Ref Watch City Games - 2023/24

[David Kloppesh]

**** of the highest order.

 

[Blue Mist]

Linesman gave it but the ref did play advantage on this one, fair play, he got plenty wrong though.

Ok I hold my hands up if the lino flagged.
Dear Mr Magoo, I apologise for saying you missed the blatant foul, you'd missed so many others I wrongly assumed you couldn't be arsed for this one either.
Yours
B. Mist.

 

[Blue Mist]

Is the middle there thinking they’re attempting to do that through directing referees and their decision making to adversely affect us? As if it is, I’m not sure the middle is that different to your first extreme is it?

It's totally different. The fact that you cannot see it says a lot.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Tbf, on all topics on here you have people with views at each of the opposite ends of the debate, and a large minority in the middle.

On this topic, you have people at one end who think the PL is out to stop City at any cost, despite the fact that City occasionally get disputed calls in their favour, and at the other end people who don't accept that the PL/PGMOL take any steps against City, despite some controversial calls, and refereeing interpretations and methods, that are almost unexplainable.

In the middle, I think, are the vast majority who don't think the PL is trying to stop City per se, but is trying to maintain interest in the PL product by having different winners if at all possible, and having close title races, with United and Liverpool up there as much as possible, as a minimum. It just makes commercial sense for the PL.

Anyway, these differences of opinion are what makes this forum interesting.

I'm also in the middle camp on this subject.

If the competition IS being manipulated by the PL/PGMOL as I suspect it is, aided and abetted by certain media outlets for 'commercial' reasons then that is utterly criminal when people are paying a huge amount of money to follow their team in the belief that the competition is a level playing field when it is anything but.

 

[Alan Harper's Tash]

Imagine being the best team in the country and the overriding emotion in every game is anger at the referee.

 

[halfcenturyup]

I'm also in the middle camp on this subject.

If the competition IS being manipulated by the PL/PGMOL as I suspect it is, aided and abetted by certain media outlets for 'commercial' reasons then that is utterly criminal when people are paying a huge amount of money to follow their team in the belief that the competition is a level playing field when it is anything but.

:) Not sure it's criminal, but people asking for proof make me smile. Of course there won't be proof in the public domain. The PL aren't idiots. But there is a valid commercial proposition for the "middle ground", cogent (that word again) if you will, which I challenge anyone to discredit, whereas there is no real proposition against it. I know which side of the balance of probabilities I fall onto.

 

[waspish]

Seems referees punish our players by the law of the game and other teams get the benefit of doubt! There was a headbutt by a player this weekend there was a hands around the throat by a player too!

Tackle on foden was a red so the bloke in var who thought it wasn't even worth looking at should be dropped fined reprimanded!

Oh the foul throw ins that only city get pulled up on by referees!


It's really is a subliminal bias by referees! just because of the negative narrative of our club last ten years it seems like it fine!

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

:) Not sure it's criminal, but people asking for proof make me smile. Of course there won't be proof in the public domain. The PL aren't idiots. But there is a valid commercial proposition for the "middle ground", cogent (that word again) if you will, which I challenge anyone to discredit, whereas there is no real proposition against it. I know which side of the balance of probabilities I fall onto.

If it's ever proven that there has been manipulation of results to effect the outcome of the competition then given the numbers of people paying to attend games it will be perhaps one of the biggest frauds ever uncovered. If we say a full house at City v Liverpool at an average of £60 per ticket that is over £3.2 million on one game alone.

With the amount of money sloshing round in top flight football (not only in England) it really is hard to believe there aren't a number of people on the take. On the balance of probabilities, that number definitely isn't zero.

 

[meltonblue]

Not that I want to speak for a majority, but I would suggest that there is a big difference between believing the PL is out to stop City winning the title per se, and believing the PL is trying to maximise the value of its product by ensuring, as far as it can, the more "followed" clubs are in the reckoning and that no one club keeps winning, or wins at a canter.

Feel free to put me in one extreme if you like, but the latter is where I sit. The PL has plenty of ways of manipulating clubs' positions in the league to make it more "interesting".

Wasn’t putting you in any extreme, just wondering what those other ways of manipulating clubs positions might be.

 

[meltonblue]

It's totally different. The fact that you cannot see it says a lot.

The why is different but the way would be exactly the same, which is why I asked if people thought it was still through influencing refereeing decision.

The fact that you cannot see that and so on…. ;)