I actually really like Roy Keane. Proper old school character that we don't seem to get these days...
I do struggle to understand Leicester's decision to sack Cooper. It's presumably heavily based on yesterday's defeat, because (a) they haven't yet announced a replacement and (b) they've just had an international break during which they kept hold of him. But a one goal defeat to Chelsea is nothing to be ashamed of (albeit his whining afterwards was pretty poor). 10 points from 12 games, and 16th in the table, is pretty respectable for a newly promoted team. Their six defeats include Arsenal, Utd, Chelsea, Villa and (at the time) a bang in form Forest. Again, no shame there. Two wins and three draws from their five matches against the bottom eight, with home games against the other two (West Ham and Wolves) both just around the corner. Would Potter or Southgate want it? I'm not sure. Maybe. I suspect they both might be more interested in West Ham suffering a thrashing tomorrow. Moyes I suspect would take the job without hesitation, if offered it. (And an opening home game vs West Ham would be quite something for him.)
I read somewhere that the players (and many of the fans) weren't on board with him, so suspect that's driven it.
It makes sense that the fans wouldn't be on board, because of his Forest links (and he's a very different manager to their previous appointments). But the club knew that when they appointed him. I've got no idea if there's any truth about the players not being on board - but if that is true, then why not get rid during the international break? I've seen some suggestions that Potter might have had a change of heart, after originally rejecting them in the summer. But if that was true, why sack Cooper before they're in a position to announce Potter? Their more expensive summer signings haven't worked too well so far. I wonder how much Cooper was involved in them?
I think they’ll go down with us and Ipswich, which strengthens the “bin relegation” argument further considering how dominant all 3 of us were in the Championship
Dutchman Ruud van Nistelrooy, 48, is favourite for the Leicester job after holding talks with the club's hierarchy. (Football Insider)
Re the Suga handball and penalty award… It is an offence if a player: touches the ball with their hand/arm when it has made their body unnaturally bigger. A player is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger when the position of their hand/arm is not a consequence of, or justifiable by, the player’s body movement for that specific situation. By having their hand/arm in such a position, the player takes a risk of their hand/arm being hit by the ball and being penalised So, given it wasn’t deliberate and his arm was moving away from the ball, the arguments arise from whether it was a natural position given his movement (I’d argue very strongly it was), it’s then that last para that creates the new problem as I really have no idea how a player can avoid the risk that their arm might be hit by the ball, unless they have their arms amputated
He made his body unnaturally bigger. Nothing in the wording about it having to be deliberate any more. When you have your arm outstretched as much as Sugawara had his, a penalty will always be given.
The law is simply wrong. We should return to the old days of simply deliberate or accidental. Just rely on the on field ref’s instant opinion and bin off VAR getting involved.
Not often I agree with you when it comes to ref decisions but I do here. If his arm wasn’t stretched like it was the ball would’ve gone through to the Liverpool player, looked to me like he slapped it back to McCarthy pretty deliberately, was a blatant pen. Why wasn’t the one on Armstrong given about 10 mins before though?
I think that was just a coming together. Armstrong didn't have control of the ball (i.e. taking it round the keeper) before the collision so I think it's a simple collision. Keeper is entitled to come out. Shouldn't have been a foul either way IMO.
Back to disagreeing then! The keeper can’t just come out, not touch the ball and take the striker out. Even if the ball was slightly out of Armstrongs reach the ball didn’t change its line at all as the keeper completely missed it and took Armstrong out. If the keeper had missed the ball and not fouled Armstrong then Armstrong had a good chance of a tap in, so it’s clearly a foul in my view
Basically, could he have dealt with that without the ball hitting his arm? He completely could and should have via his body shape, positioning, anticipation etc. It was a fairly clear handball for me.
I believe that the European football rules are going to be amended to exclude penalties from being given in incidents like happened on Sunday, where the ball deflects off of another part of the player’s body. It was a difficult situation for Yuki because he had clearly gauged that the ball would impact the side of his chest, so he moved his arm away NOT to make his body bigger but to try and avoid a penalty being given if the ball had hit both his arm and chest at the same time, had his arm been by his side. I agree with Chilco. The law should go back to how it was.
That looks like bullshit to me. First of all, the booking was correct by law and second of all Coote didn't gain anything financially. Seems like malicious lies being spread to me.
I mentioned "deliberate" purely as a kind of reference to making his body bigger, he obviously has, but the nub of it is "unnaturally". Arms "naturally" move around when you move at speed and I believe that his hands were in a natural position for his movement If the ball had gone straight to his hand I could understand, I guess, but it came off his body. I understand that that bit of the law has changed, but should it have? It makes the touch on the hand far more likely to be involuntary, which is why I understood that law was introduced Long and short of it is they thought the law and implementation was a mess years back, so ever since they have dabbled with it and each revision just introduces another argument and level of potential unfairness, but now rather than just being confused by its implemention, most of us are confused about which version of the law we are now on
... and surely making your body "unnaturally' bigger also constitutes "deliberate" and "naturally "bigger would be accidental e.g. Over your head when in a free kick wall or rising for a high ball, stretched wide when almost stationary and blocking a shot, bass or cross
