I read the line-up in between a break at UFC and thought it was odd. 5 defenders, Bentaleb over Paulinho, one natural winger and leaving two on the bench. Is Tim deliberately doing himself out of a job? I was impressed when he first took over but his decisions and tactics in recent weeks have left me for the most part, dumbfounded. Was Walker playing RW then? ****ing stupid if so, can't cross a ball for **** and has no dribbling ability whatsoever bar a "knock on and run" motion. Soldado left on the bench for the whole 90 after finally scoring a goal in open play in the previous game will have likely knocked his confidence back again... Catalogue of errors.
Walker spent most the game in central midfield or behind Ade from what i could tell. Flummoxing. I've no idea what was meant to be going on. Sky had the line up as Walker on the right, but he didn't stay there long. I seem to remember Harry doing this too. Bale, Bale, he plays on the left! (funnily, he now does seem to play on the right)
WTF?! Why on earth would Tim play him there?! Definitely losing the plot, I know Tottenham seems a headache of a club to manage but I think Tim's losing the plot. Ha, Harry envisioned what Bale would do in the future. If only we'd stuck by him
I'm exaggerating a bit i guess, but he did spend a lot of time in the middle for no apparent reason. I wonder if he had a role to do with Hazard, as that was the idea of 2 full backs on the right (as Hazard plays left normally). I didn't follow Hazard during the game (he wasn't really needed, we did his work for him) but its possible he came inside and Walker was simply following him. The outcome was the same though. Tim tried to be clever, against Maureen, and it didn't work, a lot.
Does this mean the FA will be taking retrospective action against Eto'o for diving then? Hahahahahahahaha, don't bother answering
For those of a FA referring slant, how does this get dealt with ?? Do the match officials get summoned to discuss how they came to the decision and ways/means of ensuring they do not do it again ??
Too right. I was actually mazed when watching the MOTD highlights that both the match commentator and the studio guests all agreed that it was a definite pen. Just bizarre. The BBC seemed to think there was no controversy and didn't even show repeated replays in slow motion to show the controversy cos they just decided there wasn't any!
Fowler and Murphy both said that they could see why the ref gave it, but I don't think that either of them actually thought that it was a penalty. Nice to see that the BBC have adjusted from having too many ex-Liverpool players by hiring... even more ex-Liverpool players.
I couldn't watch motd , as I knew it'd piss me off. The panel is usually biased anyway, so it's not surprising! Edit: missed pnp's post above.
The pen was debatable, the red card was never a red in a million years. There were poor decisions for both sides.
It felt like the ref was giving Chelsea a freekick everytime they hit the deck but when a Spurs player did it(Ade in particular) the ref wouldn't bat an eyelid. It was a really poor refereeing performance from the man I expect to take over from Mr Webb as the biggest cheating ref in the league. It makes me sad that a decision like the penalty one could even be considered debatable by anyone. Could he have stayed on his feet? Yes. Was he put off balance? No. It makes it even worse that it's another case of the foul being engineered by the attacker who made an unnatural movement in order to force contact so he could flop on the floor. Several players have done it already this season and get the decision. I don't particularly blame Eto'o(although I did at the time, of course) or anyother player that does it because they're just taking advantage of the embarrassing standard of refereeing in the league, and I'd like to see our players practicing it too because you could average a penalty a game if the team work at it. It might sound hypocritical because deep down I hate it but there's no point us playing on an unlevel playing field because we're too proud to join in with the legalised diving.
On the commentary he says something like "No doubt it was a penalty..." and as I remember Murphy and Fowler both said noises to the effect of "A penalty but a harsh sending off". (Virtually?) no debate as to whether or not it was a pen. The commentators on my stream, however, made a lot of noise about how it looked like a dive.
