The TV companies do everything they can to ensure dodgy decisions are glossed over. I think I read on here that Hargreaves even said that Rooney rugby tackling Kane wasn't a penalty! You're right that refs will always make mistakes but the bias is there for all to see. They blatantly disregard the laws of the game time and time again when it involves making a big decision against one of the big 4/5 and rarely show the same leniency to the lower clubs. Maybe it's the added pressure, maybe it's because Fergie and co get them free tickets to games and are their texting buddies(Halsey admitted this as I recall), whayever the reason is a bigger side gets the better of the decisions. Even Paulpowersleftfoot, a City fan, said he noticed a big difference in the amount of decisions going in their favour once they became a team fighting it out at the top. As for offsides, the only thing that needs to be clarified is the situation where a player offside is in the goalkeeper's line of site when a shot comes in. If we go by this "if you're not in play then what are you doing on the pitch" guff then we'd have 40 offsides a game as it doesn't matter whether the ball is passed to the player who's offside, as soon as his team make a pass a freekick has to be given. The "inplay" addition to the law just clarifies the situation we already had and allows referees to make sensible decisions. Otherwise we have a situation, like with handballs, where the rules state that there has to be intent but the referees give decisions when there's no clear intent and we get a total lack of consistency from one decision to another.
The only complicated thing about offsides is when a player is 'interfering' but doesn't touch the ball, like Eriksen did a few games ago. All this 2nd/3rd phase stuff is easy - the ruling resets everytime someone touches the ball.
I was at Selhurst Park yesterday in the Spurs section. I thought the palace fans were pretty quiet by their standards until they went in front, till then it our lot making the bulk of the noise. I'm surprised that a few on here have praised the home fans but not mentioned the Spurs
"The only complicated thing about offsides is when a player is 'interfering' but doesn't touch the ball, like Eriksen did a few games ago." That was a good decision (as I said at the time, Eriksen effectively did the equivalent of the rugby stand still and put your hands on your head) .
Sorry YV, foul mood plus a few beers forced me to use it. Won't happen again mate, . So if you spent another £140m, that means as of right now you'd expect to be at least above us and probably one of Arsenal or Southampton? Or have the target of a top 4 finish this season as pretty much a minimum aim? It's too difficult to measure where a team should be after spending X amount of money. Especially if the amount has been spent in just one window or spread over 5 or 6. Yes our current squad probably cost around £200m to build, admittedly we've bought some right duds with that, but that £200m has been spent roughly over 3 seasons with the likes of Lloris, Vorm, Vertonghen, Davies, Fazio, Chiriches, Dier, Stambouli, Capoue, Dembele, Paulinho, Eriksen, Chadli, Lamela and Soldado all signed in that time frame. Most of that money spent was from Bale and Modric's sales. Selling players of that ilk are pretty much impossible to replace, especially as we can't offer CL football to potential replacements and therefore have to mainly look at players starting to make names for themselves and players to invest in for the future. When you take City, Chelsea and even Utd for example, they could (and have I think) spend around £150m - £200m in a single window mainly on world class talent thanks to their sugar daddies/ previous league finishes/ club stature, we may have spent a lot in recent years but at least ours have come from player sales, tickets, merchandise and TV money. I wouldn't say I'm delighted with our "achievements" if that's the right word but any team that sells two of the best players in Europe in successive seasons would find it a struggle, so the fact we've managed to pretty much stay around the top 6 since Modric and Bale's departures (add van der Vaart too) we've done fairly well. Our aim has been to crack the top 4, we've done it twice (though the second time Chelsea won the CL) and have been around the top 5-6 more often than not. We sit 6th now, 3 points off 3rd and are still in all possible competitions with a young squad who's played more overall games than most this season. We're steadily improving, even if it is a slow process. I personally don't think think that with another £140m you'd be much better off than us, I don't think you could generate another £140m even if theoretically you sold your whole squad, so saying if you had that much extra to spend would have to come from major investment and thus being able to keep your key players - If we had spent £200m and still had Bale and Modric here, we'd arguably be title challengers, but that's way too difficult and farfetched to predict.
Pressed post reply to soon on the post above! On the game, we were poor throughout, palace had more hunger and desire than us. On the day, the better team won. Far too many of our side had below average games and without Hugo in goal, palace should and would of scored more. The ref was poor, he didn't favour either side but was just poor. He seems out of his depth at this level.
The Palace fans sounded very loud throughout the game on the box. It may well have been due to where the microphones were placed but most of the time it was tough to pick out the Spurs songs.
It was an excellent decision and a canny piece of play from the Dane. Its a difficult area to officiate though sometimes, often the correct decision is only reached during TV analysis after looking at TV angles that the ref has no access to.
I called my West Ham mate a few weeks ago and told him he could be playing Real Madrid(?) next season.He agreed. A few weeks later......what on earth happened?
by all day, you mean two posts. I usually can't be arsed with the spuds board as it is full the type of gobby twats everyone knows Tottenham fans to be. as to wumming, that's what you accused everyone of doing over Bale, who left a month after, I have no doubt Kane will see the season out, and part of next, but sooner or later he will want to follow in Sol Campbell's footsteps so he can play for the club he supports. He isn't a tottenham fan so it was more than likely said tongue in cheek rather than in deluded seriousness.
The problem with the Stambouli penalty decision even after many replays is what offence did the ref think he committed. Both players were running after the same loose ball and one (and it was hard to tell which) got there about 1/100 of a second after the other. Why is that a foul? Incidentally since this is less than the frame rate of the video it is literally impossible to tell from the replay which player got there first. The Kane penalty on the other hand was clearly a careless tackle as Kane had control of the ball before he was kicked.
Not many good performances yesterday. Kane (I’m tempted to say, of course. But even he seemed to be picking his spots a bit to conserve energy). Dembele was good, but I think he’s much more effective in an attacking role. Lloris, as usual as well. The team is looking tired enough I think we may need to prioritize each week, and play first choice in one and second in the other. Eriksen and Chadli looked tired yesterday. Our other perpetual starters might benefit from a break as well.
"Funny because in my experience you have just summed up West Ham supporters perfectly!" That, and add know absolutely SFA about their own club.
I get you and the other West Ham fan confused, or rather you're interchangeable, so apologies if you feel misrepresented by the number of bad wumming attempts I implied. I think we can chalk this one up as another "miss" though
I don't know about the Stambouli penalty - when I first saw it I thought it was, but looking at replays I'm not so sure. I am sure that the foul on Kane was far more obvious than that ever was! On the first penalty the ball did seem to go off in the direction that Stambouli was coming in from, as if it was kicked by him, and I think if he connected with the player first the player would have fallen differently. Whatever the case however, the Kane one was blatant (as indeed was the Rooney ruby tackle on Kane!) and congratulations to Soton for winning at ManU (thinking that ManU would get some "special" ref decision today, although apparently Smalling was regularly fouling Pelle at corners).
It says something when we’re a little surprised when certain teams don’t get points gifted from the refs.
I had a bet on Southampton/draw at evens. I thought United were sure to get something when I saw 5 minutes added on, not sure where the **** they got that from! Should've been 2/3 at the most.
