For some reason, every time I see a comment from you regarding me, I imagine that you have actually punched your keyboard in order to produce the words! Do you?
When we have a pen, it is now a routine that we will have ABUs turning up here wumming. Johnson that muppet collided with his own CH and then came from behind to try to get the ball. He totally missed it and should have been given a yellow card. Stonewall pen...
I understand that it was a debatable decision, if it was a clear penalty then fair enough but you see these type of pens given sometimes, and other times they are not...it would be good to see consistency and I believe that can only come from giving the refs a hand with some form of video evidence! And just because every one agreed on MOTD that it was a pen does not make it officially a pen, most of the times those pundits are ridiculed on here as not having a clue, now they are seen as experts because they agree with a decision that favoured United. I am sure you will agree that if those decisions had happened the other way around you would be saying stuff like, "just because there was contact with Johnson and Valencia does not mean it is a pen, contact alone does not warrant a foul being given" and "Shelvey went in the same as Evans, so why was he not sent off too?" and "I know Evans caught Suarez but Suarez made a meal out of it and I am not sure that he would have went down under the challenge without exaggerating it!" I know you would argue in favour of United as that is what most fans do, therefore you see things differently and the decisions that went against Liverpool yesterday would all be seen as harsh and unwarranted by you and others if they went against United. Why not be different and say, yeah we got away with a few things yesterday that could have easily went the other way, rather than trying to justify debatable decisions, decisions that you have probably moaned about in the past as being wrong!
Why do you always have to insult everybody that you talk about? It lessens your argument when you seem incapable of just commenting without resorting to childish name-calling! Anyway, it was not stonewall in my opinion, but I can see why people differ in this view. I imagine you think that Suarez' non-penalty should actually have been awarded, given that you like to call things as you see them. And with Suarez you cannot argue with the fact that Evans caught him and not the ball, agreed?
I'm still not sure video evidence would help. Even after debating the two penalty incidents for the best part of a day and a half, with the benefit of 100 video replays, endless different angles and the views of a legion of pundits we don't have consistency. Personally I didn't think either of them were penalties - I thought Evans got a bit of the ball (although I was watching on quite a poor quality stream) and didn't think Johnson made enough contact for it to be a penalty. But I was at training tonight and one of the guys there thought it was a definite penalty on Valencia, and on Saturday night one of my Liverpool supporting mates through it was a definite penalty on Evans. Fouls are just so subjective that I don't really see how replays will do anything other than increase the pressure on the ref as people accuse them of being biased after they view the replays and still make a decision that half the people watching the game are going to disagree with.
I thought there was slight contact with valencia's ankle and a slight push in the back.. Yes it was a soft penalty but a penalty it was.. Also thought evans got his toe to the ball before contact.
I like the system they have in American Football, they negate this problem with a very simple rule. The official makes his decision in real-time, then video evidence is consulted. If the video cannot conclusively reveal that the decision was wrong then it is not changed. What this does is bring consistency, everyone knows the rules and if a referee refused to accept that he got it wrong when the video clearly shows he did, then he wouldn't last long as a referee. The system we have now allows for mistakes to change the outcome of games, those mistakes are then protected by the fact that ref's don't have video evidence. Surely we all want to have the correct decisions being made, why not help the referees out, if the video is inconclusive then fair enough, but at least an attempt was made to arrive at the right decision, at the moment it just seems nonsensical to ignore the technology and continue to let mistakes decide the outcome of games.
That system works in American Football because the game already has stoppages in between every play anyway, it may seem like a good idea to bring it in to Football but if you ask me it would just completely ruin the pace of the game, especially with so much simulation in the game these days.
As an American I agree with this. The rules in American Football are also more set in stone, than rules in Football. In Football a lot of rules seem to be open to the referees discretion.
Yes there is that argument about slowing the game down, but the actual video consultation takes very little time, they take advantage of it in American sports to advertise whilst it happens. At the moment here there is a lot of time wasted by players arguing about every decision anyway. They have the challenge system in American football, maybe that would help here so that you can only contest x amount of decisions (I think it is 2 in American football). I would rather have an extra 5 minutes added on to the length of each game than have mistakes ruin it, the refs have a hard enough job as it is, surely we should try to help them out!
The challenge system is for the coaches (two challenges with a third allowed if the first two were correct challenges I think), the officials can still choose to use the replays without any challenges from the coaches, and it usually takes well over 30 seconds every time. Could you imagine how happy a team like Spain, who many say play the game the way it should be played, would be if they were stopped from taking their customary quick free kicks time and time again while the referee took a minute to check the monitor? Or if the opposition coach used his challenges to stop them from making a quick break that would almost certainly lead to a goal even though it was blatantly obvious that the challenge would fail?
I think the best way to deal with the issue of simulation is to ban players retrospectively. It wouldn't take long for the players to get the message. As for everything else, I think the system we have now, whilst not perfect, is the best option. Unless of course you want more officials on the pitch.
Ditto in rugby, both union and league. Replays are only used when the play is stopped anyway and the decision is clear, i.e. was it a try or wasn't it. The technology is almost never used for fouls, they are just decided by the ref. And not only would it completely ruin the pace of the game, but it would also be unworkable in many situations. What happens if the ball is still in play after the alleged foul? The referee rules it wasn't a penalty but it was, the ball breaks loose and then a player from the same team claiming the penalty does a two footed tackle in midfield. What are you going to do? Bring it back for the penalty and send the player off?
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nq3WqbvOAG4 Are Liverpool fans forgetting this ?... and the goal that resulted from the freekick.
I am sure that these problems can be ironed out, maybe the challenge system is the way ahead, this will reduce the number of consultations and would I am sure mean that more decisions during the game are the correct ones, we all want that don't we? If the FA gave me a few hundred grand, I could write a simple list of what should be done and try to weed out any potential problems in the system by consulting people like yourself...we could change the game man!
The challenge system is also open to abuse. Player runs into box, falls down, opposition keeper clears the ball up field for a counter attack, manager calls for a challenge and stops the counter attack in its tracks. Some coaches already do that in the NFL, or the other team quickly plays the ball to prevent the coach being able to challenge the call. It would be great if we could get a system like this in place without affecting the game too much, but I am not convinced it would give the benefits you hope for, or that any benefits produced would outweigh the drawbacks in terms of the delays, interrupting the flow of the game, and it being quite arbitrary when it is used. What if the ref was absolutely 100% convinced that he made the right call on the Suarez penalty claim and thus would not have referred it to a video ref anyway?
In fairness, in the modern game, the tackle which Shelvey did; jumping in two footed with them both off the ground, is a red card offence. RVP's was debatable but he definitely did many other yellow card tackles and should have been sent off. The penalty was a very, very soft one but unfortunately Valencia got the right side of the defender and obstructed the referee's view and when that happens, it's always going to be a penalty.
