Better than stating a "fact" and not actually providing any evidence! My whole point is that it's ambiguous and stating otherwise is silly.
Refs & VAR 2020/2021 Discussion
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Better than stating a "fact" and not actually providing any evidence! My whole point is that it's ambiguous and stating otherwise is silly.
The way round it is to take the ‘Assistant’ aspect out of VAR. Its decision should be final it proves the referee got it wrong.
The way around it is to just get rid of slow mo replays and freeze framing. People want VAR to correct the egregious decisions that are clearly visible at normal speed, not whether someone's pubic hair was offside or not.
The demonstrable fact is that Greenwood did not push odoi into the ball.
Is my last post on the topic it’s past my bedtime!
Prove me wrong by the morning and I’ll reply
So you’re saying only decisions should be made at normal speed then? VAR would be barely useful in that case. Haven’t you literally posted a freeze frame above?
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The demonstrable fact is that Greenwood did not push odoi into the ball.
Is my last post on the topic it’s past my bedtime!
Prove me wrong by the morning and I’ll reply
Who said anything about CHO the man? We're talking about his arm mate!
Both of them have their arms up and are warding off the other. Greenwood makes contact with the underside of CHO's arm. CHO's hand makes contact with the ball. I think these are facts that no one will dispute. I don't think Greenwood pushed the entirety of CHO causing him to flail and hit the ball with his arm; I think that their arms got tangled / involved, neither was particularly looking at the ball, and it grazed CHO's hand. For me, that's simply not worthy of a penalty, especially as Greenwood subsequently controlled the ball.
Kudos to you for a sensible bedtime; hope you have a great night mate. Appreciate the discussion / banter!
Yep. That's how I'd use VAR. Offsides where someone is blatantly a yard off; penalties where from a different angle it's obvious someone's been hacked down, etc. I want VAR to fix egregious errors, not to legislate tiny measurements that probably fall within the margin of error given the camera framerate anyways.
You’ve posted a freeze frame to try to prove Greenwood pushed CHO though so I’m a bit confused on where you stand to be honest. They would still have to freeze the play to work out offside so what’s the error of margin then? Half a metre? One? The problem would still exist in your usage of it.
I think it's very telling when Gary Lineker states that it was a penalty, as did ex-referee Mark Clattenberg.
Well if Gary Lineker says so!
The refs have well and truly shown they need help this season and a sensible solution now appears to be to take away that help. What a season this is.Football coped ok for 100+ years in fairness mate.
For the first time in 20 years of attending football im considering if i want to go anymore.
Some bloke in a van can disallow a goal now.
I don’t thinking is helping them, it’s micro analysing in slow motion every decision they make, it’s a minefield at the moment, I don’t think football is meant for this freeze frame over analysing way of officiating.
Haha fair play you've got me there! I just find the notion that these incredibly fine margins are treated as definitive to be immensely tedious - re: the screenshot, I was being pedantic to prove a point that this situation isn't as unambiguous as others have portrayed.
I just find the lines and the absurd scrutiny on tiny snippets of time from a match to be fundamentally ludicrous and antithetical to the ethos of the sport, which should be about free-flowing creative expression and a subconscious understanding between everyone on the pitch. And that's notwithstanding the natural issues regarding framerate - VAR cameras shoot at 50 frames per second, so assuming a speed of 7 meters per second (aka 25 km/hr, and for scale the fastest players are clocked around 35 km/hr) that means there is a margin of error of 14 centimeters for every VAR freeze frame. It's ridiculous that it's viewed as authoritative in this context.
Right it's definetly time for bed
The way I see it if you use video replays it has to be accurate and consistent or just don’t use it at all. I actually prefer it without to be honest but it’s the inconsistency that pisses me off more than anything, that and the fact it’s ruined celebrating the main aim of the sport.
But that’s exactly the point it doesn’t matter at all, there is no validating. It’s a handball or not.
Just like fouls in the far corner of the box where there is no scoring opp. It’s a pen
I get your points it's just funny to think that we've witnessed truly awful refereeing this year even with the extra help from VAR. Yet we're at a point where it might be best to just go back to the shit referees on their own. I don't know where I stand on the whole thing, it's just been a shambles.
But that's not correct - it's not a handball if the ball hits your hand and you don't have a chance to move it out of the way. The law as written is ambiguous - it has consistently been interpreted as being a handball if the defender gains an advantage. I'm not arguing that the law shouldn't be clarified and made explicit one way or another; my point is it seems very much antithetical to the spirit of the law to argue that this is a stonewall penalty when afterwards Greenwood controlled the ball anyhow.
I can appreciate that perspective and I don't think we are miles apart in our preferences. This is why I would only want VAR to be used in cases where there's something egregiously wrong - I don't think every goal should ben scrutinised to the extent that it is now. Have another ref watching at normal speed - if he sees something he thinks might be off he can flag it if he watches replays at normal speed and still thinks so. Otherwise, let the game play out, allow linesmen to make calls in normal time the way they always have, and stop the tedium of lines being drawn and everything being endlessly legislated.
Of course, you made up some non-existent idea that referees only give handball if a player gets an advantage. They don’t and never have. It’s a complete nonsense. Handball is, in my view, found too frequently nowadays but today’s was a clear example of one which should be given. He’s looking straight at the ball and basically punches it.
Of course it's not a non-existent idea. Where do you think the whole notion of a player making themselves bigger comes from? It's because that gives an unfair advantage. And punches it? It grazed his hand and fell to Greenwood anyway. By that standard Greenwood assaulted CHO's arm with his.
Like it or not, that's consistently been the way the law has been interpreted for decades. VAR is melting your brain; five years ago you'd be laughed out of the room for suggesting that's a handball.
It’s nothing to do with VAR. You just don’t understand the handball law. You appear to be genuinely saying that if a player punches the ball straight to an opponent then it’s not a handball because they haven’t gained an advantage. It’s a complete misunderstanding of the law and it has never been interpreted in that way. As I said above, this type of incident (if spotted) has always been a penalty. I can only presume that the referee has wrongly taken the view that Greenwood handled it first, as that’s the only plausible reason for the decision today.
edit - as mentioned above, this is much more a penalty than the Pogba one versus Liverpool from 3-4 years ago, when he got himself in a mess and ended up handling it when he was trying to head it. So far as I can recall, there was a unanimous view that was a penalty, even though it was clearly an accident. This incident today is absolutely clear cut - it’s a penalty. It’s absolute madness that anyone is even debating this one.
edit - as mentioned above, this is much more a penalty than the Pogba one versus Liverpool from 3-4 years ago, when he got himself in a mess and ended up handling it when he was trying to head it. So far as I can recall, there was a unanimous view that was a penalty, even though it was clearly an accident. This incident today is absolutely clear cut - it’s a penalty. It’s absolute madness that anyone is even debating this one.
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So you're so far down the rabbit hole that you are assuming the referee can't see? Do you think your television broadcast had more angles than the ref saw and that you're somehow better informed?
Of course I understand the handball law. I understand that it leaves ample room for interpretation. I also understand the way that it's been interpreted historically, which seems to be escaping you at the moment.
The Pogba one is completely different - his handball takes it off the head of the Liverpool attacker. It's not a comparable situation in the slightest as again, Pogba has gained a significant advantage in denying the shooting opportunity with his hands. This is the way the law has always been interpreted - if the defender gains an advantage over the attacker due to an infringement, it's a penalty. For the umpteenth time, I know that this isn't the letter of the law but it's the spirit of it and it's always been the way it's been interpreted until VAR came along and mucked it all up.
It’s the argument your own manager seems to have gone with and, in the absence of any other plausible explanation, seems the most likely reason for the error. Tuchel hasn’t gone down the route of trying to argue that whether an advantage was gained is relevant which is, of course, because where the ball ended up is irrelevant to the question of whether or not he handballed it.
I never understand why fans try to argue against clear penalties against their team but I’ll give you credit for coming up with a completely new test for handball. Kudos!
I never understand why fans try to argue against clear penalties against their team but I’ll give you credit for coming up with a completely new test for handball. Kudos!
The fact that you think it's new speaks volumes! And just a word to the wise going forward, post-match interviews with managers are hardly the place for objective analysis.
Please find any handball decision where the explanation given has ever relied upon whether an advantage is being obtained and come back to me. Even better, find someone other than you who is arguing that the reason it wasn’t a penalty today was because no advantage was obtained. Good luck!
Oh, and for the record, you seem to have missed the relevance of Tuchel’s comments. There’s no way he genuinely believed that Greenwood had handballed it first after the match - someone would have been bound to tell him that was wrong. He obviously didn’t want to concede it was a clear penalty and presumably couldn’t think of any other reason for the referee’s error.
Oh, and for the record, you seem to have missed the relevance of Tuchel’s comments. There’s no way he genuinely believed that Greenwood had handballed it first after the match - someone would have been bound to tell him that was wrong. He obviously didn’t want to concede it was a clear penalty and presumably couldn’t think of any other reason for the referee’s error.
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Please find any refereeing decision that was actually explained adequately! You're asking me to chase a dragon that doesn't exist.
We will just have to disagree on this one...having an advantage has nothing to do with a handball
Of course I am asking you to chase a dragon that doesn’t exist. We just disagree on the reason why that is! :-)
It will be interesting to see how handball decisions go for the rest of the season. The one today involved a player punching the ball, whilst looking straight at it and with no deflection or argument that it was hit too hard for him to react. If that’s no longer to be considered a deliberate handball, we won’t see many more this season.
Think of when a player loses the ballbut gets fouled and gets a pen. They would have never got a shot off but still pen. Most recent I can think of is Gundogan, miscontrols ball out of plat fouls other player first, gets a pen. What advantage was taken for that interpretation?
Mistakes like yesterday are a lot easier to rationalise when they’re spur of the moment decisions made in real-time. It’s a harder pill to swallow when the ref can stare at replays on a screen for 2 minutes and still arrive at an incorrect and inconsistent conclusion.
I don't think you're gonna ask yourself this once they let crowds back in.
If that isn't handball then I expect no handball penalty from VAR.
The old handball law was written that all handballs must be deliberate. However, referees always interpreted it with a degree of common sense where they factored in intent and the advantage gained. Where the advantage gained was so significant from a non-deliberate handball they typically awarded a penalty. Or, to put it another way, not all handballs given as penalties were deliberate. That was how referees embraced the spirit of the law.
In what universe didn’t CHO have the chance to move his hand out the way?
It's the Mike Riley shitshow.
Not sure which iteration we're on in terms of handball rules this season, certainly not the same we started the season with. Then there's the complete farce of changing the offside rule mid season.
Not sure which iteration we're on in terms of handball rules this season, certainly not the same we started the season with. Then there's the complete farce of changing the offside rule mid season.
Unless its in an unnatural position. I don't think it should be a handball, but under the rules the leagues has set itself, it's a clear handball.
He was a poor referee who couldn't keep control of games, it's no surprise he's a poor boss of referees who can't keep control of the organisation.