Dispite looking very risky I thought he got the ball and the player could have avoided him (not even sure Ali touched him) it was clearly a tactic to go down whatever (that’s what Youngs was doing on the pitch).
The incident with Salah was a clear penalty even if it wasn’t intentional. I have never understood why intention is mentionned in these incidents, if a player is brought down it’s a free kick and potential card.
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Probably because he nearly had an assist on a Matip own goal.
I don’t buy that. Emotions do run high but fuck, grown men for the most part should be able to think before hitting a few keys. Calling Stevie a cunt is fucking ridiculous, there is no justification.
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Correct. He got the ball, clearly shown and mentioned on MOTD
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Nothing personal at all mate but I have an issue with this. He’s no longer our No 8. He is the Aston Villa manager. He would have no qualms about his team embarrassing us and nor should we have any issue putting a few past his team if the opportunity did present itself.
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It’s been a week Taffarel has joined, doubt that’s a reason.
Ali always has such moments in a while, but the conditions I thought played a part in it. The Matip one should have been cleared sideways I thought on the initial viewing. Think it’s part of the game, can’t always be perfect. And he’ll take risks and get a few wrong, but as long as he’s getting 99% of those right it’s all good. That’s the way he plays and personally wouldn’t want him to change that. Keeper’s mistakes usually gets highlighted more IMO.
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Two consecutive 1-0 wins 
. Nice to see the lads still got the stomach to grind it out 
. Now a through battering of New Arabia to wash it all down.
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With regards to the ref , yes he was fucking abysmal all game. Really really poor. Which made it all the more remarkable imo how he ended up giving the Salah penalty after waving away two others that were arguably more clear cut.
I never used to bother much with the refereeing in games neither (swings and roundabouts and all that) , but when you witness a performance like that you have to say wtf ?
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It wasn’t even just the big shouts. He seemed to constantly get simple thow in and corner decisions wrong. Maybe one of the assistants was Helen Keller? However, what sealed it for me was when he decided to finally do something about the time wasting he didn’t flash a yellow card but spoke at length to the players thus wasting even more time.
The German commentators on the Sky Deutschland coverage seemed genuinely bemused by him although that may have been in response to the dubious reffing at the Dortmund vs Bayern game last weekend.
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Effectively he impedes a scoring opportunity if by error or not, as for Ings I’ve not been able to see any close up, I don’t see anything that is concrete.
If MOTD said he got the ball then he obviously got it. I don’t think a new coach makes you slip on the surface and boot the ball at your defender, I think you just have to put it down to the conditions the slip easily could have played on his mind all afternoon.
As said thankfully Villa created the total sum of nothing though remembering Becker’s biggest errors they have come in games like that, I do remember that Leicester one, irony in that was he then made a safe afterwards.
To be fair he does the right thing on Ings and goes after it, instinctively you would do that so I don’t see an error in that, closes the space and your defence should back you up until it’s safe to retreat.
Thing is 90% of people who just catch up the highlights on Sky YouTube won’t have seen it, I only saw them through our own websites highlights
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Interestingly Stevie, having swopped his red specs for claret and blue ones, thought Salah fouled Mings. He though they should have had a penalty for the Alisson and Matip cock-up.
“There was certainly contact from Alisson on Danny Ings and, if you follow it, there is a two-hand shove on Ollie Watkins [from Trent Alexander-Arnold],” said the Villa manager. “We thought that deserved the referee and VAR taking another look but it looked like they wanted to move on quickly. Ultimately we have lost the game to the other pen which we felt was a foul first on Tyrone [Mings].
The MOTD verdict was that the ref “did well” to get all 4 contentious decisions correct. So do I having looked at them again and especially the 2 most important ones.
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From the two I have seen in real time and replay I’d say they were both correct.
Regardless it was the right result, that final chance from Jota, someone said Salah was making poor decisions all game and that even came up in the highlights as there was that and one where he should pass it to Trent.
Hopefully under the lights the crowd can create an atmosphere on Thursday.
Last time we faced Howe we technically won the title 
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Terrible ref, like it was his first game he got scammed so many times and made the game really stop start.
We where well off our best, decision making in the final 3rd was poor. Didnt think Ox worked up top at all wouldve preferred Mane or Mo centrally defo hurt our movement and attacking flow.
Great to grab the 3 points though these are the games you look back on at the end of the season as difference makers. Same as the Wolves game last week.
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We were on top and put a mark on most of the game .
Back 4 were solid .bar 2 occasions .
Middle 3 no complaints ,
Ox did well and is becoming more match fit than training ground fit .
Apart from Harvey looks like we have all back from injuries,which is so important with the busy schedule ahead .
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Re refs I think it’s clear that the guys who are reffing the city, Chelsea and united clearly want them to win. The biased is unreal.
Moss was awful in the city game, ok the wolves lad gets a silly 2nd yellow but the first foul is never a yellow. Moss was desperate for city to win as you can tell by the penalty he gives, but what’s more worrying is in all 3 games, var agrees with the ref.
Chelsea 1st is debatable but the 2nd is blatant acting by Rudiger and Ronaldo was looking to go down al, game.
Var still ignores blatant fouls in the area at corners but will get involved to chalk off a goal by bootlace.
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There was a far more blatant one he didn’t give in the first half. The Wolves defender leans into the ball and it strikes his arm. That was a clear penalty and VAR should have told him to look at the screen. Clear and obvious error.
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It was, but the one he gave was ridiculous and you cannot even things up for the sake of it.
The first yellow for Jiminez was harsh as well.
Anyway back to the Liverpool match, thats two 1-0 wins in a row and at times that is what is required to win titles.
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I dont buy this whole “refs hate liverpool” shtick. That’s a very outside-in viewpoint. Refs are professionals working at the highest level, they’re in the limelight and this is their job. They may be incompetent and may have subconscious biases for example if they’ve constantly heard that a certain player dives but an active bias is just not how an adult at the top of his profession works. At least not without some compensation in return.
And I highly doubt that there’s matchfixing in the PL beyond the blatant failure of FFP and fit persons test.
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Some of them are incompetent and are biased.
And there are a myriad of reasons as why and how that bias effects football.
I doubt match fixing occurs, but the behaviour of some referees influences results.
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I agree. Fans of every team think they are disadvantaged. They can’t all be right.
However, in certain cases refs are influenced to make biased decisions, most notably in the reign of Ferguson.
I don’t understand what they have against Mane. The number of times he is fouled and the ref gives a free kick to the opposition is very suspicious.
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