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Premier League 2023/24 Gameweek 28 - 9-13th March, 2024


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Heard Unai's post match comments in BBC interview. Unlike so many more successful & less successful managers : No moaning about the audacity of having a mid week European match. No moaning about McGinn only being a yellow. Also chose to subtly ignore the inaccurate analysis Spurs had controlled the 1st half. Just a basic & humble admission it becomes difficult at 0-2 & down to 10 men. For better or worse, it's because of this management style Villa surely have, if nothing else, a more well grounded & calm squad of players than many have.

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4 minutes ago, Danny said:

What's everyone think about the VAR call? Can't lie I'm at a loss as to how studs down someone's chest/belly isn't a foul. Probably a yellow card anywhere else on the pitch

100% a penalty.

Fair enough if a ref misses it because their one angle could/may be obscured by other players.

But VAR officials shouldn't be missing it. They get the benefit of all other angles. There's even contact high on the leg after the initial chest/torso contact.

No doubt PGMOL/Howard Webb on that Sky programme will try and defend it though. There's literally no reason to not give a penalty (barring $$$$)

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14 hours ago, Reluctant Striker said:

Heard Unai's post match comments in BBC interview. Unlike so many more successful & less successful managers : No moaning about the audacity of having a mid week European match. No moaning about McGinn only being a yellow. Also chose to subtly ignore the inaccurate analysis Spurs had controlled the 1st half. Just a basic & humble admission it becomes difficult at 0-2 & down to 10 men. For better or worse, it's because of this management style Villa surely have, if nothing else, a more well grounded & calm squad of players than many have.

Have to disagree with your last comment. There was a point this season where you were thrown into the title race by most pundits and the pressure of that culminated in 3 of your first 11 massively losing their heads against us, and since that game your results have dropped off considerably. I think you prefer being the underdogs and I think Emery’s style leans towards that, but not sure it’s because you’re more grounded.

In fact I’ve just seen McGinn’s red and that is even more headloss

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2 minutes ago, Stan said:

100% a penalty.

Fair enough if a ref misses it because their one angle could/may be obscured by other players.

But VAR officials shouldn't be missing it. They get the benefit of all other angles. There's even contact high on the leg after the initial chest/torso contact.

No doubt PGMOL/Howard Webb on that Sky programme will try and defend it though. There's literally no reason to not give a penalty (barring $$$$)

What makes it worse is that the ref was stood directly in front of it lol

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38 minutes ago, Danny said:

What's everyone think about the VAR call? Can't lie I'm at a loss as to how studs down someone's chest/belly isn't a foul. Probably a yellow card anywhere else on the pitch


Mac could have shown the marks made by the studs and they'd still say no foul. They panicked when they realized their bank accounts would start seeing a lack of incoming funds if they had made the right call. There's no other reason why they shouldn't be calling that a foul and awarding a subsequent penalty. We had Curtis get a red for something else which was incidental post contact with the ball first so they can't even use the excuse that Doku gets to the ball first. 

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What VAR has done is give referees an excuse to not make big decisions. Then they can hide behind the 'not clear and obvious' or 'it's a high bar to overturn a decision' lines for subjective calls

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4 hours ago, Stan said:

There's literally no reason to not give a penalty (barring $$$$)

3 hours ago, Mel81x said:

They panicked when they realized their bank accounts would start seeing a lack of incoming funds if they had made the right call.

I'm sorry but are we seriously doing this again? I can't for the life of me understand how people see how many decisions, many of them obviously wrong, go for and against every team in the league every weekend and think that referees are in the pay of one team or another.

Referees can't control the outcomes of matches lads. Why would somebody waste their time and money and risk paying off a set of officials to favour them in marginal calls when, if Luis Diaz puts one or two of his chances away for example, Liverpool win the match anyway?

They definitely have their unconscious biases. Like I said originally, I'm sure the VAR and referee were reluctant to give Liverpool two penalties in one potentially title-deciding match, no matter how clear and obvious, because they know that that's all that people will talk about afterwards. 

The officiating in the league is consistently terrible and the way accountability works between the on-pitch referee and the VAR doesn't lend itself to correct outcomes being achieved. It's also not right that teams of officials are flying across to the Middle East or wherever to officiate a midweek game to make extra money when they've got a league depending on them to do their main job properly at the weekend. They're not getting paid off to favour one team or the other, though, I'm afraid. They're just not.

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48 minutes ago, LFCMike said:

What VAR has done is give referees an excuse to not make big decisions. Then they can hide behind the 'not clear and obvious' or 'it's a high bar to overturn a decision' lines for subjective calls

Yeah, it's so ambiguous to begin with that referees are pretty much on the back foot anyway. 

Some of the rules even before VAR came in were muddy enough. The handball rule for instance was such a grey area. It still is. 

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1 minute ago, RandoEFC said:

I'm sorry but are we seriously doing this again? I can't for the life of me understand how people see how many decisions, many of them obviously wrong, go for and against every team in the league every weekend and think that referees are in the pay of one team or another.

Referees can't control the outcomes of matches lads. Why would somebody waste their time and money and risk paying off a set of officials to favour them in marginal calls when, if Luis Diaz puts one or two of his chances away for example, Liverpool win the match anyway?

They definitely have their unconscious biases. Like I said originally, I'm sure the VAR and referee were reluctant to give Liverpool two penalties in one potentially title-deciding match, no matter how clear and obvious, because they know that that's all that people will talk about afterwards. 

The officiating in the league is consistently terrible and the way accountability works between the on-pitch referee and the VAR doesn't lend itself to correct outcomes being achieved. It's also not right that teams of officials are flying across to the Middle East or wherever to officiate a midweek game to make extra money when they've got a league depending on them to do their main job properly at the weekend. They're not getting paid off to favour one team or the other, though, I'm afraid. They're just not.

Yeah fair, an exaggeration from me but I can't think of a legit reason of how a VAR official sees that and goes 'no penalty'.

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14 minutes ago, Stan said:

Yeah fair, an exaggeration from me but I can't think of a legit reason of how a VAR official sees that and goes 'no penalty'.

There's not a legit reason. They just bottled it in my opinion.

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14 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

The officiating in the league is consistently terrible and the way accountability works between the on-pitch referee and the VAR doesn't lend itself to correct outcomes being achieved. It's also not right that teams of officials are flying across to the Middle East or wherever to officiate a midweek game to make extra money when they've got a league depending on them to do their main job properly at the weekend. They're not getting paid off to favour one team or the other, though, I'm afraid. They're just not.

See the thing is, if they're allowing something that's rightly received criticism for being easily perceived as a massive conflict of interest on its face... I think they don't really get to avoid criticism of possibly having that conflict of interests conflicting with their ability to properly do their jobs. If PMGOL doesn't like the ethics of their officials being put in question, they shouldn't have let referees have their ethics come into question by having some basic standards to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

It's a billion pound industry - having some ethical standards regarding conflicts of interest when massive amounts of money are in question (not even billions) is not only normal. It's basically an accepted standard.

When you've got referees flying to foreign countries midweek before important matches they're refereeing (in this case between two title rivals), getting paid by the owner of one of those clubs, and then they make an error like that... they've invited criticism about whether or not these officials are corrupted and not simply too inept to do their jobs.

PMGOL has put referees in this position and they only have themselves and their referees to blame. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt once they actually do something to remove the appearance of a conflict of interest, but until then... considering the way PMGOL choses to operate, I don't see why they deserve any benefit of the doubt in 2024.

It's on them to do better if they want to be perceived better.

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1 hour ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

See the thing is, if they're allowing something that's rightly received criticism for being easily perceived as a massive conflict of interest on its face... I think they don't really get to avoid criticism of possibly having that conflict of interests conflicting with their ability to properly do their jobs. If PMGOL doesn't like the ethics of their officials being put in question, they shouldn't have let referees have their ethics come into question by having some basic standards to avoid the appearance of a conflict of interest.

It's a billion pound industry - having some ethical standards regarding conflicts of interest when massive amounts of money are in question (not even billions) is not only normal. It's basically an accepted standard.

When you've got referees flying to foreign countries midweek before important matches they're refereeing (in this case between two title rivals), getting paid by the owner of one of those clubs, and then they make an error like that... they've invited criticism about whether or not these officials are corrupted and not simply too inept to do their jobs.

PMGOL has put referees in this position and they only have themselves and their referees to blame. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt once they actually do something to remove the appearance of a conflict of interest, but until then... considering the way PMGOL choses to operate, I don't see why they deserve any benefit of the doubt in 2024.

It's on them to do better if they want to be perceived better.

I don't disagree with you but there is a gap between "they're leaving themselves open to accusations of a conflict of interest" and "they're going to stop getting money from UAE if they give decisions against City".

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10 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

I don't disagree with you but there is a gap between "they're leaving themselves open to accusations of a conflict of interest" and "they're going to stop getting money from UAE if they give decisions against City".

Is there? If they’ve led themselves open to those accusations, then they subsequently get hit with these accusations it’s more just the consequences of their actions.

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Is there a league thats actually got VAR spot on since its introduction? Or close to?

I feel like the Hawkeye nature of it was great, specifically call an offside, especially the automatic offsides. But dont take the piss with everything else 

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Just now, Dr. Gonzo said:

Is there? If they’ve led themselves open to those accusations, then they subsequently get hit with these accusations it’s more just the consequences of their actions.

You keep talking about these accusations. I don't disagree that they're on dodgy ground. But you're stopping short of actually saying you think the reason they didn't give the second penalty there is because they're taking money from the UAE league. I suspect that's because you know that's not true.

It's a poor reflection on the officiating in the league but that failure to award a penalty yesterday simply isn't out of the ordinary when you look at how many controversial decisions happen every weekend.

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5 minutes ago, Danny said:

Is there a league thats actually got VAR spot on since its introduction? Or close to?

I feel like the Hawkeye nature of it was great, specifically call an offside, especially the automatic offsides. But dont take the piss with everything else 

A-league had it alright for a while. 

 

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19 minutes ago, RandoEFC said:

You keep talking about these accusations. I don't disagree that they're on dodgy ground. But you're stopping short of actually saying you think the reason they didn't give the second penalty there is because they're taking money from the UAE league. I suspect that's because you know that's not true.

It's a poor reflection on the officiating in the league but that failure to award a penalty yesterday simply isn't out of the ordinary when you look at how many controversial decisions happen every weekend.

No I haven't, that "cheque complete" comment is because until I'm given any sort of evidence from PMGOL that these referees are just too bad to do their jobs (which is only marginally better), I'm going to keep thinking they're corrupt.

I have a few reasons:

  1. Man City have a history of being pretty flexible with rules and at this point... haven't faced consequences for it
  2. Man City have won league titles on the back of the fine margins coming from poor refereeing decisions in the past
  3. I have a hard time believing that referees could be this bad at their jobs - and because of point 2, they don't have to give every decision to City. They just have to give enough decisions that can make a difference over the course of a season.
  4. City seem to regularly benefit from these "errors" going their way far more than other clubs do

If PMGOL isn't interested in transparency or giving the appearance that the officials aren't ethically compromised, I suspect that's because a closer inspection of what on its face is a blatant conflict of interest is in fact a serious conflict of interest that throws the illusion of integrity in the league out the window.

And honestly, the media doesn't help. Them making a big song and dance about Tierney's error against Forest with that drop-ball incident despite it being at least consistent with how Tierney did the same exact thing to Forest's advantage... and also sort of disregarding that Tierney should probably have called a foul for Yates quite literally kicking Konate in the face rather than attempt to play the ball... while doing it's best to quickly move on and disregard this decision - it simply doesn't do a lot for me not to think the PMGOL is telling the media to help cover for them. And they've got an interest in protecting the illusion of integrity as well: after all, if this conflict of interest is inspected and demonstrates the league is bent - it's easily the biggest scandal in British football. It tarnishes the image of the league, thus the product they're selling.

I'm not a court of law, so there's no presumption of innocence until proven guilty with me. So I'm presented with 2 options:

  1. Referees are laughably inept and so woefully bad at everything they do that it's a wonder they can even wipe their own arses after they shit
  2. The appearance of a blatant conflict of interest is more than just an appearance of a blatant conflict of interest: it is a conflict of interest.

If officials were interested in taking wind out of the sales of "these officials are bought and paid for," there's a pretty simple solution for them: ban the practice of English referees being allowed to referee in foreign leagues. If that's too much of a ban and impacts the finances of referees too negatively (I don't think it does though, if you look at their salaries), then I think most people would settle for: ban the practice of English referees being allowed to officiate in foreign leagues owned by anyone who owns a team in the English football pyramid.

But until they take the common sense approach to protect the integrity of their officials, I'm going to have to question the integrity of their officials.

And this is all not even considering for the fact that: 1.) Pep cheated as a player with that doping scandal; 2.) there's evidence Barca paid referees while Pep was manager - and just looking at his time as City's manager. But if you want me to consider those facts as well, I'm happy to do so.

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15 minutes ago, Dr. Gonzo said:

until I'm given any sort of evidence from PMGOL that these referees are just too bad to do their jobs

Watch any Premier League game next weekend that doesn't involve Man City or Liverpool and you'll see ample evidence of how incompetent the officials are.

I'm afraid you're peddling nothing short of a conspiracy theory here mate. If a bad decision against Liverpool is explained by this conflict of interest you're going on about then what's the explanation for every other bad decision that goes against a different team? 

The media angle is a bit odd as well to be honest. 10% of the discourse I saw about that Forest goal was from the media and 90% of it was Liverpool fans trying to "prove" there was nothing wrong with the goal.

I also don't think officials give a fuck what gets said about them and not that many people are talking about these UAE trips. That's probably a better explanation as to why they've continued rather than the fact that there actually is a conflict of interest. I do agree that they should stop though.

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