Swansea (QF) Post Match thread

[SVP]

My first post ! I've followed the debate in the media ( Man City News Now - useful facility ! ) and I keep on reading ( re. Sterling's penalty ) that the Swansea player gets to the ball first ( e.g. Sunday Times -" The American stuck out a foot,caught ball rather than man, but Sterling tumbled" ). It is also the same story on the bluemoon thread. I am confused :
I keep on returning to the YouTube highlights coverage of the game to reassure myself that I am not mistaken - Sterling gets in front of the Swansea man ; he cuts across him : he stretches (with his right foot) and toe-pokes the ball forward and is then-inevitably- wiped out by the challenge from the Swansea player. The Swansea player does not get the ball ! So why all the fuss? Need I ask ?. It's a clear penalty. ( Oh, and by the way - why so little comment about the two-handed shove in Aguero's back as he scores the 3rd goal ? )
Agenda?

Rag!
I thought Sterling touched the ball first,the Swansea player gets a slight touch but follows through taking out Sterling-pen for me.

 

[Bluekiwi]

I thought Sterling touched the ball first,the Swansea player gets a slight touch but follows through taking out Sterling-pen for me.

That was how I saw it from the feed I watched

 

[HarrytheBlue]

Rag!
I thought Sterling touched the ball first,the Swansea player gets a slight touch but follows through taking out Sterling-pen for me.

I always remember Graham Taylor, as manager of Villa, responding to a question vis-a-vis one of his players being cleaned out. The interviewer said 'But he got the ball'. Taylor said something like 'You're not allowed to take the man and the ball'. And that was 30 years ago.

If that decision had gone for Manure, the media comment would have been 'But he's caught him as he runs past and is a pen.'

 

[HarrytheBlue]

Watching Sergio on the bench knowing he's going to come on at some point gave us that hope. That header, albeit two inches offside, is the sort of finish few in the world are capable of. Other strikers might score that goal as a one-off, but Sergio would score that header again and again. He is at the height of his powers in my opinion. Pep has improved him - and he was already pretty much perfect. He gets into wide positions, leaving CBs with no-one to mark then cruises into the box and when the pressure's on - no-one else comes close.

 

[HarrytheBlue]

Sergio's foot/leg is offside but his torso is in line...

It's by no means a clear cut offside and the officials are supposed to give the benefit of doubt to the attacker. The media frenzy over this is pathetic.

John Hartson on BT sport last night was a total clown, still banging on about the penalty even though the replays clearly showed that Raheem got to the ball first then was moved away from the line of the ball by the contact with the defender, its a clear pen and yet they are still banging on this morning.

Contrast this to the many instances where Salah gets a slight touch on the arm then throws a double summersault with triple salko and everyones happy.

Disgrace

Offside includes any part of the body you can score with. If you lean forward or your knee is offside, it doesn't matter where your feet are. Nevertheless, we were putting Swansea under intense pressure that was forcing them into mistakes, and we would have won anyway. Today, Mane gets a slight touch and goes down like he's been rugby tackled. Well said Leon Osman on MOTD2 - called it as he saw it.

 

[wagonman]

For Christ's sake Folks!

The ref decided Sergio was not offside...

So... do you know what?

He was onside... and the goal stands.

Just like Boly's goal stands.

It's football.


JJ

 

[aguero93:20]

Offside includes any part of the body you can score with. If you lean forward or your knee is offside, it doesn't matter where your feet are

This is something that never should have been written into the law pre VAR as linesmen are essentially making a split second judgement call and don't have the capability to see whether a knee or hand is breaking the line 50+ yards away through a crowd of players. It's giving a feel of scientific measure that is completely absent from the application.
Now that we have VAR, they probably need to build a margin of error in to overturn on field calls tbh, as we still have difficulty in discerning when the pass is actually played.

 

[ChicagoBlue]

Watching Sergio on the bench knowing he's going to come on at some point gave us that hope. That header, albeit two inches offside, is the sort of finish few in the world are capable of. Other strikers might score that goal as a one-off, but Sergio would score that header again and again. He is at the height of his powers in my opinion. Pep has improved him - and he was already pretty much perfect. He gets into wide positions, leaving CBs with no-one to mark then cruises into the box and when the pressure's on - no-one else comes close.

Yeah, but a fair few fellas might have scored the open goal after Jesus’ header was knocked onto the post and rebounded out...Jesus being one of them, a split second later! ;-)

He is definitely playing better than ever for City and I hope he gets the rest he needs during the IB, as opposed to seeing him out on the town in Hollywood with the latest Latino Lovely du jour.

 

[cleavers]

I only listened to the game yesterday on the radio, so it was hard to judge, but having watched pretty much the full game today, I thought it was a great game, a game we dominated for all but about 15 minutes of the first half. I thought we played very well outside those 15 minutes, and thoroughly deserved our win, we played some great football second half, and were a little unlucky not to bag a hatful of goals again.

Well played to Swansea for giving us such a good game too, I thought they played very well with what looks like quite a young side, they gave us a better game than 90% of the PL and CL teams have this year.

 

[cleavers]

Brilliant post match