Thing is, Chilco, economies are bought down by one (usually a man) person's decision ... men & women are sent to war on the same basis and they don't get it right. When we were relegated I thought through some of the decisions that we'd had. Remember Arsenal when we were 2-1 up and the ref added 3 days injury time until they scored? Ditto home to Everton. Those 4 points would have kept us up. So yes, I agree, we might miss out come April because of a bad decision made last night, or when the ref sent off Rickie at Brighton or, or, or .... But try as I might I can't see how we can get consistency.
Football is that rarest of sports...play can be continuous. Most questioned decisions would result in a stoppage that affects the game. Ref says no penalty play on, then defender sets up a great move but is called back for video evidence to be considered. No penalty says third eye, but the flow of the game is lost and a dropped ball would have to be given. Penalties are often a matter of opinion even when all angles are considered. This is the only thing FIFA have got right. The only technology they will consider is goal-line and then it must be nearly instantaneous and only the ref must be notified...that is what they are looking at now.
I agree with your point about goal keepers being protected these days. In my young days if you went for a header you put the ball, goalkeeper and anyone else in the way into the back of the net. However in reverse if you had an incident like you had last night of players blocking your way to the ball, you as a goalkeeper would go through them to get to the darn thing. This blocking of the goalkeeper is creeping into the game. Tactics need to be developed to combat it. If Davis had jumped clean for that ball he would of got the foul, but I think he mis-judged the flight and flapped at it and lost it.
Yep, sorry to say it but it's Davis's error at the end of the day. There's nothing you can do as a goalkeeper to stop players standing in front of you, you just have to deal with it, that's the way it's always been.
He wasn't just standing in front of Davis - he was backing in to him, making it impossible for Davis to get to the ball
