Smashley Young

It was offside and a dive but it was also a defender trying to use his hands when beaten to stop the forward.

Why put your hands out to reach for an attacker? hoping to put of the striker without giving a foul.

If young stays on his feet but the touch is enough to adjust his balance slightly and he misses the chance then what?

Feel the touch you go down it is almost a given nowadays.

Offside is offside though.
 
Denis' cuff said:
For those that missed it, an interesting perspective from Gary Nev a few days ago so not directly linked to yesterday but nonetheless interesting.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/fo...s-dive-laugh--zero-tolerance-wont-ground.html
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Its a very interesting article, but i have to point out the differences between the examples quoted in there and the Young incident.

In Gazza's article there are fair points by Ronaldo that a defender flying in on a tackle on him is more of a disgrace than him going to ground to get the free kick, and on Bale insisting that he doesn't dive but is often just jumping off and going to ground to prevent himself getting injured.

I can understand those perspectives, after all, if a defender is flying in at you the first instinct is to protect yourself first, and second, try to show the ref that you were wronged and gain the rightful advantage from that. That's all fine, good and warranted.

However i am critical of Young's dive yesterday - simply because A. He could have got to the ball and B. There was hardly a touch on him...yeah, there was a hand on him but it wasn't half a shove, it wasn't a pull, it wasn't even enough to put Young off no matter how fast young was running. He felt the touch on him and straight away gone to ground.

Had there been more contact i'd have felt young would be entitled to go to ground if only to show that he was being stopped from getting to the ball, but this wasn't it - he wasn't being stopped, he was just merely touched and took advantage of it.

If that was Suarez you'd have called him a 'kin cheater. I don't see why Young should be defended at all just because "yeah, he was touched". Plus the half backflip at merely a touch is cringeworthy.

If Young gets any flak for it he fully deserves it.
 
As I said I fecking wish none of our players ever did that. It sincerely takes the gloss away from a win for me. Stop defending him you planks, if that was Suarez or Balotelli you would be jumping over yourselves calling them cheaters and what not.

Having said that, to those out there saying shit like "a decisive moment in the title race", go feck yourself. Seriously, United would have won that match even against 15 QPR players, the gulf in class is enormous. And secondly, even a loss today(which would very fecking obvious never have happened) would probably not have any impact on the title race at all.
 
marjen said:
Seriously, United would have won that match even against 15 QPR players, the gulf in class is enormous.
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The gulf is enormous, but obviously that's not always reflected in results. The gulf between us and Blackburn was enormous too, yet they beat us at home. That's the point of, you know, playing football matches, rather than just deciding the result beforehand based on who's got the better side.

Even with ten men QPR put up a good fight and we laboured to break them down for the whole game.
 
Plechazunga said:
The gulf is enormous, but obviously that's not always reflected in results. The gulf between us and Blackburn was enormous too, yet they beat us at home. That's the point of, you know, playing football matches, rather than just deciding the result beforehand.

Even with ten men QPR put up a good fight and we laboured to break them down for the whole game.
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I wish Young would have taken a touch and hit it with his left foot instead, even if he'd miss(probable).

Point being, that Mason giving that decision isn't by any means "decisive" in the title race, like some are suggesting.
 
I wasn't sure Young was actually in possession of the ball. But yeah I wish he hadn't dived, one way or the other.

It probably won't be decisive, but it easily could. If we end up winning the league by a point, with lower goal difference, then it will retrospectively have been decisive.
 
Plechazunga said:
I wasn't sure Young was actually in possession of the ball. But yeah I wish he hadn't dived, one way or the other.

It probably won't be decisive, but it easily could. If we end up winning the league by a point, with lower goal difference, then it will retrospectively have been decisive.
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What about the two points we were robbed of at old trafford vs Newcastle?? One or two referee decisions never decide the title.
 
Plechazunga said:
I wasn't sure Young was actually in possession of the ball. But yeah I wish he hadn't dived, one way or the other.

It probably won't be decisive, but it easily could. If we end up winning the league by a point, with lower goal difference, then it will retrospectively have been decisive.
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Just like Newcastle's disgraceful penalty against us at OT could end up being decisive. Or Balotelli not being sent off against Spurs when he scored the winner. Etc. Of course, they won't be, because we'll win it, but they could.

Point being, we would win against QPR 95 times out of 100 at home, if we were 10 minutes into a game against them 11 v 11. And even if we didn't, we would still have a minimum of 5 points advantage taking into our next matches.

That decision is probably one of the wrong decisions that has had the least influence in the title race, involving City or United, all season. The decision vs Newcastle ultimately cost us two points.

Another interesting thought: I think part of the reason why oppo fans believe United get decisions all the time, is when we get decisions not going our way, we tend to win the bloody match either way, as such not leaving much of a talking point. While for poorer teams, those decisions might be the difference between a win and a draw, and as such they are naturally talked about afterwards.
 
7dan said:
What about the two points we were robbed of at old trafford vs Newcastle?? One or two referee decisions never decide the title.
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Also decisive. I'm not saying the QPR game would be the sole deciding factor. Every game is decisive in that sense. But it would also be the case that if you changed the result of the QPR game it could have changed the result of the tournament (ouch...the English tense and aspect system struggles with counterfactuals like this).

marjen said:
Just like Newcastle's disgraceful penalty against us at OT could end up being decisive. Or Balotelli not being sent off against Spurs when he scored the winner. Etc. Of course, they won't be, because we'll win it, but they could.

Point being, we would win against QPR 95 times out of 100 at home, if we were 10 minutes into a game against them 11 v 11. And even if we didn't, we would still have a minimum of 5 points advantage taking into our next matches.

That decision is probably one of the wrong decisions that has had the least influence in the title race, involving City or United, all season. The decision vs Newcastle ultimately cost us two points.
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I think that's overstating it. If we'd drawn yesterday it would have affected more than the points, the momentum would have shifted and City might have got a different result at the Arse. It's all speculative of course - we can't tell what would have happened cos Young chose to cheat.

Another interesting thought: I think part of the reason why oppo fans believe United get decisions all the time, is when we get decisions not going our way, we tend to win the bloody match either way, as such not leaving much of a talking point. While for poorer teams, those decisions might be the difference between a win and a draw, and as such they are naturally talked about afterwards.
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I think that's definitely right, no-one cares about wrong decisions that don't turn games.
 
I could never know what would have happened had Young not dived, but I assure you this: I'd bet quite a lot on United beating QPR at home 11 v 11 with 80 mins remaining on the clock, when a title race is on. More so when you look at the side Hughes put out.

As such, I'll still claim that Mason's decision wasn't anywhere near "decisive" in the race for the title. You're free to feel differently, although I'd say that's severely underestimating United.

You could argue, but it will be pettiness until you know the difference in points at the end of the season, in which I'll still counter with the Newcastle-pen. :smirk:

And if we're going for "decisive" decisions, I'd argue that Murphy's pen claim vs Fulham was the much, much more "decisive" wrong decision - give it and we'll probably lose two points, and stall our overtaking of City.
 
Plechazunga said:
True, the Murphy one was bigger. I care less about it though because Murphy dived as well as being fouled, so feck him.
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Plus he's a scouse midget. Yeah, feck him.

And also, don't tell me it wasn't for the best to get Shaun Derry off that field. No-one will convince me that it is medically responsible to let a man play Premier League football at his age. Mason did the responsible thing, props to him, the bald, narrow-eyed twat.
 
I detest seeing our players dive and yesterday was no exception. I couldn't really tell from where I was sat how bad it was, but it did somewhat take the shine off the win when I got home and watched it. Urgh, it was like with Rafael the other week...he pulled off one of the worst dives I've ever seen. It was crazy.


On that note, am I wrong or did Lee Dixon pretty much condone diving on Match of the Day 2 yesterday? I was only half-watching it, but the way he was comparing it with some types of subtle foul...it was like he felt it was acceptable! I was amazed to see that on something as widely watched as MOTD.
 
KingEric7 said:
I detest seeing our players dive and yesterday was no exception. I couldn't really tell from where I was sat how bad it was, but it did somewhat take the shine off the win when I got home and watched it. Urgh, it was like with Rafael the other week...he pulled off one of the worst dives I've ever seen. It was crazy.
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That's the thing for me, it took the shine off what ought to have been a beautiful day. I can't understand fans who say they enjoy it even more when we cheat because they like seeing bitter oppo fans whining. What's enjoyable about that when they're right?
 
Plechazunga said:
That's the thing for me, it took the shine off what ought to have been a beautiful day. I can't understand fans who say they enjoy it even more when we cheat because they like seeing bitter oppo fans whining. What's enjoyable about that when they're right?
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Yeah, I think it depends on whether you prioritise winning over winning in what feels like an ethical or 'just' fashion. I don't know what that is...perhaps as United fans we feel as if we want to portray or know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that United are the best team in the English league, and that decisions such as this threaten the credibility of such a position. Perhaps that is the correct rationalisation of it, I don't know..it's just a really uneasy feeling either way when we win in the fashion we did yesterday. We shat on them, and we would likely have won, but it doesn't change that feeling. I hope that isn't perceived as being spoilt, because it's not at all!

To be honest though, as usual, it's the footballing authorities that are at fault here. A lot of the diving that we see in today's game could've been stamped out had there been a better and more stern approach to tackling it in the first place. We already ban players in retrospect for serious foul play...how fecking difficult can it be to then have a commitee that does the same in regards to diving? Further, does it really devalue the referee or waste too much time bringing in video technology to be used in cases of controversy?

Honestly, I often wonder whether footballing authorities don't act upon such matters because they feel as if controversy will maintain interest in the sport. The ineptitude is so blatant that I sometimes wonder whether it's intentional.
 
When you're going at that pace, and turning in a circular path as Young was, any kind of contact can put you off course. Young obviously went down on purpose, but otherwise he wouldn't have got the ball or the penalty.

cw1984 said:
:wenger:
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I'm sorry but if you're denying contact, you're the :wenger:.
 
I'm not surprised to see Young being vilified (on this forum...) but to see pretty much nobody defending him is odd.

At the top level, you do everything to gain an advantage. If Young had gone down under no contact, fair enough, he's cheating. But nobody here's knows how much that contact put him off, and in my opinion he's entitled to go down and let the ref make a decision. Most of the time he wouldn't get the penalty.

Young's a fairly lightweight player as I am. His balance would've been on a knife edge to make sure he got to the ball first. The contact wasn't enough to make him go down, but it may well have been enough to unfairly stop him getting to the ball. As a United supporter I'll most certainly give him the benefit of the doubt. Players go down too easily these days because they know the refs won't give them anything otherwise - that's how the game has evolved, refs know it too.
 
RK said:
I'm not surprised to see Young being vilified (on this forum...) but to see pretty much nobody defending him is odd.

At the top level, you do everything to gain an advantage. If Young had gone down under no contact, fair enough, he's cheating. But nobody here's knows how much that contact put him off, and in my opinion he's entitled to go down and let the ref make a decision. Most of the time he wouldn't get the penalty.

Young's a fairly lightweight player as I am. His balance would've been on a knife edge to make sure he got to the ball first. The contact wasn't enough to make him go down, but it may well have been enough to stop him getting to the ball unfairly. As a United supporter I'll most certainly give him the benefit of the doubt. Players go down too easily these days because they know the refs won't give them anything otherwise - that's how the game has evolved, refs know it too.
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I can understand players sometimes going down at minimal contact, but come on, this wasn't minimal contact, it was a tap. It wouldn't be enough to send an anorexic midget down. Young may be lightweight, but he's big enough to deal with being tapped. If it had been a legitimate shove, you could understand him going down, as he would've been shoved off course suddenly, but it wasn't.

It's a sad day for football if we're now encouraging players to exaggerrate any sort of contact so that they can get an unfair advantage. Where's the integrity and honour in the game? Surely we should at least try to retain it, to some extent. It's ideas like this that will end up turning football into a non-contact sport.
 
Lets just call a spade a spade. Ashley Young fecking dived. He cheated. It smacks of hypocrisy when some of us condemn suarez for diving, and yet tried to defend the indefensible (Young). My granny could have stayed on her feet with that "touch" or contact, let alone a supremely fit young professional footballer like Young.

He cheated and he's a disgrace. He's already a serial diver and I am surprised the refs havent caught on to him. It's time he cut it out. Disgusting.
 
Dominant said:
Lets just call a spade a spade. Ashley Young fecking dived. He cheated. It smacks of hypocrisy when some of us condemn suarez for diving, and yet tried to defend the indefensible (Young). My granny could have stayed on her feet with that "touch" or contact, let alone a supremely fit young professional footballer like Young.

He cheated and he's a disgrace. He's already a serial diver and I am surprised the refs havent caught on to him. It's time he cut it out. Disgusting.
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Spot on.
 
I don't think he is as bad as Nani or Ronaldo were when they first joined us and they both cut down over time. Obviously Young is older but I hope we'll see something similar.
 
Scrumpet said:
I don't think he is as bad as Nani or Ronaldo were when they first joined us and they both cut down over time. Obviously Young is older but I hope we'll see something similar.
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Ahh the Nani was a diver thingy again... Apart from his headbutt when he embarrassingly fell down himself pretending to be hurt I don't think Nani has ever been a big diver...He's just a bit of a drama queen. I think Young has already dived more for us than Nani in his entire carreer.
 
Godfather said:
Ahh the Nani was a diver thingy again... Apart from his headbutt when he embarrassingly fell down himself pretending to be hurt I don't think Nani has ever been a big diver...He's just a bit of a drama queen. I think Young has already dived more for us than Nani in his entire carreer.
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I'd be surprised if that's true, and the things that we've seen him do like rolling around and clutching his face at minimal contact is cheating too at the end of the day even if it's not a dive. Anyway the point is he has cut down a lot and I think Young can too.
 
Scrumpet said:
I'd be surprised if that's true, and the things that we've seen him do like rolling around and clutching his face at minimal contact is cheating too at the end of the day even if it's not a dive. Anyway the point is he has cut down a lot and I think Young can too.
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Yeah well that depends what you'd call a dive, but anyway I agree both is a tad embarrassing and I'm sure Young will cut it out as well.
 
KingEric7 said:
Yeah, I think it depends on whether you prioritise winning over winning in what feels like an ethical or 'just' fashion. I don't know what that is...perhaps as United fans we feel as if we want to portray or know, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that United are the best team in the English league, and that decisions such as this threaten the credibility of such a position. Perhaps that is the correct rationalisation of it, I don't know..it's just a really uneasy feeling either way when we win in the fashion we did yesterday. We shat on them, and we would likely have won, but it doesn't change that feeling. I hope that isn't perceived as being spoilt, because it's not at all!

To be honest though, as usual, it's the footballing authorities that are at fault here. A lot of the diving that we see in today's game could've been stamped out had there been a better and more stern approach to tackling it in the first place. We already ban players in retrospect for serious foul play...how fecking difficult can it be to then have a commitee that does the same in regards to diving? Further, does it really devalue the referee or waste too much time bringing in video technology to be used in cases of controversy?

Honestly, I often wonder whether footballing authorities don't act upon such matters because they feel as if controversy will maintain interest in the sport. The ineptitude is so blatant that I sometimes wonder whether it's intentional.
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No I think that's exactly it. It's about what winning games and tournaments means. For you and me, it's important that it means you're the best at football, not the best at gaming the system.

But the truth is there's a lot of modern fans - the likes of Cal and Randall Flag on here - for whom it really is just about winning. I swear Cal would be just as happy if it was announced pre-season that everyone except United had to hop all game, with a bin-bag on their heads and a Kodiak bear strapped to their backs - so long as at the end of the season we were declared champions.

RK said:
When you're going at that pace, and turning in a circular path as Young was, any kind of contact can put you off course. Young obviously went down on purpose, but otherwise he wouldn't have got the ball or the penalty.



I'm sorry but if you're denying contact, you're the :wenger:.
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I've started to bore myself pointing this out, but there's nothing in the rules forbidding contact. Just cos a player hurls himself to the ground on being touched, it doesn't make that touch a push.

Dominant said:
Lets just call a spade a spade. Ashley Young fecking dived. He cheated. It smacks of hypocrisy when some of us condemn suarez for diving, and yet tried to defend the indefensible (Young). My granny could have stayed on her feet with that "touch" or contact, let alone a supremely fit young professional footballer like Young.

He cheated and he's a disgrace. He's already a serial diver and I am surprised the refs havent caught on to him. It's time he cut it out. Disgusting.
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Spot on. RK you really are deluding yourself here.
 
It was a dive and a bad one and it's annoying to see. Also annoying that the tempo of the game dropped after the red as well.
 
Plechazunga said:
I've started to bore myself pointing this out, but there's nothing in the rules forbidding contact. Just cos a player hurls himself to the ground on being touched, it doesn't make that touch a push.
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The player put his hand out to Young and made contact. It was in no way an accidental coming together. It was a (slight) push, which is still a penal foul. If Young was onside it could have been a penalty because it was a foul, even if Young stays on his feet. Most referees would probably not give it so Young decided to help the ref make up his mind.

The defender was trying to get away with putting Young off a clear goal scoring opportunity and it back fired on him because the linesman was asleep.
Both players tried to con the referee and only one succeeded. None of the four key players in the incident come out with much credit.
 
Skholesy said:
Its a very interesting article, but i have to point out the differences between the examples quoted in there and the Young incident.
In Gazza's article there are fair points by Ronaldo that a defender flying in on a tackle on him is more of a disgrace than him going to ground to get the free kick, and on Bale insisting that he doesn't dive but is often just jumping off and going to ground to prevent himself getting injured.

I can understand those perspectives, after all, if a defender is flying in at you the first instinct is to protect yourself first, and second, try to show the ref that you were wronged and gain the rightful advantage from that. That's all fine, good and warranted.

However i am critical of Young's dive yesterday - simply because A. He could have got to the ball and B. There was hardly a touch on him...yeah, there was a hand on him but it wasn't half a shove, it wasn't a pull, it wasn't even enough to put Young off no matter how fast young was running. He felt the touch on him and straight away gone to ground.

Had there been more contact i'd have felt young would be entitled to go to ground if only to show that he was being stopped from getting to the ball, but this wasn't it - he wasn't being stopped, he was just merely touched and took advantage of it.

If that was Suarez you'd have called him a 'kin cheater. I don't see why Young should be defended at all just because "yeah, he was touched". Plus the half backflip at merely a touch is cringeworthy.

If Young gets any flak for it he fully deserves it.
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you don't actually - the fact that I said it wasn't related but nonetheless interesting would signify I was aware of this and merely posted the link out of interest because had I made a new thread, half a dozen Ihni binni dimi diniwiny anitaime would've come out and declared it not worthy of a thread.

regarding the touch at his feet and the shirt, I disagree and think it was enough to knock him off balance and he flipped to stop himself falling awkwardly and to make sure the ref's attention was brought to it. If I am wrong about this, and we can argue forever, I don't really care one bit. I don't recall umpteen other cases of agonised introspection from numerous opponents who've pulled one on us - particularly Porto, Portsmouth and countless less important since.
 
golden_blunder said:
it was offside and a dive

Do i care? Not particularly

Harsh to send him off though
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I'm in total agreement with this.

Any supporter of any club has no right to codemn Ashley Young or Manchester United, because we could pick instances from every team this season, that has done the same thing.

And contrary to what RAWK or Bluemoon might say, this penalty isn't the sole reason why we might win the league.
 
surf said:
The player put his hand out to Young and made contact. It was in no way an accidental coming together. It was a (slight) push, which is still a penal foul. If Young was onside it could have been a penalty because it was a foul, even if Young stays on his feet. Most referees would probably not give it so Young decided to help the ref make up his mind.
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Look the point is that there is nothing intrinsic about a push that distinguishes it from an ordinary touch. It's not like once you reach x newtons per square metre of pressure it's suddenly officially a push. Whether it's a harmless touch or a push depends on what effect it has. If it makes the player fall forwards or off his balance or whatever, then it's a push.

We'll never know what effect it would have had, because Young chose to dive. My guess is, feck all.
 
It was Cringeworthy, with a capital C. We cant even excuse him, like we could Nani or Ronaldo, by saying he's foreign and "they do that kind of thing in their own country". He's an England international ffs. What's next? A Rivaldo special? A sneaky peek, a la Busquets? How's about some imaginary card waving? What a knob.
 
Badunk said:
It was Cringeworthy, with a capital C. We cant even excuse him, like we could Nani or Ronaldo, by saying he's foreign and "they do that kind of thing in their own country". He's an England international ffs. What's next? A Rivaldo special? A sneaky peek, a la Busquets? How's about some imaginary card waving? What a knob.
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apart from commenting on his knob I agree with this. one thing that really pisses me off about football is that kind of behaviour. be a man, stand your ground and take a shot, if you can. I hate to see professional players cheating. I think it's cultural thing and I'm on the side of honesty, not do anything you can to win. it's disappointing.
 
rcoobc said:
Ridiculous how much everyone seems to hate him. He's not the first United player to go down easily.

He's not the one to take the Red card out either.
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I'm just going to quote this, I knew he'd get a lot of abuse.

If the ref hadn't of given a red card or a penalty no one would have given a second thought about Young. He does need to cut it out, but I'd just forget this incidence.
 
rcoobc said:
I'm just going to quote this, I knew he'd get a lot of abuse.

If the ref hadn't of given a red card or a penalty no one would have given a second thought about Young. He does need to cut it out, but I'd just forget this incidence.
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Player dives, is abused. Shocker.
 
He dived and needs to cut it out.

It was a bad decision by the ref but as Fergie said, over the whole season, it evens out for all teams
 
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