Is there any other sport where decisions are made by the officials that can alter the outcome like there are in football? It varies from official to official and they are hindered by the lack of replays like in rugby. Why are the FA and indeed ultimately FIFA so reluctant to remove these contentious decisions which can change results? Every sport has moved on. Not football. It just seems to get worse.
Looking ahead to next week, Liverpool have had two decent results and performances against Leicester and Chelsea but they do have a knack of following decent results against top sides with a poor result/below par performance against a lower side. The odds are stacked against us but part of Liverpool's inconsistency is not always turning up with the same attitude against the likes of Burnley and West Brom that they do with Chelsea and Arsenal. If we go in with the right attitude, who knows. Plus, as some of their fans are now chirping up about winning the league, it'll be nice to be the ones who bring them back down to Earth again!
Agreed. Watching MOTD last night there was atrocious officiating in 3 of the games. It's not like its the odd game here and there, it's a sizeable amount of matches that get dominated by useless turd refs.
You should post this in the conspiracy thread, i really don't understand why the football authorities are so against technology. In the champions league they brought in the goal line officials and yet they are only there to see if the ball crossed the line, they never seem to get involved in anything else.
I don't think football needs any more decision making technology. It's got the goal line technology system which works well but it's not like cricket where the bizarre, pedantic laws of the game means that the fairness of the game is actually enhanced by an off field check. Cricket is also a stop start game so checks don't disrupt the flow. The same in tennis. Challenging line calls by the human eye at 140 mph is reasonable to me. As is limiting the number of challenges otherwise it would obviously get silly. Rugby is the closest to football in terms of nature of play and the game is ruined by technology. The excitement totally evaporates whilst your waiting for some dilbert to double check 20 replays before stating the bleedin' obvious. No, what football needs is not technology, but merely competent referees. Simples. But apparently an unrealistic expectation.
Totally agree. In the end, yesterday's decision was a matter of the referee's judgement, not a matter of fact. I'm not sure that repeated viewings by a bloke in the stands, while the players stand around, would have any effect on that judgement.
It took one replay to see that the handball wasn't deliberate and that the goalkeeper had it covered. A quick word in the referees ear and the red card turns into a yellow and award the penalty is awarded. It could have been done in the time that was wasted while our players argued with the referee, so it wouldn't have effected the pace or flow of the game in the slightest.
Its quite clearly unrealistic to expect referees to see everything and get everything right, its just never going to happen. The simple solution is to have a second referee in the stands with a video screen and replays who is in constant communication with the referee. The game is never stopped to check a decision instead the second referee can give their opinion based on what they see, the same as the linesman already do. Given that the majority of wrong decisions can be identified instantly, including Jakes red card and the first two goals in the Everton V Boro game yesterday, it wouldn't slow the game down at all and it would just make the final decisions far more accurate.
The wrong decisions week in and week out disagree with your belief that football doesnt need more technology Ern. No other sport relies purely on one persons judgement call.
It would perhaps go against the bigger teams giving all teams a more level playing field re decisions being called correctly. No pun intended. Perhaps this isn't what the authorities want.
Did Watford get all the decisions? Or did they go out there battle hard, attack Man U and make them look the bag of **** they are?
It's only your judgement that the handball wasn't deliberate, not the referee's. So you've slightly missed my point.
It doesn't actually matter if it was deliberate or not, its only a red card if it prevents a certain goal. The referee clearly thought it was going in, replays show the keeper actually had it covered. Therefore regardless of personal opinion or judgement the decision was wrong. Something which could have been resolved conclusively in seconds using a second referee.
