If he had time to lie down and head it, it may have had a chance.
No-one is saying its fair. But it was the ref’s interpretation of the ‘deliberate play’ rule. While there is the interpretation that attempting to clear the ball in a defensive position doesn’t necessarily constitute ‘deliberate play’, its all to the disadvantage of the attacking team because, as you say, its only that defensive action that has stopped the ball potentially falling to one of our players.
I actually disagree with what @rab says in the post before yours that I think if he didn’t call and allowed the goal to stand, I doubt there would have been a letter sent into PGMOL from Villa and I don’t think Villa fans would be losing their shit over it. That’s why I find it a stinker of a rule. Logic would dictate that ‘fair’ in this case would be to alter the ‘deliberate play’ guidelines (I’ll use the word guidelines because I still think their dot points are still a shade of grey and open to way too much interpretation), and I hope LFC’s letter brings about those changes.
Its a rubbish rule. Does everyone agree on that?
LFC’s letter wont right the wrong from last Saturday. The final nail in the CL coffin.
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What would possibly be the argument for disallowing it? Such a scenario removes the offside virgil from the consideration so I dont see what this thought experiment is supposed to illucidate
Even I havent claimed there isnt a subjective aspect to the decision and you will very rarely see me say someone’s subjective opinion is “wrong” even when I dont agree with it. The issue in this particular debate, is the thing most people complaining about the goal are raising for consideration (he deliberately blocked the cross) is irrelevant to the decision. That IS a misunderstanding of the rule.
I see we have made a complaint, but we are making ourselves look like twats. Virgil claims the ref explained to him why it was ruled out, and is still acting like there is some reason for confusion despite him acknowledging the ref explaining the decision to him. If we want to complain its a bad rule then fine, but doing so in the same correspondence as mentioning the Mings non red just diminishes our other legitimate grievances.
Do you really think defenders should be impacted in defending crosses and shots because of the presence of an offside attacker? Should virgil be allowed to benefit from being in offside position from a defender throwing themselves in front of a shot to block it and it falling to his unmarked offside feet 6 yards out?
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It explicitly doesn’t need to go where the defender intended it to go. Only that the defender, in the opinion of the ref, was in control enough of their body to have been able to make a decision.
See video 6 as a good example of that - the defender fucks it up and slices it to an an otherwise offside attacker, but its considered onside because he had time to size up a clearance
https://www.theifab.com/news/law-11-offside-deliberate-play-guidelines-clarified/
I would also suggest that Virgil understands full well why this was ruled out. There is a LOT of motivated reason going on.
??
He knew it at the time as well. Check out his body language as it goes into the net. He looked across to the linesman to see if it was all ok but it didn’t look like he celebrated at all. It appears he knew it then.
- That goal is one of the cited reasons the rule changed.
That is a similar situation to the penalty spurs got against us when Karius pulled down an offside kane after Lovren’s stretched attempt to block a through ball to him was not successful. We all moaned about how terrible the rule is that it would allow such a stupid outcome and makes life impossible for defenders. That is why the rule changed.
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You noted above:
“I see we have made a complaint, but we are making ourselves look like twats”
Are you suggesting that your understanding of the law in this instance is greater than a PL club who have experience of the complaints process?
Do you really believe that the club would allow such a complaint to be made if there was no merit in doing so.
Your interpretation of the word deliberate, again in this instance may be incorrect. Insofar as, the attempt to play the ball by the defender is enough to rule Virgil onside?
I acknowledge that there is entrenched views niw on this.
Can you contemplate that the club may just have this right?
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Are you a body language expert?
Seriously,
Every player celebrating a goal is doing so waiting for VAR.
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EDIT: Oh its that little touch. Shouldn’t have counted.
The is plenty of room for reasonable debate about this goal. Whether its fair. What better interpretations there are of the defender’s actions in situations like this. What is not for debate is the idea that all a defender needs to do is attempt to play the ball to play an offside player on when it then touches him.
I think the bottom line… and the get-out-of-jail card for the referee when they want to use it…
Did the defending player attempt to play the ball - if so, no offside, goal awarded
or
Did the defender attempt to save (block) the ball - if so, offside is called, no goal allowed
I am not suggesting that every touch renders the attacker onside.
I am suggesting that Konsta’s playvwas deliberate.
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Imagine that sequence plays out a little differently. Diaz’s header is cleared and finds Fab 25 yards out. The entire defense pushes out to close the ball, but virgil stays where he is, clearly in an offside position. Fab’s shot is partially blocked by one of the defenders and spins away to Virgil who is in 10 yards of space because the defenders, all correctly, pushed out to the ball and ignored the offside attacker. What people are arguing is that he should be able to score from that situation, and I frankly dont believe people really believe that.
I haven’t seen it back since we played but do you think it was that rule in particular which may (or may not) have played on Virgil’s mind? Isn’t there another silly, very rarely seen, offside rule which states if a team mate is already ahead of the ball (as Virgil was when Diaz nodded it back/down) there has to be another player from the defending team in between the ball and goalkeeper? Or something like that.
But that seems to be the rationale they, and by that I mean the talking heads on Sky/BT because god forbid the ref who made the decision actually has to explain it, are using to justify the decision.
As for the example in that video, everyone and their aunt would say that’s offside. Defender doesn’t play the ball, it’s going to that man anyway and he’d be flagged. Because the defender can’t be 100% sure it’ll be flagged for offside he tries to do his job and does it badly and the attacker benefits. It’s dumb beyond comprehension that that isn’t offside.
But by the letter of the laws, I can see why the Gakpo one has been disallowed.
“The player had time to coordinate their body movement, i.e. it was not a case of instinctive stretching or jumping, or a movement that achieved limited contact/control”
You could easily make the case it wasn’t a coordinated action and that it was instinctive and achieved little control.
But the point is, what farcical elements to being into determining if something is offside or not. He’s technically offside from the Diaz pass but the ball only gets to him because it comes off a defender who stops the ball getting to its intended target. He’s either offside from the pass or he’s not offside once it comes off Gakpo. You can’t ignore it initially and then call him offside when it comes off a defender blocking it getting to a different player.
Shhhh! I just want the conversation to end!
Agreed
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Has anybody mentioned Gakpo’s disallowed goal yet? Offside or not? Discuss.
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