Absolutely right. Yet no one has bothered to comment on it. I watched MOTD 2 last night who looked at the Rodri injury. Everyone could see the foul on Akanji, it looked like he was being dragged across their box. The Shitehouse completely ignored it. The foul on Ederson was the usual I don't think that was a foul despite the Ars player backing into him and knocking him over. Shitehouses the lot of em.We should have had a penalty when Rodri got injured. Akanji was "bear hugged" for about 10 yards in the box prior to Rodri going down as the corner was taken, and that was after the same player had been spoken to about 10 seconds before.
I have said this about Oliver for a while.The issue with Oliver is that he’s generally afraid to make a controversial decision. He will try not to make a mistake by not making the difficult call. The irony being he then faces huge controversy over non decisions.
The first time I remember seeing him is when he bottled a blatant Fulham penalty late on at Old Trafford which would have seen united drop points in the 2011/12 run in. Every time I’ve seen him since it’s the same, the non penalties against united when Smalling was sent off, the array of red cards and penalties missed in the 1-1 at home to Liverpool in Pep’s first season, the numerous handballs away to Liverpool in 19/20, the missed red card against Kovacic away to Arsenal last season. Always decides not to make the hard call.
Yesterday the smart decision would have been to book Havertz early and calm matters down. The smart call would’ve been to call the arsenal free kick back as soon as it was taken. Once Calafiori scored he was never going to make the hard decision and call it back.
There is no law as such as to when a game restarts for a free kick or after a sub. Common sense and sporting decency are key factors. On a corner for example, if you "had" to wait for a player to be position then Arteta and Mourniho would have subs do a full lap of the pitch on the way in to the box. Like most issues with the game, it's a problem of their own making, managers like the above 2 test every law to its limits. Walker could have gotten into position a little quicker and Oliver could have given him a second longer, both at fault in my opinion.Interesting the views on this referees forum.
And this is a forum that actually has Michael Oliver fans. The substitution analogy is an excellent one. If there was a free kick and we substituted a defender just before it was taken, the referee wouldn't then allow a quick free kick before the player had got into their position. Otherwise every time a team substituted a player at a corner, the attacking team would just take it quickly before the new player had reached the box.
Also something I brought up earlier too:
I have said this about Oliver for a while.
This is also the more subtle way how refs can influence games, by simply not giving decisions.
Still not grew a pair Oliver and he's even worse now he can hide behind VAR. All he had to do was book harvertz for his barge on rodri and he would have been in total control of the game straight away and the players would have knew it. The foul on bernardo just before he kicked the ball away was a stonewall yellow luckily for him he kicked the ball away or its another 1 he could have shit out of.