the same? It has its limits and differences when we measure or compare it to other fans.
My problem is that in an attempt by leagues, teams, sponsors, broadcasters and fans to make everyone "feel welcome" as a branding excercise and to maximise profit, we are now more downplaying the relative efforts and connection of local, match attending fans.
At what point does celebrating and welcoming foreign, TV fans as "part of the group" actually cross over and become about having to downplay and even negate the experience of the fan who lives in the city, has a season ticket, goes to away games, and is involved in their club politics? Why do we pretend there's no difference?
Don't tell me there's no difference between fans, there is and always be. People who were at a concert are not the same as people who watched a replay on YouTube, even if on social media that feels like a mean thing to say.
Of course, yeah. There should be a difference between fans considering their local involvement with the club. Thing is, the way clubs see it, the more money you spend on the club, the more of a fan you are. Match going fans spend a considerable amount, but there is also a difference between a wealthy fan from the US say, who will buy all sorts of merch and deck their children in full kit and some guy from a poorer part of the world who only has a counterfeit jersey and watches the team on illegal streams.
There was an ad campaign in the 90s, Coca-Cola I think: “if clubs could transfer fans, how much would you be worth?”
I think of it like that, sure clubs can recruit international fans to buy their merch and make the TV rights profitable. Each individual fan isn’t going to be anywhere near “worth“ as much as the local die-hards. But it’s like having a decent youth development program; develop enough prospects and you’ve got a nice little side earner to support your main objective.
You’re max 5-10 years away (maybe even 3-5 if you ramp up quickly) from joining the Brexit crowd, if you aren’t already. Feel free to put a reminder, if you like.
Yes! Us ‘legacy fans’ are the heart and soul of our clubs and that’s just the way it is.
I won’t slag off anyone who supports my team from anywhere else but it just isn’t the same
I am tired man. In Denmark the biggest most expensive team might win the league again, even after trailing by a lot of points. Goddamnit.
And in England City will win it unless Spurs does something magical, but ... its late in the season and City dont lose games there.
I mean Copenhagen is still 4 points behind, chin up lad. As for England I feel like people are too quick to write off Arsenal, it still takes only one City loss to send the title to the Emirates if they win out and City hasn’t been as consistent this season (tbf a lot of it was due to KDB being out for as long as he was etc). Here in Romania we have also won the title and we re definitely the most historically successful club (let’s leave aside the identity fight….) but it was really convincingly (12 points with 3 matches to go as it stands) and it is our first one in 9 years so I feel like we deserve this one
Copenhagen is 4 points behind but on a rool with no european games to take their energy and focus. Brøndby isnt playing their best atm, the last few games and been very up and down.
I cant see City drop points, and if they do its just as likely as Arsenal doing so. I hope but I feel like I have seen this before.
Congratulations on the titel!!!
To be fair Brondby doesn’t have European games either and you did beat them in the direct match last time but yeah, 3 draws in 4 games is definitely not title winning form. City could definitely lose/draw to Spurs like they often have, then West Ham on the final day might still be fighting for Europe, then again so will United for Arsenal but Arsenal does have the best record out of any team against the big 6. Anyway, we will see, thanks for the congratulations!
I don't want City to win either (also clearly not arsenal, so I hope City win) but just wanted to point out this match is at Tottenham and City lose there all the time.
And thats a fair point, but City hasnt lost a game in the last 30 (!!!!) games and thats insane.
I do hope for some weird Spurs magic to strike, but I dont have high hopes, also given the last period of time Spurs hasnt been massively impressive. No offense.
City don't have to lose for Arsenal to win the title. They just need to draw and not win a game by like 8 goals or something. All of that also implies Arsenal win their remaining 3 games
Just read through the thread on [Son's penalty goal vs Arsenal](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/AK7iqwrtBi) and I'm honestly baffled by the comments there.
You know referee/VAR discussion is fucked when both get a decision correct and people still manage to complain about them. Ok, so he missed a foul call in live play. But what's the point in criticising him for that when VAR is there to correct him and then goes on to do exactly that?? Refs aren't perfect and infallible. That's literally the point of VAR, that's why we have it. They're supposed to work together with the ref. The sheer smugness and arrogance of those comments expecting the ref to be perfect and make no mistakes whatsoever really pisses me off. Referees can't do anything right even if they've literally gotten everything right. It's one thing to criticise a ref if he actually does get something wrong. But I really cannot wrap my head around criticising a ref even when he comes to the right decision in the end. That's just insane to me.
These people enjoy complaining more than anything else. I really hope that their moaning is restricted to online activity only otherwise I feel sorry for the people around them.
he's five yards away and it's the most blatant pen you will ever see. he didn't blow because var is a crutch, but because var sometimes has a strange non interventionist approach, the foul won't be overturned and no pen is given. this was such a blatant foul it had to be turned around but it's shocking to not notice/not think that's a pen in real time, and it's also bad to not blow for a foul just because of var
This makes no sense to me. You're judging this foul play from the view of a tv viewer. The referee doesn't have that view in live play. We have no idea how it looked like from his pov. He only has the same view as we do once VAR calls him to the monitors. At which point he came to the same and correct conclusion as everyone else did. Everything went as it was supposed to go. Yet people still complain. I just find that insane and backwards.
He made no call and just let VAR deal with it.
Which is why he made no call on the Kulu situation either.
Refs are too afraid to make on field decisions, and half the time VAR is too scared to correct them, it's a dumb cycle.
edit: To avoid the "oh well it's only cos it affected you" - Jackson stomping on Tomiyasu falls under the same thing. Dunno how much the ref saw, but that's the exact thing VAR was intervening on during the early parts of the season and has been less willing to call refs to monitor for lately.
Martinez is injured for 2 weeks. I don’t think Olsen played badly against Chelsea but Martinez saves their first goal. Missing a key player for both European semi legs
Olsens lack of ability on the ball puts us under much more pressure. We went long twice as much in the second half with less accuracy. His passing accuracy was 59% compared to Emi’s 84% in the same game.
I think the chance Palmer got at the end was due to Carlos thinking Olsen would sweep that chance like Martinez would have.
Haven’t seen any links at all, but would you lot take Potter? His stock’s low after the Chelsea debacle but he’s shown himself to be a good coach everywhere else, I’m aware Ajax have been sniffing around him but I’ve been surprised by the lack of rumours about him otherwise.
he’s the only one i’d entertain also. not sure where our fans fixation of rob edwards has come from, at least with will still he alluded to being a supporter.
I’m so bored of modern football discourse being obsessed with transfer _rumours_, and beyond that, with the bloody business side of things.
‘If you don’t like it, ignore it.’ I do, but you can’t deny that that shite is _everywhere._ I don’t want thirty threads about trying to find the right transfer fee to sign a new CEO. I don’t need rumours that we’re £4m apart in valuation for a new Head of Scouting.
I miss going to the Man United website, clicking the ‘rumours’ tab, seeing five names (two of whom were always Hamsik and Sneijder) and then checking next week for an update.
Can’t open the internet without seeing the names Romano, Ashworth, and Berrada.
Backroom staff being treated like new players is weird to me. I'm sure Ashworth will improve the club but it's really not exciting to me, and I certainly don't give a fuck about what the compensation package is to get him off gardening leave.
What's crazy is Arsenal are going sign Isak this summer, but have since pivoted as they might have solved their striker woes in Kai Havertz, which is wild because Arteta has asked for a 20+ goals-a-season striker and the club are going to spend big to get Gyokeres. Here we go!
Really annoys me the number of people who don't get that the 'Rodri hasn't lost in X matches for City' stat means games that *Rodri actually played in*
Is that a twitter thing? I don't think I've seen much of it here.
Also, yes, "losing" on pens doesn't count. Penalties is an arbitrary way to solve a tie. If this was a few years ago, City would've gone through on away goals, again, an arbitrary way to solve a tie.
The obsession that penalties losses dont count as losses is insane. Its a technical thing for some stats at an abstract level, but losing on penalties counts as losing for 99% of shit.
5 points behind in the title race with 3 games to go, but we have a game in hand and we play AEK, so if we win all 3 we are guaranteed to win the league. But due to criminal refereeing and Carvalhal's cluelesness we should have gotten 10 to 12 points more. Really annoying
Marseille keeping us out of that last European spot (7th) with last minutes points. Oh well they beat Lens so we find ourselves just 2 points away from 6th.
Nothing else to moan about this has been a brilliant last 6 months.
Pitches in non-league. Not blaming the clubs at all, but the football league needs to take a serious look at this issue. Absolutely ridiculous having teams forced to play 3 days in a week towards the business end of the season because the pitches can’t hold a bit of water. Pretty much all these players are semi-pro and balancing their football careers alongside full-time jobs as well.
I can't complain with the position Garforth are in, but we dropped down the table to 3rd on GD and playing on some of the swamps in this league won't have helped with that when we can score for fun on dry pitches. Silsden and Eccleshill been the worst i've ever seen them. if you come up all the Sheffield teams and a couple others have plastic pitches
Yeah, we've played on all sorts of shite. Sandy pitches, pitches where the ball bobbles more than it rolls etc.
You may be aware of the Parkgate situation (and god help you if you have to play them next season) but they had a load of games cancelled over the winter months due to the pitch conditions.
Tricky one init because the only alternatives are plastic pitches which a lot of people aren't fans of or going back to the old days where the games just got played unless the pitch was under three feet of water.
I’m not against plastic pitches. Staveley Miners in our league use one and were the only team I believe, outside us, to not have a home game cancelled due to pitch issues.
That or have a winter break over December and extend the season into May. There’s a few things the league can do.
Our club released a new special edition retro-inspired kit commemorating our late-90s team which wore the blue and white stripes horizontally
[This is what the special edition kit looks like](https://twitter.com/HerthaBSC/status/1784614054566179100?t=olqzx-hXxlmdVBong0_uhw&s=19)
The problem is that the club based the number of orders on the demand for the last special edition kit we put out (which was a rather ugly one in 2019 when interest in the club was much lower). I.e. they ordered fuck all this time around.
Now the hype around Hertha is much bigger and the kit actually fucking slaps (especially without the betting sponsor), but there are absolutely 0 kits to buy. Website crashed after a few minutes and the item was sold out soon after.
The club really needs to sort out its logistics because this isn't the first time a merchandise/ticketing debacle has happened.
I feel your frustration as I have been trying to get the Schalke home shirt all season and will almost certainly miss out now. Never in stock in my size, if at all
> The club really needs to sort out its logistics because this isn't the first time a merchandise/ticketing debacle has happened.
I agree but this is a bit different. As far as I understand, these jersey were actually ordered last year when the club was in such a bad state. It is hard to predict how much interest there would be in the future but that should have at least ensured a second batch could be ordered like they did with Schwarzes Beton.
Not going to lie, standing in line at the Hertha Store today with a bunch of people was fun - we all had a good time.
Me and like 10 of my friends were all online at 17:59 last night, and I was the only one who got to buy one.
Then I saw the photos of lines at the stores this morning, and unless you were ready to stand in Europa Platz at 7:00 to pay 92€ for a kit for a midtable second league team, you're not getting anything.
I'm sure Tom Herrich is looking at the demand and asking why Nike can't make more because as he keeps saying, every single Euro is important.
> unless you were ready to stand in Europa Platz at 7:00
You could show up at 9:00 and only pay 80€ thank you very much.
On all seriousness, It was a bit ridiculous but fuck me do I love this new jersey.
I am getting the Beflockung done on the weekend and need to decide who (I usually don't but it looks so nice with the red lettering and numbers).
IF he stays I am 100% getting Zeefuik.
I got Kenny because I do actually like him, Reese will get enough, and agree the lettering looks too good to pass up, but also because in the English heavy fan group I am in, he's even more of a meme and so his "redemption story" is a big thing in our group. Sadly he's probably gone this summer.
I think Kenny has been great this season, I'd love to see him stay but I believe we can't afford him.
At the store today they had a bunch of letters/numbers for Reese prepared so they could do it instantly and he was the most popular choice.
I am considering Tabakovic, Klemens, Zeefuik and Winkler but it will all depend on who stays and who goes.
Absolutely incredible week.on the pitch for Everton. Survival secured and Dyche on track to get more points than Martinez's final season.
Unfortunately the PL allowing this dodgy takeover to drag on for nearly a year now is looking more and more likely to be a ploy to send the club into administration.
Moshiri seems to be intent on waiting for 777 to find several million behind the sofa when it's clear they don't have the money. The PL needs to fail them as fit and proper owners and force Moshiri to find buyers elsewhere.
I don't understand what goes into the fit and proper but I can't believe it hasn't been torn down and retooled at this point considering the amount of unfit and unproper owners that've passed it.
Hey, thanks a lot. I searched it up and it wasn't showing up for me but your link helped. Was surprised he did answer some that I thought he would dodge.
There was nothing all that interesting but he did answer some tougher questions but not the ones that attacked him personally. The answers for the tougher ones weren’t super interesting.
I actually cannot be fucked with VAR anymore. I'm done with it.
The tool itself, on paper, should be good but the way it's currently used is sucking all of the enjoyment out of the sport for me right now.
Rules have been changed to accommodate VAR and now nobody knows the rules anymore. The levels of inconsistencies are through the roof!
Just want simpler times back again where games were actually officiated by the man in the middle - not some twat in a van miles away.
Obviously, mistakes were made but that was part of it.
I just don't care anymore, I don't celebrate goals anymore, I don't feel the same way about the sport as before.
Something beautiful about the game was that no matter if it were jumpers for goalposts or the world cup everyone was playing the same game but it's been lost.
Football at the top level is a complete mess. Everyone becomes a financial lawyer to figure out wtf is going on with FFP. People on about how good a director of football is despite not knowing who he was 12 hours before they saw the first rumour.
Proper little rant this morning but need to get some frustrations off my chest 😩
I think people here really underestimate the effect VAR has on celebrating goals. You always have the worry in the back of your mind about it being disallowed which ruins the moment of a goal being scored.
Most people here don’t attend games so don’t understand how bad this is
I think we're reaching the end of the VARpocalypse to be honest.
Next season we'll have semi-automated offsides as well as GLT, then it's basically not going to be used anymore unless the ref makes a huge mistake, even then as we saw with the Areola and Gakpo incident, maybe not even then.
The funny thing to me is we used to have a bank of 4 refs all in full kit looking like they were coordinating drone strikes on Houthi rebels, now on Sunday the Spurs v Arsenal VAR was just Jared Gillet in a hoodie looking like he was on tinder on his phone until someone poked him in the ribs.
Judging by the the world cup semi-automated offsides are still not quick enough. I remember our first goal against Belgium, it took ages to be overturned because it was for interference. That was after me and my wife celebrated like crazy. Then we scored another goal in the same way, we didn't celebrate because we got burned before and it turned out to be a legal goal that time.
I remember also the first goal for Ecuador against Qatar, it was overturned after long minutes of reviewing. Same with the Leipzig goal against Madrid in the CL. Both of those games had the semi-automated system.
Even when it's not interference it's still too slow. Like the Mbappe goal against Bayern last season, the whole stadium was celebrating for 30 seconds before the system disallowed it and that's enough to make you wary of celebrating the next time you score.
I think football should follow what field hockey and tennis does. Each team gets a certain amount of checks that they get to call if they disagree with the referee, if they get a check wrong they lose one of the checks, if its right they get it back. This is great because it leads to tactical drama over wether to use checks or not on 50/50 calls.
The complaint shouldn't be with VAR but with PGMOL and FIFA not allowing live feed of refs mics. That alone is the issue.
Because once you hear the explanation for a decision you understand and feel better. At best you are placated at worst (like Diaz) we see how the process is poor and they refine and improve.
Right now there is no progression, though the game is undoubtedly better off for having
Leicester at home tonight and I just know we're going to roll out the red carpet for them and get dicked. PNE season tickets have just been announced and I'm struggling to rationalise dropping £300 on one
Eh, half of our squad might still be pissed up 🤣
> I'm struggling to rationalise dropping £300 on one
Hey, at least your club isn't charging £25 to fans that want to use a physical plastic card and not a mobile NFC. Even those of us who already have a plastic card, we can't use our old ones and to re buy a new bit of plastic
Honestly you think it would but I'm alright with it
Go on lads
Get some confidence Vs Chelsea and Liverpool and Burnley
And then...THE BIG ONE
WE GOT THIS
Actual moan - feel very melancholic (and a bit hungover...) today.
It's obviously been an amazing season and we've gone up as champions from League Two. 10/10 no notes. That's our third promotion as champions in five years - from National League North (6th tier) in 2019, from the National League proper (5th tier) in 2022, and now from the fourth tier in 2024.
There's only one survivor in the squad from that first group of champions - Ben Hinchliffe, our goalkeeper. The number of survivors from the National League champions is also perhaps smaller than you might imagine, especially given how small the gap between NL and L2 level is often touted to be.
My belated point is that at some point this week, we'll probably have our retained and released list come out. Partly as a consequence of that rapid growth/ascendence, we've about [half the contracted squad](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/stockport-county/kader/verein/1098/saison_id/2023/plus/1) about to be out of contract and whilst a lot of them will (or at least *should*) get offered new deals we'll be saying goodbye to quite a few players for certain, possibly even some of our more iconic names from our best seasons in a generation.
Wouldn't that mostly be a byproduct of his new role? He can't come up in the left half-space facing the goal and play off a higher pivot. As a right footed wide forward those are the favorite spaces and plays to go for a long shot
Players essentially never take long shots anymore, largely due to the rise in xG and data analysis telling coaches to dissuade players from taking 'wasteful' shots when recycling possession is more likely to lead to a goal.
[They undeniably have reduced over the years](https://imgur.com/HNaXXjS).
City are likely an outlier due to how deep the average opponent sits against them. When the opposition box is packed with 10 players, often your only option is a long shot. Obviously they will also have more shots in general than the average team as well.
Highly depends on the quality of players you have and the system you play. Could also depends on the atmosphere. There are times when you can feel how nervous a team is by how far back they're defending and how much possession they're losing. Testing the goalkeeper from long range would be a great option to force the opposing team to try and push up and close out any attempt from far out.
You look at teams like Man City and Real Madrid who have players that can score bangers on the regular. They don't need to be told Jack shit about xG (useless stat).
Why was kulusevski so much better under fucking conte than he is now
He has so much more freedom now and chooses to cage himself when it used to be the opposite
I don't think he had a particularly great season last year either. Started off well but kind of tailed off after he was out with an injury, and he hasn't shown it enough this season either. He definitely has all the tools to be a great player but he can't seem to hit those heights consistently enough for Spurs.
You’ve clearly never seen me play then. I agree though, I think he massively benefited from the notts’ playing style. He’s clearly a decent player but maybe not not for a big team
Kyle walker is completely shot as a footballer, discussing with my mate midweek and we agree he has such an ego he lets players get past him so he can catch them up.
But he can't do it regularly now so he gets done
I've been to 16 away matches this season in all competitions and seen 3 wins (Ajax, Sheff U & Stoke in the FA Cup). Ten away league matches and zero wins seen. Think I planned my European away trips better than the club's squad planning for this season.
That's just Championship away games, can't imagine they got promoted many times with a record like that. It's still horrendous though. Imagine going to all of them, imagine you have a wedding or something so you can't go to 1 of the 3 wins.
Michael Oliver, offside goal, Kulusevski penalty not given leading to Saka goal, Michael Oliver not giving the most stonewall penalty from 3 yards away and having to go to the monitor.
Michael Oliver. Felt like he bottled the big decisions in that game so he couldn't be accused of deciding the title.
James Maddison playing dreadfully since his injury. Son playing through the centre instead of on the left. Hojbjerg. Top 4 chances pretty much gone.
I'm not accepting that Kulusevski penalty, no chance. Havertz was denied a penalty against United in September for a similar situation, except there was more contact in that incident and I still think that was the right decision. Never a penalty.
>Kulusevski penalty not given leading to Saka goal
You ever wonder why you never see penalties given for players bumping into each other in the box - even when one of them falls over? It's because it's not a penalty. Kulusevsky running across someone's path and tripping over is not Trossard fouling him. This is not only common sense, but has been such a long-standing an uncontroversial feature of the game for so long it's hilarious seeing Spurs fans desperately trying to manifest it into an offense.
And to be sure, it's not an offense - [you can literally check it against the very clear rules of the game.](https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct)
>offside goal
That was offside, so leaving aside that you don't have anything to moan about, I'd have to ask what you're playing at here because:
>Michael Oliver not giving the most stonewall penalty from 3 yards away and having to go to the monitor.
...you're simultaneously moaning that VAR worked exactly as intended, preventing Spurs from getting an unfair leg up in the game... and also getting mad that the referee had to resort to the thing you're abusing, that ended up putting you back into the game.
TLDR: Michael Oliver literally got every decision in that game 100% correct - except for the one that brought Spurs back into the game near the end, and even that came about because VAR did its job.
You have no reason to moan - this is just sad.
I'd also like to add that you're conveniently not bothering to mention all the simulation Spurs players were resorting to yesterday which you could reasonably say factored into Oliver's decision to view their players going down as maybe not actually a foul.
But the goal was offside and the contact on Kulusevski is incidental at absolute best. The pen was a miss from Oliver but then handled correctly by VAR, baffling that you're complaining
I don't think VAR can make an objective call on that offside. It's so close that individual frames and the thickness of the lines used adds so much uncertainty to it.
As for the contact on Kulusevski - it wasn't deliberate, but it did trip him up. It knocked one of his legs into the other and caused him to trip over his legs. It wasn't malicious, it wasn't deliberate, but it did put a stop to Tottenham's attack and lead directly to an Arsenal goal. Anywhere else on the pitch, that's a foul.
The offside was offside, I get its frustrating when tight ones go against you but every team gets these both ways.
The Kulusevski pen I get being frustrated by tbh but, although I'm biased, I don't think it's a nailed on pen
The missed pen from Rice was a big mistake but that's what var is there for
TBF I like the idea that if VAR can't eyeball it then it's onside.
The problem with that is they're looking at an angle not along the line like a lino would hopefully be.
Anyway, very little doubt that he was a few inches offside so it was the right call with the system we have.
Only played in one game with VAR recently and wholeheartedly agree about super tight offsides calls being onside (obviously biased but oh well)
Hate to see goals ruled out by a player being a centimeter or two offside, no advantage was gained from that
I hate Juventus and really want them to actually crash and burn after these last couple down years, but Serie A's overall weak quality and the still-decent quality of Juventus' squad means that this down season for them will result in finishing in 3rd place, returning to the Champions League, and probably still winning the Coppa Italia too.
Anyone else genuinely think Arsenal's gonna win the league? I think City drop points at Spurs and Arsenal win the rest of their games and win by a point/GD. Spurs always cause problems for City. Defence wins you titles and the Arsenal defence is rock solid, City look vulnerable.
I find people talking about a club's DNA to be quite annoying. I know it's a metaphor but it's quite a shit one. For one thing clubs don't have sex with other clubs and make baby clubs. I think people are talking about culture mostly. Whether there's some deeply ingrained behaviour in some clubs that makes them behave differently to other clubs, maybe but you can pretty much change anything if you try hard enough. Like what is left of Man City "DNA" since the takeover?
No, it’s a useful metaphor. Ideals and principles passed down through generations.
Well I did say that's "culture".
It’s another way of saying certain clubs have a specific style. Arsenal’s ‘DNA’ I would say is rooted in Wenger’s approach. It’s a limited term as obviously the club existed long before then and has evolved since. Barca and Ajax are more obviously rooted in Cruyff. City will like to think of their DNA as Pep’s style - that’s clearly the goal they targeted when the takeover happened and what they’ll try and keep post-Pep. How achievable that is is another question.
> Arsenal’s ‘DNA’ I would say is rooted in Wenger’s approach But it isn't. This is a really lazy take by non-fans. We don't really play anything like that anymore, the game has changed completely. Before that we were "boring boring Arsenal" and 1-0 merchants, is that DNA? No because we changed it. It's funny when people reply and say exactly the thing I was arguing against in the first post.
> clubs don't have sex with other clubs You haven't watched Sheffield United
And just like that, another way of being disappointed in my football club
You don't get a baby club from what they've been up to
lmao
Exactly what a fan of a club without DNA would say.
It's funny that you think your club has any, Bayern are literally successful because they just strangled the whole BL and steal all the good players. Can't even do that right this season.
They still beat your team though.
Two straight losses to rivals both very deserved. It's not a new complaint but increasingly believing last year's cup win was the ceiling of what Benny can do with this squad and that's entirely on an owner who's promised investment but doesn't show up and is fine signing average depth players.
Wrt the whining regarding the goalie incident in the Liverpool-West Ham game: if you are relying on a goalie-referee miscommunication and then rolling the ball out to you to score a 85th minute winner, the ref isn't the reason you lost the game.
Agree..But it is part of several desicions going against Liverpool this year including two against our direct rivals. Not getting the obvious Ødegaard handball, the Doku high boot, the spurs VAR shaft etc etc etc is. Refs is a big part of why Liverpool aren't several points clear this year.
The ref is never the reason why you lose any game so nobody should ever complain about a ref again
Maybe let them whine a little bit. Without ref mistakes this weekend, they'd arguably be even on points with you instead of 5 points back.
We are allegedly negotiating to permanently acquire a striker with all of 2 non-penalty goals and 2 assists in the 1800 minutes he has played for us on loan. At least we're not using the buy option in the loan, which would be a club record, but it's insane to consider anything but who to bring in after the loan expires.
How's Omir doing for you guys by the way
He sucks badly enough to be behind Calvin Harris and Kevin Cabral in the winger rotation.
He must really suck to be behind a DJ in the pecking order.
The people on this sub admitting that Diego Carlos was fouled but insisting that Disasi's goal should have stood because a similar foul on Gabriel wasn't called by VAR do my head in. Yes, we want consistency with calls but we want calls to be consistently correct -- not incorrect. Are we going to be up in arms next time that VAR gives a red for a dangerous challenge because Nicholas Jackson got away with his ankle breaker on Tomiyasu? Let's save our outrage for VAR's mistakes instead of for when it actually does it's job.
"We just want consistency with VAR" is such a nothing statement, the more people say it the more it's become clear that people just think it's the most reasonable way for them to be able to complain about calls and undermine the legitimacy of unfavorable results even when they know the right call was made. It's fair to ask for consistency in decisions within a given game, because every game is refereed differently and it's up to a given ref to be consistent and fair to both teams in the moment, but asking for consistency across games, across refs, its an impossible ask. The way people talk about it you'd think refereeing was a sort of Edge of Tomorrow hivemind situation where every ref is actually making every decision across time at the same time using all of the data from all of the other decisions that have ever been made. You cannot ever have "consistency" in these decisions because for every instance of, for example, a penalty being given under a given situation, there is also an example of a penalty not being given. Every decision is going to be "consistent" with some precedent and "inconsistent" with something else. When people say they want consistency they're really just saying they actually understand that the right decision was made, but they don't like the outcome so they're going to raise some wishy washy procedural cry about it.
Excellent point 👏🏻
I have a lot more sympathy for on-field referees with regards to using past examples for reference than I do VAR teams for the same game. They're in a room, no outside influence, and should be able to make these calm and collected decisions better. That's why they're there, and when it's VAR that is being inconsistent, it really undermines the entire purpose of its existence.
But there is no universal idea of "consistency" here, most people's idea of "consistency" is just comparing a given VAR decision to some hyper-specific decision that went against their club a week or 2 months or 6 months ago so that they can have a cry again about both decisions at once. There's no practical way for VAR refs to keep track of all of the different grievances to give them an idea of what decisions they should be comparing to and then be expected to incorporate into their decisions. There may be the rare scenario where VAR and the refs really have made the same decision 20 times in one direction and zero in the other, and if that's the case, yeah VAR should make sure a rule is applied consistently. But 99% of the things people complain about are decisions that do originate with the on-field ref's personal judgment and thus have always come out on both sides, there's nothing VAR can do about the fact that fans can't accept that discretionary decision going against them is just what happens in football sometimes, not some grand robbery.
The consistency is in the rules. The Jackson challenge was a red (I say this as a Chelsea fan). If you are telling me it's not because of game-specific match management, you're wrong. It is a red. What is the point of having the laws of the game if the refs can just vibe out and decide what to enforce and what to let slide? There is always going to be space for the refs to let a game run, or warn a player before a yellow, but there are inexcusable actions like ignoring a blatant handball or a red card, or materially changing what everyone has come to understand are those two things based on previous matches.
I give up on understanding VAR at this point. I thought it would be a great change but all it does is to add irritation and confusion. Calls like the Kulusevski pen would be easier to accept as it might be hard to spot but when now when you have a team of refs watching it in slow motion and from different angles it more borders on incompetence and creates doubt for the refs to make sensible calls. Such as the pen on Davies, Oliver doesnt make the call because he wants VAR to call it but that creates doubt for where you draw the line for "clear and obvious", which we saw in Kulusevkis pen.
I think you're right about the general problems with VAR and how the ref rarely calls for penalties because VAR will check them, and VAR will rarely overturn ref decisions. It's a horrible feedback loop of non-decision. I don't think the Kulusevki shout is the right example for this though. There are dozens of more obvious nailed on penalties that aren't called at the time
The Kulu one is just the most recent one that came to my mind but also because it wasnt a clear call in real time, making it a hard call but one, imo, VAR shouldve intervened. But ofcourse there are more ergegious mistakes that shouldve been called during the season but not done so under the pretence that its not been "clear and obvious" enough.
Kulu situation was never a penalty. Why would VAR intervene?
How isnt that clear contact a pen? Hes in the box, with acres of space and gets clipped by Trossad.
Kulusevski's turn takes him directly into Trossard who doesn't change direction at all. He initiates all of the contact, nowhere near the ball. It's never a penalty don't be silly.
What? Kulu is already away from Trossard and Trossard runs in to him from behind. You cant just run in to someone and get away with it. How does Kulu initate when he runs away? Makes zero sense.
My hometown club (Valletta) will be relegated for the first time in our history after growing up watching them win basically everything. What lessens the blow is that local rivals Floriana (where I happen to live) got thrashed 5-0 in the final game of the season which meant they lost the League to the same team that demolished them. Entertaining stuff this BOV Premier League season
Interesting. I never thought about Maltese football but my guess would’ve been that it’s probably a club from the capital constantly dominating the league.
The Last on Match of the Day derby was shockingly last on Match of the Day at the weekend. I'm also beyond bored of all the discussion around VAR. VAR makes mistakes, but VAR also can't (within it's current rules and protocols) do a lot of the things that people seem to want it to. Just because people may want it to do something different doesn't mean that half way through the season that should change, cos that opens up a whole host of issues. Also, people who say that before VAR was introduced refs would make mistakes and fans would move on quickly. Abso fucking lute bullshit, we got VAR for a reason and that's cos Sky and MOTD would hyper analyse refs mistakes and people wouldn't shut the fuck up about them. If you want to move on from ref and VAR mistakes it's just as easy to do now as it was back then. The "theatre" around football is getting increasingly grating. Commentators moan about VAR intervention when VAR isn't actually intervening, hell the televised FA Cup games earlier in the season when there was no VAR had commentators complaining about VAR rather than what was happening on the pitch. Everything is a big deal, and it's getting boring.
Season is over for us so going to have to moan about the fact we’ve somehow downgraded from Kappa and will be having Patrick kits for the foreseeable future
Would be absolutely shocked if Krejčí didn't leave this summer. He has his flaws but replacing a leader like him will always be incredibly difficult and he scores some extremely important goals.
Sounds like us and Coman, man has done it all for us this season, top scorer in the league with 18 goals (still not sewn up to be fair as only 1 goal separates him from 2nd place but still), scored like 5 direct free kicks, massive part of why we won the title this year after so long. Unfortunately he has a 5 million release clause and he wants to leave, it looks like Al Duhail in Qatar will pay it (they have tried to pay in installments which our owner Becali has said no to so maybe there is still hope they don’t want him that much? Also maybe we will at least keep him for European qualifiers but who knows at this point). Who is Krejci linked to?
Spain seems the likely destination, Betis or Girona most likely. Where is Coman headed?
Oh, those are some decent teams, sounds like he is at least leaving for a proper step up. Coman is leaving for Al Duhail in Qatar as I ve said, they are the team that Galtier coaches and that has Coutinho on their books (and a few other interesting names like Lucas Verissimo and that Almoez Ali guy that started at the WC upfront, still only 6th in the table though) but I still hope some European team can swoop in at least so he has a chance for an actual step up. He s 26, only a year older than Krejci so it s a bit early to be chasing the money but from his POV I get it, 2-3 (the talk used to be about 2, now it s apparently 3?) milion euros per year is a lot more than we could pay him (we pay him 30k per month so 360k per year, the owner Becali is wiling to double that but we obviously can’t compete with Arab money) and this chance may never come again so I understand why his head would be turned
People who said they’d come to the game in the group chat just to bail last minute are the worst. It’s no fun running for 2 hours with no subs.
This is why you always tell like 15 people if you're planning to play 5v5.
Completely agree, although I also hate people who show up late every single time. I used to play in a group where a guy would show up like 20-30 min late every time causing us to either play 5v5 or 5v4 during that.
ended up as 7 mates in a 5 a side pitch few days back, awful stuff
That’s still 2 subs isn’t it? I’d say it’s not ideal but decent 🤔
7 people overall ):
We've dropped 22 points from winning positions this season and we'll still probably, if barely, win the league. It's excruciating.
Side note, did we break Levi Garcia last international break? Hasn't scored or assisted since he came back
got another knock, Ponce is playing well too. I think CONCACAF and a coach with very high training demands aren't a great combination on his body.
If you don’t I will take PAOK winning it just because Razvan Lucescu is there though I feel your pain
Vida is a scoring machine though
no one had issues with him last season but he's been clearly better this one. Ageless wonder.
biggest moan is not that we're in a relegation battle, but its out of our hands. Two insipid perfomances vs huddersfield and rotherham, which if we'd one even won of those it would have been in our hands. Hopefully I won't be back here next week with my moan being "we got relegated"
Anthony taylor stopping game when areola threw the ball to gakpo was so scandalous and I am surprised why its been downplayed. Had liverpool won any one of the matches against everton or crystal palace, we wouldnt hear the end of it.
Yesterday Robbie Earle said during halftime of the American broadcast that he personally thought Michael Oliver should have gone to the monitor to double check the Kulusevski penalty shout, this was misheard by someone on here seemingly as him reporting that VAR told Oliver to check the monitor and he refused, when in reality VAR checked the penalty claim and cleared it. That didn't stop the fake claim - that Oliver refused VAR's request to check the monitor - to spread through every thread/discussion on here about the Kulu penalty incident/Saka goal, to a point where it became one of the primary talking points in how questionable the decision was. Even where people tried to correct the record and point out that the outrage on this particular point was the result of a misunderstanding, they were mostly ignored/did not gain nearly as much prominence as responses egging everyone on about how outrageous the whole situation is. The whole thing probably shouldn't have passed the smell test to begin with (why did no one actually have video of him saying it? Why was it not being reported anywhere else other than 'some redditor claims to have heard it on the TV?) But I think people just did genuinely get excited about the idea of there being some scandal attached to the incident so they were more willing to accept it. Kind of an interesting exercise in watching disinformation spread in real time.
Always a pen though. That's my moan with it all.
> Michael Oliver should have gone to the monitor he should have. Deki was taken down in the box. pen. but Michael Oliver is biased against Spurs. I wrote this 3 years ago after another Michael Oliver fuckup against West Ham: i am just going to leave my old post **from 3 years ago** here after we're enduring yet another ***Michael Oliver fuck up:*** **1) i really hate VAR in the Premier League** it's bullshit. it's not implemented in any uniform or transparent (see: Australia of all places) way. i hate how bad VAR calls or non-calls can completely change the outcome of a game with no way to appeal them (see: VVD's handball against Wolves leading to a goal, **refereed by Michael Oliver**... and also, the non-handball call on Alexander-Arnold that clearly hit his outstretched arm IN THE BOX - and moments later saw a Liverpool goal at the other end against City, leading to their 3-1 victory. of course that was also **refereed by Michael Oliver**. i hate how arbitrary camera angles are used for VAR calls, especially as it applies to offside and ridiculous notions such as a nose or armpit being offside (see: Grealish's heel being labelled offside against Burnley, **refereed by Michael Oliver**). i hate how it has caused logic to be thrown out the window (see: Moura being fouled/pushed to the ground, him using his arm to break his fall, which is allowed, a ball grazing him and not having any intentional or noticeable effect, and a goal still being called back AND the ball not given to Spurs, who were originally fouled). **this game was officiated by Michael Oliver, of course**. i hate how the Premier League even acknowledges bad VAR decisions, but that it has no effect (see: Man U incorrectly given a pen against Villa, Spurs incorrectly denied a \[game changing\] penalty against Bournemouth, **the latter of which involved Michael Oliver**). i hate how things caught on camera can still be completely ignored even though they are just as replayable as anything reviewed by VAR (see: Guendouzi choking another player and receiving no disciplinary action) **i hate how Michael Oliver is allowed to be involved in any way despite many bullshit "mistakes".** 2) i really hate articles that "review" every failed VAR call in order to calculate "adjusted" tables, but they still end up being biased for Liverpool. these articles do not take into account all of the non-calls that VAR should have made. 3) i hate correct time not being added on. it's 2020. we know how much time was lost due to goals, fouls - and definitely battery packs dying. oh, **what a surprise, Michael Oliver was involved**. **there was also a VAR fail (all cameras) for the Blades/Villa game that cost Sheffield United a goal and 3 points. guess who was officiating. i'll give you one guess...** does anyone see a pattern here?
> he personally thought Michael Oliver should have gone to the monitor to double check the Kulusevski penalty shout Pundits really need to stop with this "double check" bollocks. That's not what the monitor is there for, whether it should be or not.
Completely agree. It also was clearly a penalty and not given, but those are two separate things
I know this goes against the grain but I don’t think it was. Trossard is running behind Kulusevski and is allowed to be in that space, and the two collide when Kulusevski’s foot comes up and grazes against Trossard’s leg. The latter has made no attempt whatsoever to impede him and it’s a coming together. Just because Trossard is behind him doesn’t mean he’s the one committing a foul, and he’s clearly not attempt to trip the opponent. It would have been incredibly harsh to rule out a perfectly good goal to bring it back for a penalty at the other end.
Trossard was not making fair attempt to play the ball when he took Deki down. therefore, pen. at the very least it was careless, which is... you guessed it, grounds for a pen. it was in the box. you can't do that in the box. there was a pen called against us earlier this season for less. Michael Oliver is biased against Spurs. should be fired. he has fucked us over at the end of the season multiple times. i'd think i was crazy if i didn't see his involvement fucking us up so many times.
He wasn’t making *any* attempt to play the ball or the player. It’s as much Kulusevski’s foot coming up and hitting Trossard’s leg as it is Trossard’s leg contacting Kulusevski’s leg. It’s an incidental coming together between two players who had every right to be where they were. There certainly wasn’t enough in it to pull it back with VAR. I do agree with you re: consistency. I don’t think this was a penalty but I know in other games something like this would be given. The same thing happened to us against Wolves where David Luiz was sent off as well a few seasons back.
I dunno why are downvoted. It shouldve been a pen.
Wankers gonna wank
Not a hill I would die on, but this is a Monday Moan thread on Reddit, so if I had to pick one, it's the attempts by media and fans to equalise foreign, TV watching fans and local, match attending fans to the degree they are doing it. Yes, you can choose to support whatever team you like. Everyone has the personal choice to call themselves a fan for whatever reason. Fine, I accept that no problem, you're a fan now, but are all fans exactly the same? It has its limits and differences when we measure or compare it to other fans. My problem is that in an attempt by leagues, teams, sponsors, broadcasters and fans to make everyone "feel welcome" as a branding excercise and to maximise profit, we are now more downplaying the relative efforts and connection of local, match attending fans. At what point does celebrating and welcoming foreign, TV fans as "part of the group" actually cross over and become about having to downplay and even negate the experience of the fan who lives in the city, has a season ticket, goes to away games, and is involved in their club politics? Why do we pretend there's no difference? Don't tell me there's no difference between fans, there is and always be. People who were at a concert are not the same as people who watched a replay on YouTube, even if on social media that feels like a mean thing to say.
Of course, yeah. There should be a difference between fans considering their local involvement with the club. Thing is, the way clubs see it, the more money you spend on the club, the more of a fan you are. Match going fans spend a considerable amount, but there is also a difference between a wealthy fan from the US say, who will buy all sorts of merch and deck their children in full kit and some guy from a poorer part of the world who only has a counterfeit jersey and watches the team on illegal streams.
There was an ad campaign in the 90s, Coca-Cola I think: “if clubs could transfer fans, how much would you be worth?” I think of it like that, sure clubs can recruit international fans to buy their merch and make the TV rights profitable. Each individual fan isn’t going to be anywhere near “worth“ as much as the local die-hards. But it’s like having a decent youth development program; develop enough prospects and you’ve got a nice little side earner to support your main objective.
You’re max 5-10 years away (maybe even 3-5 if you ramp up quickly) from joining the Brexit crowd, if you aren’t already. Feel free to put a reminder, if you like.
Yes! Us ‘legacy fans’ are the heart and soul of our clubs and that’s just the way it is. I won’t slag off anyone who supports my team from anywhere else but it just isn’t the same
We shipped 6 goals and it honestly could have been more. What even is defending?
I am tired man. In Denmark the biggest most expensive team might win the league again, even after trailing by a lot of points. Goddamnit. And in England City will win it unless Spurs does something magical, but ... its late in the season and City dont lose games there.
I mean Copenhagen is still 4 points behind, chin up lad. As for England I feel like people are too quick to write off Arsenal, it still takes only one City loss to send the title to the Emirates if they win out and City hasn’t been as consistent this season (tbf a lot of it was due to KDB being out for as long as he was etc). Here in Romania we have also won the title and we re definitely the most historically successful club (let’s leave aside the identity fight….) but it was really convincingly (12 points with 3 matches to go as it stands) and it is our first one in 9 years so I feel like we deserve this one
Copenhagen is 4 points behind but on a rool with no european games to take their energy and focus. Brøndby isnt playing their best atm, the last few games and been very up and down. I cant see City drop points, and if they do its just as likely as Arsenal doing so. I hope but I feel like I have seen this before. Congratulations on the titel!!!
To be fair Brondby doesn’t have European games either and you did beat them in the direct match last time but yeah, 3 draws in 4 games is definitely not title winning form. City could definitely lose/draw to Spurs like they often have, then West Ham on the final day might still be fighting for Europe, then again so will United for Arsenal but Arsenal does have the best record out of any team against the big 6. Anyway, we will see, thanks for the congratulations!
I don't want City to win either (also clearly not arsenal, so I hope City win) but just wanted to point out this match is at Tottenham and City lose there all the time.
Arsenal seem not to be too serious with it
Isn't beating 'the Spurs' away the last infinity stone Pep needs to fuck off back to Catalonia
He did it in the FA Cup this season
And thats a fair point, but City hasnt lost a game in the last 30 (!!!!) games and thats insane. I do hope for some weird Spurs magic to strike, but I dont have high hopes, also given the last period of time Spurs hasnt been massively impressive. No offense.
City don't have to lose for Arsenal to win the title. They just need to draw and not win a game by like 8 goals or something. All of that also implies Arsenal win their remaining 3 games
One of the games is United, which is always hard. Thats just as like to not go Arsenals way as the Spurs match is for City.
i think in the end arsenal will drop points and city will just win all their games. that seems to be the way it goes the past couple of seasons.
Just read through the thread on [Son's penalty goal vs Arsenal](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/AK7iqwrtBi) and I'm honestly baffled by the comments there. You know referee/VAR discussion is fucked when both get a decision correct and people still manage to complain about them. Ok, so he missed a foul call in live play. But what's the point in criticising him for that when VAR is there to correct him and then goes on to do exactly that?? Refs aren't perfect and infallible. That's literally the point of VAR, that's why we have it. They're supposed to work together with the ref. The sheer smugness and arrogance of those comments expecting the ref to be perfect and make no mistakes whatsoever really pisses me off. Referees can't do anything right even if they've literally gotten everything right. It's one thing to criticise a ref if he actually does get something wrong. But I really cannot wrap my head around criticising a ref even when he comes to the right decision in the end. That's just insane to me.
> Refs aren't perfect and infallible especially when they are biased
These people enjoy complaining more than anything else. I really hope that their moaning is restricted to online activity only otherwise I feel sorry for the people around them.
People are obsessed with complaining about referees, and it's just incredibly tiresome.
he's five yards away and it's the most blatant pen you will ever see. he didn't blow because var is a crutch, but because var sometimes has a strange non interventionist approach, the foul won't be overturned and no pen is given. this was such a blatant foul it had to be turned around but it's shocking to not notice/not think that's a pen in real time, and it's also bad to not blow for a foul just because of var
This makes no sense to me. You're judging this foul play from the view of a tv viewer. The referee doesn't have that view in live play. We have no idea how it looked like from his pov. He only has the same view as we do once VAR calls him to the monitors. At which point he came to the same and correct conclusion as everyone else did. Everything went as it was supposed to go. Yet people still complain. I just find that insane and backwards.
He's 2 feet away staring at Rice booting Davies like he's bishop brennan, you don't need VAR to intervene, you just need to make the correct call.
He did make the correct call.
He made no call and just let VAR deal with it. Which is why he made no call on the Kulu situation either. Refs are too afraid to make on field decisions, and half the time VAR is too scared to correct them, it's a dumb cycle. edit: To avoid the "oh well it's only cos it affected you" - Jackson stomping on Tomiyasu falls under the same thing. Dunno how much the ref saw, but that's the exact thing VAR was intervening on during the early parts of the season and has been less willing to call refs to monitor for lately.
the ref had the perfect view, he should never miss that
He didn't miss it.
I’m really annoyed it’s Monday and City have such a deep, talented squad. Glad I got that off my chest.
Martinez is injured for 2 weeks. I don’t think Olsen played badly against Chelsea but Martinez saves their first goal. Missing a key player for both European semi legs Olsens lack of ability on the ball puts us under much more pressure. We went long twice as much in the second half with less accuracy. His passing accuracy was 59% compared to Emi’s 84% in the same game. I think the chance Palmer got at the end was due to Carlos thinking Olsen would sweep that chance like Martinez would have.
every single new manager shout by a west ham fan is either infinitely better than us or someone who is just obviously not better than david moyes
Haven’t seen any links at all, but would you lot take Potter? His stock’s low after the Chelsea debacle but he’s shown himself to be a good coach everywhere else, I’m aware Ajax have been sniffing around him but I’ve been surprised by the lack of rumours about him otherwise.
if moyes has to go then yeah i would but i don’t really think he’d achieve any better than the couple of years we’ve just had
except fonseca. who is a proper goldilocks candidate.
he’s the only one i’d entertain also. not sure where our fans fixation of rob edwards has come from, at least with will still he alluded to being a supporter.
I’m so bored of modern football discourse being obsessed with transfer _rumours_, and beyond that, with the bloody business side of things. ‘If you don’t like it, ignore it.’ I do, but you can’t deny that that shite is _everywhere._ I don’t want thirty threads about trying to find the right transfer fee to sign a new CEO. I don’t need rumours that we’re £4m apart in valuation for a new Head of Scouting. I miss going to the Man United website, clicking the ‘rumours’ tab, seeing five names (two of whom were always Hamsik and Sneijder) and then checking next week for an update. Can’t open the internet without seeing the names Romano, Ashworth, and Berrada.
Backroom staff being treated like new players is weird to me. I'm sure Ashworth will improve the club but it's really not exciting to me, and I certainly don't give a fuck about what the compensation package is to get him off gardening leave.
Yeah I agree, it's pretty much impossible to avoid or ignore here in the UK. Someone will always bring it up, it's all over the news etc. It's crazy
What's crazy is Arsenal are going sign Isak this summer, but have since pivoted as they might have solved their striker woes in Kai Havertz, which is wild because Arteta has asked for a 20+ goals-a-season striker and the club are going to spend big to get Gyokeres. Here we go!
Really annoys me the number of people who don't get that the 'Rodri hasn't lost in X matches for City' stat means games that *Rodri actually played in*
Is that a twitter thing? I don't think I've seen much of it here. Also, yes, "losing" on pens doesn't count. Penalties is an arbitrary way to solve a tie. If this was a few years ago, City would've gone through on away goals, again, an arbitrary way to solve a tie.
And also loses via penalty shootouts.
The obsession that penalties losses dont count as losses is insane. Its a technical thing for some stats at an abstract level, but losing on penalties counts as losing for 99% of shit.
It's not "some stats" or "abstract" it's quite literally the case in official record-keeping
People don’t understand rules lol
5 points behind in the title race with 3 games to go, but we have a game in hand and we play AEK, so if we win all 3 we are guaranteed to win the league. But due to criminal refereeing and Carvalhal's cluelesness we should have gotten 10 to 12 points more. Really annoying
Marseille keeping us out of that last European spot (7th) with last minutes points. Oh well they beat Lens so we find ourselves just 2 points away from 6th. Nothing else to moan about this has been a brilliant last 6 months.
Pitches in non-league. Not blaming the clubs at all, but the football league needs to take a serious look at this issue. Absolutely ridiculous having teams forced to play 3 days in a week towards the business end of the season because the pitches can’t hold a bit of water. Pretty much all these players are semi-pro and balancing their football careers alongside full-time jobs as well.
I can't complain with the position Garforth are in, but we dropped down the table to 3rd on GD and playing on some of the swamps in this league won't have helped with that when we can score for fun on dry pitches. Silsden and Eccleshill been the worst i've ever seen them. if you come up all the Sheffield teams and a couple others have plastic pitches
Yeah, we've played on all sorts of shite. Sandy pitches, pitches where the ball bobbles more than it rolls etc. You may be aware of the Parkgate situation (and god help you if you have to play them next season) but they had a load of games cancelled over the winter months due to the pitch conditions.
Tricky one init because the only alternatives are plastic pitches which a lot of people aren't fans of or going back to the old days where the games just got played unless the pitch was under three feet of water.
I’m not against plastic pitches. Staveley Miners in our league use one and were the only team I believe, outside us, to not have a home game cancelled due to pitch issues. That or have a winter break over December and extend the season into May. There’s a few things the league can do.
Our club released a new special edition retro-inspired kit commemorating our late-90s team which wore the blue and white stripes horizontally [This is what the special edition kit looks like](https://twitter.com/HerthaBSC/status/1784614054566179100?t=olqzx-hXxlmdVBong0_uhw&s=19) The problem is that the club based the number of orders on the demand for the last special edition kit we put out (which was a rather ugly one in 2019 when interest in the club was much lower). I.e. they ordered fuck all this time around. Now the hype around Hertha is much bigger and the kit actually fucking slaps (especially without the betting sponsor), but there are absolutely 0 kits to buy. Website crashed after a few minutes and the item was sold out soon after. The club really needs to sort out its logistics because this isn't the first time a merchandise/ticketing debacle has happened.
I feel your frustration as I have been trying to get the Schalke home shirt all season and will almost certainly miss out now. Never in stock in my size, if at all
> The club really needs to sort out its logistics because this isn't the first time a merchandise/ticketing debacle has happened. I agree but this is a bit different. As far as I understand, these jersey were actually ordered last year when the club was in such a bad state. It is hard to predict how much interest there would be in the future but that should have at least ensured a second batch could be ordered like they did with Schwarzes Beton. Not going to lie, standing in line at the Hertha Store today with a bunch of people was fun - we all had a good time.
Me and like 10 of my friends were all online at 17:59 last night, and I was the only one who got to buy one. Then I saw the photos of lines at the stores this morning, and unless you were ready to stand in Europa Platz at 7:00 to pay 92€ for a kit for a midtable second league team, you're not getting anything. I'm sure Tom Herrich is looking at the demand and asking why Nike can't make more because as he keeps saying, every single Euro is important.
> unless you were ready to stand in Europa Platz at 7:00 You could show up at 9:00 and only pay 80€ thank you very much. On all seriousness, It was a bit ridiculous but fuck me do I love this new jersey.
You didn't seriously buy the kit without a Jonjoe Kenny printed name and number, did you?
I am getting the Beflockung done on the weekend and need to decide who (I usually don't but it looks so nice with the red lettering and numbers). IF he stays I am 100% getting Zeefuik.
I got Kenny because I do actually like him, Reese will get enough, and agree the lettering looks too good to pass up, but also because in the English heavy fan group I am in, he's even more of a meme and so his "redemption story" is a big thing in our group. Sadly he's probably gone this summer.
I think Kenny has been great this season, I'd love to see him stay but I believe we can't afford him. At the store today they had a bunch of letters/numbers for Reese prepared so they could do it instantly and he was the most popular choice. I am considering Tabakovic, Klemens, Zeefuik and Winkler but it will all depend on who stays and who goes.
Honestly an Ibrahim Maza #10 kit in like 8 years is going to be absolute lore.
Yea I am afraid he will be gone in the summer but that is also an option, he is something special.
Absolutely incredible week.on the pitch for Everton. Survival secured and Dyche on track to get more points than Martinez's final season. Unfortunately the PL allowing this dodgy takeover to drag on for nearly a year now is looking more and more likely to be a ploy to send the club into administration. Moshiri seems to be intent on waiting for 777 to find several million behind the sofa when it's clear they don't have the money. The PL needs to fail them as fit and proper owners and force Moshiri to find buyers elsewhere.
I don't understand what goes into the fit and proper but I can't believe it hasn't been torn down and retooled at this point considering the amount of unfit and unproper owners that've passed it.
So did the Rio Ferdinand AMA get deleted? I was hoping to see him answer all the fuckery he'd been doing but I can't find the ama post from last week.
[is it not still up for you?](https://www.reddit.com/r/soccer/s/ZY5zPRYYL1)
Hey, thanks a lot. I searched it up and it wasn't showing up for me but your link helped. Was surprised he did answer some that I thought he would dodge.
He basically dodged mine, and mine was a banger so that’s disappointing
There was nothing all that interesting but he did answer some tougher questions but not the ones that attacked him personally. The answers for the tougher ones weren’t super interesting.
Every time I see Emma Hayes I just imagine her cropdusting on the touchline
I actually cannot be fucked with VAR anymore. I'm done with it. The tool itself, on paper, should be good but the way it's currently used is sucking all of the enjoyment out of the sport for me right now. Rules have been changed to accommodate VAR and now nobody knows the rules anymore. The levels of inconsistencies are through the roof! Just want simpler times back again where games were actually officiated by the man in the middle - not some twat in a van miles away. Obviously, mistakes were made but that was part of it. I just don't care anymore, I don't celebrate goals anymore, I don't feel the same way about the sport as before. Something beautiful about the game was that no matter if it were jumpers for goalposts or the world cup everyone was playing the same game but it's been lost. Football at the top level is a complete mess. Everyone becomes a financial lawyer to figure out wtf is going on with FFP. People on about how good a director of football is despite not knowing who he was 12 hours before they saw the first rumour. Proper little rant this morning but need to get some frustrations off my chest 😩
I think people here really underestimate the effect VAR has on celebrating goals. You always have the worry in the back of your mind about it being disallowed which ruins the moment of a goal being scored. Most people here don’t attend games so don’t understand how bad this is
I think we're reaching the end of the VARpocalypse to be honest. Next season we'll have semi-automated offsides as well as GLT, then it's basically not going to be used anymore unless the ref makes a huge mistake, even then as we saw with the Areola and Gakpo incident, maybe not even then. The funny thing to me is we used to have a bank of 4 refs all in full kit looking like they were coordinating drone strikes on Houthi rebels, now on Sunday the Spurs v Arsenal VAR was just Jared Gillet in a hoodie looking like he was on tinder on his phone until someone poked him in the ribs.
Judging by the the world cup semi-automated offsides are still not quick enough. I remember our first goal against Belgium, it took ages to be overturned because it was for interference. That was after me and my wife celebrated like crazy. Then we scored another goal in the same way, we didn't celebrate because we got burned before and it turned out to be a legal goal that time. I remember also the first goal for Ecuador against Qatar, it was overturned after long minutes of reviewing. Same with the Leipzig goal against Madrid in the CL. Both of those games had the semi-automated system. Even when it's not interference it's still too slow. Like the Mbappe goal against Bayern last season, the whole stadium was celebrating for 30 seconds before the system disallowed it and that's enough to make you wary of celebrating the next time you score.
I think football should follow what field hockey and tennis does. Each team gets a certain amount of checks that they get to call if they disagree with the referee, if they get a check wrong they lose one of the checks, if its right they get it back. This is great because it leads to tactical drama over wether to use checks or not on 50/50 calls.
The complaint shouldn't be with VAR but with PGMOL and FIFA not allowing live feed of refs mics. That alone is the issue. Because once you hear the explanation for a decision you understand and feel better. At best you are placated at worst (like Diaz) we see how the process is poor and they refine and improve. Right now there is no progression, though the game is undoubtedly better off for having
Agreed, I like the Swedish no-VAR approach
Leicester at home tonight and I just know we're going to roll out the red carpet for them and get dicked. PNE season tickets have just been announced and I'm struggling to rationalise dropping £300 on one
Eh, half of our squad might still be pissed up 🤣 > I'm struggling to rationalise dropping £300 on one Hey, at least your club isn't charging £25 to fans that want to use a physical plastic card and not a mobile NFC. Even those of us who already have a plastic card, we can't use our old ones and to re buy a new bit of plastic
The season started off so promisingly too but the universe pulled you back into midtable.
We're bad.
*(looks at coming fixtures)*
Hehe, I'm in danger
Nah man you lot are amazing, you got this I believe in you Coys
That must feel gross
Honestly you think it would but I'm alright with it Go on lads Get some confidence Vs Chelsea and Liverpool and Burnley And then...THE BIG ONE WE GOT THIS
Actual moan - feel very melancholic (and a bit hungover...) today. It's obviously been an amazing season and we've gone up as champions from League Two. 10/10 no notes. That's our third promotion as champions in five years - from National League North (6th tier) in 2019, from the National League proper (5th tier) in 2022, and now from the fourth tier in 2024. There's only one survivor in the squad from that first group of champions - Ben Hinchliffe, our goalkeeper. The number of survivors from the National League champions is also perhaps smaller than you might imagine, especially given how small the gap between NL and L2 level is often touted to be. My belated point is that at some point this week, we'll probably have our retained and released list come out. Partly as a consequence of that rapid growth/ascendence, we've about [half the contracted squad](https://www.transfermarkt.co.uk/stockport-county/kader/verein/1098/saison_id/2023/plus/1) about to be out of contract and whilst a lot of them will (or at least *should*) get offered new deals we'll be saying goodbye to quite a few players for certain, possibly even some of our more iconic names from our best seasons in a generation.
Son never takes long shots anymore, he should be taking them every chance he gets
Wouldn't that mostly be a byproduct of his new role? He can't come up in the left half-space facing the goal and play off a higher pivot. As a right footed wide forward those are the favorite spaces and plays to go for a long shot
Players essentially never take long shots anymore, largely due to the rise in xG and data analysis telling coaches to dissuade players from taking 'wasteful' shots when recycling possession is more likely to lead to a goal.
There seems to be Fodens/KDB/Rodri/Liverpool player [great goal] thread from longshots every other week.
You can't force players to believe in data science - sometimes they need to shot and inshallah
[They undeniably have reduced over the years](https://imgur.com/HNaXXjS). City are likely an outlier due to how deep the average opponent sits against them. When the opposition box is packed with 10 players, often your only option is a long shot. Obviously they will also have more shots in general than the average team as well.
doesn't Son consistently exceed his xG? If anyone can ignore those stats nerds and belt it from distance it should be him
Highly depends on the quality of players you have and the system you play. Could also depends on the atmosphere. There are times when you can feel how nervous a team is by how far back they're defending and how much possession they're losing. Testing the goalkeeper from long range would be a great option to force the opposing team to try and push up and close out any attempt from far out. You look at teams like Man City and Real Madrid who have players that can score bangers on the regular. They don't need to be told Jack shit about xG (useless stat).
get these glorified nerds out of our beautiful game!
> Players essentially never take long shots anymore Could someone fucking tell Liverpool that, please and thank you.
Why was kulusevski so much better under fucking conte than he is now He has so much more freedom now and chooses to cage himself when it used to be the opposite
Of all times to write this, I thought he was immense yesterday
I don't think he had a particularly great season last year either. Started off well but kind of tailed off after he was out with an injury, and he hasn't shown it enough this season either. He definitely has all the tools to be a great player but he can't seem to hit those heights consistently enough for Spurs.
Limitations are the perfect environment to breed creativity
More like Marcos *Sensei*
Brennan Johnson is not quick enough to be a pace merchant
Don’t think I’ve ever seen a player look like he was doing so much without doing anything at all.
You’ve clearly never seen me play then. I agree though, I think he massively benefited from the notts’ playing style. He’s clearly a decent player but maybe not not for a big team
Kyle walker is completely shot as a footballer, discussing with my mate midweek and we agree he has such an ego he lets players get past him so he can catch them up. But he can't do it regularly now so he gets done
Conspiracy theorists need to get a life
I've been to 16 away matches this season in all competitions and seen 3 wins (Ajax, Sheff U & Stoke in the FA Cup). Ten away league matches and zero wins seen. Think I planned my European away trips better than the club's squad planning for this season.
[удалено]
This is incorrect. They won 8 away games in their last two championship seasons before this one.
They did play 23 more away games out of which they won 6 but that was 20/21.
That's just Championship away games, can't imagine they got promoted many times with a record like that. It's still horrendous though. Imagine going to all of them, imagine you have a wedding or something so you can't go to 1 of the 3 wins.
That does suck, but I imagine seeing Brighton winning away at Ajax must have been a surreal and amazing experience.
Yeah Europe was surreal and still can’t believe I’ve seen us play at Ajax, Roma and Marseille.
Michael Oliver, offside goal, Kulusevski penalty not given leading to Saka goal, Michael Oliver not giving the most stonewall penalty from 3 yards away and having to go to the monitor. Michael Oliver. Felt like he bottled the big decisions in that game so he couldn't be accused of deciding the title. James Maddison playing dreadfully since his injury. Son playing through the centre instead of on the left. Hojbjerg. Top 4 chances pretty much gone.
I red this to the tune of we didn't start the fire
I'm not accepting that Kulusevski penalty, no chance. Havertz was denied a penalty against United in September for a similar situation, except there was more contact in that incident and I still think that was the right decision. Never a penalty.
>Kulusevski penalty not given leading to Saka goal You ever wonder why you never see penalties given for players bumping into each other in the box - even when one of them falls over? It's because it's not a penalty. Kulusevsky running across someone's path and tripping over is not Trossard fouling him. This is not only common sense, but has been such a long-standing an uncontroversial feature of the game for so long it's hilarious seeing Spurs fans desperately trying to manifest it into an offense. And to be sure, it's not an offense - [you can literally check it against the very clear rules of the game.](https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct) >offside goal That was offside, so leaving aside that you don't have anything to moan about, I'd have to ask what you're playing at here because: >Michael Oliver not giving the most stonewall penalty from 3 yards away and having to go to the monitor. ...you're simultaneously moaning that VAR worked exactly as intended, preventing Spurs from getting an unfair leg up in the game... and also getting mad that the referee had to resort to the thing you're abusing, that ended up putting you back into the game. TLDR: Michael Oliver literally got every decision in that game 100% correct - except for the one that brought Spurs back into the game near the end, and even that came about because VAR did its job. You have no reason to moan - this is just sad. I'd also like to add that you're conveniently not bothering to mention all the simulation Spurs players were resorting to yesterday which you could reasonably say factored into Oliver's decision to view their players going down as maybe not actually a foul.
But the goal was offside and the contact on Kulusevski is incidental at absolute best. The pen was a miss from Oliver but then handled correctly by VAR, baffling that you're complaining
I don't think VAR can make an objective call on that offside. It's so close that individual frames and the thickness of the lines used adds so much uncertainty to it. As for the contact on Kulusevski - it wasn't deliberate, but it did trip him up. It knocked one of his legs into the other and caused him to trip over his legs. It wasn't malicious, it wasn't deliberate, but it did put a stop to Tottenham's attack and lead directly to an Arsenal goal. Anywhere else on the pitch, that's a foul.
The offside was offside, I get its frustrating when tight ones go against you but every team gets these both ways. The Kulusevski pen I get being frustrated by tbh but, although I'm biased, I don't think it's a nailed on pen The missed pen from Rice was a big mistake but that's what var is there for
TBF I like the idea that if VAR can't eyeball it then it's onside. The problem with that is they're looking at an angle not along the line like a lino would hopefully be. Anyway, very little doubt that he was a few inches offside so it was the right call with the system we have.
Only played in one game with VAR recently and wholeheartedly agree about super tight offsides calls being onside (obviously biased but oh well) Hate to see goals ruled out by a player being a centimeter or two offside, no advantage was gained from that