September: Transfers! Southend! FOUR GAMES!!!!!!!!

[Don]

I suspect the Gerrard regen begins to get the deserved plaudits in the media once he lynches Bissouma and Sarr at the weekend.

[Waffdon]

Chilwell out for 4 weeks again with another hamstring injury. Making him and James Captain/Vice in retrospect was probably a bit silly

[Lofty]

Roberto de Turdi

[Waffdon]

Brighton without Colwill in defence :sick:

[Don]

Brav, that fucking wasteman was barely playing for them, it's replacing a world cup winner and a guinea-pig fryer with absolute fuck all that's done it and they think they're gonna play against us in this way :drool:

[niko_cee]

What's happened to that Dahoud guy? And who is Hinshelwood?

Looking at the stats presumably Villa are just murdering Brighton on the break, which is sort of the way to go against them.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

That is some finish from Andersen.

[Lewis]

United will do well to get top six this season. The 'keeper is shit; Mason Mount is as poo as I thought he was before I deluded myself otherwise; and Rashford is being allowed to play at creating again, which he is really, really bad at.

[Spikey M]

United will do well to get top half.

[Spikey M]

Oh, and lol at Everton, again.

[Kikó]

I'm sure we will be fine and get to 40 this season.

[Gray Fox]

Luton doing the lords work.

Spurs game pretty much a free hit given other results. Just dont concede first this time lads.

[Ben]

"Dom" is a hell of a player.

[Ben]

I'm no Liverpool fan but VAR has fucked them over there. Slow motion and still pictures messes it up. Fully agree with Neville on this.

[John Arne]

The ref didn't watch that tackle once at full speed.

[Gray Fox]

I can't wait for football without contact allowed because we're nearly there.

[Waffdon]

Can see it both ways.

Lucky he didn’t snap his ankle off though.

[Shindig]

Bayern is looking shell-shocked against the fizzy drink lot.

[thommo]

Haven't seen a full speed replay once. Feels real harsh for that to be a red.

[Ben]

Can see it both ways.

Lucky he didn’t snap his ankle off though.

That's part of sport, though. Not all injuries need punishing. His foot slipped off the ball.

We are so bad at VAR in this country. Whilst not anywhere near perfect, it's more than serviceable in just about every other league. The yearn for a "VAR super hub" (even giving it a fucking name) completely fucks the concept. Send the ref to the monitor and show him the same replays you would put on TV, nothing more. It'll work fine. You don't need bell ends talking shit in your ear who know no more than the average fan.

[niko_cee]

Red cards are pretty much like handball now, no one has any idea which way it's going to go [other than it being obvious once the VAR decides to either get involved or not]. I refer you back to the VAR not even looking at the Nketiah challenge on the Spuds 'keeper last week. Maybe this is an evening out for them, like Ange was hoping for [plus that handball they got done by].

[John Arne]

What am I missing? Looked well on...

[Waffdon]

Swear Diaz was miles onside there. Not even any of their funny lines

[Ben]

Erm, that's onside?

And now Son dishes out double punishment.

Klopp is annoying as fuck but he'll absolutely have a point tonight. VAR has fucked them twice in five minutes.

[Waffdon]

Erm, that's onside?

And now Son dishes out double punishment.

Klopp is annoying as fuck but he'll absolutely have a point tonight. VAR has fucked them twice in five minutes.

Can’t wait :drool:

His wife is definitely getting kicked about the living room

[Spikey M]

That did look onside, but that red was nailed on.

[niko_cee]

Liverpool need to get to half time to restructure things and get Endo, TAA and probably Nunez on at some point.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

lol, of course Gakpo fucks himself up scoring.

[Waffdon]

Liverpool really are back to that no tactics and all vibes. Means every game they’re in will entertaining as nailed on for btts if nothing else

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Thoughts on that Diaz chance at the end there, Taz?

[Waffdon]

Liverpool do look good when down to 10. The only thing I can think of is that it’s not much different to having 11 men for them as half the team doesn’t bother defending anyway. Teams will naturally push on against 10 men but Liverpool still have 2/3 players on the half way line on the break

[Gray Fox]

Favela cunt. Saved you the wait.

Such a strange half. Have played so well, but if Spurs go into mega pressing mode again we surely wont cope. A shame the ref ruined the game 11v11 though.

[niko_cee]

Maybe they should bring in a rule whereby you can field 418 [38 x 11] starting players across the season, but you can allocate them as you see fit [within the current limits of the game so if you go with 7 and get someone sent off you default lose]. Would appear to suit this current iteration of Liverpool. 3 straight reds in what, 7 games? That's some going.

[Gray Fox]

Only 1 of them an actual red mind you.

But yeah this is full chaos Klopp vibes from 2017. Only we have much superior personnel to then.

[Spikey M]

A shame the ref ruined the game 11v11 though.


Only 1 of them an actual red mind you.



:harold:

[niko_cee]

Yeah, that one ain't coming back.

The offside might make it into the Howard Webb Apology League Table though [the REAL league table].

[John Arne]

Endo on for MacAllister please.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

:lol:

Although the first card was not even a foul.

[Spikey M]

:lol:

[John Arne]

Yeah, first wasn't a yellow, second was.

[Gray Fox]

Jota brain dead.

[Waffdon]

Jota didn’t even complain about the first yellow did he? So I assume he clipped him. Can’t blame the referee though. Impossible to see and it’s an automatic yellow if given

[Gray Fox]

Yellows like the first happen all the time. It's mental to dive into a tackle straight after though.

[Waffdon]

Properly dreadful from spurs.

Taking off Maddison and Son when you need a goal doesn’t make much sense

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

:lol:

[Spikey M]

The Scouse tears are going to be delicious.

[Waffdon]

:lol: :lol:

Spurs were absolutely tragic there. Thank god Porro took over down the right and crossed it in because watching Kulusevski for the past 10 minutes was excruciating

[Dark Soldier]

Absolutely beautiful. They've been persecuted again. The Jesus of football.

[Kikó]

Good to see all the gammons from the north west lose today.

[John Arne]

Poor Joel.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

Seems Spurs have won a cup...

[John Arne]

Kulusevski is awful.

[niko_cee]

It's always the draws that kill you come the end of the season so good foresight to not rack up another.

[Waffdon]

Seems Spurs have won a cup...

These north Londoners will never learn

[Gray Fox]

All that has done is convince me this Liverpool team is going the right way.

Becoming horrible to beat even with red cards.

[Dark Soldier]

Seems Spurs have won a cup...

https://i.ytimg.com/vi/LnaOKRV79sQ/maxresdefault.jpg

Small clubs are always at it.

[niko_cee]

I'm guessing Jurgen isn't coming out for a pitchside interview with the Sky crew? :(

[niko_cee]

Also quite funny that the PGMOL have completely gone into the bunker on Diaz's goal. What was that, an hour and half ago? You would have thought you could get your story worked out in that time frame.

Can we just get rid of it all now [appreciate that would also have ruled the goal out]?

[Luke Emia]

I don’t think personally the Jones one is a red. But, if it’s given as a red you can see the reasoning behind it. However, when the ref gives a yellow I don’t think you can say it’s ‘clear and obvious’ it should be a red.

As for Jota it was idiotic from him with the second challenge. Not sure how much contact there was on either yellow but the second you dive in the second time you give the ref the chance to make a decision.

I thought Ten Hag had been on the crack pipe the other week with his ‘the lines are drawn from the wrong place.’ But what the fuck is going on with that Diaz one? Show the lines and prove it’s off because it looks onside to me and definitely felt tight enough that it should have been 2 minutes drawing the lines but it was checked in about 20 seconds.

[niko_cee]

Significant human error.

:happycry:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

PGMOL admit Luis Diaz offside decision was wrong
A statement from the refereeing body, the PGMOL:

PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool.

The goal by Luiz Diaz was disallowed for offside by the on-field team of match officials. This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention, however, the VAR failed to intervene.

PGMOL will conduct a full review into the circumstances which led to the error.

:harold:

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

"Robbed" "Scrap VAR" and "Replay" are all trending :harold:

[Kikó]

Another weekend of var being shit. It brings no value, bin it off and save the game.

[Waffdon]

Liverpool deserved that after VAR pretended Lukaku was offside in the cup final the other year

[niko_cee]

Can we just get rid of VAR? It's an absolute cancer from a match going perspective and, as Andros Townsend aptly pointed out, it just seems to have injected another layer of human error into the officiating process rather than having 'got rid of the howlers'. And, to make matters worse, things seem to have gone wildly wrong this year. Liverpool have managed two clear errors in, what, 7 games [assuming Mac Allister's overturned red counts as that even though the Howard Webb Apology wasn't forthcoming on that one]? That's a bit of a worrying rate isn't it? City had that goal against Fulham given which all sense suggested shouldn't have been [apology?] and Wolves got the shaft at United [apology?], no doubt there are more [Gary Neville now 'worried' about offside so maybe Crack Pipe Erik was onto something]. Brighton clocked up 3 apologies last season, two of which [Palace and Spurs] were significant and could well have been viewed as having cost them a spot in the top 4. I'm not sure what the solution is now that Pandora's box has been opened, but somehow it needs to be shut. Offisde should probably been as automated as possible with tracking taken off those man bra trackers they all wear [but even then you have the problem of apparent actual spastics being tasked with making it work]. You could say coach's challenge, but the reality is that football really doesn't lend itself to this sort of stuff, so if we could just draw the line at goal line and some sort of automated offside that would be grand. Although they even fucked up the goal line once didn't they [and relegated someone on the back of it]?

[Gray Fox]

Coaches challenge flag. Just like the NFL. Get it in there.

[niko_cee]

That'd be rubbish, and wouldn't work as it would wreck the flow of the game. There are no pauses for the challenge to be operable within, so what time limit do you put on it?

[Kikó]

Goal line tech and wait until ai can give instant offside calls.

[Gray Fox]

Or like cricket. You've 15 seconds after an incident to do the DRS sign down the camera for dramatic effect.

[niko_cee]

I have doubts about the challenge system.

The bigger issue is that VAR has ruined actual on the pitch refereeing. In that AEK game the other week the first penalty not being given seemed fair enough to me as it looked like Joao Pedro was looking for it, but every man and his dog in the stadium could see the defender had just booted him for the second and yet there was nothing doing. You put the safety net there, the refs rely on the safety net too much, which means the VAR has to be more interventionist, which just leads to more errors because they clearly start 'looking for things'.

The answer is to get rid of it.

[Kikó]

Of course it is. Why did we ever need every decision to be perfect anyway?

[Spoonsky]

Got done for pressing too high 20 seconds before the goal.

Really like this team though. More somehow than I expected I would. Agreed with others that it has that 2017-18 feeling where anything can happen in any game. Which deep down I might prefer to the optimized clinical couple years that followed, though obviously they were amazing too.

[Don]

True but you reap the rewards of such bravery as per Newcastle game so net gain +2 pts with that attitude. The juggernaut that is the Brexit Gammon Man continuing to ruin VAR/The Game. Good weekend all in all thanks to Wolves.

[Lewis]

https://www.thesun.co.uk/sport/24217476/bradley-lowerys-mum-sunderland-supporters-cops/

I love things like this. The thought processes behind the initial act, the reaction, the police inevitably getting involved.

[thommo]

Whilst it's a pretty deplorable act, fundamentally they've done nothing more than hold up a photo so why are the police involved and taking it "very seriously"?

[Baz]

Because people are soft.

[niko_cee]

Modern hate crime.

I'm quite enjoying the rumoured goings on behind that offside goal being that the VARs [yes multiple] did all the right work, drew the lines etc and realised the goal should have stood but when it came to communicating that fact to the ref the FULL VAR shat the bed and just said CHECK COMPLETE! and that was that. Seems a little mind bottling, and also a bit unbelievable given the time turnaround.

[niko_cee]

That Gordon penalty is another example of him moving towards the tackler [and away from the ball].

[Shindig]

Another soft one but the ref gave it immediately. Such is Gordon's conviction at the art of falling over.

[Don]

Do they record all the VARs or did they just do it that once for banter? If the former, let's have the little black box, it'll probs lead to the death of the cancer (VAR, not Brexit Gammon Man).

[John Arne]

Lautaro on as a sub and scores all 4 goals in 27 minutes.

[niko_cee]

Do they record all the VARs or did they just do it that once for banter? If the former, let's have the little black box, it'll probs lead to the death of the cancer (VAR, not Brexit Gammon Man).

I think they do, but I don't think the last release played all that well so I doubt they're going to release the one where one of them says I've got Son FGS.

[niko_cee]

Whilst it's a pretty deplorable act, fundamentally they've done nothing more than hold up a photo so why are the police involved and taking it "very seriously"?

These being adjacent stories on the BBC's most read thing is quite funny:

Number 5 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-66974506)

Number 6 (https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-south-yorkshire-66972872)

Quite a juxtaposition.

[Giggles]

They seem to be taking this as as only Liverpool fans can. Twitter is awash with conspiracy theories and replay shouts :D

[Jimmy Floyd]

Of course it is. Why did we ever need every decision to be perfect anyway?

Because there's a refereeing conspiracy against my favourite team.

[Kikó]

1708227767139971137?s=19

This is a blatant red btw.

[Spikey M]

They think this is a penalty? :D

1708227764589863116?t=87Ndc44DnD8VWaZ3dBNEwA&s=19

[niko_cee]

1708227767139971137?s=19

This is a blatant red btw.

With that one, if you consider the divergence of opinion (with virtually every former player lining up to say it wasn't) I'm not sure the error was sufficiently clear and obvious to warrant a change to the on field decision, unless freeze frame imagery is also a 'factual matter' a la offside.

If I was less lazy I'd dig out a freeze frame of Gusto and Nketiah from last week, and of the three the worst actual tackle was the only one not upgraded by the VAR.

I think the bigger concern is how it is presented to the referee as a fait accomplis on the screen, but this equally applies to almost every other 'I think you need to have a look at this' VAR referral.

Slo-motion has a seriously distortive effect on decision making (seen in other sports such as cricket with catches near the ground) but I don't know how you compensate for that. It manifested itself first with handball (the one Croatia got done with the WC final a classic example) but now it is in every part of the review process.

[Yevrah]

I was getting bored of football anyway as I'm old and I've seen most things now, but I think VAR is genuinely proving to be the final nail in the coffin. It's just absolutely horrid, on every level.

[Max Power]

Have to say being in the Championship now, one of the nice things is knowing that if a goal goes in or a penalty is given you are sure that’s what happened. No endless waiting around in the ground for them to find a reason to ruin fun.

[ScousePig]

Whilst it's a pretty deplorable act, fundamentally they've done nothing more than hold up a photo so why are the police involved and taking it "very seriously"?

'Outraging public decency' is what they're being held on. There have been a couple of laws/acts passed recently over this kind of stuff.

[Yevrah]

Indeed. It would still be shit if it got every decision ‘right’, but it can’t even do that.

[Baz]

'Outraging public decency' is what they're being held on. There have been a couple of laws/acts passed recently over this kind of stuff.

Spikey should probably change his avatar.

[Spikey M]

Leave my boy alone

[Kikó]

With that one, if you consider the divergence of opinion (with virtually every former player lining up to say it wasn't) I'm not sure the error was sufficiently clear and obvious to warrant a change to the on field decision, unless freeze frame imagery is also a 'factual matter' a la offside.

Once you go over the ball and into the player like that, you're in dangerous tackle territory. I'm not sure how can argue it's a bad decision or contentious.

But anyway, I'd be happy for something like that retrospectively looked at and banned rather than in game.

[randomlegend]

Anyone arguing that isn't a red is braindead.

[Spikey M]

It's not even one of these "new" red cards either. There have been many of them over the past few seasons alone.

But yeah, Liverpool innit.

[Sir Andy Mahowry]

It's not September anymore, dickheads.

[randomlegend]

What we're discussing happened in September though. Dickhead.

[Spikey M]

And it's not our fault Ian is a dirty great slacker.

[Ian]

I made the thread an hour and a half ago.

[Baz]

:lol:

[Spikey M]

I made the thread an hour and a half ago.

You need better marketing imo