Watch the goal in real time. He follows the trajectory of the ball at all times. The question to ask is would it have played out any differently if Phillips wasn’t there. If you can’t reasonably say how it would’ve been different then it didn’t impact the keeper. Could he come and contest the header? No. Could he stop the deflection from happening? No. I mean, it’s not even close as to whether he could or not.
Refs & VAR 2020/2021 Discussion
- Thread starter Annihilate Now!
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In the latest episode of the United Hour Podcast, Nik and Imran are here to talk about a frustrating 2 points dropped at Crystal Palace. They then discuss the regeneration of Old Trafford. Finally, Nik is joined by special guest Michael Statham from the Football Oranje podcast - who gives us a more in depth look at our EL opposition FC Twente, and then runs through the (many) Dutch connections currently at United.
I am listening and I am responding as best I can. But a lot of the points being made are wrong or make zero sense. For example, yesterday @acnumber9 tried to argue that we base offside on the moment the goalscorer scores rather than when the ball is played to him:
Luckily I don't need a twitter journalist to tell me how the most basic aspect of offside works. But posts like that are quite difficult to respond to, so if it seems like I'm dismissing them I do apologise. I can but try.
To be fair at first I thought you was saying anyone who thinks it’s not offside is wrong because the rules say this or that. Now you’ve replied to me saying it’s a subjective call by the ref, so it seems your stance has changed somewhat.
Watch the goal again in real time. He’s constantly moving with the flight of the ball. The reason the ball goes in isn’t because of Phillips. It happens too quickly.
I ask for examples because people are indignant at the idea it was the wrong decision. If it was so obvious you could point to it happening before.
Can you give a reasonable example of how he was actually impacted? Not saying he could’ve been, actually explaining how you think he was. He moves to his right when the header is made so he clearly wasn’t impacted at that stage. After that there is no offside.
Maybe you do. Being in an offside position on its own isn’t an offence. The point I was making is when the rule is applied to a player being in the keepers line of sight. That is always when the shot is hit. I’ve literally never seen it not be considered from when the shot was hit before yesterday. Have you? I wasn’t referring to a regular offside when a pass is played to a player in an offside position.
He blatantly said it wasn’t a mistake yesterday. He’s at least softened to subjective.
The bold is the key point though. That might be the question you want them to ask, but it isn't the question they actually have to ask.
Even if it was physically impossible for the goalkeeper to save the ball and there was zero chance of a different outcome, interfering with the goalkeeper's futile attempt would be enough for the goal to be disallowed. Because they're not there to judge whether the outcome would have been different.
If that was the way the rule worked, then why wouldn't a different standard apply to, say, David De Gea rather than Scott Carson? After all, "would it have played out any differently?" would change depending on the goalkeeper and how likely they would be to pull off a miracle save. They can't get dragged into determining what is/isn't possible to save or whether the outcome would have been that outcome rgardless, so they don't decide based on that. They judge by whether it impacts their attempt to play the ball, as able as they are to do so.
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It is though. You saying it isn’t doesn’t make it the case. He didn’t interfere with the keepers attempt to play the ball. If it was as cut and dry as you think, they wouldn’t have spent several minutes on that Everton goal referenced previously.
We're arguing in circles and I've nearly eaten through my phone battery so I'm tapping out. Peace. 
If I were to accept the grammar of your argument, I'd be accepting the very thing you fail to understand. I can't mind read, nor can you and most importantly the officials can't either. That's why the bar can't be the impossible (how it did affect his thought process) but instead how it could have (which isn't hard to see in this case at all).
As for your demand for examples -obviousness and frequency are two different things and one doesn't at all follow from the other.
Explain how it could’ve been impacted then. What position could he reasonably take up to stop the ball going in? Remember the rules specifically say they have to be prevented from playing or attempting to play the ball.
We know it didn’t affect his thought process because Phillips wasn’t in his thoughts. That’s why he points at Bartley when claiming offside and not Phillips.
That's begging the question. We don't know that nor can we.
If you can’t give a reasonable explanation as to how he could be impacted it’s because there is none. If there is none, the goal should stand.
If Phillips was in his mind that’s who he would’ve claimed offside for. We know that he didn’t.
What part of directly in his line of sight and 5 feet away from him do you not find reasonable for could be impacted? In the absence of a broadcast of the keeper thought process, those are the objective factors to be taken into account. The players subsequent reaction isn't something good referees should consider, you don't referee based on reactions. Alisson could have taken both players into account in his decision making and thought both of them are offside but decided pointing at Bartley has a better appeal chance, or he could have thought Phillips is onside but still taken him into consideration when deciding how to position himself. He doesn't need to think Phillips is offside for his positioning and reaction to be affected by him.
'In his mind' for all intents and purposes for the referee - means an object in the player's field of vision that he takes into consideration, and that doesn't have to be same as who the player thinks is the offside culprit.
There was an offsides like that when we played Arsenal earlier this year. McGinn blasted home I think like 20 seconds in and Leno clearly wouldn’t have gotten to it but Barkley was in his line of sight as offsides. Can understand why it was ruled out but then we go down that alley even further
They're very different in that they're judged on different aspects of the same law. WBA were penalised for 'being in line of sight and may have influenced', whereas Everton were penalised for 'doing an action that distracts an opponent', or 'interfering with an opponent' if you will.
It's like comparing Suarez's deliberate handball with Kimpembe's handball against us. They're both handballs, but they're not comparable situations since they're deemed on different aspects of the handball law. So you couldn't say that "well, Suarez's handball against Ghana was penalised so Kimpembe should be too".
The part where he clearly still followed the flight of the ball. The part where he couldn’t possibly play the ball at any stage.
In your eyes maybe. In the eyes of the officials and most people without a biased agenda, it wasn't. The player is in an offside position and is interfering with play by being about 2 yds in front of Alisson when the ball is played forward by a team mate. Pretty simple stuff really especially for an Oracle to understand
This is how I know that Alisson could clearly see the ball.
It was a shocking decision to disallow the goal.
They are both offside decisions. They are both passive offside decisions. In both instances the keeper is influenced by a player who is in not only in his field of vision, but in his direct line of sight. In both instances an argument can be made that despite this - the keeper sees the ball. Those are four relevant similarities. There are two differences (that were brought up, and countless others that understandably were not). In one incident it was a pass and in the other it was a shot. This cannot be a relevant difference for any intent and purpose of determining whether it was offside or not, any more than the fact that the kits were different or the stadiums were different on those occasions, could count as a relevant difference. The second proposed difference is that in one incident the player moved his foot out of the way. You can argue this is important or not, only in so far as it makes interference more or less conspicuous, but whatever you conclude you would still be talking about a single difference.
This is such a niche category of incident that you are not likely to find very meny events for comparison, and unsurprisingly no one has found any better so far. With all that in mind, to claim that the two things are 'in no way similar' is just completely absurd.
One of the fundamental rules of posting on the forums is to attack the post, NOT the poster.
https://www.espn.com/soccer/major-l...ng-var-right-and-what-other-leagues-can-learn
An interesting piece - generally would agree that supporters are willing to accept some level of subjectivity and that all these efforts to make decisions truly objective are fundamentally misguided.
An interesting piece - generally would agree that supporters are willing to accept some level of subjectivity and that all these efforts to make decisions truly objective are fundamentally misguided.
It's always been attack the space to be fair
Not entirely sure i see your point.
It's always going to be objective standards mixed with judgement calls.
There's no point in adding more bias, doesn't matter if the mistake is obvious or not, just get the decision right. Harry Maguires two disallowed goals, for instance, if the referee had allowed them to stand then VAR wouldn't have changed those decisions or asked the referee to review them on the monitor. Which creates daft situations where same situations can result in two very different outcomes, even if the same match. Manchester United against Sheffield this season, for instance. VAR ignores the foul on De Gea for their opening goal, because it's not an "clear and obvious" error by the referee. Then Peter Bankes blows for less of a foul by Maguire on Ramsdale, but he blows just before the ball crosses the line so VAR can't even get involved. It's madness, situations like that shouldn't be allowed to continue
Guess my point is that it's farcical that VAR purports to be millimeter-accurate on offside decisions when it's a total crapshoot in terms of subjective decision making. I'd prefer something more like the MLS model - where there are no lines for offside, the referee goes and has a look and decides if a player is in line or not.
I'd rather just have everything be subjective with a system in place for egregious errors.
Essentially you want to make the decisions worse, then
I want to make the decisions more in line with the spirit of the laws as written. Personally I'd argue that calling someone offside by a millimeter based on a freeze frame selected more or less arbitrarily is a worse decision, but maybe that's just me.
You'll still have a freeze frame selected the same way, you're just depending on a worse system to identify if the player is onside or not.
But that's what I'm saying. I want to get rid of all freeze framing and all slow motion. If someone is obviously wrong at normal speed then overturn it - reviews would be faster and less disruptive, benefit of the doubt goes back to attackers, matchgoing supporters don't have their days ruined, etc.
Benefit of doubt has never belonged to attackers, it's a myth.
Huzzah, there will be less delays but even more feck ups, potential detrimental effects on the outcome of the match but matchoing supporters supposedly don't have their days ruined..Yeah, i fail to see how that works.
Genuine question - do you think VAR has had a net positive effect on refereeing standards? Personally I feel as though it's lowered the quality of refereeing, especially insofar as consistency between matches is concerned. Perhaps part of this is referees are not yet acclimatised to the new way of doing things and it might improve over time, but all in all I think it's fair to say it's been pretty calamitous this season.
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kasper schmeichel said after the FA Cup final he didn’t even dare celebrate the goal because of var. wtf, is that really what we want football to be, just to ensure you get your 1mm offside right.
football survived 100 years and grew and grew without VAR. It is now spoiling the experience for players managers and match goers.
kasper schmeichel said after the FA Cup final he didn’t even dare celebrate the goal because of var. wtf, is that really what we want football to be, just to ensure you get your 1mm offside right.
I don't think it has made the on-pitch referees worse. However, it has basically given them a second job to do as VARs, which they are also (to varying degrees) not doing well. Which kinda compounds the problem of bad officiating as it adds an extra layer to it. Especially when the protocols around VAR are still very messy in the PL especially.
One of the interesting points in the article you posted above relates to that. As it says, some refs are just better at being VARs than others. And where other competitions might have a dedicated panel of people who can focus entirely on being VARs (and be assessed on how well they do that job alone) the PL are swapping refs in and out as VARs, including some from lower divisions. Specialisation would make more sense, you'd think.
Though saying that, I see Lee Mason is the first ref retiring to become solely a VAR....
I thought this was a clear offside. He just stood right in front of Alison.
It´s Liverpool but we would be going bonkers if this had been Utd and the goal would have counted.
It´s Liverpool but we would be going bonkers if this had been Utd and the goal would have counted.
I don't think it has made the on-pitch referees worse. However, it has basically given them a second job to do as VARs, which they are also (to varying degrees) not doing well. Which kinda compounds the problem of bad officiating as it adds an extra layer to it. Especially when the protocols around VAR are still very messy in the PL especially.
One of the interesting points in the article you posted above relates to that. As it says, some refs are just better at being VARs than others. And where other competitions might have a dedicated panel of people who can focus entirely on being VARs (and be assessed on how well they do that job alone) the PL are swapping refs in and out as VARs, including some from lower divisions. Specialisation would make more sense, you'd think.
Though saying that, I see Lee Mason is the first ref retiring to become solely a VAR....
Yeah I think that's a great point. They've also done a piss-poor job of ensuring clear dynamics in terms of who listens to who - and this is further compounded by the established hierarchy of seniority among referees.
Not attacking you at all and I apologise if that's how it came across, as I was making a tongue in cheek comment about your username.
Fair play.
At the end of the day I see things through rose-tinted specs when it comes to Utd, and no doubt you're the same when it comes to Liverpool.
The one thing we can agree on though was Alisson's goal at the end was quite something, and I don't begrudge him that after what he's been through this year. He come's across as a top bloke.
It certainly hasn't lowered the overall quality, but it has highlighted just how incompetent some of the referees are.
It's also highlighted the incompetence of the knobheads in charge, the amount of rule changes during a season and still they can't implement rules that actually make sense. How Mike Dean still has a job is beyond me.
Leicester players, and fans, celebrated instantly.
The goalkeeper himself said he didn’t so I think your statements not quite correct
Maddison looks gutted waiting for VAR.
If Kasper didn't fully celebrate it, then that's fair enough, but the instant reaction from the rest of the players + supporters doesn't exactly seem negative