Champions League Games 5/6 March

[mat]

For once, I'm with ickkle mikky on this one.

 

[jimharri]

Oh dear. Apart from the obvious disappointment of the rags benefitting last night, the fact that VAR shafted that odious tw@is a joy to behold.

 

[jared]

Never a penalty. Lucky rags

 

[Seedy Ron]

Whenever either the Rags or the dippers play in europe there is a overwhelming pro English aspect of the BT coverage which is without doubt seriously lacking whenever we play. I guess it's BT's insistence of having a least 3 pundits who have some sort of connection to either of them but its the commentators and sidekicks who seem to begin rubbing themselves up whenever there's a bit of hope for them that really gets me.

Last night for instance they mentioned how it could be yet another special night in the competition about 5 times. Juventus 199t f*cking 9 got a couple of mentions. Every time they got a corner the Bayern final got a mention. McPointy had seen their kids play a lot recently and they were all fucking world beaters. And it also seems they have a couple of injuries as well apparently.

If awards were given for media ball ticking this average team would have a clean mop up at the awards. Sickening.

 

[ken tali]

The whole tournament is structured so that this is the case - away goals, two legs, group phase, seedings - its all designed to ensure only a handful of teams have any chance of winning.

Two legs is the only way to go in the play-offs ,but the away goal rule is utter bulls..t.I do hope they will change it soon.

 

[mat]

Two legs is the only way to go in the play-offs ,but the away goal rule is utter bulls..t.I do hope they will change it soon.

Its being removed.

Cant remember if its next season or one after though?

 

[rnblade]

Save this post.
You can bet money on Schalke getting another penalty after seeing the comedy that happened with the rags.
We should just not bother shooting. Just flick it at the defenders arm.

 

[asaluttar]

What struck me last night, as I was half-watching both games, and based on other European games i have watched both this and last season, is how good we are.
I mean, apart from the obvious Messi, there are very very few players in clubs such as Barca, both Madrid teams, Juve, Bayern, Paris and so on, who would slot into our starting XI. To me that's a pretty awesome, and kind of mind blowing insight.

This has been stated before by others, but if you follow a typical close match on bluemoon (full of gloom and doom) and then watch a recording, it would feel like a completely different game.

Most of the games we have lost or won narrowly, on second viewing you realise invariably City were still way superior, much more control and better passing, and just lost due to silly mistakes, missed chances or sheer luck (as in an unbelievable goal by an average opposition player).

I would strongly believe over the past couple of years City would beat Madrid, for instance, 8 times out of 10.

 

[citytilllidie]

This is definitely a huge issue. So who did they tell about this rule "interpretation" (let's be honest this is absolutely a rule change) before implementing it? Were players and managers made aware before they went on pitches at the start of this round that this is how handball would be judged? It's interesting what Clattenburg says there, "This would never be given as a penalty in the Premier League, but it was given in the Champions League because of UEFA's recent instruction to referees, which came about after Manchester City conceded a similar one at Schalke last month.

Now that might just be him not being careful about the detail of language he is using but that reads to me like the rule was changed at the point Otamendi's "handball" was being judged. I would usually think that couldn't possibly be the case but I am not aware of anyone else realising that the handball rule had changed prior to that pen being given against us. If it is the case and nobody knew and then the ball hits Ota's arm while he's trying to get it out of the way, a pen is given that nobody (apart from Walton) can understand and suddenly we are effectively informed that a rule change that is supposedly coming in next season was actually brought forward specifically to our match with Schalke then that fucking stinks. Was this new rule even clarified after our match v Schalke or do we just need to take the utter robbery we saw last night as a tacit clarification?

And our ref didn't get to look at a monitor.

He was instructed by a 3rd party (ies), through his earpiece to point for a penalty.

UEFA the next day put out some kind of spurious statement to confirm that the situation was 'orally described to the ref, to allow him to come to the correct decision '.

What corruption?

 

[Matt the Giant]

Mike Chris Smalling.

Well, that's so elementary and obvious I didn' mention him, nor Phil "Maldini" Jones.