Couldn't agree more. And they are still lauded by the media to this day, despite all the evidence of their players engaging in some despicable behaviour on the pitch and the manager subsequently found out as corrupt.
They'll be remembered as the dirtiest team I have ever seen play football in the top English league. And Revie as the scumbag who first managed them, and then ran away and deserted the England job when the UAE offered him lots of money.
So did the refs "favour" them back then? I thought ref corruption was a fairly new conspiracy theory brought about to appease the scousers for 26 years of hurt.
Fer barged into Cahill, so Swansea shouldn’t have had their second. On the other hand...Courtois deserved a red for a two footed studs up challenge nowhere near the ball. A Chelsea defender deserved red for hauling down a player as the last defender. Swansea should have had another pen late when one of their players was hauled down by the arm in the box while he had the ball. Chelsea deserved about a dozen yellows for simulation. Costa should have gotten at least three or four on his own. He also deserved a yellow for deliberate head to head contact. He should have gotten another yellow or three for instigating. I don’t understand why any official would let Chelsea in general, and Costa in particular, make a mockery of the game. I was planning to watch a football game and was presented with some kind of weird psychodrama instead. As badly written as the rules are, an official doing his job properly would have used them to stop this from happening. One call I’d love to see is a yellow for simulation after a player spends a minute writhing on the ground, then comes back into the game almost instantly at 100%, as Costa did at one point. Are officials spineless, stupid or crooked?, I wonder.
They had Bremner, Hunter, and the dirtiest of the lot, Giles. A lot of what they did was semi legal back then. Just highly cynical. It was win at any cost type football.
Once again, it's the inconsistency! Yesterday, we saw Bravo launch into a flying two footed tackle on Rooney, in the area. Twattenburg gives not even a foul. Despite having a clear view of it. The week before you see Atkinson giving pens for innocuous shirt pulling. No wonder players are confused over what they can get away with and what they can't.
Referee conspiracy theories are as old as as referees. I ought to know, since I’ve been coming up with them for ages.
And as usual the media are buying into it all by leading with stories about how aggrieved poor ickle Chelsea are being victimised by the ref's with Conta demanding that they protect the vunerable and retiring Costa. They are just a really ****ty club who just want to win at any cost. The likes of Terry and Costa will always be remembered, not for their achievements but how they went about them in a cynical win-at-all-cost way.
I'm not sure that is a fair comparison. Shirt pulling is a factual event, can't be done accidentally and is clearly a foul under the Laws. I'm very happy with Atkinson giving that as a foul. What Bravo did was not even covered by the rules until the changes in the summer when 'and challenges' was added to 'tackles' in Law 12. He jumped into the challenge but it was one footed not two, he got the ball cleanly and didn't really touch Rooney. It is entirely up to the ref to decide whether it was 'acting without precaution' (a foul), 'reckless' (a yellow card) or 'using excessive force' (a red card). I would have gone for reckless myself. There is the following new sentence in Law 12 which further muddies the waters "If an offence involves contact it is penalised by a direct free kick or penalty kick." Since I think he got the ball without touching Rooney it seems the correct decision would have been a yellow card and an indirect free kick. These rule changes seem not to have been properly thought through.
I should have thought that a blatant two footed flying lunge, which the referee had a clear view of, would also be seen as reckless play as a factual event. I've seen it several times. In my view, he got both. Yes he got part of the ball but he also got part of Rooney. Regardless of the amount of contact, if that challenge wouldn't be deemed reckless, I don't know what would!
It definitely wasn't two footed and his foot was back on the ground when he touched the ball. Rooney didn't touch the ball at all - so he could have been deemed to have fouled Bravo. I agree with you that it was a reckless challenge by Bravo but I can see why the ref might not have agreed.
It's more obvious from the other angle. But even that shows both feet off the ground when he collided with Rooney. If you go in with both feet raised, studs up, as Bravo does, it has to be reckless
The point is that he hasn't got a straight leg. He is swinging the leg so as to take the ball away from Rooney. He couldn't possibly be using 'excessive force' which is the criterion for a red card. You can see that clearly from the other angle. If he had missed the ball he wouldn't have injured Rooney.
