I heard Tyler bleat on about something last year about VAR being overseen by someone less senior than Atkinson who was doing the match.
You do wonder if that plays a part, it’s pretty bad if it does. As said elsewhere if Moss confirms that’s what he saw VAR can’t do much else.
If he thinks that’s a penalty then that’s the issue, not VAR. You know if Attwell doesn’t give that in the match it’s not being overturned on VAR.
Maybe it’s right to do that but where it’s offside has massively improved I do wonder if they’ve gone a bit too far the other way, at the very least Moss should be looking at a monitor on that.
Yesterday the general crapness cut both ways. There wasn’t an obvious bias but there were multiple occasions that the on field officials were inconsistent and/or just plain wrong. The big decisions were correct because they had the video assistance to help out.
I do wonder if one of the assistants was off their game. It’s quite often difficult to see what their input is.
Generally this year even those we have issues with have been ok, yes there have been a few games and people can point to situations such as some of the Burnley wrestling but on a whole for instance the derby I think the ref there managed that well and was willing to put his authority on it especially with the diving (he got one wrong but he is human).
He gets bullied by opponents but he does have a tendency to retaliate (which I know Klopp has spoken to him about). As a result he is targeted.
Why refs don’t offer him more protection is another matter. It’s not just in England either because we saw him getting crap in the Atletico game as well.
The refereeing performance yesterday was an absolute shitshow and I’m baffled as to how anyone can think otherwise. There doesn’t need to be a suggestion of anti-Liverpool bias or whatever, it was just a terrible performance. He lost control of the game, got many small decisions wrong, interrupted the flow of the game for no good reason (not fit enough?) by stopping any quick free kicks and he didn’t play advantage when he should have. Worst of all he did nothing to deter timewasting, the one occasion he actually ackowledged it he ended up speaking to Martinez and only succeeded in wasting extra time for Villa. I and everyone else there didn’t pay 50 quid to watch Emi Martinez pull his socks up and tie his already done shoelaces.
The refs seem to think he’s feisty, which he is, and that every tackle he makes is a foul, which is clearly rubbish. I’m amazed at how he remains so calm.
All the bad officiating in the league simply sits at the feet of one man… Mike Riley - Was a dogshit weak ref in his time and every single ref that has come through under his “leadership” is just as shit. All small men with inferiority complexes, I find we get fuck all at home because the ref tells himself before the game “must be bigger and stronger than that anfield crowd”, was shocked we got the pen.
IMO a good performance considering the difficult conditions and the very determined, well organised opposition. Ref was not great but but did not strike me as being biased, missed things fir both sides. Obviously as we were the more dominant team it seemed he missed more for us.
Trent needs to learn not to put his hands up in front of his body, any contact and this could be misconstrued as a push.
That Ollie Watkins is a good player, a handful for any defender.
Well deserved win. There will be games that make a better watch.
I’d love Ref’s to be interviewed like players after a game. Would add so much and probably make me like and understand them better. Like explain mistakes and decisions. Not sure if this ref could explain much but still, reminded me of my idea.
Also who cares if someone called Gerrard a cunt. Ain’t the end of the world Jesus
We tend towards playing fair. The other extreme, like Atletico, go full blown dark arts. Many teams are in between, and many teams will push the boundaries.
Yes, Martinez was time wasting. Was obvious. A proper ref would’ve clamped down on it. As it was, Martinez was entitled to continue to push the boundary, as he realised the ref was a complete muppet.
That infamous Chelsea game - Mourinho has gone on record as saying he was abosolutely surprised that the ref didn’t clamp down on their antics till really late, so why not keep doing it? And he’s absolutely right from his pov.
Refs - its much easier for them to ref our games as there is less internal pressure on them from us. Whereas, those teams constantly in their face, cause the ref to make differences in their control of the game to each team. Then what is meant to be 50-50 situations, the ref starts to favour the team giving him less of a headache.
So no there is no conspiracy. But it’s incompetence and lack of balls from the ref. Over a season, these slight descreperences end up being significant - such as Man Utd winning record penalties, Man City getting away with constant fouling when losing possession, etc.
Speaking of which, Rodri was already on a yellow, and in the second half, Wolves made a rare counter, and guess what. Rodri completely ignores the ball and shoulder checks the player as Man City are all out of position. The ref doesn’t even speak to Rodri, let alone give him a yellow (should’ve been his second) for a blatent foul to stop a counter from a man down team.
It pisses me off when players slip. There’s no excuse with the carpets that they play on nowadays. My lad when he was about 13-14 used to always have two pairs of boots. One with studs and one pair of moulded soles. He’d take them both out to warm up and see which pair suited the conditions. Players nowadays are more concerned with boot sponsorship deals. They’d wear feckin ballet shoes if the money was right. Get the right tools for the job.
When I played Rugby there was just 2 types of surface. Ploughed field quagmire or the same thing but frozen. I had one pair of boots with 1 set of screw in studs, enormous things, great for the 1st surface type but the frozen pitches hurt like hell. I did try trainers on the frozen pitches but the result was the same, big blue bruises on my bum.
There is no excuse for professionnals they can test the surface before the match and select the correct foot wear for the conditions. I know for control they prefer minimal length studs but there surely is a limit. No?
I think he got the key decisions right. Our pen was a definite pen. Aston Villa’s penalty claim was nothing, he got it right. There is a contentious one in the first half, with a defender putting his hand on Mané’s shoulder inside the box, but was there enough weight on that shoulder to justify a penalty? Not sure, I’d say it’s a 50-50, it can go either way.
On the other hand, I totally agree with you on all the small things. He was horrible. I can’t wrap around my mind that they seemingly can’t find refs in the PL who do their job in a more professional way.
I wonder, for those who watch it: how is the level of refereeing in the Championship for instance? Is it exactly as poor as in the PL? Worse? Better?
