It was far more a red than Manes
Mane is actually contesting the ball. He is jumping, using his arms for leverage, but is careless on how he does it. It’s a yellow. It not a red.
Mount is nowhere the ball. He runs over and absolutely decks Kostas. It’s pre-meditated, Violent and a result of Mounts petulant frustration at the scoreline. The kick out is beside the point. It’s the first one that is the red.
Not even a yellow awarded on the pitch. Fucking joke.
I actually thought the opposite of late. I thought Robertson was often too slow and not instinctive enough. Not to mention, he also seemed to have been the one who was letting our offside trap fail quite a few times…
Genuinely, when they were reviewing, I thought it was because Mount was just charging at Tsimikas without even bothering to play the ball. I didn’t even realise he had that little kick out after.
I also think the “we are too nice” thing is an example of seeing what you want to see. On both their potential red card offenses not only the player in question went down and stayed down, but other players immediately reacted. There was one absolutely trivial one that happened shortly those two incidents where Virgil sold some pretty trivial contact. That very much looked like an attempt to draw the ref’s attention to the physical stuff they were doing and getting away with. I think you can also put their opportunity to get back into the game down to our commitment to “playing the game” with Milly wanting to stick one Havertz for himself leaving one on Virgil, and ultimately giving up a dumb free kick.
We played the game, the ref just wasnt buying any of it, seemingly because he spent the entire game making up for having not sent off Sadio.
I think that narrative is also ignoring the fact that in many games, the reason why it feels that the refereeing is unjust isn’t so much because of major decisions, but the fact that somehow every single 50/50 goes against us, and the other teams are allowed to run roughshod over us, while the slightest hint of something and we get a card.
I’m harping on this again, but look at what happened to Keïta in the Spurs match. Absolutely ridiculous that they were whinging the whole match without penalty, but he says one thing, and not even anywhere close to emotionally, and he gets a card.
That’s not what I saw.
We don’t know what he said but…
Might have called Tierney a useless fat cunt whose missus was a great shag.
Not likely…doubt Naby would say boo to a mouse, but we don’t have all the info.
The Spurs game was a total farce. Probably the worst refereeing performance that I can remember.
Yesterday, I felt Taylor managed it fairly well - particularly given the position he was put in within 15 seconds.
It’s arguable that showing Mané a yellow there might have led to Mount feeling he could ‘stick one’ on Tsimikas 30 minutes later but the failure to penalise Mount was more to do with the VAR, I feel, than Taylor.
Taylor would have been aware of a coming together, nothing more. He would have needed VAR to help him here but by only reviewing the leg movement and not the initial contact from Mount, Taylor obviously didn’t have all the information.
We don’t actually do too badly under Taylor, from what I remember. And I think he managed a combustible game pretty well.
Perhaps, but that’s just another example of the narrative leading the facts rather than the other way around. I would argue it was the other incident (I think it was on Konaté, but I can’t remember who did it) that was even remotely comparable to Mané’s. Mount to me looked deliberate intent to injure Tsimikas rather than any attempt to play the ball. You simply don’t charge at someone like that if you’re trying to win the ball.
Those are two very different situations.
I’m not saying Taylor is/was necessarily biased, I’m saying he’s an incompetent referee. He needed VAR to send James off in the previous game. He failed to notice any of the absolutely ridiculous dives that Chelsea were pulling.
I’m just pointing out as well that we tend to not get any favour from referees with regards to the small details. Of course we can’t play our game if we’re getting kicked to New Zealand while any time we go near an opponent it’s a foul and possibly a booking. Of course we’re playing the nice guys when any attempt to reason with the referee ends with a booking.
I actually hadn’t seen a replay of Mount’s initial contact with Tsimikas until I saw the tweet further up in this thread.
But the point is, Taylor didn’t see it either. Had he seen it live or been shown it by VAR then I agree, he’d be incompetent not to show a red. But he can’t be considered incompetent (or worse) if he either doesn’t see it live or isn’t shown it by VAR.
That’s fair enough, but ridiculous by the VAR to not review it. In any case, I think my original point was still about the “being too nice” narrative. It’s not like they didn’t review the incident, they just reviewed the wrong part of the incident. I don’t think the outcome would have been much different had he been an Academy Award winner on that.
Somehow, Tuchal could see that it was a red card, from the other side of the pitch! That must be about 50 metres away minimum and then demands Mane is sent off by harassing the fourth official. That just proves to me, the shithouse behaviour of attempting to get opponents sent off, comes from the manager and coaches. They must tell the players to take any opportunity to demand red and yellow cards be given to opponents.
Thankfully, despite all that I’m unhappy with about the referees, none of them have really succumbed to this against us yet. Doesn’t mean we should do it.
Part of the challenge in assessing this team is knowing what is the result of missing players vs genuine gaps in the squad.
The MF evolution post Gini was designed to involve Elliot and the high, right sided triangle with Mo and TAA, with Firmino pushing going back and fort from attack to MF to help maintain balance along with two slightly conservative central MFs- Fab/Hendo/Thiago.
Watch the 2nd goal again and you’ll see how effective this tactic can be…
We are missing the balance/control in MF. It comes and goes too frequently.
But I agree with Mascot that we need a new/younger body in CM, not wholesale change…
I have and I do! 
Have you?
Stop spouting complete rubbish, please.
Had a good game mostly up until 80 mins, then he gave 3 free kicks in succession to Chelsea that weren’t fouls, Fab on Pulisic no contact, Naby on Kovacic where he ran into Naby’s knee and the one where Konate made the softest contact on Hudson Odoi’s back and he went over too easily.
I have scored some fantastic goals in my early years, one reminiscent of the Mark Hughes goal vs Spain, I hit it perfectly and flew into the goa did I direct it know concentrated on the contact. The same thing for Kovacic did he intend for the top right bin? I reckon not, he was focused on the connection to hit the ‘dipper’ which he got right along with the timing, direction just happened to be perfect, but still, a 1 in 1,000 finish, so a fluke that it happened against us.
I am actually for the way we play, we tend to play in the right spirit, I hate to see players crowd around referees and most fans do, it is the refereeing fraternity that needs to stand up to this bullying and start dishing out the yellow cards, it would soon stop and also make their game easier in the long term.
Then the next thing is to get into these players feigning injury with no or little contact, yellow card fro Unsportsmanlike behaviour, the game would be better for it.
Oh and one more, players delaying free kicks, by walking over the ball or actually picking it up and walking with it then throwing it back or just standing in front of the ball, grrrrrr pisses me off
Which part was complete rubbish?