I said we can criticise his performance but you won’t achieve an investigation based on a shit refereeing display or you’d have 8/10 games a week (which it should be but that’s then the issue).
If you focus on the fact the clear rules of the game were followed on the Jones tackle and whatever they did on that offside then it is far more fertile ground for the club.
If truth be told we’ve had one decent display by a ref this season and that was the game Chris Kav did last week which is a surprise in itself.
Guy against Bournemouth wasn’t bad but VAR didn’t help him out on that.
The whole thing needs a root and branch review but evidently everything has closed rank so I think the best we can do is focus on procedure on these two incidents.
I think the fascinating, under appreciated, aspect of how bad a performance that was is there was nothing about the approach of the sides that made it a difficult game. Even in a game with 2 red cards and Gapko’s injury there was not a nasty tackle in the entire game. For all the complaints about Maddison engaging the ref and Udogie waving the card, there was very little cynical about either team’s conduct. That is a game that could have reasonably ended with just 2 or 3 cards. To have given 12 (I think that was the final count) in a game like that is indefensible. It’s just a performance from a guy who spiraled out of control
So we need to wait a full week yet for this audio - won’t be released until Howard does his need “mic’d up”
If the Mic’d up show doesn’t disclose full audio, I’d like to hope the club would do so - if they’ve received in full. That includes right to the throw in post Spurs freekick.
No, you just don’t agree with what the law literally says. It’s not a question of interpretation.
Mind you, I might well be getting which incident it is mixed up. But my impression of the incident I was talking about was that what you really disagreed with was the rule, rather than the implementation/interpretation of it.
The performance overall is not adequately covered by the two main incidents.
The first yellow for Jota.
Yellow for Salah
Penalty claim…
All of these add to the evidence of bias/corruption…and that’s without mentioning their trip to the desert
"BBC Sport understands that Liverpool are now in receipt of the relevant audio footage from the match officials in Saturday’s game at Tottenham and will take the time necessary to review it.
Liverpool, who went down to a 2-1 defeat after Luis Diaz’s first-half strike was wrongly disallowed for offside, criticised the response of referees’ body PGMOL, saying their explanation that it was a “significant human error” was “unacceptable” and “sporting integrity has been undermined”.
On Monday, the club made a formal request for the audio recordings between the match officials - on-pitch referee Simon Hooper, video assistant referee Darren England and his assistant Dan Cook - to better understand how the breakdown in communication happened."
But that is precisely the point isn’t it? If the explanation is so absurd to be unbelievable, then there is something valid to criticise, and therefore to improve the situation.
If even people who might agree with your underlying point are calling you blinkered and ill-informed, perhaps it’s time for you to review your own behaviour and thinking?
No-one says it was fair, but replaying it just creates more layers of unfairness.
Football matches are not played in laboratory conditions. Players have different levels of form and fitness, the weather has a massive impact. Who you are playing around the fixture etc.
The conditions of that game can’t be recreated, so it can’t be replayed.
I saw the point made elsewhere that the number of cards means the clubs are likely to be charged with a failure to control their players. The only person on the pitch who lost control was Hooper.
I think the club are fully aware that PGMOL is such a fucking shambles, the mentality of ‘we got one wrong, so we’ll give you this’ is exactly the level they are dealing with.