Week 9 - 10/21-22 - Gamethread Cross the Mersey
- Thread starter OCST
- Start date
This really is an interesting quandary. The punishment (added time) really did become a reward.
How many Mo Salah stoppage time daggers have we seen? He’s always the one that pads the lead late.
Young’s second yellow is the first a Liverpool opponent has received since Sadio Mané (Southampton) in October 2015.
Every other side has a minimum of 5 in that span, most over 10.
Every other side has a minimum of 5 in that span, most over 10.
Diaz with a very influential game … fouled by Young twice for the red card and drew the handball foul
Ashley looked like me trying to handle the 20-somethings who show up on Weds nights. Not a good sign.
Doku on Milner feels like one of those obvious mismatches I’m going to be infuriated we aren’t exploiting at the half
It must be an enormously difficult mental adjustment for aging athletes to manage their declining physical skills with what once were routine decisions. You would think that - at 38 - he would have already gone through that adjustment.
I struggle to see why Dyche would put him in that situation to begin with.
I expected that. Doesn’t bother me. Bodies forward with 10 men to get a late equalizer
It would be nice if extra time had a little more logic … Liverpool/Everton had 9 minutes with practically no extended stoppages other than Everton time wasting. City/Brighton had 4 … which didn’t include ~8 minute injury to Solly March at the end of regulation … should have been at least 12 minutes yet the ref blows at 9
Poch clearly has Chelsea playing at a much better level than at the start of the season. They've got a lot of young talent that he can mold into his vision, which he hasn't had since his early days at Tottenham. Very impressive first half against Arsenal.
Or, maybe we can agree the new system 1. has a loophole and 2. isn’t applied consistently?
1. A team wouldn't intentionally create extra time just in case they end up conceding a goal and needing it. It’s self defeating. But if they do lose their objective they get all the time back they took from their opponents. That’s not good.
2. 9 long minutes nobody can understand versus 4 short minutes that fly in the face of an injury means the system lacks guidance or clarity and needs to be addressed.
Their run last year aged them in a very positive way. All of a sudden, they have a character that they didn't have before. Of the two teams on the pitch now, they are the only one that seems likely to take all three points.
You guys know you won the game, right? You had a penalty, a red card for and a red card ignored in your favor. Yet we are still taking about the refs? It’s exhausting.
The match is a certain duration. The intent of adding on time is to make the match the right duration no matter what. The team that time wasted then concedes gets some time back, true, but they also likely played less aggressively for a major portion of the match and still have less time to score. This is football, defend until the final whistle whenever it comes
I’m not sure how it could be any clearer that I was talking about an inherent flaw in the system. It sucks that a team- any team, can burn massive amounts of clock and have it handed back to them. It also sucks that you can watch two games and have that extra time applied in completely different ways.
We are complaining about the officiating because it is uniformly bad.
So - who is actually responsible for deciding the amount of extra time ? The ref? The 4th official (which would make sense as he doesn’t have much else to do)?
The first few match days saw the FIFA method applied - routinely resulting in 7-10 minutes of extra time. There were a ton of complaints from players. The last 2 or 3 match days saw extra time return to previous season’s levels - one assumes as a result of the near universal complaining.
And then today the Merseyside derby gets 9 minutes! Was this old rules or new rules or old/new rules? A couple of VAR checks which might have used a couple of minutes plus general time wasting maybe another couple.
The city game had 4 flash up as March was being treated. He went down ~86/87 mark and play restarted at 94 - unless you think March’s injury contributed to the 4 which would be kind of silly- so why didn’t the ref add 12 minutes? The game ended at 99
Is it too much to ask for some consistency? Right - of course it is. No one is policing these clowns.
So - who is actually responsible for deciding the amount of extra time ? The ref? The 4th official (which would make sense as he doesn’t have much else to do)?
The first few match days saw the FIFA method applied - routinely resulting in 7-10 minutes of extra time. There were a ton of complaints from players. The last 2 or 3 match days saw extra time return to previous season’s levels - one assumes as a result of the near universal complaining.
And then today the Merseyside derby gets 9 minutes! Was this old rules or new rules or old/new rules? A couple of VAR checks which might have used a couple of minutes plus general time wasting maybe another couple.
The city game had 4 flash up as March was being treated. He went down ~86/87 mark and play restarted at 94 - unless you think March’s injury contributed to the 4 which would be kind of silly- so why didn’t the ref add 12 minutes? The game ended at 99
Is it too much to ask for some consistency? Right - of course it is. No one is policing these clowns.
Why can’t we have a discussion about two games in the same competition played on the same day using two different rule sets? Isn’t that disturbing to anybody?
The comparison with the City match isn’t even true. March went off at the 88th minute. The sub to replace him was at 90+4. They had put up +4 and played an extra 5 minutes over that. They blew final whistle at 90+9. Maybe there’s an extra 30 seconds you could argue for but this is hardly the crime you seem to insinuate it is.
There were two rulesets though. Akanji was sent off for less than Konate. Also Rodri was given a yellow for something almost nobody gets a yellow for. City had 3 yellow cards on 9 fouls. At the end Foden won the ball cleanly and Brighton was awarded a free kick for a dangerous set play at the death. Clearly the refs are conspiring against Manchester City. Do you see how easy this is to do? Every club has a subset of fans seeing all the decisions stack up against them every week.
I can agree that the officiating isn’t great. I don’t think it’s actually been materially worse this year than prior years. They just mess up VAR too much. The “clear and obvious” error standard forces us to ignore what our eyes see in favor of deference to the original decision. The handball rule is still extremely difficult to interpret particularly in ball to hand scenarios. And yes, Liverpool got royally screwed by that offside decision which was a new kind of screw up. But you guys are watching these matches completely on tilt.
There were two rulesets though. Akanji was sent off for less than Konate. Also Rodri was given a yellow for something almost nobody gets a yellow for. City had 3 yellow cards on 9 fouls. At the end Foden won the ball cleanly and Brighton was awarded a free kick for a dangerous set play at the death. Clearly the refs are conspiring against Manchester City. Do you see how easy this is to do? Every club has a subset of fans seeing all the decisions stack up against them every week.
I can agree that the officiating isn’t great. I don’t think it’s actually been materially worse this year than prior years. They just mess up VAR too much. The “clear and obvious” error standard forces us to ignore what our eyes see in favor of deference to the original decision. The handball rule is still extremely difficult to interpret particularly in ball to hand scenarios. And yes, Liverpool got royally screwed by that offside decision which was a new kind of screw up. But you guys are watching these matches completely on tilt.
Edit: Nevermind - had a long rant queued up but thought better if it.
Edit #2 the extra time comments weren’t being viewed through any conspiracy theory lens - - just was a weird discrepancy in how it’s interpreted
Last edited:
look, I’m on the opposite side of many things from SM and I’m an Everton fan of course but 9’ was way too much.
I will not complain about the Keane handball call. Right call. He is a doofus.
I will not complain about Young. The first yellow was soft. The second was idiotic.
I will complain that Konate (sp?) should have been booked a second time. Klopp knew it, he yanked him right away after the non call. Everton had neutralized Pool so if it’s 10 v 10 for the last quarter of the game maybe we get something. Sure would have been a momentum shift.
that’s what is worth bitching about.
I will not complain about the Keane handball call. Right call. He is a doofus.
I will not complain about Young. The first yellow was soft. The second was idiotic.
I will complain that Konate (sp?) should have been booked a second time. Klopp knew it, he yanked him right away after the non call. Everton had neutralized Pool so if it’s 10 v 10 for the last quarter of the game maybe we get something. Sure would have been a momentum shift.
that’s what is worth bitching about.
The Konate thing - I’ve certainly seen yellows given for far less … but, if he hadn’t already been on a yellow would there have been any hue and cry over not getting one? He didn’t grab or trip or kick or do anything dangerous - just got in his way. It would have been a very soft yellow IMO.
The problem is yellow cards are given for really trivial fouls half the time (especially disciplinary cards) without any consistency within a game. But the threshold should really be higher for a second yellow. Because of this I think second yellows should always be VAR reviewed - they really should be stone cold decisions. Not that I really want more VAR involvement.
From the IFAB rules of the game , in the “Cautions for unsporting behaviour section “
“commits any other offence which interferes with or stops a promising attack except where the referee awards a penalty kick for an offence which was an attempt to play the ball or for a challenge for the ball”
This is an incredibly vague rule and could be called for dozens of fouls in a game. There is no mention of the “attempt to play the ball” in non PEN scenarios. But in common practice I think that’s an important criteria.
Speaking of VAR - I’ve been watching some Rugby World Cup games and I love, love, love the way VAR is handled - real time audio (stadium and broadcast) of the whole process
As for the non call influencing the game .. I think playing down a man decreased the likelihood of the Reds scoring FWIW - something Klopp agreed with in his post match presser. I’ve been really impressed by how well teams can defend when they abandon their opponents half. It always seems to take a lot of luck - PENs or own goals etc to concede.
Of course it more or less eliminated any chance of Everton scoring - which didn’t look too likely even 11v11
This Claret and Blue Derby is a decent match. Villa deserve their one goal lead. But Lee Dixon's 'bored man who cares not for that which is beyond his ken or sphere of interest' schtick is a fuckin chore to endure. Yesterday you had Rio Ferdinand and Super Ally McRoyalist doing co comms and it was a joy of ebullience and enthusiasm. Dixon has no idea how dull he is. Someone needs to tell him.
Alvarez makes a rash challenge he didn't really need to make, soft pen in my opinion but i hear it. Luiz is now on a hat-trick. Plenty time for West Ham to fight back.
Great ball from McGinn, but that's a great finish from Watkins who had a bit to do.
3-1, just as West Ham were clawing their way back.
3-1, just as West Ham were clawing their way back.
Things I have not researched but feel pretty confident stating: this is the first time four Yanks start in a Serie A game. Pulisic, Musah, Weah, McKennie all start in the Juve-Milan game. I almost need to pinch myself.
https://x.com/usmntotaku/status/1716148654002876749?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ
https://x.com/usmntotaku/status/1716148654002876749?s=46&t=XvGOrrWIyL-5CHVVL_0JYQ
Straight red for Milan (edit: it was Thiaw) for a DOGSO, down to ten against Juve.
Edit: and Pulisic gets subbed off as Milan shifts to a more defensive lineup.
Edit: and Pulisic gets subbed off as Milan shifts to a more defensive lineup.
Last edited:
Ended 4-1. Villa are tough at home. I like how WH have come back from a pretty terrible place as a club a few years back but they were second best today.