ECHO Comment: "Fears of Witch-hunt Against Liverpool FC" part 3

[PaulPowersTash]

What do you mean by "clubs like City and Everton?"

like I said - we don’t have millions of armchair fans and JCL’s willing to cough up huge subscriptions to fund SKY and hence fund the Premier League. The list of armchairs is probably:
United
Liverpool
Arsenal
Chelsea

we are both way down the list on that scale.

 

[Deleted member 38674]

Contact should not mean it's an instant penalty

It shouldn't. But it does. That's the system. Players go down in the box to make the ref make a decision. It's been going on for donkeys years.

If there's contact, the referee is there to make a judgement call is to whether any contact is sufficient to warrant the fall.

VAR is there to overrule any clear and obvious errors on the refs part, for example if the ref perceives contact where there isn't any.

There was contact. It was a pen. Move on.

 

[brieverton]

Anyone who thought VAR who herald the era of true impartiality in football decision-making was naive to say the least.

It's human based, so that means inherent biases remain.

People see/don't see what they want/don't want to see.

 

[Jonte]

And away from VAR, may I remind everyone that the SKY favourites shipped 3 goals in twenty minutes midweek.

Cracks beginning to appear?

 

[OnlyBlueWillDo]

It shouldn't. But it does. That's the system. Players go down in the box to make the ref make a decision. It's been going on for donkeys years.

If there's contact, the referee is there to make a judgement call is to whether any contact is sufficient to warrant the fall.

VAR is there to overrule any clear and obvious errors on the refs part, for example if the ref perceives contact where there isn't any.

There was contact. It was a pen. Move on.

It's part of the game that needs looking at, and VAR could easily do it, it's not hard to see when players are on the blag and if contact is enough to make a player go down, they should also review them through the week after the events and dish out game bans if they are deemed to have cheated.

Mane made it easy to spot he was on the blag, he actually took a step after the contact as his instinct to cheat kicked into gear and told him I should try a dive here, someone has just touched my arse.

 

[Jamalio Danubio DiCanio]

And away from VAR, may I remind everyone that the SKY favourites shipped 3 goals in twenty minutes midweek.

Cracks beginning to appear?

Are you taking the p*ss? Are you a red on a wind up?

Cracks beginning to appear? They are 8 points clear in the league and have conceded less than anyone else.

Our club is on its a**e & part of our fan base has this weird infatuation with them lot from across the park.

Let’s concentrate on making ourselves half decent before we even bother thinking about them.

 

[maccavennie]

It's part of the game that needs looking at, and VAR could easily do it, it's not hard to see when players are on the blag and if contact is enough to make a player go down, they should also review them through the week after the events and dish out game bans if they are deemed to have cheated.

Mane made it easy to spot he was on the blag, he actually took a step after the contact as his instinct to cheat kicked into gear and told him I should try a dive here, someone has just touched my arse.

He holds his right shin when it's his left foot that gets tapped

Should be a 3 game ban for conning the ref

 

[Deleted member 38674]

It's part of the game that needs looking at, and VAR could easily do it, it's not hard to see when players are on the blag and if contact is enough to make a player go down, they should also review them through the week after the events and dish out game bans if they are deemed to have cheated.

Mane made it easy to spot he was on the blag, he actually took a step after the contact as his instinct to cheat kicked into gear and told him I should try a dive here, someone has just touched my arse.

It's still subjective though mate, there can't be a hard and fast rule with penalties. It's still going to boil down to a matter of opinion in any scenario. Some you'll agree with and some you won't. Them's the facts and we have to accept it.

Scenario: You're a striker for Everton in the last game of the season and the stakes are high (the team needs a goal to avoid relegation / win the title / qualify for europe - delete as appropriate).

It's the last minute and the ball falls to you in the penalty area. The goal is at your mercy and, just as you're about to strike the ball, you feel a firm barge in your back / kick to your standing foot that isn't sufficient to knock you over (you could definitely stay on your feet) but it is absolutely enough to knock your balance so that you can't cleanly strike the ball, what do you do?

Do you:

A) Try to strike the ball and potentially miss in a crucial game.
B) Exaggerate the contact, give the ref a decision to make and get the penalty.

Now if you pick A, fair play to you but there are many in that situation that would choose B. The pressure is so high in the modern game that a big miss could be catastrophic and there have been multiple instances where fans have literally berated their own players for choosing to stay honest and stay on their feet when they could've gone down.

It's been rife in Football for decades now and it happens with all teams all over the pitch, not just in the penalty area. Until the system changes, and I don't imagine it ever will, you'll see it happening week in week out.

 

[ClausThomsen]

It's part of the game that needs looking at, and VAR could easily do it, it's not hard to see when players are on the blag and if contact is enough to make a player go down, they should also review them through the week after the events and dish out game bans if they are deemed to have cheated.

Mane made it easy to spot he was on the blag, he actually took a step after the contact as his instinct to cheat kicked into gear and told him I should try a dive here, someone has just touched my arse.

It's also shown though that players generally need to go down when fouled otherwise penalties won't be given. There's no benefit to staying up unless the chance is clearly better than a penalty. Every side does it and every side has benefited from doing so at times. Personally I'd quite like to see VAR being all over shirt pulling and wrestling at set-pieces but it won't happen because there'll be a couple of weeks of madness and shouts of "Game's gone".

And I disagree that it's easy to see if a player's on the blag. Mane aside, if someone is running at pace then the slightest touch can be enough to cause a loss of balance even a step or two after contact is made. It can look like a decision to go down but it's impossible for anyone but the player involved to know for certain in many cases.

This may all be going wildly off topic given the thread title so I'll steer my point back towards it. I'm all for giving the RS a metaphorical kicking as there is plenty they do to deserve it but a soft penalty or 6 is always going to happen when a team is set up like they are with the players they have. If that's an Everton player we're all shouting penalty.

 

[brigadier]

It shouldn't. But it does. That's the system. Players go down in the box to make the ref make a decision. It's been going on for donkeys years.

If there's contact, the referee is there to make a judgement call is to whether any contact is sufficient to warrant the fall.

VAR is there to overrule any clear and obvious errors on the refs part, for example if the ref perceives contact where there isn't any.

There was contact. It was a pen. Move on.

VAR was brought in to stop players cheating and help with big decisions, the fa are using it for something completely different, as fans we have been duped , I've seen some sinister calls by var this season, Disgusting .

 

[Deleted member 38674]

VAR was brought in to stop players cheating and help with big decisions, the fa are using it for something completely different, as fans we have been duped , I've seen some sinister calls by var this season, Disgusting .

What do you suggest the FA are using it for?

What sinister calls have you seen?

 

[Deleted member 28206]

I can't believe that pen they gave, some gall that.

 

[mahermi1]

It shouldn't. But it does. That's the system. Players go down in the box to make the ref make a decision. It's been going on for donkeys years.

If there's contact, the referee is there to make a judgement call is to whether any contact is sufficient to warrant the fall.

VAR is there to overrule any clear and obvious errors on the refs part, for example if the ref perceives contact where there isn't any.

There was contact. It was a pen. Move on.

Would you be happy if your team conceded that "penalty" ?

 

[CouchPotato]

It's part of the game that needs looking at, and VAR could easily do it, it's not hard to see when players are on the blag and if contact is enough to make a player go down, they should also review them through the week after the events and dish out game bans if they are deemed to have cheated.

But that aspect of what you are describing can never be implemented because only the player would know if he went down too easy or not. The VAR is certainly better than the naked eye. But to make the system fool proof, would mean strapping up sensors and accelerometers on the legs of footballers to determine if the angle of foot and forces & accelerations of the leg warrant a fall, and by extension, a penalty.

In Mane's case there was contact and that means penalty. What I dont get is why did Albrighton stick his foot at Mane even when he (probably) knew that Mane was much faster with the ball than Albrighton was without, especially within the penalty box? Unnecessary if you ask me.

Although I must add that retrospective action might be helpful and help avoid some forms of diving. But that means only game bans for the player. The results would still stand right? What happens if the penalty in stoppage time means relegation and/or title win? What would happen then?!?

 

[Deleted member 38674]

Would you be happy if your team conceded that "penalty" ?

No, I also wouldn't be happy if my team didn't get that penalty. I'm biased.

As @ClausThomsen said - we'd all be screaming 'PENALTY!' if the shoe was on the other foot.

It's futile to attempt to argue otherwise.