Rival watch

  • Please bear with us on the new site integration and fixing any known bugs over the coming days. If you can not log in please try resetting your password and check your spam box. If you have tried these steps and are still struggling email [email protected] with your username/registered email address
  • Log in now to remove adverts - no adverts at all to registered members!
Suckmyklopp said:
Cba getting into all the diffrent incidents with ya no offense.

I love all the fume though.. genuinely.

If we didnt have var come in this season and the league was the same as it now it wouldve been all "Liverpool get all the decisions" or some other excuse anyway. Im sure if youre being honest youd agree with that at least.
Click to expand...
That`s because the same Pool biased mugs that are on the pitch are also sat in the VAR seat.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spurlock
Solid_Air 2 said:
on a serious note i agree that this season ,like you say, we are getting the rub of the green just like Man City did last year but our form ,so far, means even without it we would be top by a bit anyway .
Click to expand...
Last season Pool were allowed to score 6 offside goals, were given endless penalties for dives and scored goals via free kicks given for dives and via handballs, not to mention the refusal to award penalties against them etc. Last season Pool had all the `rub of the green` as they wanted a title race, though `rub of the green` is a bit far fetched, it`s plain old bias and corruption imo.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spurlock and humanbeingincroydon
Billy The Yid said:
Last season Pool were allowed to score 6 offside goals, were given endless penalties for dives and scored goals via free kicks given for dives and via handballs, not to mention the refusal to award penalties against them etc. Last season Pool had all the `rub of the green` as they wanted a title race, though `rub of the green` is a bit far fetched, it`s plain old bias and corruption imo.
Click to expand...
Spuds astro ^^^^:bandit:
 
  • Like
Reactions: Solid Air
PleaseNotPoll said:
Astro thinks that the refs are out to get Liverpool, while they give you the most penalties and refuse to book you for diving.
He's not606's Jimmy Liddel.
You must log in or register to see media
Click to expand...
He is deffo your astro bruv.
 
Billy The Yid said:
Last season Pool were allowed to score 6 offside goals, were given endless penalties for dives and scored goals via free kicks given for dives and via handballs, not to mention the refusal to award penalties against them etc. Last season Pool had all the `rub of the green` as they wanted a title race, though `rub of the green` is a bit far fetched, it`s plain old bias and corruption imo.
Click to expand...
****ing refs

just 6 offside goals when we had paid for 9 the robbing bastards <grr>
 
  • Like
Reactions: Bumps
PleaseNotPoll said:
Astro thinks that the refs are out to get Liverpool, while they give you the most penalties and refuse to book you for diving.
He's not606's Jimmy Liddel.
You must log in or register to see media
Click to expand...

Is he one of the "comedians?" Needs a smack side of the head!!!
 
Left on the Shelf said:
United did look (almost) as bad as us in the first half and have improved a bit this, but you're home and hosed alright.
Click to expand...

To be fair, that was an easier second half than I expected. We began to sit a lot deeper and our intensity dropped. I was concerned that United would pick us apart. But they really do lack guile in the middle of the park. I think maybe they expected their forwards to skin a poor Arsenal defence. United were attempting a lot of cut-backs. But we sensed the danger and Torreira/Xhaka both did good jobs at moping up when needed. In the end, it became too one-dimensional.

United's passing was cumbersome, which made it a lot easier for us to defend against.

As poor as United were, Arsenal showed a level of togetherness and fighting spirit that we've not seen all season. The players are evidently working a lot harder. I hope we keep it up.
 
C. Kane said:
Over the past 5 years, the following have been established as (quote Rafa Benitez) "facts" (end quote):

1) 2015: There is corruption in football, all the way to the very top.
2) 2017: There are narratives at play in football, and officials are both aware of and sometimes actively contributing to them (Mark "look at me everybody" Clattenburg).
3) 2018: The standard of officiating has sunk so pitifully low that there was an overwhelming groundswell of support for the introduction of technology, otherwise known as VAR.

Taken on their own, the above 3 facts are relatively innocuous. You need a combination of the three to create an orchestrated effort almost impossible to trace and even more impossible to derail.

As I said in a post earlier this season: am I certain that there is bias in favour of certain teams? No. Would I be surprised to wake up tomorrow to headlines of 'FA Scandal!" plastered all over the back pages? Equally, no.

What worries me more than any of the above is a closer look at the money-driven links connecting multiple elements of the footballing world which don't necessarily make corruption inevitable but do make it far, far easier to direct and incentivise. In the early days of the TV mega-money era, we sat back and watched as one of the biggest providers of football coverage and news - Sky Sports - launched a gambling wing - Sky Bet - and then slowly as the years ticked by, interlinked the two. So much so that we are now at a ridiculous stage where you can open their website and one tab is reporting x looks likely to move to y, while the other tab is offering bets on x moving to y with odds clearly fixed according to the coverage offered in tab 1. Seems innocent enough but personally I have always found it disturbing to the point of being unethical. In securities fraud terms, it strikes me as a Pump & Dump scheme.

But lately even more disturbing developments have occurred - again, without a peep from Joe Public. I'm sure many of us enjoyed the excellent Amazon Prime coverage over Boxing Day. But isn't it a bit unsettling that the same company have started making documentaries about all and sundry? Is it really all that far fetched to envision a subtle yet intrusive directive from the very top to ensure x,y & z happen in a group of games in order to make 'great TV' from the documentary being filmed at the same time? And is it really all that far-fetched, as football becomes ever more Hollywoodised, to envision the retail giants interlinking its sports coverage department with its merchandise department? Much in the same way as Sky Sports 'uses' its own coverage to 'pump' select stories before 'dumping' the odds on its gambling clientele, could we one day see Amazon use its coverage to 'pump' a certain team's merchandise (also available on Prime, with same day delivery of course) before 'dumping' it on its retail clientele?

It may sound sinister, but there is no question that a great narrative makes great TV. Leicester winning the league, City winning the treble, Liverpool winning the league after 30 years...these are gripping stories. What Amazon are doing is taking niche TV and financing it to go mainstream, turning it into documentaries which (they hope) will compete with the best Netflix series out there. And once that goes mainstream, the capital potential in the game will increase exponentially, thereby also increasing exponentially the chance that someone, anyone at the the very top of the ivory tower will start orchestrating a linkage of the 3 ingredients above: exploiting the corrupt heart of football by driving the 'best TV' narratives and securing both via an unseen technological system answerable to no-one.

Rant over. Tin foil hat back in drawer.
Click to expand...
Imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s your boys turn then
Ours is 30 years
Yours is ??
Also how do you know the story this season isn’t about the biggest implosion ever only one team has been top at Christmas and not gone on to win the league....
I am the pessimistic one :)
 
  • Like
Reactions: Citizen Kane.
Bumps said:
Imagine what it’s going to be like when it’s your boys turn then
Ours is 30 years
Yours is ??
Also how do you know the story this season isn’t about the biggest implosion ever only one team has been top at Christmas and not gone on to win the league....
I am the pessimistic one :)
Click to expand...

Nah we're the pantomime villains here to spoil Leicester's fun, everyone knows that.

Look all I know is I clicked on BBC sport this morning and the front page had 3 articles and a video about Liverpool's unbeaten calendar year. It's excessive to the point of being creepy. Can't have been much Kleenex left there or in Sky's offices after your win yesterday.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Spurlock, The Changing Man and Bumps
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top Bottom
Back