Football 2010-2011

[TheGayTent]

I'd like to Beeb to refuse to show any Man Utd games

[modey]

Gerrard makes some poor challenges, but he didn't do THAT this weekend. He was just shit . Plus Rooney challenges like that and gets away with it a LOT.

There is no way the media try and crucify Rooney like SAF says. It was only a year ago they were genuinely comparing him to Messi

[strummer77]

poor challenges understatement or what? as i said gerrard did this one which was a lot worse than rooneys yet there was no media frenzy like there has been this weekend

Edited February 28, 2011 by strummer77

[modey]

He makes bad challenges that's what i've admitted, although others like Scholes make them regularly but he gets away with them just as much.

I.e. the P'mouth one, there was loads of fuss about it at the time! I posted an article a few posts up where SAF even commented on it. A quick google search shows you how much it was commented on. There was loads of fuss although it may not have been as obvious as it was a midweek game rather than one at a weekend so there wasn't MOTD/MOTD2/Goals on Sunday etc. to emphasise the issue.

Although rightly or wrongly I think some people didn't care so much about that one as a) Brown is a c**t felt it was provoked because of past actions.

[strummer77]

right so because he was doing it due to the fact he was provoked that makes it ok? i'm pretty sure rooney must have been provoked to do wht he did but it doesn't make it right

Scholes isn't a dirty player , yes he makes some bad challenges, but most of the time they are just mistimed, as great a player he is, he can't tackle... you can't compare blatant elbows that gerrard seems to make his trademark, to mis timed tackles, i can't ever recall scholes doing an off the ball challenge/elbow, care to enlighten me?

Edited February 28, 2011 by strummer77

[pink_triangle]

My opinion is either retrospective punishment is used in all cases, or not at all. Its ridiculous that two players can do the same thing, one get a 3 match ban because the incompetent officials missed it. While the other gets off free because the incompetent officials either dont implement the law or bottle it. There is no doubt that big clubs and players get preferential treatment, unsurprisingly Gerrard and rooney the two most hyped english players get the most leniancy. I think the refs are too starstruck, I cringe when I hear them say wazza or Stevie.

[strummer77]

My opinion is either retrospective punishment is used in all cases, or not at all. Its ridiculous that two players can do the same thing, one get a 3 match ban because the incompetent officials missed it. While the other gets off free because the incompetent officials either dont implement the law or bottle it. There is no doubt that big clubs and players get preferential treatment, unsurprisingly Gerrard and rooney the two most hyped english players get the most leniancy. I think the refs are too starstruck, I cringe when I hear them say wazza or Stevie.

Edited February 28, 2011 by strummer77

[Steve P]

Still gutted, just hope that they don't get too down. Lots of things still to play for

[Kowalski]

Im 100% in agreement with him not speaking with the Beeb. When the national broadcaster makes a programme saying his son uses his fathers name to get rich illegally in the transfer market, (which was never proved at all) jeopardising his career, I think he perfectly within his rights not talking to old aunty.

[worm]

I heard that in Rugby League a ref apparently puts both hands above their head in a certain gesture to signal an incident they aren't quite sure on, which would then be analysed after the game. We should be using that system at least.

[strummer77]

That's superficial. Why not analyse the incidents that occured during a match as we do now, but instead of being totally inept about it have the authorities take subsequent action.

[eFestivals]

True. But I can't see either happening.

I'm very glad it doesn't. Football would be stop start all the time, and would be a completely different game.

[worm]

I'm very glad it doesn't. Football would be stop start all the time, and would be a completely different game.

[strummer77]

I think we were talking about looking at it after the game as a system of review rather than stopping the game

Edited March 1, 2011 by strummer77

[eFestivals]

I think we were talking about looking at it after the game as a system of review rather than stopping the game there and then. I'm in favour of bringing in a review system anyway. It wouldn't hold the game up long, would be fair and would undermine the tactic of cheating.

But what exactly is open to review? If we take last weekend's football, then the biggest reffing error was the offside call in the first couple of minutes of the Carling Cup final - and that might have been a result-changer too.

Some might say that the Arsenal goalie should be given a ban to be equivalent of the red he should have got, but the goalie could argue that he'd seen the linesman's flag and that caused him to act in a different way to how he would have if the ball had been in play.

There's nothing which can be done afterwards to satisfactorily address that particular reffing error, yet for other things (such as Rooney's elbow) punishments might be handed out.

Does the variance in the 'after-response' result in a fairer system or simply create unfairness in other directions, and with a much more complicated system of managing it too? To me, it's no improvement - a big part of the beauty of football is its simplicity at all levels, while anything which tries too hard to redress reffing errors on the pitch puts it into the realm of rugby with a number of technical rules which the casual observer/fan doesn't much understand; and it'll end up with the (non)mass appeal of rugby as a result.

(no offence rugby fans - but rugby is less of a mass sport because it's a harder sport to understand. Football is beautifully simplistic, and that's where and how it wins out).

[TheGayTent]

(no offence rugby fans - but rugby is less of a mass sport because it's a harder sport to understand. Football is beautifully simplistic, and that's where and how it wins out).

[Benj]

i'll not go into the host of reasons why i switched but at the end of the day, if your hearts not in it, it's not in it.

the whole daddy thing only means that the big clubs are getting bigger fan bases. which doesn't help anything for the game. the vast majority of teenagers in livingston will be celtic/rangers fans because of daddy. and then it'll continue to the next generation and the next. and smaller clubs, especially those next to big cities will be in trouble.

you wouldn't support albania if your dad was albanian and you were raised in england would you? so why's club football any different?

[eFestivals]

I disagree. There are more rules to learn in rugby than in football. However, the offside rule in football is far more complicated in it's current form than any rule in rugby.

In my experience, most people that don't understand the nuances of rugby, don't understand because they didn't play it as a kid, and don't watch much rugby bar international matches.

I agree that the footie offside rule is hard to understand - but most women seem to get it if explained with that shop queue analagy.

And I don't understand the technical nuances of rugby despite having played it as a kid at school (tho not to 'school team' level) - none of those bits were covered in any detail, if at all. But perhaps things might have been different if I'd have been brought up in an area where a greater amount of rugby was played.

But anyway ... while I can see that there's some issues with footie that aren't handled perfectly, I don't see any suggestions that get made to address these as bringing about any improvement overall - the suggested solutions create their own extra problems while making the game more complicated than it is currently. The one thing I'm solidly in agreement with Blatter about is that football should be able to be played in any park by any bunch of kids.

[Benj]

But what exactly is open to review? If we take last weekend's football, then the biggest reffing error was the offside call in the first couple of minutes of the Carling Cup final - and that might have been a result-changer too.

[worm]

But what exactly is open to review?

[The Nal]

Violent incidents and other cheating/ diving should be reviewed and punished post match, whatever action the ref has taken at the time

Ball over the line should deffo be reviewable in play, and potentially tight offside calls. I would allow teams to say have 2, maybe 3 reviews a half (to be used on offensive or defensive calls), where if they're right they keep the review, if they're wrong they lose it.

Only problem would be where its still not clear from the available footage but they could just go with the original decision at that point.

I think it would add drama rather than take it away, if that's most people's issue with it.

[Benj]

I disagree. There are more rules to learn in rugby than in football. However, the offside rule in football is far more complicated in it's current form than any rule in rugby.

[Gre]

Violent incidents and other cheating/ diving should be reviewed and punished post match, whatever action the ref has taken at the time

Ball over the line should deffo be reviewable in play, and potentially tight offside calls. I would allow teams to say have 2, maybe 3 reviews a half (to be used on offensive or defensive calls), where if they're right they keep the review, if they're wrong they lose it.

Only problem would be where its still not clear from the available footage but they could just go with the original decision at that point.

I think it would add drama rather than take it away, if that's most people's issue with it.

[ampersand]

My mate's Dad is Egyptian, he was born and raised in England (the mate), he supports England and Egypt

[Benj]

I don’t think that’s workable. Coaches would be calling for reviews just because other teams are on the counter attack or something.