It's a foul for me, don't understand this stance that if it is in the box it has to be a crunching tackle. A foul is a foul, he's in the box so it's a penalty. Don't feel sorry for anyone - don't swing your leg across the player without getting the ball in future'
if you go down that easy you may as well play for utd... its a flop and in my book its a dive... i see such crap around the pitch all the time.. look at johnson throwing himself down in their half and getting nothing. .. if he did it in his own corner.. free. refs are to blame as much as players. yes it was a wet pitch but the nature of contact and the way he went down doesn't suggest he couldn't stay up... anyway.... i though no way in real time and no replay helped me see it better. I can see the leg contact and as such technically it can be given.. it can be equally waved away. and if a ref is a hometowner and you are playing at the toilet, you'd get booked...
Personally, with some of the decisions we've had against us this year, I don't care what the media/other fans think of it/ what Rodgers decides to call it. We got it, we scored it - job done.
If you're a Welsh monkey pundits will excuse you for going down without contact because a butterfly's wings can unbalance your primate legs when moving at such high speeds This doesn't even make the top 10 of controversial penalties this season
that is true. however i really judge it by... I'm quite happy we got it and would be raging if a player flopped over and we conceded from it. that for me is as good a measure as any. I'd be raging if say.. adam went down easily in our pen area and got one given. I actually deleted flopped form the last sentence just to be nice. thats football... we needed it today, we could have lost even though our forwards look like scoring when we could get it up there... we did lose v chelsea and a pen there would only have rescued a point. So we got our luck but sterling might be on the refs watch list now
Agree with you here, it would have been given as a foul anywhere else on the pitch and nobody could complain. Looked to me like the contact did knock Sterling over rather than he threw himself to the ground. Definite pen for me. Seen softer pens given against us eg Berbatov a few years ago in very similar position. Plus Johnson on Valencia last season
is the german free kic where didi hamann used to flop over in his own half if anyone came near him in possession? If the french corner a block of cheese? brie or some such?
We deserve a bit of luck and a decision or two to our advantage after recent games. Take it and take the goal, it's up to the officials to make the call, if they can't make the correct one it's on them.
As Graham Poll puts it, there's a difference between exaggeration and simulation. Sterling exaggerated the contact, but he didn't simulate it. No pen, but no 'dive' either. But don't forget, supposedly Webb went around all the clubs last season and told players to down if there is contact.
Nah, Sterling couldn't do much/anything about that, ball were jus booted at him where's he supposed to go?
Doesn't matter, his arms were up and it deflected the ball right into his path. Handball doesn't have to be deliberate....not that I'm complaining like as we've had some ****e ref's in the last few weeks but I'd have certainly had no complaints if that'd been given against us either.
That's a law that hasn't been applied for donkeys though so let's be honest....deliberate handball doesn't exist anymore despite the rules saying it does. That's because (Graham Polls words on FA instructions sent down to them) referees are now asked "to consider the proximity of the potential offender, the speed of the ball and most importantly whether the offenders arms are in an natural or unnatural position and whether a handball works to the advantage of the offending player".
