Has the art of defending been stopped by PGMOL?

[city saint]

the way forwards are throwing themselves to the floor and the ridiculous handball rule how are defenders expected to defend.in our day it had to be a significant foul to get a pen but these days you dare not tackle in the box so the only other option is to get a block in but if it hits your hand its a penalty.how the fuck are you supposed to defend.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

And the art of attacking. If your first thought is to go down, then what's the point? All in the mistaken belief that people want to see more goals, and it doesn't matter what sort of goals. But of course what we actually want to see is good quality goals, not goals scored from a penalty after a forensic analysis of every incident just to find something to give.

 

[oxopop]

And the art of attacking. If your first thought is to go down, then what's the point? All in the mistaken belief that people want to see more goals, and it doesn't matter what sort of goals. But of course what we actually want to see is good quality goals, not goals scored from a penalty after a forensic analysis of every incident just to find something to give.

Fully agree but thanks to sky and the wider commercial market, such as China and the U S A, the game has changed beyond what many fans ,such as myself want to see. I will always be a blue at heart but the game as a spectacle is dross.

 

[Bozzie]

It doesn't help that everybody's so scared of damaging the product and, as a consequence, their own very lucrative livelihood that there is no objective discussion or analysis on the subject. Individual incidents are debated to death and virtually every time reach the same conclusion: the striker was entitled to go down and needed to include a blood curdling scream into his performance so that the referee understood the brutality of his assault and, the defender was rash, clumsy, naive, or an "idiot" to make the challenge. Even on Sunday when Liverpool got a final opportunity to win the match from a free kick at the death, Neville could not bring himself to call out Salah for cheating when there was clearly no contact. Instead he blamed Cancelo for basically being on the pitch and attempting to defend.

 

[Jesus H Gabz]

I’ve listened to Keane call KW an idiot & plenty of other pundits tear apart his defending in that instance, he was faced with a split second choice of which player to follow and got it wrong, heads or tails that was it...just think for a second if he’d of actually got out of the way of the dive? He’d of exposed the diving cheating little worm & his mate, just an inch from justice. So don’t criticise our lads if they appear to “jump outta the way”. The trouble is it’s risk & reward, get a penalty and the rewards are potentially massive, players that dive very rarely get a yellow card these days let alone a retrospective ban, and get called smart or clever. With VAR I’m pretty sure it’d be easy to spot the cheats & issue red cards/bans but the FA/Prem don’t want to harm the product. As for the handballs, we need to revert back to ball to hand/hand to ball as well as incorporating natural position, we seem to have replaced the former with the latter

 

[crazyg]

And the art of attacking. If your first thought is to go down, then what's the point? All in the mistaken belief that people want to see more goals, and it doesn't matter what sort of goals. But of course what we actually want to see is good quality goals, not goals scored from a penalty after a forensic analysis of every incident just to find something to give.

Or not to give, in our case.

 

[Saddleworth2]

I watched highlights of the Denis Tuart League Cup Final yesterday and what struck me immediately was the difference of incidents in the box. No diving, proper tackles and ariel challenges. Forwards that did everything they could to stay on there feet. Miles better. At one point big Malcolm MacDonald charged into the box only to be thwarted by big Joe taking the ball and then him. Today that would have been followed by 5 minutes of VAR bed wetting. I really am going off football.

 

[MikeF]

Headlocks are fine.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

It’s turning football into a game of playing for penalties. Every time a dipper player went in the box on Sunday my heart was in my mouth waiting for one of them to fall on the floor. Does the pattern of play in football turn into what they do in American football or rugby union where it ends up being played to get into position to kick for points? We might have to start changing the scoring to two points for a goal and one for a penalty, see if players stay on their feet then.

 

[remember arthur mann]

Stated at the inception of the Premier League, no contact, European style football, nothing too complicated to appeal to the dumber masses.