That’s funny. I was texting a Man Utd fan during the game and when I mentioned the late winner, he’d turned off as well thinking they’d drawn.
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The 2020-2021 Football Thread
- Thread starter Scepticalscribe
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No, they didn't; Brighton deserved a draw at the very least.
That last goal was ten minutes after the ninetieth minute.
Brighton were very unlucky.
Elsewhere, the game ends at three all - 3-3 - in the Chelsea v West Brom game.
Felt a bit sorry for West Brom as they were 3-0 up. But they’d have settled for a draw at the start.
True, alas.
Actually, Fergie time used to really - as in, really and truly - annoy me.
Agreed. We can’t get a penalty given (we’ve had two clear ones denied already. But Man U get a late, late one. That’s the way it goes.
But three valuable points on the board.
The early games of the season are the easiest (comparatively speaking) time of the entire season for weaker teams, or money promoted teams, to put points on the board.
Not only (on account of reasonably good weather, fresh legs, etc) is it often a time of high scoring games, even the best resourced teams are often settling in (with expensive new purchases to accommodate, for example) as a new team dynamic is crafted, constructed and put together, and may be more vulnerable to attack than would be the case later in the season.
Newcastle are dull and toothless, Spurs are beating them fairly easily without having to do anything special. Darlow (the keeper) is probably the only Newcastle player having a good match. Bruce has done far better than I would have expected but on days like today his Newcastle look like a team from the 1990s. Plenty of players available to defend but slow in transition.
Son came off at half time, hopefully (for Spurs' sake) not due to an injury.
All the big clubs tend get the rub of the green, to be sure, but it is clear that Fergie absolutely terrified referees in a way no manager has since - and it paid obvious dividends.
But really this result was well and truly down to pure bad luck for Brighton above all else - illustrated by the fact that no team has ever hit the woodwork so many times. Man Utd were there for the taking but ended up winning almost by accident.
Son came off at half time, hopefully (for Spurs' sake) not due to an injury.
All the big clubs tend get the rub of the green, to be sure, but it is clear that Fergie absolutely terrified referees in a way no manager has since - and it paid obvious dividends.
But really this result was well and truly down to pure bad luck for Brighton above all else - illustrated by the fact that no team has ever hit the woodwork so many times. Man Utd were there for the taking but ended up winning almost by accident.
...and Newcastle win a penalty at the death to equalize.
This new handball rule interpretation...madness. Newcastle absolutely stole this point as well.
This new handball rule interpretation...madness. Newcastle absolutely stole this point as well.
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The chance of winning a PK from a handball is now so high that players are going to start kicking balls at defenders' arms rather than the goal when matches are close.
I don't blame the refs at all - they are implementing an idiotic rule exactly the way they've been told to.
And, for possibly the first time in my life, I actually feel a bit of sympathy with Mourinho (along with the rest of the Spurs team) - though I did chuckle as I watch him storm off the pitch. Schadenfreude mixed with sympathy, I suppose.
Yes, I have noticed that the number of "hand balls" given for when a ball has - ever so accidentally, genuinely accidentally, or "deliberately supposedly accidentally" - hit the arm of a defender, seems to have increased exponentially.
That - a clever if supremely cynical exploitation - does serve to make it a idiotic rule, and one that needs to amended or revised in its application, or re-inmagined in terms of how it is actually implemented or interpreted, or executed.
Unless you are in a West Ham shirt. Then even a blatant hand ball gets you nothing!
Either we need to get rid of this current interpretation of the handball rule and go back to previous interpretations. Or the law itself needs to be re-written to state that contact with the arm or hand is forbidden regardless of intent. The latter case would enshrine the current interpretation as law and would be moronic in the extreme, but would at least be clear and consistent and very simple to enforce. That's the thing - the current interpretation makes determining whether a handball has occurred much easier and clearer. but the interpretation itself is much less fair in terms of enforcing the intent of the laws of the game.
I think the best compromise is what we've had for many years - deliberate handling is forbidden, with the match officials given the responsibility of deciding whether it was deliberate. That makes it a subjective rule, which people will argue about endlessly. And refs will occasionally make mistakes. But it is better than the current rule, which effectively guarantees that many matches will be decided by penalties stemming from clearly accidental contact.
Imagine a major tournament final being decided the way today's Spurs-Newcastle match was decided....
Maybe they'll change the rule once West Ham start winning penalties!
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It’s the inconsistency more than the rule changes that bother me. We were denied one in the Newcastle match and an even more blatant one against Arsenal. In a world with VAR there shouldn’t be so many mistakes
Good result from Leicester.
Let’s hope West Ham can get a result tonight against Wolves tonight.
Let’s hope West Ham can get a result tonight against Wolves tonight.