This referee is a jobs worth ain't he. Spraying a white line on Snow.

Thought they would have switched by now.
Wouldn't help me mind.

Aye pleased for the lad.

So the Son feint is one of those rules that need tightening.
A player can feint but not stop, when is a feint a stop or not? You just cannot define that as black and white.
Foy also got off the fence and agreed the first goal should have stood.

Aye literally stopping for a couple seconds is a bit daft

Andy wrote:

Liveinadive wrote:

Imagine the scenes.

It happens in other sports with video refs. It’s not much different from when a player and all of his supporters think he’s scored, because nobody (including the ref) saw the linesman raise his flag ten seconds ago.

The dummy-spitting over VAR is silly. If it isn’t working smoothly in a year’s time, I’d consider raising an eyebrow. But football fans and pundits are making themselves look silly, responding with incredulity over things that happen without a fuss elsewhere.

Of course it's not silly, it's negative feedback on something which is being trialled and currently isn't working. It would be silly not to voice the issues VAR has brought into the game, the last thing anyone would want is for them to think that these trials have been a success.

This isn't just testing though. This is happening in competitive games. And there needs to be a bare minimum competence level in place to let something happen in competitive games. At the moment it's turning some of the FA cup games into a farce.

But I’d argue that’s to do with problems that permeate football.

In rugby, there are strict, enforced rules about engagement with the referee. A lot of the respect that is spoken about is respect for the fact that the refs don’t tolerate lip.

In football, were refs to be stricter about these things, they’d get grief from fans and players alike. In the brief spell we saw strict enforcement of players haranguing referees, we constantly heard the most football-fan-like of all comments, “The referee made it about himself.” You never hear that bullshit when rugby or American Football referees enforce the rules that they are there to enforce. Somehow, in football fans’ eyes, it’s never the fault of the arsehole players.

Likewise, American Football has great, enforced rules about sportsmanlike conduct. Break the rules, get punished, and face criticism from the pundits. Here, we cut to dribbling moron pundits claiming that if you score a goal you can’t possibly be expected to control or be responsible for your own actions.

Football is full of pricks where everyone throws their hand up every time the ball goes out of play, even the player who knows he kicked it. The players lie about their actions, knowing they’re on camera. They try to con their way to gaining an advantage rather than playing better.

It’s a nightmare environment in which to introduce the idea that the referee will explain to a stadium of toddlers why none of them know the rules.

Honestly, football fans deserve the shitty version of the game they’re subjected to.

Which is all a reasonable response, until the last sentence, when you lower yourself to the same nonsense we’re hearing elsewhere.

sorry Andy, your argument appears to be that VAR should be a shambles cos players are cunts anyway.
I'd be very happy for footy to take inspiration from the rugby and american football way of reffing that you rightly praise, but it's no reason that we can't discuss ways that VAR should be better.

For me, Sparky is right on this. it should be only used on a 'challenge' basis from managers, where they have 1 or 2 challenges that can only be used in certain situations (goals/penalty/red card), and the decision is only overturned if a clear mistake (ie. not when someone's knee is half an inch offside, like Mata(?) was). With hefty fines and penalties for frivolous challenges just to waste time, and the manager loses their challenge if the decision isn't overturned.
That way the refs can just get on with the game as normal.

For more fun, the managers have to put on a special 'joker hat' when they want to issue a challenge, so the crowd know what's going on.

Arsenal v Man City is still going ahead tonight. You'd expect after the weekend embarrassment in the cup, for arsenal to come out all guns blazing, a few reckless tackles and some cards dished out.

This is arsenal though, so meek surrender it will be.

Here they go.

Lovely from Sane.

Wow.

I don't think it's a massive rebuild, we a need a manager to kick the players fucking asses.

Can't even score a fucking pen

Gaz, you need a new goalie, defenders and a midfield. While trying to qualify for the champions league against 5 teams who are much stronger than your team right now.

I think it's a big rebuild job, but as your the arsenal fan, I'll defer to your judgement. Who would you like as the new manager?