I do feel sorry for this injured player... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/c4ge298zel0o But the offside flag is not there as a safety measure. Players get hurt sometimes. You cannot prevent every injury. I think folks should concentrate on preventing longer term damage like brain injuries from heading the ball for years.
I have to say I agree. I do think not raising the flag and stopping play for an obvious offside is ludicrous, but it didn't cause this injury. Clearly if it had been raised the injury wouldn't have occurred. Hitting the post at high speed caused the injury. Football is a high speed, contact sport so the risk of injury is always there, particularly if you hit the goal post. The root of the problem is the current or indeed any previous ways the offside rule is applied. In my opinion it almost unenforceable in its current form. Certainly it is not by a human being. It is very difficult for the officials to see if a player is in what is deemed to be an offside position when another player kicks the ball. Particularly on the side of the pitch nearest the Assistant (I nearly put linesman there!). Technology doesn't really help either, if you had an attacker and defender running along side each other the attacker could either be onside or offside depending on which frame one freezes the action on. It seems to me that what is required is that a fixed point on the players body needs to be used for offside when analysed by VAR. Ideally somewhere on the torso as that doesn't move relatively to other parts of body when running (I'm not sure I've expressed that well). Say the midpoint of the lowest point of the sternum. I realise that would cause an issue when the defender is sideways on to the attacker etc. At least you wouldn't get the ridiculous case where an attacker's big toe is in front of the defender just because of the point in the stride pattern at which the video is frozen. The other cause of all these problems is the insistence that the rules have to be identical for all forms of the game. Clearly the Professional match played by super fit players should be seen as different from a pub team match on a Sunday Morning.
Haaland declining to take the penalty yesterday suggests to me he is not an elite player. a very good player yes but not elite. #bottled it
Looks like Leicester City are at it again... https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cnv113m0n4qo Possibly breached the rules, but may not be punished because they've gone down again. It's about time the Prem & the EFL came to an agreement so points deductions or other punishments can be applied the following season, regardless of the Division a team finds themselves in. If you are guilty of breaking Prem rules you should not be untouchable in the Championship. And vice versa. If you break EFL rules to get to the Prem, your punishment should not be delayed until you are back in the 2nd tier again. Waiting for Leicester to win promotion again, THEN punishing them, would make no sense.
El Crappico tonight or El Rubbisho... Man Utd v Spurs, to see who will be the worst English team ever to qualify for the Champion's League. Worth a watch if you can see it. I assume it's behind a paywall.
I’m going to watch it and will relish in delight at failure of either team. Have a slight preference for Utd tho
Pleased Sunderland won, their fans took our two victories so well and behaved impeccably. They'll be relegated by March though, they are shocking.
