We got seen off royally by one midland team this week so lets hope this won't become a habit. I don't think Stoke have been ripping up trees anywhere this season so far so a bit like us really. Of course we can win this one depending greatly on which Argyle turn up. Bundu has had some minutes now and Hardie is set to return even if only on the bench to start with. Miller also ready to be included so things looking up a little on the squad front. Apparently we have an "up and coming" Ref for this one who has done a number of POrem matches this season. We must be very very important then........... COYG
Stoke are in full crying mode before this game....telling the whole world how many injured players and suspended ones they have. Commentators will be pleased that two of them are called.....HAKSABANOVIC and TCHAMADEU....phew thanks for that.
It’s going to be chilly. The car is iced up this morning. It’s gone from -2C to -1C since I’ve been up. At least the sun is shining….
No sun here but dry....but only a little frost this morning compared with yesterday.....the snow only lasted a short while yesterday.
A fantastic finish by Argyle..i needed that. Think i might be in trouble though as i woke up the Wife..
That was a very big 3pts....at 0-1 Argyle where starting to look like relegation fodder.....especially after being robbed of a point in mid-week....but better luck today with a 97th minute winner.
Randell's 100th game...and that was his first goal at Home Park.....hard to believe it's taken so long.
There was unrestrained joy as Adam Randell smacked the winner home in the 96th minute of his 100th appearance for his first goal at Home Park. This should not be allowed to disguise a disappointing performance from Argyle. Things started well and Argyle dominated for the first 10 minutes or so but this disappeared under a rash of misplaced passes, bizarre refereeing decisions and that over elaboration when in good positions that erodes good approach play. It’s not all one player but Bali Mumba I mean you. You have skill and pace to burn - use it. Don’t pass it to someone else at the last minute, have faith run at them or cross it. Lewis Gibson, who’s been nigh on perfect all season, tried to leave a ball that was never going to make it back to Cooper and suddenly we were 0-1 down and deep in the do-do. Somewhat against the run of play. Bundo nicked one at the near post late in the first half and the substitutions helped in the second until Randell’s late late winner. Man of the match by a country mile was Luke Cundle. Every blade of grass visited at least once, direct and effective running with the ball, dropping deep to collect it and get things going.. aggressive, skilful, direct….. a master class. Sign him asap. Upwards and onwards. Hard to see us getting anything at Leicester but with QPR and Rotherham to follow, there’s hope.
Right then. Some of notdistant's views I agree with and some of them not quite so sure. The first 10 minutes belonged mostly to the Ref. Now we really ought not to be talking about officials.........again. But, as said in notdistant's review he was really bizaar in some of his decisions. I have to say that I thought he was going to cheat Argyle the way he was going. Everything he gave to Stoke. No that's it for a quote he just gave them everything. Fouls I had no idea what he had seen amd so on. However, that did seem to settle down eventually although he didn't exactly change sides. We did start off quite well but that soon faded away. We were trying very hard to make Stoke look like Barcelona. We constantly gave the ball away without really being challenged for it. It was sort of ok we've got this far up the pitch now it's your turn to have it. In a nutshell we couldn't put even one pass together at times let alone two. We were poor. Stoke on the other hand had they been a better side would have been away and gone but they weren't. Almost or not quite as bad as we were so the football spectacle was hard to see. Neither Keeper was troubled by much for what seemed an age but was only just short of 20 minutes. There was a Stoke player who was several yards offside between what happened and the keeper. He was walking back when the ball was played through. He obviously distracted out defence, not that it takes much doing at times, and they sort of left the ball. Another Stoke player wandered onto it and slotted it home. Was the other one interfering with play? Well not according to the rules but in my book he was inside the 6 yard box and therefore probably was even if only as a distraction. We were one down to a poor goal. Sadly we continued with the let's give the ball away theme from then on till nearly halftime. Out of the blue a move took place and Bundu got on the end of it and it was 1 - 1. I think justified but we were not good at any time in that half. Second half kicks off and you would have thought Schuey would have put a large size 10 up the rear end of the team. Well if he did then it didn't show because we just continued where we had left off the term one. I haven't said much about Stoke. They were as dismal as we were. We had the ball, went up there end of the pitch and gave it to them. They then had the ball and returned the compliment at our end. Neither team looked like doing anything and Stoke went into fall down mode at every opportunity. One of their's got hit in the chest with the ball admittedly quite hard. But, he went down clutching his head and the Ref had no option but to stop the game. The ball never went anywhere near his head. A few others then went down with this or that injury the origins of which were lost of others. They were clearly playing for the point they had and we never looked like snatching a goal from anywhere even though we had the lions share of the possession. Injury time was signalled and I went for a pee. Well it was a bit on the cold side and I hadn't been all afternoon. When I came back out there was still 4 minutes to go so I stood in one of the exits so I could still see the pitch. We juffed and puffed but were going nowhere. Suddenly there was a flurry of attempts on goal by us. Blocked, blocked and bloched again. The ball came out to Randall and he hit it home. The area around me errupted. When I say errupted I mean that quite litterally. I half expected the Ref to blow when the ball was on it's way in but he didn't. All I would ask now is how the feck did we get all the points out of that? Stoke must be well pee'd off on their way home tonight.
Having watched the video a few times I can see no problem with the Stoke goal....Coopers clearance went straight to a Stoke player who returned the ball into the penalty area and a Stoke player latched on to it and scored....no sign of the other Stoke player interfering with Coopers line of vision. Bundo's touch was very good for our equalizer.....and the winner by Randell was the third attempt in that final onslaught.
It’s not just free kicks the ref got wrong. He two corners to Stoke in the first half when they crossed from their left The trajectory was pretty much directly at us with the curve on the ball and as far as I could see, no one touched either and I didn’t see the lino flag for a corner. What did he see? I have no idea. Houghton was booked for what looked to me to a be a hard but fair challenge in which there was minimal contact. Other tackles which were worse were ignored. Where do they get them from?
I didn't say anywhere that the Stoke player was in anyone's line of sight. What I said was he "distracted" the defenders by being where he was and they looking in his direction knowing he couldn't play the ball. What they didn't see having been distracted was the second Stoke player run through from onside and score. This is where I think the new rules are wrong. Distracting is interfering with play and especially so close to goal. That's my opinion even if it doesn't correspond to current rules. In the second half the ball was kicked by a Stoke defender at Bundu who was stood offside. It hit Bundu and remained in play even though he had not attempted nor played the ball himself. Lino flags for offside and Ref gives it. So, where was the being played on rule there? It's too inconsistant for me. As for the Ref notdistant absolutely he was inconsistent. He did look to me as if he either had a bet on Stoke or he had received one of Joe's famous brown envelopes. If that is an up and coming Prem Ref then god help us. I don't know about you but I'm fed up making the officials the main talking point every game.
It’s throughout football: internationals, European competitions. EPL and EFL. it’s not just individual refs: it’s the administrators sitting in closed meeting rooms constantly fiddling with the rules and the guidance to refs. They’re trying to define the game in such detail that refs have no discretion and therefore they think will be immune from criticism as long as they follow the guidance. They’re writing rules for VAR rather than an organic, flowing game They’re operating in isolation and impunity but should answer to the clubs, players and fans. Back to basics and simple rules we can all understand and buy into, that’s what we need! It’s also occurred to me also the role of linesman needs to be reviewed. They are after all supposed to be “assistant referees “ but too often it looks like the ref calls the decisions even when the lino has a better view. Take away the radios so the lino can’t wait to hear what the ref says before he puts the flag up. Scrap that stupid rule whereby the flag is delayed “to let the move play out”. Put it up when the offence is seen. There will cock-ups be but it can’t be worse than it is now. In a way. VAR is the same: just as linos bow down to the ref, the refs are making decisions knowing there’s the Great Camera In The Sky that may contradict and humiliate them in public. It’s not been beneficial, it’s harmed the game badly. Scrap it. What they’ve done to offside is bad but handball is worse. This concept of an “unnatural position” is nonsense. We need to go back to the concept of “deliberate “. If you went through 1,000 random pictures of close combat in the penalty box, not ones that gave rise to a handball, but the crap ones camera motor drives take but press photographers don’t use, how many different poses would you see? They’re all “natural” by definition because there was no handball and yet freeze framed they’d look like scenes from some ghastly modern dance.
Okay back to basics....the biggest problem seems to be the off-side rule.....we end up with "experts" miles away in some sort of monitoring control room making decisions....that can rule a goal out by the width of a bootlace or if you forgot to trim back your finger nails that morning....okay I might be overstating the facts there....but that is how it seems quite often to the TV watcher.....the fan at the game is in more of a darker spot knowing nothing but the refs yea or nay decision. ANSWER....Do away with the off-side rule....in the early days of football it didn't exist. Fouling in the penalty area can be a problem with so much cheating going on....but at times with slo-mo it can actually look worse than it is.....at normal speed it might not be so fault finding. Monitoring from a distance will at times tell the Ref to halt the game whilst they check back 30 seconds or more.....do away with it.....only check if the Ref blows up for a foul and check then if it is a foul. What we need to improve is goal line technology...and that includes UP TO THE CORNER POST.....(LAST TUESDAY NIGHT ?)......or like Frank Lampards non-goal years back against Germany when the ball was at least 3ft over the line before being cleared.
