The issue for me is that the assistants fail to raise their flags for ridiculously clear decisions, not just questionable ones. They are taking the path of least resistance - or chickening out from doing their job, whichever version you prefer. And this has already led to unnecessary injuries. The concept is fine. Its the officials that are the problem.
Re Everton's first goal. The rules: Law 12 of the rules states: A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences: a handball offence (except for the goalkeeper within their penalty area) holds an opponent impedes an opponent with contact. Unless Michael Oliver chooses to ignore the rule or David Coote or Paul Tierney when it's Spurs?
Yes he came on and Spurs were winning 2-1. He then nearly gave a penalty away and got away with another one. Did you see Romero’s hospital pass to one of the Everton players? I don’t think Van De Ven made a mistake like that in the game. For me if you’re insisting on giving Dragusin a start (right now I would keep Romero & Van De Ven playing) then it has to be Romero dropped and not Micky.
The obvious counterpoint to that is Romero is better in the air than Mickey Van, so if you want a CB pairing to counter Brexit Ball then Romero and Dragusin is the pairing you go for as they have much more aerial presence The issue today was Dragusin coming on also led to a formation change to bring him on, which is something that should be considered if looking to get a hold of a game (as demonstrated against Stokeford the other night) and not when seeing out a game, so we should have gone for a like-for-like sub and Mickey Van would be the obvious choice as Romero was captain and there was nobody else to take up the armband as Maddison was subbed off by then, Davies was on the bench and Sonny in another continent The sub which cost us more was Bryan for Maddison because when we're facing the usual 12 men we've faced since Norbert's hissy fit we should not be looking to play with 10 men, but that;s exactly what happens when Bryan comes on against physical opposition
Three home games in row now before what will I think be a season defining trip to Villa. It's looking like 4 wins on the trot is the minimum from that sequence. I can't see Jordan beating South Korea which means we won't see Son for the Brighton game and when he does return he'll likely be exhausted from constantly playing extra time. This season has been totally screwed over by injuries and international tournaments. The latter pisses me off in particular as the Asian Cup was only moved to the winter because we all have to pander to Qatar and it's too bloody hot there to play it when it's meant to be played.
The manner in which we conceded in the last minute of normal time is what disappoints me. We were keeping them at bay quite comfortably until we went 5 ATB. I can understand giving Dragusin some minutes but not at the expense of diminishing our attacking play. Certainly not when only a goal ahead. VdV was immense today. He would have deserved MoM if Richi hadn’t scored a brace. Vicario needs to be more assertive during corners, which he attempted in the second half. Not a foul for me when he went down for their goal. Close but not enough. Bad spells of losing possession in the first half with misplaced passes. Terrible. However, I appreciate there were some tired legs out there considering the game mid-week and we can’t rotate too much.
Yeah agree with changing formation to hold onto a lead isn’t a good idea. I also think it’s always hard for a defender to come on late in a game, even harder when the player has only just joined the club. Mistake by the manager for me. Gil came on for Werner and I don’t think that changed anything at all. I don’t think the ref gave them anything outrageous so not quite sure about playing against 12 men. Like I said before he could use given them a penalty if he really wanted to screw Spurs over.
Not panicking about that at all. West Ham away is the only one that scares me there, as we tend to do terribly in that fixture.
Looks like we've finally found a weakness in Vicario's game. Weak as piss for both goals. No idea why he's rooted to his line for the second. Hard to impossible to criticise him otherwise.
He has to be smarter. Teams have clearly noticed it and are now exploring it. The Law in this (as in many cases) is a grey area and totally at the mercy of the subjective interpretation of the buffoons officiating. So he needs to be smarter to find a way around it. If an attacker is getting in his face at a corner, we need to shift a defender to literally be a sandwich filling between Gigi and the annoying attacker, so when the ball comes in the defender can shift the attacker out the way. The second goal I would question his positioning. He shouldn't be rooted to his line in such a scenario. Even a yard further forward and he probably blocks the header.
Interfering with play is offside ... often the flag goes up once the offside player is about to challenge...hence the issue of injuries. If it were me I'd remove all offside decision making from officials and let them all go to VAR. I'd then change the offside rule so if a player can not be seen to be offside by eye sight alone within 5 seconds then they are onside.
All the talk of which player was bad today and I just remembered Bentancur was playing he was totally anonymous today , not much better Wednesday
That’s quite harsh on him. The only worry is if it keeps happening then he will be targeted. Everton are one of the best teams in the league at set pieces. Also think the defenders could be doing more to help him at corners.
I've said similar in my second post on this. No idea why we keep leaving the GK to deal with nuisance attackers on his own. Get one of the big lads in the attacker's face and deal with it that way. Shove them around a bit, get the referee to give both players a warning etc. We're not communicating well enough at the back at the moment. I think we saw that with Maupay's goal midweek and again with the first goal today.
The real issue with the subs is how they affected our tactics The first batch were like-for-like subs, with Deki replacing Johnson and Sarr replacing Bentancur, so we retained the same shape and so forth The second changed our momentum, with Skipp replacing Werner and Gil replacing Maddison, so we had three defensive CMs and a training cone on the pitch The third changed our formation, with Dragusin replacing Hojbjerg, so we were playing 3ATB but without a CM who could relieve pressure with a pass or dribble What that also did was remove the potential aerial threat our CMs could offer at set pieces, given our CM options break down something like this - Bentancur and Bissouma are reasonable enough in the air to offer a degree of aerial protection - Sarr and Hojbjerg are pretty average in the air so mainly work as bodies in the mixer - Skipp is 5'9" so Brexit Ball will literally sail over his head Sarr and Skipp being on the pitch actively weakened our aerial cover against a team who were dangerous from set pieces, to the point we would have been better with Richy covering at the back - but then we'd be giving up both the main out ball as well as someone who can hold onto the ball up the pitch to relieve pressure In terms of the ref, while he didn't give Everton anything too outrageous what he didn't give us was about standard at this point, most obviously ignoring Mickey Van getting wrestled to the ground in the Everton penalty area and ignoring Godfrey's blatant dive when he was on a booking, and either of those would have changed the complexion of the game (as well as mean that Bissouma wouldn't be the only player who picked up a second yellow for diving this season...)
