If the standard is based on ensuring the outcomes of games rather than fairly officiating them then they are doing a great job…
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The decision to rule the Virgil goal out yesterday was abysmal - and I was hoping that the likes of Dermot would agree this morning on ref-watch, but as usual, he’s there to protect his chums and their decisions as best he can, rather than say it how it is - hiding behind subjectivity. At least Bothroyd says it how it is - Robbo wasn’t in the keepers sight - it should have stood. More annoying that City scored the same goal (vs Wolves) and it stood. The linesman flagged 30 secs after the goal and decided that he could see (from his angle) that Robbo was interfering - fucking bullshit.
The whole refereeing performance was poor yesterday I though - City were falling over constantly, winning fouls, we didn’t win those same fouls. Oliver (on VAR yest) is the best there is (low bar) but he’s frustrating as once hes made his mind up there’s no changing it.
Notwithstanding the ref’s yesterday, we were poor, but that goal being given entirely changes the game state yesterday and you never know how it goes from that point on.
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Another couple of things I noticed: One was that Wirtz was fouled (professionally) on the break on at least 4 separate occasions. Only two of those resulted in a yellow card. I’m not sure if any should have been a second yellow.
The other is that the assistant constantly flagged for us being offside on the break rather than letting play carry on. Now I am all for an early flag if it is clearly offside, but when they showed the stills of a couple of them, they looked very close. Most were not shown so I can’t comment one way or the other, but it wouldn’t surprise me if one or two should have proceeded.
Incidentally, I posted on the post-match thread that the assistant referees were exactly the same as those who went with Oliver to the UAE beano before the Spurs debacle a couple of years ago. I’m wondering if they have an issue with us after that little brown envelope scheme was stopped.
I suppose that, since our performance yesterday was pretty crap, not many people are looking at the officiating situation. But prior to the match, lots of people on social media were saying that Oliver would fuck us over. He didn’t disappoint.
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But he was in an offside position and he made an ‘obvious action’ (to duck). If he hadn’t the ball would have hit him. Now I have no idea if that really is the rule , but it sounds plausible enough.
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Players are perfectly entitled to make no play for the ball if they are in an offside position.
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It’s bullshit. A simple matter of making up the rules as we go.
If Robbo stand still and the ball hits him, he’s offside. If he ducks under it and it doesn’t hit him, he’s also offside?
What, but if he steps to the side, it’s fine?
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Well no , that would be another ‘obvious action’ , wouldn’t it ?
If we’re going to have subjective rules, then those enforcing them have to be capable of at least some degree of subjectivity.
Kavanagh lives six miles from the Etihad and claims to support a small non league club that no-one has ever seen him at. Michael Oliver and the two assistants yesterday were part of a side hustle involving the owners of City paying them huge amounts of money to officiate friendly games in the UAE.
These men should be nowhere near football matches that involve Manchester City or it’s rivals.
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Like Silva vs Wolves?
Its the inconsistency that’s the detail.
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If it’s offside if a player touches the ball and also offside if he doesn’t, then why are we drawing a distinction between the two?
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Offside offence
A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:
- interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate or
- interfering with an opponent by:
- preventing an opponent from playing or being able to play the ball by clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision or
- challenging an opponent for the ball or
- clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent or
- making an obvious action which clearly impacts on the ability of an opponent to play the ball
Which one of these applied to Robbo?
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The ‘obvious action’ one was used, but it seems pretty obvious to me that is really about blocking or holding in order to prevent a defender getting to the ball.
It’s as clear a case of post hoc rationale that you are ever likely to see.
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The distinction is important because you need to be able to account for a goalie being fooled by the movement into thinking the shot hes going to need to save hasnt been taken yet and so delaying his effort to get to the original cross/shot. Basically you cannot do anything that approximates a dummy to confuse a keeper’s decision making. That is why the Stones/Silva goal against Wolves last year was allowed because his movement in front of the keeper was unambiguously an attempt to get out of the way and clear space for the goalie and so not penalized.
It just isn’t a credible explanation to look at what Robbo did and think that bit of the rule applies to him.
Yet again this is a case of them having a clear use case in their heads they need to account for in the rules, writing that rule poorly in a way that makes the connection to the original intent difficult to sustain, and then refs applying it in a way that increasingly diverges from the initial intent.
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I found the PGMOL statement from the incident in the Wolves v City game.
The VAR deemed Bernardo Silva wasn’t in the line of vision and had no impact on the goalkeeper and recommended an on-field review. The referee overturned his original decision and a goal was awarded.
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Michael Oliver - “hold my beer”
And he was involved in that decision too I believe.
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Let’s put it to bed Oliver is not the best ref nor is he the best of a bad lot. He’s just bad.
I actually don’t mind some such as Pawson, I am sure he has an excel spreadsheet full of bad decisions for us but generally I feel he is refeering the game. I didn’t see that from Kav or from Oliver.
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The entire refereeing matrix, VAR and what’s come out of it is a complete debacle. I’ve no faith in it delivering fairness, and in truth, we’ve all been conditioned to expect this. Now at every perceived ‘goal’, there’s then a lull, just to see if ‘computer says no’. Its taken the joy and immediacy from the game, but what’s worse is asking us to accept obvious injustices because its been through a process. The very same process that was implemented to increase fairness. Its almost neo-Orwellian piss taking.
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I think my favourite VAR facepalm of this season was the penalty situation against Real Madrid, a situation with three possible outcomes -corner, penalty or free kick. We end up VARing ourselves into an outcome that literally can’t flow as a natural consequence from the incident.
There was a similar one in a City Arsenal a while ago, where the ball hits an Arsenal defender and goes behind. The Ref gives a pen for handball, VAR step and say it isn’t a pen, so Arsenal end up with the ball despite everyone being able to see that it literally can’t be that. The ref knows. VAR know, but the protocols must be obeyed.
It’s absolutely batshit. As always the idea of a video assistant is a really good one, but the implementation is absolutely horrible.
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I did post an answer about this but you must have missed it, which I saw from the BBC post match analysis. it explained the chain of causation you are using was broken by the decision to have a penalty VAR, and then after that it can only ever be, penalty or goal kick.
I understand the rationale and how the ptotocols work.
I think it’s mad that we’ve protocol’d ourselves into a situation where we have outcomes on the pitch that literally can’t flow naturally from the incident.
In both those situations there should be scope to go back to the outcome had the referee got the decision ‘correct’ which would have been a corner.
In the Madrid one I think they created a dangerous chance from being given the ball back? Can you imagine the fume if they’d scored?
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