Tbh I thought the scoreline flattered us a bit- attacking play was great and we were the better team, but we were a bit lucky that West Ham's finishing was awful. We seem to struggle on defending set pieces without Konate.
And vvd. Quansah is still a young boy and his power will only improve. Joe has always been too short as a cb so he will be targeted at set plays but he played pretty well. Tsimikas was a liability half the time. Bradley is still learning. Kelleher made many saved to thst says yes the scoreline flattered. We could do with a a better draw here and there for these games but in the end we got through it and got chiesa a 58min showing without injury.
Brentford v Sheffield Wednesday - who cares more wins? Southampton v Stoke - again who cares more? Tottenham v Manchester City - will spurs be spurs or will pep throw the comp like he promised. AFC Wimbledon or Newcastle v Chelsea - hopefully which pitch this is held on floods again Manchester United v Leicester - this is of more interest to me that the spurs one. Who wants it less is key. Brighton v Liverpool. Mildly interesting but not really great. Preston v Arsenal. Just a nuicense for arsenal Aston Villa v Crystal Palace - could be a good cup tie. A battle. I hope this is on tv. Brentford Southampton Manchester City Chelsea Manchester United Liverpool Arsenal Aston Villa quarter finals with 6 big uns and 2 making up the numbers?
The funniest bit was when the ref went to book lopetegui after Tsimikas' non-handball, and some fans were worried that the ref was going off the pitch to check the monitor.
I've made it known all along how much I dislike VAR, but even I'd got to the stage where if we concede a goal I'm looking for VAR to chalk it off. Games like this one remind me how much it destroys the immediacy of football, and I'd gladly accept the occasional errors to get that back. Easier to say when you're winning though, I suppose - the Hammers would have loved VAR to give them one of the many pens they were baying for.
Bar the lino missing at least 2 blatant offsides by more than a yard in their favour. The linos standards have dropped massively since var came in. Get rid and they may actually do their job I suppose.
I'm still conflicted but that may well be because although I don't hold grudges, I often have a tendency to live in the past. The Mané goal at Arsenal that was called offside before VAR was introduced would have won us the league. On the other hand, since it's introduction we've had decisions that may have cost us the league and therein lies my confliction. That said, the immediacy of celebrating that you referred to, was so refreshing last night.
It reminds me of my old mum - never happier than when she was hating on something. It wasn't an intense vitriolic hate, she just enjoyed not liking things.
I've always been of the opinion that if the gap isn't big enough for the lino to see it then sod it, it's not that important. The number of really egregious errors in the past wasn't high enough, imo, to warrant screwing the game over.
Thing is - it wasn’t occasional errors And they weren’t evening themselves out Despite all it’s failings I prefer VAR I loved the use of VAR in the Euros I prefer to get to celebrate twice But it’s all about opinions I thought our first was off on first sight last night That could have been a different game we shall never know
I'm guessing you've watched it back. It was well onside. They had a defender on the goal line standing beside the goalkeeper.
In fairness they were fairly rare to the point of counting maybe on one hand a season. Maybe it was more but I can't recall all that much. The small clubs things more and the small countries at international level. I still wonder if they had just given these managers one review where the had to properly look at the thing and not be a defensive **** of a ref then thst would have done. You Tony pulis types would waste it on a **** pen shout then bleat and moan about that too.
In order to know that it wasn't evening out you'd have to examine every incidence in every game, carefully from different angles to be certain an error had occurred - then assemble statistics for for all clubs to see if there was a significant imbalance in favour of anyone. Unless you're doing that it's just a matter of perception, and that is subject to confirmation bias. You can watch tv replays and see that they might have got it wrong by a small margin, but my initial contention was that those small errors are not significant enough to be worth ruining the excitement of a goal - not for me, anyway.
You are right - I should have added an imho I don’t get the same excitement from the goal as most I think I just believe the results should be correct as they possibly can be as the game is not a game It’s a business The one I always look back on was our 1-1 draw with Sheff Utd years back They were 1-0 up with couple of mins to go IMHO Gerrard dives gets a pen and Utd lose 2 points on opening day The momentum that is gained from beating a side like Liverpool on the opening day could have gone a long way Sheff Utd went down that year - I think by 1 point I dunno - just doesn’t sit right with me that people lose their jobs over these inconsistent decisions in games it’s not a game anymore and hasn’t been for years - it’s a business with ramifications on families livelihoods Fleetwood’s relegation has led to a number of people being made redundant due to cut backs - if that was down to incorrect decisions (don’t think it was) - just doesn’t sit right with me Everton’s struggles financially have alledgedly led to them cutting back on programmes for the youth (I haven’t checked this - one of my girls has said that’s why she is no longer with Everton and returned to us ? ) tbf I can’t do anything about it - just don’t think the checking of a goal with VAR is that bad in the grand scheme of things - that said I do like the art of defending and as I said - if goal is allowed get to celebrate twice lol
