Agreed - even if the ref thought that it had hit his hand it was clearly not intentional. Neither was the second one actually.
Once again, these discussions just highlight the inconsistency in refereeing. Had Jones been in charge of our game, he most probably would have given the penalty against Vertonghen, 2-0 - different game! Judging by what we saw yesterday, you could possibly conclude that Dowd may not have given either penalty to L'pool. Again, completely different game, then. It makes the whole thing a kind of lottery.
I think the differences are from mistakes rather than inconsistency. On the major points of contention yesterday the Laws are very clear and are clarified really well in the Gudielines section at the end see below. On the handballs it is really clear that Dowd was right and the ref in the Liverpool match wrong. It is not quite so clear whether the Stoke penalty non-award was right. Note that the guidelines say that the hand must be moving towards the ball. This was clearly not the case with Vertonghen as his hand was already planted on the ground before the ball was deflected on to it. The third bullet point below makes the Stoke one debatable. "Handling the ball involves a deliberate act of a player making contact with the ball with his hand or arm. The referee must take the following into consideration: • the movement of the hand towards the ball (not the ball towards the hand) • the distance between the opponent and the ball (unexpected ball) • the position of the hand does not necessarily mean that there is an infringement • touching the ball with an object held in the hand (clothing, shinguard, etc.) counts as an infringement • hitting the ball with a thrown object (boot, shinguard, etc.) counts as an infringement" On Offsides I think the Guidelines mean that Costa was Offside because he definitely tried to touch the ball so distracted our defender who might otherwise have been able to clear the rebound. "In the context of Law 11 – Offside, the following definitions apply: • “nearer to his opponents’ goal line” means that any part of a player’s head, body or feet is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent. The arms are not included in this defi nition • “interfering with play” means playing or touching the ball passed or touched by a team-mate • “interfering with an opponent” means preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or challenging an opponent for the ball • “gaining an advantage by being in that position” means playing a ball i. that rebounds or is deflected to him off the goalpost, crossbar or an opponent having been in an offside position" ii. that rebounds, is deflected or is played to him from a deliberate save by an opponent having been in an offside position A player in an offside position receiving the ball from an opponent, who deliberately plays the ball (except from a deliberate save), is not considered to have gained an advantage.
Vertongen's was never a peno in a million years, he fell and was not even looking at the ball. Neither were the 2 given v Leicester, the second was ball to hand. It's not like the players arm was up in the air, smalling on the other hand, swatted the ball with his arm, no peno! As usual officials are making huge ****ups and those two penos at Liverpool yesterday and the loss of 2 points. If they get relegated by less than 2 points.. that's a pretty big consequence of awful reffing that would cost Leicester many millions of £.
Ok, the inconsistency in refereeing standards, then. As I pointed out, had the two referees been swapped, you could very easily have had two completely different results. That's what makes the whole thing a lottery of sorts.
I don't think that the Referee's Association or the FA are doing a great job of publicising their preferred interpretation of the rules, to be honest. When you have pundits watching multiple replays of the same incident from numerous angles and they still can't agree on what should be given, then there's clearly some confusion about what's supposed to be happening. This leads to inconsistencies and we're seeing it constantly.
Nice to see that Uli Hoeness, former president of Bayern Munich, has been allowed out of jail on day release after 7 months of his 3 and a half year sentence for tax evasion. His old club are already lining up a new position for him, apparently. After all, he only stole about £22m. I'm sure he's a lovely, trustworthy guy.
It would help if the pundits actually knew the Laws. In our loss at City, for the first goal a City player jumped over the shot while in an offside position. The pundit said that it wasn't offside because 'Lloris wouldn't have stopped it anyway'. And I've lost count at the number of times 'contact' is mentioned in discussions when that word appears nowhere in the Laws. As I said in my post above the Law on handball and the interpretation guideline is very clear, so you can only conclude that the Ref in the Liverpool match was either incompetent or biased. The first one was particularly odd - I can see why officials don't give things because they didn't have a clear view, but in this case the ball didn't even hit the guys hand, so the ref's brain must have made it up. And why didn't the third official see Cahill's kick? He was only a few yards away.
After our match against Burnley, I went to the Bell and Hare with a couple of mates and the Leeds vs Forest game was on, when I saw him on the screen I genuinely thought it was a woman at first glance. And if looking feminine wasn't bad enough, he's also got the award for most theatrical dive :
I've only kind of noticed how bad Everton have been this season, they're just 4 points above relegation, having won just 5 games so far. Pretty shocking for a club like them.
somehow I doubt he was in with the commoners either.. plush sofas, his own kitchen own food brought in ect ect
The ref gave a peno based on what he thought he saw, his arrogant manner when the Leicester player approached him is proof enough he was certain he'd made the right call.
On the Vertonghen handball, there's a lot of precedent for blatant handballs going unpunished because there's no way it could have been avoided, just as with Vertoghens. I remember a few years back when Ashley Cole was tackled by Parker and the ball would've been heading out of play but it struck Cole's arm and fell perfectly infront of him so that he could continue his run and cross it to score against us. It's just one of those unfortunate/fortunate things that can happen in a game, as much as I hated seeing it go against us it was the right call not to give it then, just as it is now. The confusion on the rules all stems from too many bad decisions by refs.
Gerrard: “I wish I’d met Brendan when I was 24 because I think I’d be sitting here talking about a lot of titles that we’d won together."
Is Fryer's injured or can he genuinly not even make it into Palace's cup team? He'll be back in Belgium with Bostock soon enough if he doesn't start improving.
Sheff Utd two up at Rangers and they are our opponents in the capital One, we must tread very carefully.
Probably the most obvious choice for an upset. I had them in my cupset treble today but Sunderland surprised me by fielding a strong side and busting a promising 300/1 bet
Ok Yid well done. I've read just now that QPR have only won two cup ties in the last decade but I'm still surprised at the size of the defeat.
