Liverpool - post match thread.

[Nelinho]

I fully understood Lampard not celebrating his goal against Chelsea. Didn't hold it against him at all. Of course, Milner does not and never did have anything like the status here that Frank Lampard had at Stamford Bridge, and it didn't much bother me that he celebrated his penalty. I also never held it against him that he went to Liverpool. But I did boo him at the end, in a bantering kind of way. And I virtually never boo players (wouldn't think of booing one of our own, just wouldn't think of it) unless I believe they are clearly cheating. Thus, I did boo Suarez against us on Boxing Day, 2013 because the fucker just kept falling over in the box. Thing is, we're getting utterly sick of Raheem Sterling being booed by their lot. Milner will probably never be booed again by us, because we really don't care, to be honest. But I bet you that Raheem continues to be booed by that lot.
Anyway, all this is not even a storm in a teacup. It's one in a thimble.
Penalties? No, sorry, I really don't think they're evening themselves out this season. At all. They will do over the decade, perhaps. I will concede that we've had maybe a couple of soft penalties awarded in our favour, that were at least debateable (for instance, I think the one on Zab at West Ham we wouldn't have much liked if it had been awarded against us, but in any case you can hardly say it made much difference in the end to the result). What we're looking at here, by contrast, is stone cold penalties or red cards. Luiz on Aguero where he is clearly past him and Luiz is the last man; Kyle Walker on Raheem; the Liverpool defender (can't remember who) who put his arms right around Kun on Sunday (it doesn't even matter if he was slowing him down or not, that is no part of tackling, especially in the box, so it is a foul, so it is a penalty, end of story); Milner clattering into Raheem in the second half, with no chance of getting the ball, when Raheem is through and about to score. These are not soft, well-maybe, well-maybe-not sorts of situations.
Anyway, we move on. Neutrals greatly admired our match, and the dippers played their part. As neutrals greatly admired our two matches against Monaco. Not much of a consolation, but I know I'd rather watch that than the unutterable dross played out at the Riverside. Nobody can consider this to have been a good season exactly, least of all Pep himself, but if we do cement top four, and get through to the final of the Cup it is, let us say carefully, acceptable, as a first season from Pep, on condition that there is a significant improvement in his second season. That's the way I see it, anyway.

1. Matip. He clearly brings him down. But he's experienced enough and he does it ... elegantly...
2. Neutrals are admiring City's game since the beginning of the season. One can look at his own environment and will see signs. I know people who do not miss City matches for a series of reasons. Enjoying creative attacking football, enjoying specific players etc. A friend of mine is addicted to the David - Kevin combination (the same with me, we speak the same language when it comes to football), he knew them both but he's impressed with Kev's development this season (especially following his disappointing performances in the recent EURO; he just wouldn't fucking listen when I was telling him Belgium had a clown for a manager, that guy fucked everybody, team and players), he tells me he gets pleasure watching these 2 together. Who doesn't really?

I would bet there are already new City fans out there, even if they haven't realised it yet. I was reading that thread about Brazilian fans meeting to watch the Sunday match. Hardly a surprise really, obviously Brazilians will appreciate our style, it's in their DNA. The thing is, a lot of people who love football will eventually follow City, it's deterministic...

 

[Beyond Belief]

Are you talking about when Milner took his legs from behind?
Fuck me mate it was a stonewall penalty...How the fuck can Raz be at fault for that????

He just wasn't strong enough.......or some shit like that according to Sky.

 

[Beyond Belief]

The same corrupt lino that offsided us the whole fucking 1st half.
Start naming names, pls.

Agree completely, this really pissed me off and not many noticed it. It's poised at 1-1 as the Lallana "chance" arrives, these biased pundits are lining up to lament his miss as the most noteworthy incident of the game. However, those paying attention could see clearly that it should never have been allowed to happen. Offside ffs but eagle eye cherry Lino was mentally fatigued! The lack of ANY comment about how this should have been called as offside is revealing.

My blood still boils thinking of what they wanted to happen by allowing the Lallana chance and the chances that we may have scored when that twat liner was falsely ruling sterling offside in the first half when he obviously wasn't and the commentators and pundits alike ignored ALL of them! It doesn't even itself out. It takes the piss and I'm not happy to keep paying out my arse to fucking watch this bullshit anymore. At home we have been served up the worst officiating in a season that I can remember. Might just turn to foreign streams to watch my team at least I won't hear their business interests shaping their notions of FairPlay at me like BT, SKY and BBC who,as we well know don't give a fuck for fairness when we are screwed over again and again.

Derby coming at home soon. Fuck me. The best of this is yet to come......

 

[Beyond Belief]

yeah its criminal they defo know what and where to show the highlights in the game
there was an aguero offside aswell that never even looked close i think i seen a liverpool player in the box or just on the line and aguero started his run well outside the box again never shown just gloss over and move on fast

The commentators start to chat absolute macca when there is something controversial that we have been denied. The cameras pan away to something irrelevant to distract and they hope it goes unnoticed so they don't have to speak about it. However, try it the other way around and it's a differerpnt story - they are all over it with endless replays and even ignoring good football afterwards to bicker about it. Clear double standards. Can't be arsed paying for it anymore.

 

[Blue Mooner]

If Lallana was onside and not considered 'active' when the ball was played to Firmino then Sergio may as well stand on the penalty spot whenever the ball is in the opposition half - Play the ball out wide to Sterling and Sane, they beat the defender with pace and slip it across to an unmarked Sergio who would have a 10, 15, 20, 25 yard advantage on the defenders with space to pop it home.

In fact, if I was Guardiola, on the evidence of the game last Sunday with Lallana now widely considered by the footballing majority to have been onside I would employ this tactic straight away. It would immediately stop the opposition pushing out and squeezing the space. It would take a brave defence to leave an onside Arguero in that much space.

 

[ancoats]

If Lallana was onside and not considered 'active' when the ball was played to Firmino then Sergio may as well stand on the penalty spot whenever the ball is in the opposition half - Play the ball out wide to Sterling and Sane, they beat the defender with pace and slip it across to an unmarked Sergio who would have a 10, 15, 20, 25 yard advantage on the defenders with space to pop it home.

In fact, if I was Guardiola, on the evidence of the game last Sunday with Lallana now widely considered by the footballing majority to have been onside I would employ this tactic straight away. It would immediately stop the opposition pushing out and squeezing the space. It would take a brave defence to leave an onside Arguero in that much space.

the rule is a joke if your on the pitch your 'active' in my book and the 2nd phase its up to the ref and linesman they can give it offside or a goal if your united with the rule not interfering under the not active in the 1st phase. i do believe sky sport have done a thing with neville and carragher being a referee and both failing

http://www.skysports.com/football/n...he-referees-onside-with-carragher-and-neville

 

[Blue Mooner]

the rule is a joke if your on the pitch your 'active' in my book and the 2nd phase its up to the ref and linesman they can give it offside or a goal if your united with the rule not interfering under the not active in the 1st phase. i do believe sky sport have done a thing with neville and carragher being a referee and both failing

http://www.skysports.com/football/n...he-referees-onside-with-carragher-and-neville

And therein lies the rub. The 'rules' are deliberately vague so you can effectively make the decision whatever you want or 'need' it to be.

It's like you can now be offside if a 'part' of your body is offside. What happened to the days when there was some form of daylight between the last defender and the attacker?

How on earth in a split second can you really decide as a linesman whether Sterlings head or a foot is ahead of the last man? Again it allows for a certain amount of manipulation of the rules and or excuses to be made to suit.

 

[Norbiton]

I really don't understand why people have such difficulty with this. A player will not be given offside unless he plays the ball or makes an attempt to play it. The only exception is if he very obviously interferes with an opponent and is very rarely enforced, he'd have to be virtually standing on the keeper's toes to be judged as interfering. As for judging an offside position, that's always been hard for close decisions.

 

[the-ecstacy-of-eight]

The whole video replay thing for potential offside decisions is doing my head in, has done for a long, long time now.

Either......
1 - they don't show it at all, which raises obvious questions (and eyebrows), especially when everybody who's paying attention can see that the decision was marginal.
or
2 - they use their "eye-in-the-sky" cam to show the sequence of play from a strange "behind the play" angle which clears nothing up and only serves in raising even more eyebrows
or
3 - they show it a few frames too late.

JUST TAKE A LOOK AT THE BALL WHEN THEY FREEZE-FRAME IT ON MANY OF OUR OFFSIDE DECISIONS ON TV - it's often not circular, it's like a white smudge (which I believe is very, very revealing) and then they follow it up with some sort of "WOW! great decision by the ref" nonsense, to "prove" that the ref "saw" one of our forwards toenails was 1" closer to the goal than the last defender and as such was offside.

Corrupt and obvious. We need some journalists or some other interested parties to grow some balls in this country (as they did in Italy) and take a very, very close look into this situation, but they never will :(

 

[ancoats]

I really don't understand why people have such difficulty with this. A player will not be given offside unless he plays the ball or makes an attempt to play it. The only exception is if he very obviously interferes with an opponent and is very rarely enforced, he'd have to be virtually standing on the keeper's toes to be judged as interfering. As for judging an offside position, that's always been hard for close decisions.

what about the david silva goal in the cup when sterling was offside and what about the southampton goal in the cup final vs united both onside but both given offside
like Blue Mooner said
The 'rules' are deliberately vague so you can effectively make the decision whatever you want or 'need' it to be

its covers the mistakes and the knowingly mistakes its open to the ref in how he wants to see it and that can not be right
it needs to be clear and given offside or onside both can not happen in the game just make it black and white