Agree on MOTM. With Sonny and Dele fighting for a close second. Imagine if this Moussa had turned up like this since day 1... We'd have sold him to Madrid by now for £85m
I've seen the game again today and the look on Kovacic's face after that Sissoko tackle was a thing of beauty... please log in to view this image ..."Ave it!"
You can almost see him wishing he joined us in one of the dozen transfer windows he's been linked with us...
While the pundits are banging on about the penalty call, they don't seem to notice that Foyth got a foot on the ball before he clattered Hazard - and I get the feeling it was entirely intentional as that's the sort of ****ehousery that you get in South American leagues where a defender leaves an opponent in a crumpled heap on the turf, yet because they can point at the ball smacking into the advertising hoardings the ref won't book them even as the medevac helicopter is winching them off the pitch
They also missed out Rudiger and Hazard making obvious second yellow offences, for some reason. Probably because the match was so one-sided that it was deemed unnecessary.
I didn't think it was a penalty at the game and still don't. Hazard was looking for opportunities to collapse in a heap in the box and even the faintest contact from Sissoko saw him get horizontal. It was telling that Joe Cole said that Hazard's one of the best at getting between opposition players and the ball to effect contact, thereby allowing him to feign that it was sufficient to be termed a foul and have a penalty awarded. That said, it was a daft ****ing tackle and a lot of refs would have been suckered by Hazard's collapse. Foyth needs to learn to make forwards work for goal scoring chances and not give up penalties by panicking and offering a leg for someone to dive over or collapse under. It's been a mark of MP's management that Spurs' defenders don't do what he did against Michael Owen in the WC 2002. Foyth needs to cut that **** out as it'll be too tempting for most teams.
If I'm being honest, I probably would've called for a penalty had that happened to us, I sit right in view of that, to me it looked like Foyth got a slight touch of the ball but I think he got the leg of Hazard first. The second one with Sissoko was embarrassing by Hazard though, complete dive and should've been booked for it. Foyth though must be more wary when he's sticking a foot out, he had a blinding game other than that moment but all an opposition needs is one moment and it can change the complexity of a game. Back to Hazard, he's got a reputation for diving, just as Alli had in the past, so even though refs are obviously there to remain unbiased, it's inevitable they'll have noticed that a particular player has previous of diving in the box and thus will likely (perhaps even sub-consciously) begin waving away calls for a pen unless it's an absolute stonewaller.
He definitely made contact with Hazard's leg but did that contact cause Hazard to collapse or did he just lie down because there was contact? I think the latter. The bloke is about 5' tall with an arse the size of a small country and must have an incredibly low centre of gravity. There's no way that contact that clearly didn't cause him to trip, caused him to fall over. I'm not a believer in the line that..."I felt contact so I went to ground" is acceptable. If it didn't cause the fall, you dived.
Hazard was being smart, well I say smart but it didn't pay off. He knew/ was anticipating a challenge from behind and so halted his run so that Foyth's leg plus the little barge meant he'd fall over - is that a penalty/ foul? Hard to say but it's one that I think you'd call for if it was one of your players in that position. Many players do that quite frequently but Hazard's been falling in the box a bit too much lately which isn't doing his reputation any favours.
It'll be interesting to see what VAR will make of such decisions? I reckon there'll be as little consistency as there is now...but a lot more delays.
90 minute matches will become 115 minute matches... Can't wait. Don't get me wrong, it's been needed at times, especially with scenarios like Austin's goal the other week but in general I think it'll be too much of a disruption to the game and as you say, there'll still be elements of inconsistency so will it really make that much of a difference? I'm not so sure.
Foyth made some minimal contact with Hazard, but not enough to impede him or send him falling to the ground, Hazard felt contact and threw himself to the floor. These are the exact type of incidents that referees should not be giving penalties for, Hazard could have stayed on his feet and continued with his action, but instead deliberately fell over to try and win a penalty. Hazard was diving around all night, which is a shame because he is a top class player and should not need to cheat.
I have a feeling that if that decision had gone to VAR then Hazard would have got the penalty. Cricket has adopted the ‘significant evidence to the contrary’ rule quite well, but there are still too many dodgy decisions made by the Video Umpires. Same for RU. Football is way behind both those sports......
Even with the TMO rugby refs can make glaring errors, not least the try Ireland got against the All Blacks last week where the ball was clearly grounded a good foot before crossing the line
