Often it is obvious that the players is off side and they do not flag, the linesman are there for that reason and should do their jobs , occassionally mistakes are made ,thats the way it was and worked long before VAR came along
Many good goals were disallowed before VAR though. The solution is to give the attacker the benefit of any doubt which is exactly what the current VAR protocol requires.
The illogicality with the current protocol is the flag being raised if a goal isn't scored. If the Linesman isn't sure he shouldn't be raising it at all.
As has been mentioned above, I've lost track of the amount of times an attacker is yards offside but the linesman waits until the end of that 'phase of play' before flagging. Which means the real problem isn't my logic, it's either the Law or the standard of linesmen.
Watching the highlights back I feel I should have cut Kulu more slack. He had a direct involvement in 3 of the goals and you can never fault his work rate. He did give the ball away a few times but he never stops running and never hides even when he isn’t at his top level. Buzzing tonight, that was such a big win.
From MOTD2: Villa last failed to score in a home game in October 2022. It was Gerrard's last home game as their manager.
It's simply not possible for a human linesman to get offside decisions right. There have been many goals disallowed when the player was yards onside....in one our matches he was about five yards inside our half. So there are only three options...put up with random mistakes, use VAR which necessitates the Linesman not flagging if he is not sure, or give the attacker the benefit of the doubt which also necessitates the Linesman not flagging if he is unsure. The first of these avoids injuries only if the Linesman flags when he is unsure so that will certainly lead to good goals being disallowed.
It's more Matty Cash specifically; he ended Matt Doherty's season (and effectively his Spurs career) in 22/23 and injured Bentancur with a disgusting lunge just after the Uruguayan had returned from a 10-month injury. My favourite part of the whole McGinn assault was Lenglet doing his old club a favour by going over to calm Romero down
His previous hamstring injury was also due to refereeing bollocks, as the stopping and starting due to VAR played a part in it
I wouldn’t read too much into that They had ten men for a lot of the second half and played on Thursday night in Holland. Spurs over the other hand have had big gaps between games this season.
All true and I think it definitely contributed, but they've been in Europe all season. They've still scored in every Emery home game for about 18 months. Restricting them to one shot on target and virtually no big chances is still impressive. I think it highlights the need for a strong squad next season, though. If we get into Europe, which looks likely, then Postecoglou's style is really going to stretch things. Emery's a very good and successful coach and a couple of absences have set him back badly.
Turns out we beat Palace away by the same scoreline in January last season. I really have completely expunged last season from my memory.
It appears that Emery went in with the mindset of do not lose + I know what Spurs are capable of. That mindset seemed to have seeped into the team (which meant the latter eventually came for them) . Defensively they did the now common approach of not going into the Spurs pivot trap, and letting Spurs have all the possession but not in dangerous areas. But once they were 0-2 down, it reminded me a lot of the Burnley game (where the opposition know they have to press but will get torn to pieces if they lose possession in the final third) .
Next season will be tough. On the plus side the players will be used to the manager’s demands and style of play. The extra games will almost certainly result in extra injuries though and that’s my biggest concern. I hope to see at least 4 quality additions in the summer.
Yeah those are my thoughts too. I think right now we’d get eaten alive in Europe with the squad we currently have. There’s probably only 3 players I’d say that can come into the side and not show a significant drop in quality and/ or style: Dragusin (based off early impressions). One of our four main CMs seeing as only three can start. Johnson on current form, albeit he could push himself into the starting XI with more performances like of late. I’m open to keeping Davies too, stylistically he’s nothing like Udogie at LB nor van de Ven at CB but at the same time he’s generally always been dependable when called upon, though I do think sooner or later his game time will become severely limited, especially if we bring in a couple of FBs in the summer which I think we need to.
Alfie Doughty at Luton looks like a smart squad pickup, given he appears to be out of contract in the summer and is capable of playing both LB and LW, has crossing which nobody else really has, plus set piece potential Plus he counts as HG, which helps the squad balance for Europe - which is pretty necessary as our academy doesn't appear to have a single FB in it
We will only have one outfield club trained player next year and probably only three association trained players unless we keep Sessegnon. Possibly Tanganga will have a free shot at a place in the UEFA squad and we can keep both Whiteman and Austin too.
Villa Youtube extended highlights: Posting this almost entirely due to the Hojbjerg bit that starts at about 7.50. The turn followed by the feigned pass before the decent ball forward genuinely made me laugh.
