I would say that refs use exactly that criteria to determine a yellow or not. they are allowed wave away pen shout and give no explanation why. If they said you fell over lad... then the next question from opponent is wheres the yellow ref? If ref says. player got ball... he means you get kocked over in a tackle... if he can't say that then its either a foul or a dive surely?
'Neville on Chelsea player power' http://www.skysports.com/share/11613188 Is that the same Gary Neville that was defending the Man Utd players whilst Mourinho was still in charge claiming players don't purposely put in less effort for certain managers?
True I suppose The Mike dean stuff is they don't believe anyone supports tranmere and clearly he supports one of the other teams. Nobody can explain the anthony taylor version of the same thing. Moss has another entirely different issue. THe individual player was a lad at a school he taught at. he may never have played.
yup. clearly he is working for Utd again and trying to heap some pressure on cheslea in the battle for 4th. its patently obvious that all objectivity and neutrality has gone out the window there.
Yeah, I agree that's what they're paid to do, my point being he's being selective in his criticism of Salah for diving when it's blatently obvious others are at it or have been at it last season. It's the kind of treatment that can away a player to seek a move abroad, hope some of our other attackers and Salah himself score from open play for the rest of the season to shut the haters up.
Dermott Gallagher is full of ****, he watches recorded incidents and again in slo-mo and close up and gives his verdict. The referees on the pitch on the day dont that luxury so as it stands all decisions were correct, VAR will cause a world of **** next season, not for free kick decisions or goal- line technology but for sending off and perceived diving. Plus in local derbies and other big games we might see a record as to the length of time a particular match lasts with VAR.
Salah has stayed on his feet on many occasions. There were several last season where he was clearly fouled but didn’t get the penalty. Being honest doesn’t get you anywhere. I hope we continue to be snidey ****s because it’s boiling piss right now. I love the fume from opposition fans.
Forgetting Salah, for the moment - there's a wider view to be taken here. Football is a contact sport and if we take the attitude that contact=foul and no contact=dive then we all might as well give up watching and/or playing. One of the reasons I have no faith in VAR in these situations is because it is a judgement call on the part of the ref and just establishing contact is insufficient. The decision has to be made as to whether the contact is excessive within the rules and expectations of the game, and slow motion replays distort the reality in that respect. Nowadays players just feel contact and flop over if it suits them and stay up if it doesn't, and they exaggerate the force on them in a way which makes them fall in an unnatural way. Kane's swan-dive a few weeks ago was totally unnatural, even if the contact was genuine. Someone on MOTD (can't remember who) essayed a flamboyant six-roll manoeuvre after a slight clip whilst trying to hurdle a tackle. There should be a certain amount of tussling between players - it's part of the game. There's more impact from team-mates flying into a goalscorer in celebration than most of the things players go down for. Back to Salah and Palace - it looked like there was a kick on the back of his leg, but it took about 2 seconds before the reaction came in, and the reaction was as though the kick had made him fall but it didn't. Apologies to those who think differently, but a pull on your shoulder will never make your knees buckle. Imo (only he will know for sure) he felt the contact and made a decision to go down. Having said all that, I fully agree with those who say it's unfair to single out some players whilst others get away with it with comments like "oh he felt contact so he's entitled to go down". In my book you stay on your feet unless you can't, and that's all there is to it.
Moss missed every handball on Saturday, the Townsend one was blatant as they come, so nothing he did surprised me after that. Players go down a lot in the penalty area, sometimes there's contact, sometimes there isn't. We've seen horrendous diving and penalties given and conversely, players not looking for a penalty but it's given anyway. It really is pick and mix. I think of how long Salah has played for us and diving hasn't ever been part of his game. Now he's either getting fed up of being shoved and kicked with no action taken against the offender so he's going down easy to make it easy for the ref to see or he's suddenly decided to cheat. Which is the most likely? Didn't Klopp recently have words with Mané for flopping all over the shop? So he's unlikely to be telling Salah to start doing it and similarly would have come out with criticism for him if he felt he was diving.
He was consistent in missing them all though... so its no surprise the wums and pundits are dancing around like goons on fire thinking suarez dived and he missed it. TBH the assumption is VAR sorts this all out. I think pundits should analyse what a ref would do having seen this incident 4 times in slow mo. AND so should salah. would he drop like that if VAR would earn him a yellow. I would personally say that salah has decided post the Ramos assault that he's looking out for no 1 in these cases
most of the time gallagher works on the premise of making up spurious **** to defend refs decisions. primarlly based on oh why was that not a red when kompany dived in... oh salah kicked ball forward ederson might get it or whatever.
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See this is the thing. Minimal contact may knock you off balance if running at speed. The Newcastle pen was minimal but it was enough to knock Salah off balance. Similar with the Brighton one. But this comes back to a point I constantly raise in that if players don’t go down, they don’t get fouls. So nearly all players in effect ‘dive’ under some kind of contact because refs won’t give a foul otherwise. Now yes the players have to take some blame but refs don’t make things easier for themselves in that case. If refs gave gave more fouls when people stay on their feet, especially in the area, players will feel less inclined to have to exaggerate their fall which will always look unnatural and therefor in theory will be easy to spot the dives because you can either see them clearly being taken out and being forced to go down naturally, or they stay up and lose their balance / advantage. Anyone who then falls over unnaturally under slight contact only has themselves to blame for not getting a pen
nah mate c'mon.... if you think the brighton penalty was absolute minimum contact then you are dreaming. Thats as stonewall as you like. We should just all agree that "advantage" in the box doesn't mean have an off balance shot and hope. A genuine advantage is score or get a pen. simple as. Refs should be ordered by fifa to wave play on and if no goal arises then give pen.
I think mentally Suarez and Ronaldo are stronger than Messi, in a sense. I don't know for sure because I don't know them personally but it feels as if Suarez & Ronaldo relish being the main men for club and country and having that pressure put upon them whereas Messi doesn't seem as happy with being a leader type. Though I agree with you in a sense that these players didn't get the credit they deserved at times I also feel like they all went through the phase of being underrated to their influence then being overestimated. They were great players don't get me wrong but they played behind great players. I think for Xavi/Iniesta to be credited with making Messi look good is ridiculous, same with the Alonso/Gerrard thing. These types of players seem to get better once they stop playing.
Refs shouldn't even think about what happens next. If you deny a goalscoring opportunity it's a red. If the striker then creates a second goalscoring opportunity that doesn't excuse the red for the first. #bookstevecook
Just have to point out here saint that if you look at the picture I posted, Salah has his right foot on the ball at the time of the pull on his left shoulder so the slightest pull would see his foot roll off the ball and completely unbalance him which is what happened imo. Had it been right foot/right shoulder he wouldn't have been so unbalanced. I really don't think I'm being biased here just because of who it is. Having watched the diving antics of quite a few of our players especially Suarez and Gerrard, I'm more than prepared to call it when I see it.
The media and rival fans have decided on their "Salah dives" narrative. They aren't going to let the fact that there's zero evidence supporting them get in the way. The argument has shifted from "was their contact" to "but are two kicks to the feet and a pull of the arm really enough to bring him down". Only for Salah though.
As saint rightly said it is a contact sport so we shouldn't get all wound up when there is contact. For me, there's a big difference between what I call argy-bargy contact and shin kicking, wrestling and turning a player. We have it all and we love to talk about it. The worrying thing is trying to besmirch one player. Have Kane or Dele ever made headlines for diving?
