I think part of the reason why our fanbase have focused very heavily on refereeing decisions over the last 18 months/ 2 years is because for the most part we've been so terrible that any/ every poor decision we're on the end of generally feels worse than it is. VAR obviously exacerbates it too because when you feel the decision is still wrong even after video review it's an added kick in the bollocks but when a team is playing well, poor refereeing decisions can generally be discarded more often than not. I doubt City for instance bemoan too many decisions, having a £1bn squad certainly helps them out as they barely give the opposition the ball let alone an opportunity so that then results in the ref having little chance of making a poor call against them. Whilst we don't have a team anywhere near as good as City's, we have a bunch of players who if given the right licence and tactical setup/ coaching, can truly hurt teams and help control most of the game, thus reducing the possibility of being ****ed over by any poor decision but whilst we continue to cede possession against any half decent side and negate the effective attacking players we have, we run the risk of giving away more penalties or freekicks in dangerous areas - whether correct calls or not - because we're increasing the % an opponent has on getting one.
Just last week Fraudiola was moaning about how The Sheikh Mansour Team haven't had any refereeing decisions in their favour during his time at the club He must have been looking the other way for the countless times referees let de Bruyne kick lumps out of opponents...
First season aside he hasn't needed too many decisions either the lucky bastard . They're often 2 or 3 up by the time he has anything to worry about. For most of the years under Poch, refereeing decisions were nowhere near as frequently moaned about on here. We definitely had our fair share of poor calls but our good football managed to overshadow them for the most part. Since his final 12 months and most of Jose's reign, we've been **** and any bad decision we now get is talked about for days/ weeks/ months.
I think you're misremembering, to be honest. Remember when we didn't get a penalty for a whole season under Pochettino, for example? Remember when Son got booked for diving against Leicester, despite being fouled twice, then they got one incorrectly given up the other end? Oh look, it's Michael Oliver, again. Fancy that. Remember Pochettino having a meltdown at Mike Dean at Burnley, who then lied about what happened in his report? please log in to view this image I remember...
The Mike Dean stuff happened in the final 12 months of Poch’s reign at Spurs, which more or less comes under: How many **** decisions have we all likely forgotten from games where we still blew the opposition away and played well? Probably 100s. Any bad decision against us now lives long in the memory due to the fact we’ve likely lost that game and played poorly, so when we’ve also suffered a poor decision we’ve bemoaned it far more than we would if we’d have played well and still gotten the result. Refereeing standards in the country have been **** for years, everyone knows it but we feel it more when we’re playing ****.
Refereeing decisions are also out of the club’s control. It’s a variable we have no say over whatsoever. We can complain or protest to the FA/ PGMOL but ultimately it’s something we as a club can’t change. What we can effect or have a level of control over is how we approach games, who we select, how we manage key players, who we sign/ keep/ sell - all of which has more or less been piss poor for quite some time now.
But that's why I was pissed off after the 5-2 against Southampton, when Doherty got penalised for that ridiculous handball at the death. It meant nothing in terms of the result, but it was another ludicrous decision and I knew it wouldn't be long before there were more. As you said yourself: Then we got Newcastle the following week and the utter shambles that ended up in. This is probably why Mourinho went in on Oliver, though: please log in to view this image That's an insane rate, if it's accurate. No wonder he's happy to take pot shots at him.
Fans have always complained about ref decisions. As long as I have been watching football fans have screamed at the decisions made, so I don't accept that refs are any worse. What is the case is that the game is faster, mainly because of the pitch quality and the lighter ball. The players are more athletic and probably quicker. The idea of diving is now entrenched into the game, just look at the old videos from the 70's and you will see some tough tackling most of which is now outlawed but you won't see so much acting from the players. Players like R. Charlton and Lineker probably never dived in their whole career, neither would go to ground unless truly forced to. The players are far more likely to be open to dubious tactics than before. Finally the rules have changed and they continue to change far more frequently than they used to. It seems that at the beginning of every season the referees are given instruction on how they should police the game. This season they even changed the rules after the season had started (hand ball) The unrevised rule had already cost Spurs 4 points so hard luck for us. Against all of this background I think to target the referees for your ire is misplaced. IMO you should be looking at FIFA, UEFA and the FA not too mention SKY, BT and all the other interested media. The refs are part of the show as far as the authorities and media are concerned and they are more worried about the image of the sport than the rights and wrongs of any particular game. Add to that players get targeted as divers while others get away with it and it's just not set up for fairness. The only way to win is the same as it's always been and that is to score more goals than the opposition and to endeavour to play the game in their penalty area not your own.
The goals and the second half performance massively overshadowed the Doherty handball. You may still be pissed at it but we won the game, played well, got the result so for me that’s happy days. I’d easily forgotten that penalty, why focus on that when your team’s just smashed 5 against the opposition away from home? I won’t allow one negative to overshadow so many positives when thinking back to that Saints game. VAR is killing the game, I think every supporter on the planet would agree with that. What we’re (as in club) doing to make things worse is killing our supporters through boredom and frustration with **** football, **** tactics, **** selections, **** transfers, **** management and so when we get a **** decision it feels 10x worse. Give me many more 5-2 wins with a **** VAR penalty against us over most of the crap we’ve witnessed for about 2 years now.
But we're not going to smash teams every week. Nobody does. When it comes to the closer games, this **** is still going to happen and it'll cost us. We were largely **** in the first half against Southampton, too. They set the tone for their season by collapsing horribly. VAR is ****, but it's largely because the refs are ****. Not exclusively, as it's definitely got it's drawbacks. I'm more pissed with the negative football, for the most part, but I don't think that's even on Mourinho yesterday. That team selection wasn't negative. We played better when we subbed more negative players on and were down to 10.
I disagree with this. My view of the first NLD was that it was a carbon copy of our approach yesterday. They dominated both games and we sat back for almost 90mins in both. The first ended in a 2-0 win because we'd only just started using Jose's 2009/10 Inter Milan gameplan, and no opposition side had sussed it out yet. Now they have, as it really isn't difficult to suss out and negate. Add to that I think Arteta's team selection was far better yesterday than it was back in December. Cedric, Smith-Rowe and Odegaard all helped improve their performance and make them more of a threat.
Unfortunately, the default position of today's referees is if there's any contact in the penalty area, it's a penalty. I'm not saying it's right or wrong but my view is that it should not have been a penalty as it wasn't a foul and nor was it a goal scoring chance as the ball was gone from the player.
I do agree with you principally, but doesn't this tie in to DH's point about doing enough in the game to the extent where VAR decisions won't matter as much? If you have enough quality to win matches, VAR decisions won't feel as defining as they are, even if you win by a tight margin. Because the reality is, right now, you simply cannot rely on VAR to reach the right conclusion. So the focus should be on improving yourself enough so that they won't determine the outcome of the game as often.
Of course but we can still play in a manner that lessens our need for a referee to not give a **** decision that costs us. We're so heavily focused on decisions right now because we're desperately needing a referee to not **** up as we aren't doing enough to try and win games ourselves most of the time. I definitely think yesterday is heavily on Mourinho. The selection outside of Doherty (and to a degree Son but he was never going to be benched) was fine but the tactics were dreadful. We picked a front four who can do damage to just about any side in Europe but played in a manner where we wanted most of them to defend for most of the game. We approached that game against the worst Arsenal side in decades - who didn't even start their best player - as if we were playing 2008 Barcelona. It took us to go 2-1 down and 10 men down to finally attack and by then it was too late, but a freekick hitting the post and an offside goal tells me that had we played more like that for most of the first 75 minutes of that match there's a high probability most on here wouldn't be bemoaning a penalty decision that ultimately lost us the game.
I don't think that he set the team out to play defensively, though. They just ended up doing it, because some of the players were utterly anonymous. Bale and Ndombele may as well have not turned up. They weren't trying to get on the ball and weren't tracking back. I don't see how he could've predicted that and he was limited in his changes by the Son injury, which he has to take responsibility for.
That might be true if we were playing on a level playing field or in a vacuum, but we're not. We can't afford the same expenditure on the squad, we're playing more games than anyone in Europe and the reffing isn't remotely consistent. It was costing us in big games when we were better than this.
Agreed. Lucas was the only one of the 4 starting forwards who looked like doing something - Son was knackered and did himself an injury, Kane was having an off day for much of the game, and Bale also didn’t deliver (and left our right flank horribly exposed, which they exploited). Højbjerg looked knackered and our midfield got completely overrun as a result. Jose has to take some blame for the squad management, both in the run up to this game contributing to burnout, and the selections yesterday. Some players also responsible for simply not performing on the day too. The fact remains that though we could have snuck a point or 3 on the day with better refereeing and a bit of luck, we were nowhere near value for a draw or win yesterday.
The fact that we had just 2 attempts in the first 88 mins says this is not the case tbh. We had 2 or 3 attempts in the first half of that game (scoring twice) then we sat back the whole of the second half defending to 2 nil lead and hitting them on the break. That was a well executed game plan. Not exciting but effective. Yesterday we appeared to have no game plan other than sit back and hope. We did not have any kind of attack until Lamela scored. I can not emphasis it enough ...2 attempts in 88 mins. I went to the first NLD in the prem at Wembley. We battered them stupid and should have been 4 or 5 up instead of just 1. In the last minute they almost equalised and it would have been daylight robbery. It ended 1 nil but there was a chasism between us. Yesterday was the complete reversal. And to be so completely out played by the worst Arsenal team since Bruce Rioch's time (1995) is shameful. And it is not a one off...West Ham, Fulham (twice) Brighton, Liverpool Chelsea, City and Arsenal have played us off the park in our last 12 premier league games. That's 8 times in 12 games. I have no issue counter attacking but we have no plan B... and as far as I can see that's effectively what got Pochettino the sack.
If they were anonymous or knackered whose fault is that? I suggest they played like that because they have been taught to play like that. It may not have been his instructions on this day but it is his default position and therefore it is his squads default position. Spurs hardly made a forward pass in the first 30 minutes and yet you critisize one ot the worlds best attacking footballers for not being a defender. Son is knackered Kane is knackered and the reason is they spent most of their time running the full length of the pitch to defend. They wouldn't do that by choice they do it because the manager wants them to. You don't buy an F1 car then moan when it fouls the speed bumps in your road. If you put Kane Son and Bale on the pitch then you need to attack the opposition otherwise just play Sissoko in the number 9 position.
