Ref Watch

Pep has said we won't ask for an apology and I believe as head coach he's trying to keep his players focused on the future and looking back in anger (no pun intended) will affect their focus.

It will be interesting to see if PGMOL do apologise but I'm not holding my breath and us not kicking up a fuss suits them.

PGMOL should apologise but they're so arrogant I wouldn't e surprised if they don't.
Pep’s spending his birthday drawing up tactics entirely based on having Kev play throughballs to sprinting, clearly offside Foden, Alvarez, or Walker, who then shield the ball for 20-30 yards, drawing most of the opposition defenders to them, only for them to leap out of the way just outside of their box to allow an onrushing (onside) Haaland to smash it home from 18 yards.

He dares the ref not to allow the tactics.
 
How’s the linesman to blame? He correctly calked it offside. He can’t stop the referee ignoring him and giving a goal.
Rashford was clearly offside so if he hadn’t chosen the “delayed flag” like he didn’t when Foden was marginal offside in the first half then the ref would have had to blow
 
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IFAB have just announced a purge on time wasting & refs to be mic’ed up at the Club World Cup, it seems they are looking at following the World Cup model of timekeeping. Oh and our old friend Alty Taylor is gonna be one of the officials trialing it, a step in the right direction but the PL are that arrogant & reliant on their golden goose that I fear it’ll be another five years before we see it here, when in reality it should be next season

I think your description of referees being “mic’ed” is possibly a bit unintentionally misleading.

They aren’t opening up the communication between the referee, linesman and VAR for public consumption. What they are doing is having the referee announce the reason for VAR decisions to stadium and TV audiences.

It’s a welcome first step but not quite the huge act of transparency that people have been calling for.

For example if Saturday’s game had been part of the trial, I imagine the announcement would have been something along the lines of:

“The player in an off side position was not interfering with play or an opponent. Therefore the decision is a goal.”

Edit. I’ve just read that the announcements will only be made when VAR has overturned an on field decision. So in Saturday’s case there wouldn’t have been any announcement.
 
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Pep’s spending his birthday drawing up tactics entirely based on having Kev play throughballs to sprinting, clearly offside Foden, Alvarez, or Walker, who then shield the ball for 20-30 yards, drawing most of the opposition defenders to them, only for them to leap out of the way just outside of their box to allow an onrushing (onside) Haaland to smash it home from 18 yards.

He dares the ref not to allow the tactics.
Maybe this is the crazy tactics he was alluding to in his presser last week but even Pep knows there are only 2 clubs who would get away with this.
 
But as a City fan I want Pep and the club to kick off big time and at least rattle their cages somewhat.
Me too, I'm still fuming over 4 days later and I would imagine our senior leaders are not too impressed either.
They tend ot to do things in public and I would like to think things have been said behind the scenes.
Whether the arrogant PGMOL do or say anything is a different matter though.
Pep has said numerous times after we've been on the end of some highly dubious decisions away to the two red arsecheeks " we know where we are", "referees are scared to give anything here", "This is Anfield" "This is Old Trafford"
He knows the score and that he's pissing in the wind saying anything.
 
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Atwell 4th official for the Palace v rags, if the ref was injured he would replace him and therefore do consecutive games for them
 
Still fuming. Never liked getting on an official's back buy that decision and moment swung momentum sideways and backwards. Wanna enjoy a game and congratulate a ref on being largely unnoticeable.
I always think the best guide as to know when a referee has had a good game is that you don't notice him or remember who it was.
Years back I would only be able to name a couple of referees in each era.
Currently I find that I notice and remember the likes of Attwell, Taylor and Marriner far more often for a piss poor performance.
 
Me too, I'm still fuming over 4 days later and I would imagine our senior leaders are not too impressed either.
They tend ot to do things in public and I would like to think things have been said behind the scenes.
Whether the arrogant PGMOL do or say anything is a different matter though.
Pep has said numerous times after we've been on the end of some highly dubious decisions away to the two red arsecheeks " we know where we are", "referees are scared to give anything here", "This is Anfield" "This is Old Trafford"
He knows the score and that he's pissing in the wind saying anything.
If we kick up a stink the PiGMOL will just tighten the screws and f*ck us harder.

Mob tactics.
 
Pep has said we won't ask for an apology and I believe as head coach he's trying to keep his players focused on the future and looking back in anger (no pun intended) will affect their focus.

It will be interesting to see if PGMOL do apologise but I'm not holding my breath and us not kicking up a fuss suits them.

PGMOL should apologise but they're so arrogant I wouldn't e surprised if they don't.
And here in lies the problem. Our hierarchy is far too timid and passive on so many matters. I’m sick of it. So many times when we have had an opportunity to speak up. It’s not like the softly, softly approach has helped the narrative.

So many decisions that a referee makes are an interpretation/subjective application of the laws. That’s their job. To referee the match and apply the laws. What needs to be acknowledged (and an apology should be made) is that Atwell got it so spectacularly wrong. His implementation of the laws of offside were wrong. It was a critical decision and it impacted on the outcome of the match.

For the sake of all referees in whatever league it needs to be made clear that what transpired in the Derby is offside and should have been called offside. At well was wrong. He has been spoken to, the referees association has been spoken to. It’s OK to be wrong and to learn from mistakes. At the end of the day it’s through making mistakes and learning from them that we get better in life.

There was way more interpretation variance in the Rodri “handball” incident wrt the application of that law at Goodson last year. Personally, I still can see why that could be argued as Handball or Not Handball. However this offside incident I cannot see how anyone aside from a rabid United fav can possibly argue that was onside and Atwells interpretation/application of the offside law is something we’re happy with continuing up and down the country of a weekend.
 
If we kick up a stink the PiGMOL will just tighten the screws and f*ck us harder.

Mob tactics.
I don’t see how they can.

Has being silent or when we have implied something (This is Anfield / Old Trafford) really helped us previously?

Sorry, but IMO we come across as a soft touch and not prepared for a fight. Unfortunately this is how I currently see this team too. Passive.
 
I don’t see how they can.

Has being silent or when we have implied something (This is Anfield / Old Trafford) really helped us previously?

Sorry, but IMO we come across as a soft touch and not prepared for a fight. Unfortunately this is how I currently see this team too. Passive.

Pep says you can’t give players excuses. I think he realises that he has to find a way above the mob tactics to out do them.

It pisses me off but if we call it out it will be twisted by the media.
 
And here in lies the problem. Our hierarchy is far too timid and passive on so many matters. I’m sick of it. So many times when we have had an opportunity to speak up. It’s not like the softly, softly approach has helped the narrative.

So many decisions that a referee makes are an interpretation/subjective application of the laws. That’s their job. To referee the match and apply the laws. What needs to be acknowledged (and an apology should be made) is that Atwell got it so spectacularly wrong. His implementation of the laws of offside were wrong. It was a critical decision and it impacted on the outcome of the match.

For the sake of all referees in whatever league it needs to be made clear that what transpired in the Derby is offside and should have been called offside. At well was wrong. He has been spoken to, the referees association has been spoken to. It’s OK to be wrong and to learn from mistakes. At the end of the day it’s through making mistakes and learning from them that we get better in life.

There was way more interpretation variance in the Rodri “handball” incident wrt the application of that law at Goodson last year. Personally, I still can see why that could be argued as Handball or Not Handball. However this offside incident I cannot see how anyone aside from a rabid United fav can possibly argue that was onside and Atwells interpretation/application of the offside law is something we’re happy with continuing up and down the country of a weekend.
Perfect summation.
I'm not surprised our senior leaders haven't kicked up a fuss and maybe if they did every now and again the likes of PGMOL may think twice.
Maybe Pep doesn't want this distracting the players who are obviously fuming and keeping this in the public eye would only give the weasels in the media more ammunition to stir things up in pre and post match interviews and distract the players from the task in hand

I will always maintain that this subjective narrative is a smokescreen, if they just held up their hands and admitted to their mistakes they might gain some respect and credibility.

I work in a school and i agree, you learn from your mistakes so why not own them?
It's a strength not a weakness, covering up and hiding behind the subjective narrative just makes them look weak, incompetent and frankly arrogant in the way they try to insult our intelligence with their gaslighting.

The Rodri one is interesting, Tierney who was the referee said no handball and several minutes of forensic examination of every conceivable angle being looked at couldn't provide conclusive evidence he was wrong so by default Tierney was correct and therefore had followed the laws correctly. Equally had Tierney given it the same principle applies.
I did shit it at the time but I also understand Richarlison was offside too?
Everyone I've spoken to has said Attwell got it wrong and it's not the first time he's made such a glaring error.
 
Pep says you can’t give players excuses. I think he realises that he has to find a way above the mob tactics to out do them.

It pisses me off but if we call it out it will be twisted by the media.
Thats conflating two issues.

It’s broader than this one incident. The way we have reacted to this is the way we have reacted to most incidents over the last 5+ years. I can’t see how the media could be any worse in their coverage of City.
 

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