Not only did MOTD not discuss it, they didn’t even show it in the highlights
It’s also noteworthy that ITV never bothered to show if Rashford was onside for their first goal and for his chance in the final minute.
Yep.
I rewound it and looked multiple times.
He was probably just onside, due to VVD standing ball watching, but should definitely have warranted a VAR check.
On the tragedy chanting, it was clearly audible throughout the game.
If LFC actually gave enough of a fuck to stop it, they’d be taking steps to liase with the Premier League to explore not giving United a ticket allocation for Anfield next season.
I suspect they’ll probably just take the hard line approach and issue a pissy statement like the FA did, condemning it.
That’ll stop it 
Handing out stadium bans would put a stop to it quickly enough but somehow I doubt that the FA/PL would be willing to do that.
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Yeah, I’d add to that Rashford being offside on Anthony’s equalizer. Technically correct, one that no one involved in refereeing in the game would raise any issue at but one lots of fans would not be the right outcome regardless of what the rules say.
Rashford is offside on the through ball to him, but Virgil reasonably feels he has to defend it not knowing for sure if it would be given if he doesn’t. He can only get a little bit on it and just partially clears it back to a Utd midfielder. Their move continues and they ultimately score just a couple of passes later from the same phase of play. It is one that is correct in the law, but almost everyone other than refs would feel its a part of the law they need to figure out so that it is less punishing to defenders.
Both the PGMOL and the PL Independent Key Event panel have determined no mistake was made in the Doku decision
The independent panel voted 3-2 that Oliver’s on pitch decision was correct, with one of those in the dissent agreeing though that even though they thought it was a penalty it was right for VAR to not intervene to suggest it be given. Webb notably avoids making a decision on Oliver’s decision, only acknowledging that it could have gone either way, but does go hard on it being correct for VAR to not get involved in such a subjective decision. They are really emphasizing the importance of not rerefereeing the game.
What is fascinating about it is the acceptance that Oliver cannot have been sure in his original decision, but that it was still right for VAR to stay out of it. To quote
You want to to know with clarity, with certainty that you’re making the right decision. You know, you don’t always have sufficient information in the moment to make that decision. "Clearly, Michael [Oliver] didn’t have it in this situation…
They are emphasizing the on field decision to the exclusion of getting it right, even in cases where the ref is not sure about the incident. And he sees no tension in this…happy that they got it right.
More importantly, the basis of both Webb and the independent panel’s decisions appear to be that none of them view MacAlister as having played the ball. They do not see a player controlling it on his chest to knock it past an overly committed defender. Instead they see a bouncing ball and two players just jumping into each other. I think that explanation finally makes a bit a sense out how people can view this as no foul…except for the part that its utterly fucking wrong. This is real emperors new clothes shit to retrospectively justify a decision they didnt want to see given seemingly thinking something so consequential needs to be more of a foul than just a regular “its a foul anywhere else on the pitch” level foul.
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Whereas I see one player flinching away from the studs of the other. It’s clearly dangerous play.
Yeah, at this point, with the absurdity of the explanations I have heard, nothing will convince me that the “it was the right decision” crew have not simply decided emotionally that it wasn’t a serious enough foul to give such a consequential penalty and are just making shit up to justify it.
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https://twitter.com/premierleague/status/1770166617176994150?t=W-NiXU3H5Bk4YqhYFqxXJQ&s=19
Absolute joke. Need to go back and see the Jones discussion…because he won the ball in a 50/50…yet the ref was sent to the screen.
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The only thing I agree with there is that Mac Allister went in to try to draw the foul. Basically it was the footballing equivalent of drawing the charge as in basketball. That was very clear when we saw Mac’s initial reaction to the bouncing ball.
But that audio from the VAR refs is just poor. So when it suits them suddenly getting to the ball first matters and is the absolute deciding factor?
The VAR basically said “he got to the ball first. I’m happy”. They had made their mind up even before watching the footage. The only thing they had to decide was what justification they were going to use.
God every new VAR audio I hear through the season just sounds worse than the last one. They are literally making shit up as they go.
He went in to try to knock the ball back into the box. He is actually flinching away from Doku before he is kicked. If he hadn’t he would likely have been able to control the ball. The rule states that “Playing in a dangerous manner is any action that, while trying to play the ball, threatens injury to someone (including the player themself) and includes preventing a nearby opponent from playing the ball for fear of injury.”
Even if Doku hadn’t touched Mac it’s still dangerous play.
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Howard Webb needs to stop coming on Sky Sports to try and explain the decisions. It is actually making the PGMOL look even worse and like idiots, and their processes a farce. The thing is, this exact foul will happen again, and he will move the goal posts yet again… He just needs to stop. Leave it to fans to vent on social media (it only lasts until the next game they screw up). This full disclosure of the so called “process” has only added to making the PGMOL look like the damn incompetent fools we all knew they were.
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Some referees never go to the monitor, that is an issue.
Oliver is one such one.
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It’s genuinely radicalized me 
Dale Johnson has made the argument that it isnt covered in the dangerous play aspect of the law because that only counts when there is no contact.
So it’s illegal to come in with your feet high and miss a player. It is fine to come in the same way as long as you plant your studs in their chest
Bollocks as usual from PGMOL.
Doku allows the ball to bounce (most in that position wouldn’t), and as the ball bounces he feels he can hack it away. BUT THE BALL THEN SPINS AWAY FROM HIM.
So this allows Alexis to get to the ball. Doku doubles down and launches himself to kick the ball as he realizes that is further away than he first anticipated.
Alexis sees the studs and flinches by turning away to mitigate the damage and brace himself for the kick
Penalty all day.
It’s like when Andy Robertson jumped up as he saw Harry “not that your of player, swear by my daughter’s life” Kane come in like a prime Jackie Chan on steroids.
And now both times they’ve used similar excuses to sit their agenda.
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Surely you should be used to that kind of reasoning by now, you read US Supreme Court judgments…
At this point, I’ve stopped getting angry over all of this. We know that when we play in a big game, we won’t get the big decisions, that is all.
The corruption is in plain sight, and I really don’t know how we get out of this, apart from dismantling the PGMOL entirely, and trying to rebuild something from scratch, with other referees and other ref bosses. But would they be better?
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No. Because the orders come from way above PGMOL.
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And the worst thing was I knew it was going to be awful. I warned everyone for years to not expect clarity from hearing how the refs came to the decisions and to instead expect to be frustrated. Yet it has fallen so far under all of my worst expectations. And its not just that, but the outright emporors new clothes stuff of them insisting they’ve seen stuff we can all just fucking see is not true.
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