Brighton 1-1 Liverpool - Saturday 28th November, 2020

[Dr. Gonzo]

This starts at the top. Mike Riley should be sacked, he never should have been given the job in the first place considering how shit of a referee he was.

But if you want officials in England to be better, we can’t have the guy who is their boss be one of the worst refs of our lifetimes. He should never have been hired, but he needs to be out of a job ASAP

[Rick]

Who is that interviewer? They are a cunt. Nothing Klopp said is wrong. And I loved the dig at the likes of Chris Wilder too; somebody who is so short sighted it’s unbelievable. 
 

The fact there are teams in this league blocking the 5 subs rule shows just how stupid they are. I mean, the EFL have done it, yet we are still here scratching our heads. Pathetic from the clubs who are voting against, no care for the safety of the players. 

[Cicero]

2 minutes ago, Rick said:

Who is that interviewer? They are a cunt. Nothing Klopp said is wrong. And I loved the dig at the likes of Chris Wilder too; somebody who is so short sighted it’s unbelievable. 

He was blaming the broadcasters tbf. Kind of weird. 

[LFCMike]

3 minutes ago, Rick said:

Who is that interviewer? They are a cunt. Nothing Klopp said is wrong. And I loved the dig at the likes of Chris Wilder too; somebody who is so short sighted it’s unbelievable. 
 

The fact there are teams in this league blocking the 5 subs rule shows just how stupid they are. I mean, the EFL have done it, yet we are still here scratching our heads. Pathetic from the clubs who are voting against, no care for the safety of the players. 

Completely missing the point wasn't he, almost like it was deliberate to get a rise out of Klopp

[Rick]

Just now, Cicero said:

He was blaming the broadcasters tbf. Kind of weird. 

They’ve got a lot of pull with kick off times. Putting clubs who have played in Europe on at midday on a Saturday is stupid. 

[Danny]

Just now, Rick said:

They’ve got a lot of pull with kick off times. Putting clubs who have played in Europe on at midday on a Saturday is stupid. 

I think in this case clubs/PL/broadcasters need to work out a deal that means a club can decide when they want to play but obviously for less money from the broadcaster if it's at a lesser time

[LFCMadLad]

Just now, Rick said:

They’ve got a lot of pull with kick off times. Putting clubs who have played in Europe on at midday on a Saturday is stupid. 

Especially when West Ham for example won't have had a game in about 9 days by the time they play on Monday night. 

Its shocking really. Its almost as if .... 

[Danny]

2 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

Especially when West Ham for example won't have had a game in about 9 days by the time they play on Monday night. 

Its shocking really. Its almost as if .... 

Broadcasters are joining forces to manufacture West Ham winning the league?

[Cicero]

5 minutes ago, Rick said:

They’ve got a lot of pull with kick off times. Putting clubs who have played in Europe on at midday on a Saturday is stupid. 

I agree but personally the bigger issue is the lack of 5 substitutes to accommodate this fixture list. 

[Dan+]

21 minutes ago, Danny said:

If anything it just highlights how big the margin for error is in football

 

 

That tweet is spot on. Get it gone. Forensic football is fucking abysmal. They're aiming for a goal they will never achieve.

[Burning Gold]

2 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

They abandoned the "clear and obvious" line about 3 weeks after they started using VAR because they decided they want to interfere more in pursuit of perfect consistency. They just dropped the phrase overnight, didn't announce anything because they didn't want us to notice.

I don't think that's necessarily true. You can't have "clear and obvious" for things like offsides or the keeper's foot being on the line, but we definitely had it for contact fouls. It just felt like some referees felt more empowered to overrule than others, which will always be the case

Now we have them going to the monitor, it's treated as a second chance to make the decision rather than a review with "clear and obvious" being the threshold.

The problem is "clear and obvious" is so vague you were always going to get wildly different interpretations of it. They have it in other sports; umpires call, insufficient evidence to overturn, and "is there any reason I can't give..." will all be familiar phrases to fans of other sports, but they're accompanied by very objective criteria. Did the ball touch the ground? Was the player's foot over the white line? Was there downward pressure? All objective things, but there's an acknowledgement that sometimes you can't tell, hence umpires call, etc.

What's the criteria for a foul in football? According to that penalty, it's any contact at all, but there are incidents in other games (and will have been incidents in the same game) that meet that criteria but are knowingly not given. What about when the defender touches the ball? The idea that that precludes anything from being a foul has gone out the window in the last 5 years or so, but it still clearly means something, but can anyone objectively tell you what?

[RandoEFC+]

Is the fixture list that much more demanding than other seasons where we also never had 3 substitutes? Genuine question, I don't pay enough attention to the Champions League to know how much difference there is in the schedule this season. I have no major issue with the 5 substitutes thing but it does benefit those with a strong enough squad to bring 5 Premier League quality players off the bench so it's no surprise that teams like Sheffield United aren't going to vote in favour of that.

Of course it's a bit dumb that a team that played on Wednesday plays first on the Saturday but it isn't a unique situation. It's the same gap as the Thursday-Sunday one faced by the teams in the Europa League every week give or take a few hours.

Of course the broadcasting companies have a say in which games happen and when, sometimes it works in your favour and sometimes it works against you. The table below is doing the rounds on Twitter in response to Klopp's comments. Liverpool have been one of the better served sides when it comes to the gap between Christmas fixtures. There are swings and roundabouts. Liverpool are clearly in an unusually difficult situation right now with the number of injuries they've got.

[LFCMadLad]

Would anybody be disappointed if VAR was fucked off completely? Geniune question. 

It clearly doesn't work in football and as a result, the game is being ruined. 

[RandoEFC+]

Just now, LFCMadLad said:

Would anybody be disappointed if VAR was fucked off completely? Geniune question. 

It clearly doesn't work in football and as a result, the game is being ruined. 

In its current form I don't think anyone would complain but I'd sooner see pretty much everyone who has been associated with its implementation in the Premier League fucked off and get some of the people who have implemented technology successfully in sports like rugby and tennis come and have a go before we decide there's no method that will allow it to improve officiating.

I've personally seen nothing to change my opinion that the way they've tried to put new rules in that they think can be implemented now there are video replays, along with the lack of consistency and competence of the officials are the bigger problems.

Having more replays should lead to better decision making, there's no two ways about that. It's the human decision making behind when and how to use the technology that's pissing everyone off so I'd try some different humans.

[Rick]

5 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Is the fixture list that much more demanding than other seasons where we also never had 3 substitutes? Genuine question, I don't pay enough attention to the Champions League to know how much difference there is in the schedule this season. I have no major issue with the 5 substitutes thing but it does benefit those with a strong enough squad to bring 5 Premier League quality players off the bench so it's no surprise that teams like Sheffield United aren't going to vote in favour of that.

Of course it's a bit dumb that a team that played on Wednesday plays first on the Saturday but it isn't a unique situation. It's the same gap as the Thursday-Sunday one faced by the teams in the Europa League every week give or take a few hours.

Of course the broadcasting companies have a say in which games happen and when, sometimes it works in your favour and sometimes it works against you. The table below is doing the rounds on Twitter in response to Klopp's comments. Liverpool have been one of the better served sides when it comes to the gap between Christmas fixtures. There are swings and roundabouts. Liverpool are clearly in an unusually difficult situation right now with the number of injuries they've got.

No pre-season before the season. The champions league group games are every week now as well. 

[Cicero]

3 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

Is the fixture list that much more demanding than other seasons where we also never had 3 substitutes? Genuine question, I don't pay enough attention to the Champions League to know how much difference there is in the schedule this season. I have no major issue with the 5 substitutes thing but it does benefit those with a strong enough squad to bring 5 Premier League quality players off the bench so it's no surprise that teams like Sheffield United aren't going to vote in favour of that.

Of course it's a bit dumb that a team that played on Wednesday plays first on the Saturday but it isn't a unique situation. It's the same gap as the Thursday-Sunday one faced by the teams in the Europa League every week give or take a few hours.

Of course the broadcasting companies have a say in which games happen and when, sometimes it works in your favour and sometimes it works against you. The table below is doing the rounds on Twitter in response to Klopp's comments. Liverpool have been one of the better served sides when it comes to the gap between Christmas fixtures. There are swings and roundabouts. Liverpool are clearly in an unusually difficult situation right now with the number of injuries they've got.

It's the lack of preseason really. Being thrown into a fixture list that includes internationals only increases the exposure of muscular fatigue. The mental thing is that we've had all these injuries yet we've just entered the hectic part of the season. From last Saturday until March, most clubs have a game every three days with the exception of a week in December and January. 

 

[Burning Gold]

 

28 minutes ago, The Artful Dodger said:

All decisions correct for me, some people struggling to adjust to how football is now.
 

Id love footy to be how it is in a Sunday league game but it just isn’t. 

I do think there's a faux-nostalgia for a time that never really existed. People say things like "that's so close no linesman would give it" when in reality they fucking would and they'd be guessing, or "he would've been level in the old days" which is a concept that simply doesn't exist in reality and never has. If the goal is getting decisions right, VAR is clearly a better way than what we used to do, but the implementation is so imperfect there's a strong argument it's not worth it from an entertainment perspective. It's shocking to me that they've introduced a clearly incomplete product to the highest levels of football and are simply experimenting with trial and error mid-season. For me, that seriously damages any claim to strengthen sporting integrity it may make

[Burning Gold]

7 minutes ago, Cicero said:

It's the lack of preseason really. Being thrown into a fixture list that includes internationals only increases the exposure of muscular fatigue. The mental thing is that we've had all these injuries yet we've just entered the hectic part of the season. From last Saturday until March, most clubs have a game every three days with the exception of a week in December and January. 

 

Haven't internationals been increased to 3 games per break now instead of 2 as well? Could be wrong on that, to be fair, but I've got that impression from somewhere

[LFCMadLad]

12 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

In its current form I don't think anyone would complain but I'd sooner see pretty much everyone who has been associated with its implementation in the Premier League fucked off and get some of the people who have implemented technology successfully in sports like rugby and tennis come and have a go before we decide there's no method that will allow it to improve officiating.

I've personally seen nothing to change my opinion that the way they've tried to put new rules in that they think can be implemented now there are video replays, along with the lack of consistency and competence of the officials are the bigger problems.

Having more replays should lead to better decision making, there's no two ways about that. It's the human decision making behind when and how to use the technology that's pissing everyone off so I'd try some different humans.

Cant agree mate. Football used to be magical, even with the odd poor decisions.

Now the game is just suffocated in controversy because everything is reviewed. Even when the correct decision is eventually reached, the moment has gone, the magic has been replaced by.. well, waiting. 

I dont think anyone can hand on heart say that football wasn't better before video technology. 

Not everyone agrees that VAR is shite or not. What everyone can agree on however is that its not working, its not likely to improve and therefore football is better off without it.

 

[RandoEFC+]

7 minutes ago, Burning Gold said:

I don't think that's necessarily true. You can't have "clear and obvious" for things like offsides or the keeper's foot being on the line, but we definitely had it for contact fouls. It just felt like some referees felt more empowered to overrule than others, which will always be the case

Now we have them going to the monitor, it's treated as a second chance to make the decision rather than a review with "clear and obvious" being the threshold.

The problem is "clear and obvious" is so vague you were always going to get wildly different interpretations of it. They have it in other sports; umpires call, insufficient evidence to overturn, and "is there any reason I can't give..." will all be familiar phrases to fans of other sports, but they're accompanied by very objective criteria. Did the ball touch the ground? Was the player's foot over the white line? Was there downward pressure? All objective things, but there's an acknowledgement that sometimes you can't tell, hence umpires call, etc.

What's the criteria for a foul in football? According to that penalty, it's any contact at all, but there are incidents in other games (and will have been incidents in the same game) that meet that criteria but are knowingly not given. What about when the defender touches the ball? The idea that that precludes anything from being a foul has gone out the window in the last 5 years or so, but it still clearly means something, but can anyone objectively tell you what?

I don't disagree with most of what you say. It doesn't change my mind about what I said in the first place though. In the run up to the start of last season and the first few weeks you couldn't watch a football match without hearing the phrase "clear and obvious".

There just isn't any clear and obvious now. If something is on a tight margin, instead of letting the on-pitch decision stand, they analyse the shit out of it to decide which side of the line it falls on. 

For me there's been a noticeable drop of that phrase since very early on. We were told that they would only intervene on clear and obvious issues and it became, well, clear and obvious, that that wasn't the truth pretty quickly. And then it was just weird how there was never a big debate (and I'm talking about the national media and referees really, theres been plenty of debate on here for example) about whether or not the interventions were clear and obvious or not. It was just sort of accepted that they were going to over analyse any marginal call. And if they want to do that then fine, in theory that leads to more correct decisions that would otherwise have slipped through the net and given teams righteous cause to kick off. Too bad the decision making isn't consistent enough for that to be reflected in practice. But they never really said actually, we've changed our mind on the clear and obvious thing, we're going to use a lower bar for intervention because we think that'll lead to more consistent officiating.

I just get this feeling with the referees association, and this is going to sound weird, but they're like the current UK government. It's like whenever they mess up or change their mind about something, they just front it up and tell us something that sounds vaguely plausible about how actually that's what they said they were going to do all along, but when you start asking questions, it falls to pieces and makes no sense. But the media never ask those questions and to be fair to them, they never get the chance to speak to referees or the likes of Mike Riley who run things from the top. The massive emphasis on clear and obvious errors and high bar for intervention at the start just seemed to vanish without comment and that seems in keeping with this perception I have of the officiating "establishment".

[Lucas]

24 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

Would anybody be disappointed if VAR was fucked off completely? Geniune question. 

It clearly doesn't work in football and as a result, the game is being ruined. 

I don't like it in terms of it effecting the spectacle of the game but I do think it can work and it has on many occasions. It's just how we go about tightening it up.

The offsides need clearing up, as does the whole handball thing. If we can stop taking random measurements with all these lines and say stick with where the foot is, I think gradually people will come round to it. The consistency of these decisions is the issue. 

As for penalties, that will always come down to interpretation. It's just that one ref see's as a foul, others don't presently. So ultimately, maybe we need to look at developing referee's further.

[RandoEFC+]

1 minute ago, LFCMadLad said:

Cant agree mate. Football used to be magical, even with the odd poor decisions.

Now the game is just suffocated in controversy because everything is reviewed. Even when the correct decision is eventually reached, the moment has gone, the magic has been replaced by.. well, waiting. 

I dont think anyone can hand on heart say that football wasn't better before video technology. 

 

The waiting thing is a serious issue, I can't deny it. They managed to turn Hawkeye into a fun crowd thing in tennis, I don't know if the same thing is possible in football. If there's a way of doing so, I don't have it, but people who have implemented it successfully in other sport might. If they can't get VAR to work then yeah, maybe it's just not compatible with football. I think it's here to stay though and eventually it'll just become begrudgingly accepted.

The only thing I take issue with what you've said is that football has been steeped in controversy for as long as I can remember. VAR has probably caused the most rabid controversy yet but it's not a new thing. Controversial decisions in football would dominate the headlines after games 5, 10, 15 years ago. People will complain the second you take it away again and an offside goal in a big game is allowed to stand. Football fans are just a massively whiney bunch compared to other sports if we're being honest. But I agree that VAR has made it worse because I used to think it was bad how much time we'd spend talking about referees, now it's probably at least twice as bad.

[Burning Gold]

25 minutes ago, LFCMadLad said:

Would anybody be disappointed if VAR was fucked off completely? Geniune question. 

It clearly doesn't work in football and as a result, the game is being ruined. 

Fucked off for now at this level? Honestly, probably not. The implementation is so flawed for this level, as I've said above

But if it's binned off forever, yeah, probably. It works in every other sport, and I genuinely don't think I've seen anything that tells me it's fatally flawed in football.

[Lucas]

Ignoring the whole VAR thing, I did question at the time why he took Salah off so early.

Surely the right call would have been Mane for Minamino at the time? Get the game safe first. You'd think on the break as well as the game draws to the end Salah would be huge on the counter.

At 1-0, it is always a risk trying to conserve minutes for players and I know it was unfortunate, but can't help but feel he shot himself in the foot there.

[Guest]

So let me guess liverpool had a var decision go against them and so now we need to get rid of it and change the rules to suit them.