How do the officials call those decisions though? Cedric could have intended to pick out Bertrand who was in a position to score had the ball reached him as he was quite central and only a few yards from goal. As the linesman sees this player in an offside position as soon as the ball is crossed, it must be instinctive for him to raise his flag. It's only after the ball is delivered elsewhere that it could be said that Bertrand wasn't interfering with play.
The Laws are quite specific. To be interfering with an opponent the player must be doing one of preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or challenging an opponent for the ball or clearly attempting to play a ball which is close to him when this action impacts on an opponent or making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball The Southampton player did none of those things.
I conceded at the time it was the wrong decision based on the current interpretation of the law. But it's still a very difficult (and often subjective) law to interpret and enforce properly and consistently. In this case, Bertrand was ahead of the ball in the centre forward position, the closest player to de Gea and to the goal, the most likely player to receive the ball and the best placed to score! Despite all this, he wasn't offside because, after the event, he was retrospectively deemed not to be interfering with play or an opponent and not gaining an advantage because the ball was passed to the onside Gabbiadini, who scored directly from the pass. It is this latter point that actually makes the decision easy - because no other player, including Bertrand, was involved in play once the ball had been crossed. So the only issue was whether Gabbiadini was onside or not - and he clearly was onside, so the goal should have stood. However, there are many situations where the outcome isn't so straightforward and where the role of a player in Bertrand's position and his effect on play becomes far more debatable.
Jordan Henderson missed training for Liverpool and there are rumours doing the rounds that he's broken his foot. Would miss 4-6 weeks if true, which would be a big loss for them.
please log in to view this image Palace fans vandalised this team bus, as it was parked outside the hotel that Boro were staying at. The problem? Boro flew down and borrowed that coach from Palace!
This gets on to an area I think is largely ignored. I certainly would be in favor of video replays. It's in my interest both as a fan who would like to see fewer games decided by wrong decisions and as a supporter of a team that historically has suffered more than most from them. But quite aside from that, the rule book needs to be iterated. A group which includes football, writing, gaming, logic and user experience expertise should be picked to come up with rules that are clearly written, easy to interpret and relatively game-proof. Then whatever they come up with should be iterated, reviewed, and continuously monitored, tested and improved. The rules as they stand are vague, poorly written, accreted rather than designed, easily gamed and inconsistent.
Why bother with offside at all? Sure it would change the way the game is played but teams would find a way to counter the goal hanging. It would likely spread the game and leave big areas of space but it would make for a lot of chances. Nightmare for defenders though. Edit: Teams would just sit back and it would end up being hoofball.
Reading a lot of comments from Man Utd fans today and yesterday, Lidls excepted, has confirmed something for me. They simply haven't seen the offside rule enforced correctly with any consistency this season, so they don't know how it works. A disturbingly high number of calls in their games have been wrong and they've benefited from most of them.
It would alter the game a great deal. I wouldn't want to see it, and neither would other fans of the game as it is. It would be interesting to see what would happen in an experimental league with amateur players, though, just as a matter of idle curiosity. Basketball has no offsides rule, and there isn't a lot of "cherry picking", which is what goal hanging is called in that game. It's a tactic which is easily countered by leaving a defender back. I suspect no offsides rule would reward foot speed and one v. one talent, because you'd be forced to do a lot more one v. one (and 2 v. 2, etc.) defending. There would be a lot more scoring, but I don't know if that means 8-6 or 26-18.
