Rival watch

Caballero to have a penalty shootout blinder and all the Norwich players to buckle.

 

3 bookings for diving against a mid table championship side

 

Could have done with morata still being on the pitch to be honest....

 

Unlucky Norwich. Great effort.

On the bright side, that’s 120 extra mins for the Chelsea players.

 

Yes

 

120 mins extra, and 2 one match bans then!!

 

Next game Saturday away to Brighton

 

Not sure missing Morata () and Pedro is a big deal

 

I thought the ref had a great game. Nice to see diving being punished. Too many refs don't have the balls to do it. Maybe VAR will mean that comes to an end? Unless you're playing RM, Barcelona, United, etc.

 

There is something wrong with the penalty shootout rules. Chavs had two players sent off but they get no disadvantage in the shootout. The rules need changing. I've been saying for ages, all players left on the pitch, including the goalkeepers should have to take a penalty. i.e. Norwich would have had 11 penalties and the chavs would have had 9. This would penalise the cheating side. For a side with a squad the size of Chavski, two one-match bans hardy penalises them at all for being a bunch of cheating bastards.

 

Chelsky have submitted a formal complaint to the FA
that the ref yesterday did not meet the high standards
they have to come expect in home games such as with
Clatterf**k in 2016.

 

The amazing thing was the 100% agreement on the BBC panel that the Willian dive was a penalty. He clearly deliberately caught his foot on the outstretched leg. I still think the Laws could be clearer on what constitutes a foul tackle though. If you put your foot on the ground near where a player is running and while it is not moving a player trips over it, is that a foul?

 

Has Abramovich demanded his brown envelope back?

 

I get bored with the "there was contact, he's entitled to go down" camp. It's supposed to be a contact sport. Players will come into contact with each other, that doesn't entitle either to throw themselves to the floor and pretend that the cause was a foul by the other. I've become bored with Dele doing it and Chelsea 'jumped the shark' last night. I don't see either the challenge on Willian or Morata as causing the player to be impaired, let alone fall to the floor. I'd hope that last night's refereeing performance could be shown to all referees with the message...."This is what you should be aiming at."

I particularly liked Morata being shown a second yellow for his reaction to the first. Do this for a few weeks and referees wouldn't be getting surrounded by players shouting at them. I'd have sent Conte and his cat to the stands too.

 

We also had another example of the "He had every right to go down" argument for Morata's dive.

Falling over in the penalty area isn't a right, you ****ing morons, it's a bookable offence due to being otherwise known as "cheating."

 

They probably used the laws of physics in their
opinion making (the vertical/horizontal distance
travelled ratio for Willian was neither high nor
close to zero - for once) .

 

They have completely lost the concept of cheating. Yes it has always gone on, although is was never that much in the British game but now these ex pros think it's legitimate. It's still cheating and some teams are worse than other IMO. Chelsea being one of the worst offenders, probably due to their Spanish connections where sad to say teams like Barcelona have perfected the pass pass pass dive routine. As you say if refs really showed zero tolerance it could be largely eradicated. The problem of course is, refs often have difficulty picking out a dive from a foul. Promoting the pub conversations to the TV and calling them pundits doesn't help.

 

Depends on the teams involved.

 

The Willian dive last night was similar to Moses falling over Sons leg at Wembley, in last years semi-final the leg was there and he chose to fall over it.

 

Rodney Marsh was one, if not the instigator 'trail-blazer' in the art of diving in the UK. Closely followed by Tony Currie, Alan Hudson and Charlie Nicholas. However, none of these ever reached the 'heights' of Willian or even worse, David Luiz, both of whom go down quicker than Karen Brady. Morata appears to be a quick learner, but with teachers like the afore mentioned duo, it's difficult to apportion 100% blame on him.