Blue Mooner
Well-Known Member
- Joined
- 25 Jun 2005
- Messages
- 3,133
I hope you don't mind me throwing my thoughts in
With the handball last night and the current UEFA interpretation there seem to be a few key elements (I'll use hand to mean hand or arm for ease and we all know it touched his hand so no point in discussing that element!):
1. Was the hand in a position that increased the player's silhouette - his elbow was tucked in and his hand across his body so no
2. In the act of scoring did the touch on the hand control the ball - it glanced off his hand onto his hip so he didn't control it. I think this is the greyest area though: if it came off his hand, fell to his feet and he kicked in in then I would say that is controlling it whereas the flight of the ball barely changing and hitting his thigh 4 inches away?? Doesn't sound like 'controlling it' to me. If it was 'benefited' from contact with the hand then it would be a yes: the slight change in direction of the ball resulted in the contact with the hip taking the ball into the net.
3. Did he score directly from the hand - no because it went in off his thigh/hip
So there is a tiny grey area that is presumably down to interpretation and I hope that marginal decision went down to going with the ref's on field decision. As he had awarded the goal they stuck with that decision but if he had given it as handball that would have stood.
It definitely wasn't clear and obvious though, however that term seems to be arbitrarily invoked by the VAR officials. Every Spurs and neutral I've spoken to thought that Fernandinho's elbow to Kane's head last week was clear and obvious but they didn't bother with that at all.
So across the two legs VAR got the Rose handball and the Aguero offside right, the Fernandinho elbow wrong and the Llorente handball probably/possibly right. If VAR hadn't have been used then you wouldn't have got a penalty but Sterling's goal would have stood as those two reversed the on field decisions and the other two would be no change. So with VAR you (City) benefited once and lost out once. As you didn't score the penalty that made the difference in the end result but is VAR to blame, Aguero for a tame penalty or Lloris for a decent save?
I do feel for you though. I just assumed that every VAR decision would go against us as Spurs have missed out on results in countless big matches over the last decade where VAR would have been in our favour (especially against Arsenal and Chelsea). It seemed like sod's law that it coming in would only rule against us: as it did for the Rose handball which I thought would just be the first of many.
Anyway, as I said in the post match thread yesterday, best of luck for the rest of the season. Do NOT let the scousers win the league!!
Leaving aside your very one-eyed description of the Llorente handball, you can only be auditioning for a stand-up comedian role with the bolded. Presumably you didn't see:
- 2015 game with City where you benefitted from 2 blatant offside, the first of which was close to 2 yards
- 2016 game when you won courtesy of a penalty that hit Raheem on the back
- Jan 2017 game when Sterling was pushed in the penalty area as he was about to slot the winning goal
- Dec 2017 game when Kane and Dele Alli both escaped red cards for leg-breaking tackles
Getting diddled against Spurs has become an annual event for us like Christmas or the Trooping of the Colour. So take your fact-free post and fuck off back to your shiny new stadium.
Noapolsforbeingspurs what you may have realised now in the top trumps of getting sh*t decisions we trump the lot, don't doubt you've felt shafted when playing the dippers, rags et al but when you play City we trump the lot Spurs included.