Smiley Culture

Definitely the best English left-back of our generation but he’ll always be categorised in an England shirt as an underachiever having played in that period between about 2002-2008 where, on that footballing clichè of on paper, we had a good squad that failed to progress beyond the QF’s of any tournament. Will also be remembered as one of the most hated players of that period, too for the whole “Cashley” thing around Arsenal’s contract offer and his subsequent move to Chelsea. An excellent player who had a superb career.

We’ve already kicked off silly season, after backing him all summer, Huddersfield sacked that fella nobody had heard of after he didn’t manage to change a mentality inside of three games and Sol Campbell has, rightfully, left Macclesfield after not being paid for four months. Whose next? Warnock? Nathan Jones?

I will be honest with you, I know very little about them beyond the basics of what League they’re in. Sorry for the useless help mate.

YouTube are still showing all Segunda games live, for anyone that is interested.

Blame the laws of the game, not VAR. The handball rules are awful, VAR isn’t.

There’s absolutely no way a man whose won eight games out of thirty managed at the bottom of League Two will jump up to manage a recently relegated side from the Premier League.

Exactly. Changing a mentality and what’s essentially become habit doesn’t happen instantaneously.

Win percentage of 5.3%. I’ve had beers stronger than that. The announcement is poorly timed for me. You just don’t think to sack a manager after three games of a season. The board have obviously had their doubts about him, and rightly so, for a while, so I just don’t get why they’d give him a whole summer to change the team before sacking him after three games. It would have made more sense to sack him in May, replace him and start fresh then.

That’s exactly my point. It’s an assistance to referee’s. It’s an aide. Like linesmen. It’s not perfect, nobody has claimed it is or will be. As for the spectacle, that’s debatable.

Why should a referee, the most important person who needs numerous views, get one view of an incident and be forced to make a decision based off an incident at a ridiculous speed, while we get to see the decision numerous times from numerous angles while we sit in the pub? There are decisions where referees are essentially forced into a guess. Whats the barometer for too many? What’s the figure? It’s like anything to do with refereeing, we don’t shout about how they have good games, we shout about how they’ve had a bad game and it’s the same principle with VAR.

But it has assisted, though. It’s helped referee’s make numerous correct calls for decisions they’d otherwise have to likely guess on. However, we only highlight the incorrect calls as if it’s the worst thing ever. Referees aren’t incompetent either.

Why are they? Video assistance is exactly that, assistance. No person from FIFA, UEFA or any FA has said that it’s perfect and that it’s going to eradicate all human errors from the game. It’s not. It’s used to help referee’s. Human error is natural and even with a video, human error is still going to happen.

Went to the London Stadium for the friendly against West Ham the other week. Was a choice between that or a competitive game, of which the only ones were in the ninth tier, so it was quite an easy decision to see a club of such trad and history. Inaki Williams is some player.

One game a week is pathetic for one of the best leagues in the world. Hope it leads to more games and a wider selection of teams shown, you couldn’t beat an 11am Sunday game between Osasuna and Sporting Gijon.

Stop moaning about video assistance.