Well done. Out of interest. Out of the 7 they had last season - were they penaltys that should have been ? And same for the 4 this season ? From a unbiased point of view.
Noble penalty other day, he went down very easy but a player did clip/go into the back of him. I don’t think it was a clear dive but without VAR the ref would have gave it anyway.
also what’s with the ‘footballing white knight’ that I insist it’s going to be’ ? Only have to go back last few pages where I would be happy to see it scraped if that’s what fans demand, I say it could take years to get right and I agree with loads of the negatives with VAR mostly the spontaneous celebrations cut short... but I do see it’s plus points mainly ensuring players ‘clearly’ offside never score again, and players ‘clearly’ diving for pens are massively reduced and other incidences the ref would otherwise miss now are getting noticed, a player should be punished for head butting/punching another opponent during a match - but if the officials don’t see then nothing gets done till after the game. Which is too late. There are many plus points to VAR.
Like I said, I wasn't having a go at you (you come across as a decent footie fan who just supports a different team), I just saw your post about penalties for diving being eradicated by the introduction of VAR and threw my two penneth in by referencing a few examples from this season which have sent my blood pressure up.
I've got no idea about the answers to the questions you asked about liVARpool's penalties last season, most of the time I struggle to remember who we played last week, but I do know how desperate the ref. was to give Mane that penalty against Leicester in the last minute, he'd blown for it and pointed to the spot before Mane had even hit the deck, same with the other two examples I gave (Mane and Rushforward both against Spurs) and then we get told by the media that all three were "nailed on penalties" or that "there was contact so he's got every right to go down". All I know is that if anybody had ever gone down like that in any game I've ever played in (not a particularly high level but decent enough) and the ref. had awarded a penalty, then there would have been a full on brawl and the ref. wouldn't have had enough space in his book to write down the names of all the players he'd have to send off.
So, onto Noble, I only mentioned him because, yes he got a nudge and (IMO) it wasn't a dive, but what sent him down was the fact that he got his feet tangled up and fell over himself/own feet.
No penalty.
No yellow card for diving.
Clear as day in my books.
And yet a trained professional referee, who's supposed to be at the top of his field looks at it on slow-mo, again and again, over and over, and somehow comes to the conclusion that it's a penalty.
Next week it won't be, or maybe next week it will be but the week after that it won't.
My point was, how can we have any hope for a future (when the creases of VAR are ironed out) where the correct decision will be reached if, even with the help of video replay, they get something wrong which was so easy to get right??? It's just NOT a penalty.
To tell you the truth, initially I too was all for VAR, for ALL the reasons that you've quoted, and I also felt that it'd be the nail in the coffin for dodgy biased refereeing which often (in my eyes) seemed to favour certain teams, I mean, how could the refs keep on giving penalties for imaginary fouls/dives if they (and we) all got to see a replay of what really happened? I thought it'd be a new dawn for football where biased, opinion led decisions would be replaced by fact driven decisions.
Well, it was a new dawn alright, but not the one I'd envisaged.
VAR (IMO) has turned out to be a living nightmare (mainly due to it's application and its crazily accurate offside rulings when the entire process is full of estimates!) which has convinced me that the sport (at PL level) is 100% corrupt to the core, and to be honest I'm sickened by it all. The things is, it could have been all the things I'd (and you'd) hoped it would be, but the fact that it isn't just makes me realise that it'll never change, it'll never just be a sport again. It's a roulette wheel with a big fucking magnet under it. So when I see it being defended I tend to shoot from the hip. I suppose it's me that thought it'd be the footballing white knight and I'm disillusioned and pissed off that the world is exactly what I feared it was - a cesspool of selfish, corrupt, money-mad, twats who's only concern is the contents of their bank account and who'll fuck their own gran for a bit more cabbage :(
