Same goes for never picking Steve Bruce & Gary Pallister partnership at centre back. It's so simple, so obvious...yet always eludes whoever is picking the England team. Phil Neville has 59!
Sascha Riether has become the first player to be charged under the new retrospective action scheme. Fair enough, he stamped on Man Utd's Adnan Januzaj and he deserves a ban. Nothing wrong with that, on the face of it. My problem with it was that it was in clear view of both the ref and his assistant. They obviously didn't get a complete understanding of what happened and missed the nasty part, but in what way is that different to Torres v Vertonghen at WHL? They bottled charging the Chelsea man in that incident, yet they're happy to go after a player from their neighbours when it's in a game against Utd. What am I missing here?
The whole rule can clearly be abused to suit whatever they choose. If they see it and it's punished they can't take action - unless they do. If it isn't seen they can take action - unless they don't. The Torres/Verts situation is surely one of the most ludicrous abuses of a rule we have ever seen, and not something that I think would have worked out the same way if, for example, Suarez had been doing the scratching and/or a player playing for a Fergie ManU team had been the victim. But that's the point isn't it? That rule is not gonig to be applied evenly. They will think twice before confronting Chelsea considering who the manager is.
Have the FA said whether the officials saw the incident or not? My guess is that perhaps they said they didn't see any of it to allow the FA to act. It'll be interesting to see if anything comes of the Soldado elbow too, I don't think anyone knows where we stand any more. My view is it would be a soft ban anyway, especially if you look at the way Jagielka was manhandling him and considering Lukaku won't be banned for dangerous play.
David Moyes getting himself confused over whether Adnan needs protection - "I do think Adnan is going to need a little bit of protection or we are going to find that he is getting kicked up and down. It is not a case of asking for protection. "We are just saying that somewhere along the line, people will need to let the boy, if he is going to keep playing in the fashion and style we want, he is going to have to get some protection from it."
Isn't that the case in all league's outside the prem? Barca rarely get a decent game out of anyone bar Madrid, Athletico and sometimes the odd game from the likes of getafe. Dortmund and Bayern keep running away with there league, with maybe only Shalke any good these days. Italy is quite competitive, but mainly because they are all as bad as each other. I'd wager that the equivelant team in England ie say Norwich vs Sassuolo or betis would win in a double header. Swansea vs Elche or Parma. The prem is the best top to to bottom, toughest and most physical league in Europe. Now we are also seeing a mojor shift in the football teams are playing with: Arsenal, Liverpool, Soton, Swansea, City and Spurs all playing possesion football and the FA's new initiative to promote the technical side of the game with young players, the St Georges park developement to improve coaching etc we may start to see English players that can actually control the ball, cross a ball and merit there transfer fee's which would mean that foreign teams would take an interest and thus solve the issue of "too many foreign players" in the league.
True, but this wasn't just not showing ambition, this was just meandering around the field letting Dortmund do whatever the hell they wanted for 90mins. They were lucky it wasn't double figures. Their midfield seemed allergic to making challenges. Their defence couldn't mark and they had no will to get to 2nd balls. It was like the manager just said "yeah, we're playing lads but don't get injured and save yourself for the next match".
Fair enough. I do think if Arsenal/Wenger were in a different league they would have more trophies then they do now. Which would mean they could sign the players that Barca or Juve have done on the back of being champions (assuming the economical side was the same and they suffered no draw backs from being re-located.......which in heindsite is quite probable given the ticket prices they charge, and the Sky money they get.....hmmmm I'll just be quiet I think)
If there is some retrospective hand-slapping of Soldado then at least you have more faith that a post-match citing scheme is being fair.
I think the F.A can only act when the officials haven't seen the incident and the ref's report is silent. If the ref says that he saw it, but didn't think it was a stamping, they can't do anything even when he's shown to be plainly wrong. So the principle that the F.A will not undermine the ref, however badly wrong he gets a decision, remains intact.
Yeah, I was just questioning whether that was the case because Dyke hinted after the Torres incident that they were looking to change the interpretation of the rule to ensure that incidents don't go unpunished because the FA didn't have a good view or made a mistake.
There's no way that the officials didn't see the Riether incident, even if they didn't get a good look at it. That's where the bloody ball was. Their excuse for the Torres/Vertonghen thing was that they saw it but didn't see the extent of it, so why is this any different?
They just make it up as they go along I suspect, PNP, to try to save face. But there will be genuinely be times when an official on the field of play will not see things because his view is obstructed or his attention is diverted or he is too far away etc etc. The retospective power seems to acknowledge a need to act after the event in these circumstances, but in no others.
Agree with the first part of what you say. But you forget the "Chelsea exception" rule, which is that the officials did not see the scratching, so retrospective action appears to be allowed even under these ludicrous rules, but then they decided that it was part of the original tripping incident, so could not be separately dealt with. How they came to this conclusion is beyond me, since you could look at the same evidence and (much more easily) conclude that it should be treated separately, particularly because an obvious distasteful incident had occurred. I really hope they didn't back off because of Mourinho's one man campaign against Verts claiming he got Torres sent off - because that's just what he does, divert attention from issues he doesn't want to get the full attention (being sent to the stands on the same day his team got the benefit of a ludicrous decision against Cardiff anyone?) All the pundits in the Torres scratching incident were debating what the extent of the ban should be, nobody was talking about no action at all! Seriously folks, who thinks they would not have taken action had exactly the same thing occurred but Suarez was doing the scratching?
I think the most important thing to respect is that referees shouldn't be sending players off or making big decisions if they're not confident of what they saw. It's one thing to be looking at the incident without being confident of what he saw. Like when Suarez kicked Parker in the stomach, at the time it was difficult for the ref to be certain but with replays you can see that he knew where Parker was and that his eyes stopped following the ball. It's not right that a player can get away with it just because it was too difficult for the ref to give at the time. It's similar with diving, players shouldn't get away with it just because the ref wasn't sure enough at the time, or worse, was conned by the simulation.
It isn't right, but you know that if all decisions were up for review, every ref would get slaughtered every week and there would be so much retrospective re-writing of the game, it would be farcical. Refs would be completely undermined. The F.A don't want that. How do you set criteria for retrospective action that doesn't make it a free for all with the F.A being asked to look at countless decisions?
How about like cricket/tennis. Teams get 2-3 reviews per game (which could run via video ref without interupting the game in most cases, like the Suarez one above). Take video footage out of the dug out so the management team have to be a bit savvy with it. If you are proven correct you don't lose a review, if the video ref disagrees with you you lose one.
A busy night ahead for Manchester security and police..... http://www.theguardian.com/football/2013/nov/05/cska-moscow-manchester-plane-divert
