This is one of those cases where I feel I am taking crazy pills. Ballard has a hold of Konsaβs arm, but Konsa had both arms wrapped around his torso while looking in completely the opposite direction from the ball. What ballard did was not the cause of what Konsa did. These were not remotely equivalent to argue they should cancel each other out. What Konsa did was precisely what the refs said was part of what had gone wrong last season and would be penalized if identified this year.
I get Arteta being a prick about it, because, Arteta is just Artetaing. But why others are backing him up I have absolutely no idea. It seems part of the comments are over who caused the tumble, but the penalty was given for the foul that had already occurred. It was not for pushing him over, it was for βbeing all over him and not even looking at the ballβ, which is both the right thing to penalize and something that very clearly happened.
More of this pleaseβ¦
The condescension from fucking Gallagher there. What a cunt.
This exact thing from Konsa is what has had me both irked and perplexed it needs to be banished from the game and if so called pundits say it is part of the game I call bullshit.
This has only started happening to the degree it has over the last 5 years or so and last year was the worst.
They talk about the beautiful game, there is nothing beautiful about a big gronk doing this game in game out and getting away with it, banish it and we will see more goals and defenders defending properly.
Who gives a toss if there are a raft of penalties so be it for the good of the game.
I must rant about this every season and may be more than once a season.
Grabbing and holding is a deliberate act and is a scurge on the game, if an opposition player does it to me, they get one warning, that they will wear my elbow, doesnβt happen again. BTW we donβt have VAR so I can get away with it.
Atrocious he stands up for them when, even if it as an atrocious decision.
Imagine if an umpire in the Ashes gets a decision wrong and the TV umpire goes;
βwell I can see how Kumar might have got that wrong because it was only the slightest nick onto the pad so it was very difficult to see but you know what, he followed the process and I can understand the rationale so lbw stands! Off you go Mr Root.β
Football is inhabited by corrupt individuals enabled to by useful idiots so that itβs impossible to prove corruption. When thereβs enough doubt about everything, nobody can prove corruption. Thatβs the only reason that can make any sense of the farce we see week in, week out. Technology isnβt the problem, itβs the manner that itβs used that keeps everything shrouded enough.
Thatβs not how it works in cricket though. Every decision is pretty much cut and dried. It either is or it isnβt. Would it have hit the wicket? Did it nick the bat before hitting the pad? Was it a clean catch? Did his foot touch the boundary rope? Did he ground his bat in time?
In football many decisions are based on interpretation and opinion. Often, like the Konsa penalty, it is not 100% one way. Lots of decisions are not 100% right or wrong but open to debate hence why do two sets of fans and coaches pretty much always take different entrenched stances on key decisions. Would never happen in cricket but pretty much every controversial decision in football or lack of one is debated on social media until the next round of games and even for weeks, months or years after in some cases.
They have a strategy it seems: complaining about absolutely everything which doesnβt go their way. Contrarily to LFC who play nice with the refs at all times, they try to be as much as possible a pain for them.
It seems to work, doesnβt itβ¦
Referees are like politicians. We can moan about them being shit, but ultimately we get the ones we deserve.
The qualities you need to be a top referee are not the qualities you need to survive grassroots football and working up through the pyramid. Football naturally selects for belligerence, obtuseness, pig-headedness, love of authority, main character syndrome, and superiority. All the qualities that would actually make a good referee get bullied out of you early on, or people with them donβt make it.
Iβve seen good referees just sack it off because they donβt need the abuse and in some case violence. What you end up with are the pricks that get off on it.
Yeah, thatβs a good point, but I still donβt understand the gap between English refs and refs in other leagues. In France for instance, there is surely also abuse at lower levels (itβs an absolute plague everywhere to be honest), but the refs being selected for the top are still decent in comparison with these PGMOL pricks.
Seems more and more are waking up to the fact that Howie webb is not up to the task he undertakesβ¦
Problem we have is that VAR isnβt actually doing what it was identified as needed doing prior to itβs implementation.
VAR was supposed to not only help rectify refereeing errors, but to reduce the βinterpretaionβ side and just deal in black & white facts.
Michael Oliver is the ref for Sunday.
What were the B&W facts regarding the Konsa incident then? Both players had a grip on each other. It was not 100% one way, hence 2 ex pros on MOTD saying it was not a penalty⦠in that case should VAR just have ignored it as it was not an obvious refereeing error?
Konsa was practically humping the Sunderland player with zero regard for the ball.
Penalty. Borderline sexual assault.
Your opinionβ¦and that is all we can offerβ¦and everyone is entitled to it. Iβm not saying it wasnβt a penalty. Just pointing it out as an example where you wonβt get a concensus even from those that played the game at that level.
I didnβt say that incident was B&W.
Many arenβt.
I donβt have the answer, but what Iβm saying is that VAR getting involved is just someone elses perception of what happened.
And that isnβt the solution
My gripe is now incensed Arteta is as if it was an egregious error.
You just cannot make it up after the protests from the shitty manager PGMOL have taken the Machiavellian decision to punish the refs but Good old Oliver got away Scot free from blame and to add insult to injury he has been awarded to ref the Liverpool vs Bournemouth match. I predict he will send off one of our players and if any of our players get assaulted or injured seriously he will just wave it on.