Absolutely - he wasn't offside as the rules stand - as we remember Kane doing the exact same thing a few years back when Lovren took a hapless swipe at the ball. It just isn't offside, period.
In the cold light of day. 1. Player safety. That referee let players down. Macallister was assaulted. Szoboszlai was raked from top of shin all the way down and compete unpunished. Pickford as per let away with it. 2. Ref clearly came with preconceived ideas. Jota was fouked and waved off. Then 3 separate fouls and clear fouls in Diaz let go and waved off. 3. Ref was clearly keeping cards in pocket. He let off several waving cards, pull backs and throwing ball away on both sides. He only pulled a couple late for nothing to get his number up. Jota for talk, nunez for rolling. Why is this just about the only game in the entire prem.where referees act like it's the 1980s? You would.swear having to red card a bad tackle would ruin thier careers.
Possible points from 7 games= 21 points Points needed to win the title = 13 points 3 wins and 2 draws is sufficient to win the title. Another win against Fulham will make games running out for Arsenal.
Don't think it's been mentioned but Beto should have gone too; he was booked early on but then did two offences that are automatic yellow cards; kicked the ball away and pulled a player back.
The ref actually held a grudge against Jota for telling him it was a joke that he wasn't given a free kick, and then ignored 3 blatant fouls afterwards for him. So poor and unprofessional.
I think with Pickford, it was totally deliberate. He knew the whistle had gone and took that as a queue to have a free hit at Nunez.
Imo If you park the Everton thugs as we won't meet them for months now. If you park the pig of a ref and scumbag Tierney as we might not meet either again this season. Then what's left? Konste and vvd were terrible and I mean ****ing terrible. They were up against one of the most average forwards in the prem and were like clowns. Gravenberch is done for the season. He was so slow and so ponderous on the ball it was unreal. Salah was absolutely useless. His touch is poor, pace non existent, hold up play non existent. We have 8 games to play and we need a lot better than that ****show. My goodnight they played like thst v psg it would have been 10 in each game. Roll on Fulham. They will be licking their lips looking at the state of our team I would 100% take a draw away now to fulham as we have 2 absolutely winnable games coming after. 86 still the target and that's 13 points away.
Delighted with the 3 points, the actual match, not so much. It was the worst combination of everything from us not playing great to Everton being Everton to grossly incompetent refereeing to having the officially worst VAR. Silver lining - there were no injuries.
We ran the show for the first 20 mins, IMO, but after the rightly disallowed goal they seemed to have most chances in that first half. We totally dominated the second half though. Agree about Gravy and I thought Szobbo was wasteful too, but disagree about Ibou except for one through ball that he let hook around him in the first half. Virgil was worryingly flacid in that first half, no disputing. Jones did his best, but he ain't a RB. I thought Jota was dire until his goal, and it seemed our only plan all the game was to dribble through the middle. Everton defended well. That all said, the elephant in the room - they should have been down to ten men for 80 minutes (and nine after the Pickford incident on Darwin later). As you say, we don't have play them again, but we are vulnerable in these last 8 games against Dogs of War, anti-football teams. Let's hope we go into May at least 10 points up for those last four games as they're ****ing tough and we don't want to be having to win them all (though Brighton were hosed at home last night).
Everton sat 10 men behind the ball deliberately when you contest and just hack it out cos it's all you want to do then most sides will have 70mto 80% possession. I put no store in any dominance as Everton were happy to gove it to us and look for a set play. They could have beaten us well with a better attitude. They had the players to do it.
I agree that it could have been another Forest in that first half, but they did nothing in the second half. Nothing. I do agree with your point though that we we seem to be crawling over the line and we need to make the most of the next four games in April as all the ones in May look loseable.
I was using the 'clear and obvious' wording similar to the excuse that Tierney gave for not upgrading the yellow. I think I actually got it wrong and should have said 'was' instead of 'wasn't'. Anyway I got your quip, mine fell a bit flat
No probs, as is frequently evidenced on this site, I manage to somehow be both on the spectrum and dim with it.
