Haaland, Salah and Guardiola are allowed to have sh*t games sometimes so why aren’t referees?

Editor F365
Kevin De Bruyne, Jack Grealish and Erling Haaland

Arsenal fans snap back at recent claims, the most ‘absurdly one-sided derby in world football’ is critiqued and a thankless defence of referees is offered.

Send your thoughts to theeditor@football365.com.

 

The most one-sided derby?
Serious question – is there a more absurdly one-sided derby in world football than the Merseyside derby?

One Everton win in all competitions in the last decade. Since the millennium just 5 wins, 20 draws and 27 losses – Liverpool weren’t even that good a team for most of that time and, similarly, Everton weren’t that bad!

It’s inexplicable… Liverpool fans may have a good chuckle if Everton go down but they’d better be concerned – they won’t be able to bank a guaranteed minimum of 4 points every season without breaking a sweat…
Andy (MUFC)

 

Better
Nice to see Liverpool not being a complete shitshow.
Aidan, Lfc (Pickford looking foolish was a bonus)

 

The Arsenal slump
Last 5 EPL games: Arsenal 7 Pts; Man U 8 Pts: Man C 9 Pts.

Are Arsenal melting?

Laughable that cocky anti Arsenal fans make out that Arsenal fans are celebrating a league title when the goal was Champions League football which looks highly likely.

Who knows what this team might deliver but whatever, it’s more than anybody expected.

Arsenal are heading in the right direction.
Chris, Croydon

 

Snap back
Bucky’s comments about Arsenal being over-hyped are strange since all the factors he used to justify his arguments could easily be used in our favour. Kind fixture list? With the exception of City, we have played everyone else.

And City are allowed to have a wobble but no one else? Oh but City’s wobbles are not really a wobble but just complacency or lack of desire?

A somewhat kind injury list? We’ve lost the most transformative player (Jesus) we’ve signed in the last couple of years. Even if you make the argument that he’s only one player, how does that make the achievement (thus far) by the rest of the team any less valid? Maybe you can be both lucky and good?

Arteta has been in charge long enough  so good football is a given? That one is a real head scratcher. Almost as bizarre as the opening comment about how we’re never going to seriously compete. Really? We’re not celebrating the title prematurely and we may not win it but we are definitely in it. We’re playing good football and that’s all the vibes that matter.
Tired (of banal comments) Gooner

 

Defending the seemingly indefensible
Righty-Ho F365 lads and lasses.  How about this?  If I asked you to name three first-team players in your current squads that, by and large, you’d fully expect to screw up on the pitch during any given game, I‘ll bet everyone reading this could do it with ease.

Whether it’s the forward who couldn’t hit the side of a James Bond film set, a midfielder who sprays passes to invisible players or a back line merchant who has all the defensive qualities of a static garden wheelie-bin.  We’ve all got ‘em.

And the thing is, if it’s an outfield player who screws up, then its groans all around and eyeballs being rapidly rolled.  If a ‘keeper does it, even if they’ve been stood around scratching their own a*se for seventy minutes, then they will get absolute pelters.

But, and it’s a very big but, players make mistakes in every single game of football you and I have ever watched.  It’s an integral, and I would argue, even a vital part of what makes football so entertaining and maddeningly frustrating in equal measure.  It would be a super-drab sterilised spectacle if everybody on the pitch were absolutely perfect for 90+ minutes and for every single fixture ever.  Like watching American basketball games.  (Sorry, not sorry NBL fans)

It’s not only unrealistic to expect such perfection, but also (and I’m using a scientific term here) utter b*llocks isn’t it?

So why then do people in their droves, lose their collective sh*t when referees screw up? Because what applies to the players as listed above MUST apply to the officials otherwise you are inferring that, unlike players and managers, Refs should be perfect at every game they work.

Never.  Going.  To.  Happen.

I’m also going to differentiate at this point between honest, subjective mistakes as opposed to rank incompetence.  The latter is, I would suggest, quite easy to identify, and deal with, than the former.

Riyad Mahrez contrived to miss an absolute sitter on Sunday.  One of those where the cliché ‘it was harder to miss than score’ definitely applied.  It’s OK for me to do that because I’m a knackered old fart, but this is his actual JOB.  But we’re not still banging on about it three days later mostly because, as we are all too keenly aware, sh*t happens.  But when it’s the man in black, it ‘s completely unforgiveable and as heinous a crime as could be thought of by the darkest most depraved mind on planet earth today.

Now, I’m not even going to try and defend a so-called professional official who ‘forgot’ to put lines on a VAR screen (If ever the phrase “You had ONE f**king job!” applies it’s here) but, and at the same time, if YOU’VE never f*cked up at a job you’ve done for absolutely yonks, nor done/said something in the heat of the moment that was patently b*llocks, then I’m going to call you, ever so politely, a liar.

Oh, and don’t give me the ‘consistency’ argument either.  Mo Salah isn’t consistent, neither is De Gea or even Pep Guardiola. Sh*t, even the real Terminator Erling Haaland isn’t, so why should refs be?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m no stranger to shouting dog’s abuse at my TV when (bad decisions) go against my team.  Likewise on Saturday, that was a definite penalty at West Ham v Chelsea that lacked only somebody wearing a mask, pointing a gun and saying “Stand and deliver”.  Equally, that was a super-soft penalty that Grealish (ahem) ‘won’ but you won’t hear me complaining about either because both examples have benefited my team.

And that’s my clumsy point.  If you’re going to go absolutely nuts about a ref, then do the same when your players f**k up at the same time.  Human fallibility, and the jeopardy that goes with it is, quite literally, part of the game.
Mark (Players deliberately getting booked to have Christmas off anybody?  No?) MCFC

 

Bad Jack
I’ll leave it to others to have a go at the general performance of the VAR’s over the weekend. Truly shocking. That said, I’m beginning to think maybe I’d get loads wrong as well. Although not those offside ones admittedly. Mind-boggingly bad. Anyhoo, to the Eithad…

On the BBC live feed the public consensus seemed to be that City should not have got a penalty vs Villa. Monday morning on Ref Watch on SSN everyone quickly agreed that it was. Does this point to there being a difference in what fans see and what ex-pros see? Cards on the table: I’m a Villa fan, so perhaps biased. (I also fully appreciate that it’s a touch hypocritical to moan about Grealish winning a penalty against us – we had this coming).

For starters I’m not 100% sure there even is any contact (darling Jack may trip up his own leg), but let’s say there is. My main issue is that Ramsey doesn’t even attempt a challenge. He gets caught the wrong side and tries to avoid any contact. Isn’t it about who’s initiating the contact? If an attacker runs into the box and just stops so the player behind runs into him/her is that a penalty? Again, who initiated the contact? I thought the bar for what was a foul in the box was going to be higher this season. I think we had maybe 2 or 3 weeks of that. I don’t believe I’ll ever think that was a penalty.

Happy for people to try and correct/convince me otherwise.

Happy to see more of Duran the rest of this season too.
Gary AVFC (We’d have lost anyway, I’m just curious as to what people think).

 

Fan service
In response to adidasmufc, I hope you have some big old sugar cubes for that high horse.

I’ll not for one second condone chanting about tragedies, it’s mindless hatred performed by idiots. But equating vile songs from coked up knobheads to school shootings and the horrific scenes in the middle East is frankly offensive in its own right and serves to undermine your entire point

Furthermore, you then decide to take a self-righteous and aggressive stance against fans who have done nothing to warrant it, claiming that not directly challenging those who partake in such chanting makes us complicit; I’d be impressed to see how you’ve lead from the front on this one, yes in a perfect world we would stand up to this but to decry people for not wanting to put themselves at risk of violence is ridiculous.

You say yourself “Every club have extensive CCTV camera set ups and could easily identify these individuals if there was sufficient motivation. Loss of revenue is the only thing that will get clubs to take this issue seriously.” So you seem to think it would be easy to find and ban offenders, yet also want blanket bans of supporters, punishing the majority for crimes they haven’t committed.

In answer to your final question, no I am unsure what the best solution to this problem is, but I think the Thatcheresque kneejerk reaction of treating all football fans as vile thugs definitely isn’t it.

Regards
Jim, Bristol Rovers exile in Yorkshire

 

Jurgen’s successor
Not long after a mailboxer suggested Rafa returning short term, I just read Nathan Jones: the definitive collection of his best and most bizarre quotes as Southampton manager

All I can say is just wow! that’s blockbuster!

When was the last time we had a maverick manager in the premier league? yup, 2004.

The premier league™ will be licking their licks at such prospects and all the guys who have ditched football and tv will be running back. Think of the Anfield European Nights™ …wowza!!

Klopp has won everything for us, you name it, but that has come at a cost. We are no longer the kings of sh*thouse (name one unlikeable character at LFC currently)

Nathan Jones will make us unbearable again
Jay, West Africa (Bring Back Our Disliked Liverpool, Make Liverpool Great Again)

 

Wolves v Southampton
Hi there,

I believe Southampton-Wolves is known as the Jelle Van Damme derby, after the Belgian fullback who played a handful of games for both clubs in the noughties.

Or I suppose you could have the Andrew Surman Superclasico? The Paul Jones Jamboree?

Maybe I’m trying too hard here.
Dara O’Reilly, London

 

VAR solution
Simply solution to clear up these VAR issues. Simply film the likes of Lee Mason when they’re drawing lines on the pitch, and have a second VAR office drawing lines on Lee Mason when he’s miles off.

Regards,
John Nic’s imaginary bus-stop woman

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