Ref Watch

[Paladin]

are you being serious, if you are then you are bladdered

Quite serious.

 

[Eds]

When big clubs go to buy a player the selling club will hike up the transfer fee because it is a big club and they will be able to afford it. City fans have called this the City tax. No doubt United fans say something similar about their transfer fees.

Where City are unique is that City have to pay a refereeing bias "tax". No City fan expects a fair refereeing performance, Guardiola doesn't and the players don't. Take a look at the look De Bruyne gave Moss after he was pushed over. He's letting Moss know it was a foul but he isn't expecting anything. It's become part of our game to expect nothing from referees and to know we'll have to play well enough to overcome the referee as well as the other team.

I had a look the other day at the penalty awarded to Liverpool for a "foul" on Mane by Walker. I reckoned I had had enough time to cool off and take an objective look at it. Pawson was in a bad position to tell if contact was made. He was directly behind but you need a close side on view. Pawson couldn't wait to give the penalty. On the replays I have seen there is upper body contact, shoulder to shoulder and that's all. Mane goes down like he has suddenly encountered black ice. I don't see anything to cause him to do that.

What got to me about it was the general acceptance. Nobody calling it out for what it was - a dive. Especially in the media, not a hint there was anything soft about the penalty.

I had an idea of looking at the penalties Leicester got against us. At the time my impression was the Leicester players were dropping from minimal contact. But what's the point? I'm going to find out it was an unfair refereeing performance. What a big surprise!

Remember the Centurion season and the series of hacks on City players with no red cards? A series of about 12 assaults not given a red card. Well if you call each decision 50:50 as to whether it should be a red card (beyond generous) it is 4096/1 against no red card being produced. If you said it's 90:10 it's one billion (1000,000,000,000)
to one against no red card. So in my humble mathematical estimation the odds are between 4000/1 and 1000,000,000,000/1 that we have had a consistent refereeing bias against us.

Great post. Have a look at the penalty Maddison wins when Mendy was about a foot from him. Maddison actually trips himself up with no touch from Mendy yet nobody picked it up. First penalty was a touch by Walker on Vardy but again hardly enough to make him go down as if shot and the the second one was when Garcia had his leg kicked and the player went over. I am pretty confident that we wouldn't have had all three of those given had it been the other way around.

 

[Paladin]

Touch the ball or not, challenger can't clear the player out, full stop.

I'm not advocating that it was not a penalty. In a previous post, I have said that playing the ball is irrelevant to the question of whether or not a foul was committed.

If anything, I surmise they are asking the wrong question of the VAR. They shouldn't be looking for whether or not the player touched the ball, but whether or not the player committed a foul.

 

[Navas >>| Fast Forward]

Remember the Centurion season and the series of hacks on City players with no red cards? A series of about 12 assaults not given a red card. Well if you call each decision 50:50 as to whether it should be a red card (beyond generous) it is 4096/1 against no red card being produced. If you said it's 90:10 it's one billion (1000,000,000,000)
to one against no red card. So in my humble mathematical estimation the odds are between 4000/1 and 1000,000,000,000/1 that we have had a consistent refereeing bias against us.

I always wonder why those ridiculous challenges just stopped. It was like every team knew that they would be given a free pass to boot us. Why did it stop!?
The refs didn’t clamp down and start issuing red cards or there was no retrospective punishment.

 

[SWP's back]

You can see the Southampton goalkeeper gets a touch on the ball in both clips shown in these Twitter posts. It is only a very slight touch. In both clips, the ball deviates very slightly immediately after Foden kicked the ball. In one of the clips, the ball changes direction when in the air, so it can't be because of spin.

You know touching the ball after going through a player doesn’t mean it’s not a foul?

edit. Reading on, you do.

 

[gregblag]

I have been thinking for a long time that we need to escalate our concerns to a higher level. It is a complete waste of time complaining to Pigmol they have absolutely no need to explain their rationale to anybody. They for whatever reason have been given carte blanche to sail on serenely without fear of sanctions.
My hope is that City would possibly approach the government and demand action, if you think about the bigger picture that an awful lot of money is changing hands because of the incompetence or worse of the sports panjamdrums ruining our beautiful game.
It will take a concerted effort to change things, perhaps not going to games when we are allowed to, we will have to force the issue somehow or we will be talking about bent refs in perpetuity.

In the Centurion season City players being hacked down with no action by refs made an article in the New York Times while the media in this country were trying to explain it all away. Looking back on it what is shocking is that PIGMOL did nothing about it, neither did IFAB.

I'd like to see a documentary on the refereeing that season with a montage of those tackles put together. It would have a shock value, it was brutal.

 

[Sir peace frog]

Quite serious.

after your post with the twitter vids on(are they even called that) i watched both over and over again, i dont see any change in direction, all i can see it the keepers studs slide into fodens foot, even if he did get a slight touch on the ball then it is still a penalty for following through surely, anyway, we all have our own opinions, luckily it didn't affect the result and i hope your hangover wasnt too severe :)

 

[Inter Me Nan]

after your post with the twitter vids on(are they even called that) i watched both over and over again, i dont see any change in direction, all i can see it the keepers studs slide into fodens foot, even if he did get a slight touch on the ball then it is still a penalty for following through surely, anyway, we all have our own opinions, luckily it didn't affect the result and i hope your hangover wasnt too severe :)

Me too, I was thinking what have I missed!
Then I gave up as I hadn't missed anything.

 

[Chi-town blues]

You can see the Southampton goalkeeper gets a touch on the ball in both clips shown in these Twitter posts. It is only a very slight touch. In both clips, the ball deviates very slightly immediately after Foden kicked the ball. In one of the clips, the ball changes direction when in the air, so it can't be because of spin.

attention all medial personals we need a high dose horse tranquilizer for bed no 69.
Where is the deviation ?

 

[Inter Me Nan]

attention all medial personals we need a high dose horse tranquilizer for bed no 69.
Where is the deviation ?

Foden touches it first so maybe it's that.