They keep pushing this line that Doku played the ball. He didn’t - or, at least, the only reason it went anywhere near his foot is because it bounced of Mac. If Mac hadn’t flinched away from that he was getting that boot right through his chest or face.
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Apparently going to be discussed on MNF this evening.
Be interesting to see if puppet Carragher has had time to reflect on his pitiful offerings post match yesterday.
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Don’t hold your breath.
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I have no problems with the theory of Doku’s intention to play the ball. Of course he wanted to play the ball, but that wasn’t the only possibility of doing it, without punishment, or high risk of it.
Even that can be a penalty (and it is, in my opinion) and it doesn’t have to be physically more intense than it was. We have other situations on the pitch where something is still a foul, regardless of getting to the ball first.
It’s perfectly possible that Doku, as soon as his foot went high (or the next moment of his decision of doing so) and he realized Mac was in front, though “shit, better pull this leg back as soon as possible”. But I’m sorry kid, that cannot save you.
It’s similar to Klopp saying a few years ago that Virgil on Lamela wasn’t a penalty because he came from behind and couldn’t see him. Unintentional bad luck can be punished the same way as fully aware, intentional stupidity.
You have to be aware that it’s crowded in the box, you can have anyone coming from anywhere 360. The rest is up to you, you have multiple solutions and parts of the body to play or not play the ball.
It’s not even a body vs body type of duel where we can discuss intensity more freely. This is usually a dangerous attempt. What were Mac’s possibilities here? None. Whether it was this type of intensity or higher.
And also, Ederson’s action. The “wanted to play the ball” argument is shit. What else did he want to play? Of course he wanted to, but he was nowhere near the ball in the end.
Who cares that Nunez would’ve probably ended up destroying the newly redeveloped Annie Road stand. Look at it purely as opponent vs opponent, that was motion wise and intensity wise enough for a red card.
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The various defenses of the decision dont merit a series counter. They are just mental gymnastics that dont stand up to the slightest by of scrutiny and are only being made to justify an outcome a person wants to be right.
Far more than most people are willing to admit, this is the driving force behind the majority of discussions about refereeing decisions, even when the refs themselves are included
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Yeah. It’s a pathetic argument in an attempt to justify what was a poor decision (again). I’d have more respect if they just actually admitted it as a mistake, but like a politician, they rally round and double down.
His foot is high, studs are showing, he pushes through, and there’s a high degree of danger. By any normal judgement it’s a foul.
I’m beyond frustration now, it’s actually saddening and nearly impossible to say with any conviction that it’s fair and proper.
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At the time the commentators were saying that Doku was “in trouble” meaning a possible red card. As soon as it is waved on without comment they suddenly started this whole “he got the ball” nonsense.
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not a red card, because it’s in the box
red card, open play outside the box
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It is the blatant inconsistences that irks
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At least the other pundits challenged him
Yet again we find ourselves in a situation where the debate is not so much about whether the ref was right, but on why if he wasnt it was still “right” for VAR not to do anything (the ref saw it and we dont want to reref games). This seems to be where so much of the frustration with VAR comes in (it was the wrong decision, but VAR was right to do nothing).
This is why I have come around to the idea of manager challenges. It might not work because refs might be too stubborn to change their mind at the monitor on insistence from a manager (an antagonist), but the clear and obvious threshold causes so much consternation and is the direct cause of so much of the controversy that it sure has to go no matter how much sense it makes on paper
And yet yesterday France were awarded a try but the camaras clearly showed the French player lost control of the ball before touching down under a pile of bodies. Video ref calls down and tells the referee he’s made an error. It was corrected and the game carried on.
It’s honestly not difficult, but the football equivalent is trying it’s hardest to rip the arse out of it.
VAR has become a roaring success at demonstrating how utterly useless the lawmakers are and the horrendously low standard officiating has become. And I’m being kind, there’s scope to argue further.
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But that is because Rugby want to get the RIGHT decisions not this clear and obvious bullshit we are seeing in footy
Listening to a podcast there with some pretty compelling evidence on Oliver. Everything changed after his gig in UAE. Decisions like not sending Kovacic off v Arsenal, and giving City a pen v United from a corner that was no worse wrestling than any other corner
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Richard Keys reveals angry incident he claims has left refs ‘scared’ of Michael Oliver
Richard Keys believes that referees have been “scared” of Michael Oliver since his angry reaction to being sent to the VAR screen two seasons ago.
The Premier League official has been under scrutiny this week after failing to award Liverpool a late penalty vs Manchester City. Jeremy Doku kicked Alexis Mac Allister in the chest but neither Oliver nor VAR Stuart Attwell deemed the challenge to be worthy of a penalty.
Since then, Keys has been critical of Oliver and claimed that fellow officials are scared of sending him to the VAR screen to review his decisions. He believes that comes from an incident during the 2022/23 campaign as Oliver was asked to review a penalty award between Nottingham Forest and Bournemouth.
Taking to his personal blog, Keys wrote: “There was no way he was going to ask Oliver to go to the monitor. Not since Saturday, September 4 2022 has that happened. Do you remember the incident?
“The match was Forest v Bournemouth. Forest were awarded a pen by Oliver when Bournemouth’s Lloyd Kelly handled. Before the kick was taken, Oliver was invited to the monitor to review his decision. He decided his original call was correct. Of course he did.
“At the time we all praised him for having the guts to stick with his decision. I believe it was the first time a ref had stayed with his on-field call after being sent to check it. Well - overturn it, because that always happens.
“What isn’t so well known - but I’ve referred to it before - is that Oliver was furious he’d been asked to check his decision and he let his colleagues know, in no uncertain terms, at their next meeting.
“I can’t think of too many times since - if any - when Oliver has been back to a monitor. I would add that he’s one of the busiest when he’s in the bunker - but the message is clear when he’s got the whistle - don’t bother me.”
It is not the first time that Keys has suggested that fellow officials do not want to intervene with Oliver’s decisions. He also claimed David Coote should have sent Oliver to the VAR monitor during Liverpool’s win at Brentford.
He said: "Brentford should’ve had a pen. Robertson knew it was a pen. You can see that by the way he limply kicks the ball away after clattering Toney. The only person in the ground that didn’t think it was a pen was Michael Oliver. What happened to VAR?
“David Coote went missing because he knows that Oliver is never going to accept someone he regards as inferior to him sending him to a monitor. Operators are scared of Oliver so they back off. We know this because Mike Dean admitted as much early in the season. Refs help their mates out and duck controversy.”
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If you are going to do a challenge system, you have to leave it to the captain. It’s no good leaving it to the manager - they are too far away.
But I’m still not keen on the idea of a challenge system. I can see teams using it to break the flow of a game and waste time. In Sundays game Man City would have lashed in three challenges in the last 20 minutes just to kill our momentum.
It seems to me like the main problems are:
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Ref’s are massive egotists and do not appreciate being corrected. They want to rule games in a state whereby they are the final authority, word is law kind of arrangement.
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It’s the same people sat in the VAR room as as on the pitch. Members of the same club, and this means that they are scared to act for fear of pissing off a more senior member of the club, or they are too close to the ref on the field and don’t want to embarrass them (see Mike Dean)
So a few proposals.
Firstly, the ‘clear and obvious’ threshold needs to go. It’s just an excuse to avoid pulling up a poor decision. Was that decision wrong lads? ‘Well, but it wasn’t obviously wrong’ Eh? So it was wrong then? ‘Well, yes, but it wasn’t so obviously wrong that the lad who can see twenty replays in slow motion didn’t put it right. What the fuck?
We’ve ended up in a situation where we have to deal with as schrodinger’s penalty, where if the refs gives it, it’s OK, and if he doesn’t give it, it’s also OK. Just get the decision right. I don’t care who makes it.
Then I think you can choose which way you want to go
Either
a) We embrace the ref as the authority and lean into the egotism. We put VAR there as a tool they can use to assist their decision making. It’s at their disposal to call when they need it.
“OK. I’m satisfied it’s not a dangerous tackle. But I think I saw the defender touch the ball first. Can you confirm that”.
or
b) We stop worrying about their fucking feelings and give the VAR booth full authority to overrule them, and tell them that they have got one wrong.
This will require a full separation of VAR from the PGMOL ref pool, and I think that there are loads of people with training who could do that job very well.
Personally I think there are bigger problems in refereeing than VAR. The referees believing they exist to manage the game as a spectacle for broadcasters rather than apply the laws is one (not helped by Alan Pardew’s fucking retarded comments yesterday). Another one is the breakdown in respect between players and referees. The biggest is the integrity of referees. I don’t know when flying off to UAE to referee games became a thing, but Michael Oliver has been a beneficiary of Shiek Mansour’s hospitality this year and has given City two absolutely massive baffling decisions this year. That isn’t a good look, and it’s troubling that PGMOL seem unconcerned by it.
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It rather backs my feeling that Oliver is an antagonistic character. I remember that incident with him dismissing the VAR review as well. VAR needs to be independent.
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The illusory truth effect - the tendency to believe false information to be correct after repeated exposure. In the immediate aftermath, the media were all parroting each other.
Doku lets the ball bounce, but the ball then slightly spins away from him. That causes Doku to panic as Alexis closes in, and Doku doubles down with his wild swing. It’s a penalty in 99.9% of situations.
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I think,… I would prefer the former where 1 referee makes the decisions but they must be willing to accept and welcome input from all other officials. That’s how rugby does it. But the conversations need to be public along with the footage being reviewed.
Game rules also need to be clarified and made clearer.
With everything in the open they’d soon start to behave I hope.