These are the glory days for Newcastle – it might never get better than this…

There is plenty of praise for Newcastle in the Mailbox but also a warning that this could be as good as it gets for the Toon Army. Also: Man Utd; and Jurgen Klopp’s call for replay.

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com…

Magnificent Mags
As an Arsenal fan firstly big congratulations to Newcastle. I watched the game and you were unbelievable. If Arsenal had a night like that in Europe I would be absolutely ecstatic. From the atmosphere to the two local lads scoring, stuff of dreams.

It struck me whilst watching, that these could be the real glory days for the Newcastle supporters. Everything is fresh and new, there is no huge pressure to win everything yet, you still have the local lads and the likeable players you had pre takeover who have a real connection to the fans.

Someday Newcastle will most likely turn into the current iteration of Man City. They will attract the best players and the most in demand manager. They will win trophies galore and will be favourites in every match they play. I wonder will the fans harp back to these days, the real glory days when you went in to games as underdogs and the atmosphere was electric.

Hand on heart I can honestly say I’d rather be a Newcastle fan at this moment in time than a City fan. It’s not soulless and robotic yet, you still have soul. Long may it last but it won’t last forever. Enjoy nights like this.
Chippy

…Well that was absolutely absurd. There was tension, there were nerves, there was hope, there was a wall of noise and flags. And then there were 4 goals against PSG.

Captain Jamaal Lascelles stood tall and Mbappe didn’t have a sniff. When the new owners came in many expected Newcastle to buy galacticos to make path success, but the scorers were Almiron, Burn, Longstaff, and Schar – all men who played under Bruce, or Geordies, or both.

When you beat PSG 4-1 everyone has had a good game, but Bruno Guimares was utterly peerless. Genuinely looked among the best in the world.

Newcastle are top of the group of death.

Well done Eddie.
Roger

…Whatever you think about the sports washing stuff, it’s heartwarming to see 2 local lads score at home against one of the biggest teams in world football, boasting perhaps the best player in the world.

We’ve hit form just in time to give this group a really good go and I’m really enjoying the ride
Derek from Dundalk

…Are we the Champions League version of the “a wet night in Stoke” test as Mbappe was kept very quiet….
of course there is very right and justified focus on the Saudi ownership of our club but for one night seeing lads who are from local towns, Dan Burn and Sean Longstaff helping batter PSG, well that’s just awesome.
AD

…Brilliant to see Newcastle destroy QSG.

Let’s be fair though. Bet the farm on West Ham on Sunday. Newcastle are gassed after that.
PeteB

Read more: Newcastle show heart that left PSG long ago as Howe avoids state-owned trap

Four replays
Klopp is correct, the game should be replayed. All the tribal shouting seems to suggest that every side would then want to get games replayed for contentious decisions. But that is not the issue here. We are not talking about the subjective decisions made by VAR. we are talking about the objective decisions that are not correctly delivered. To my mind, I can only recall 4 incidents, all of which IMHO should have resulted in replayed games.

– Crystal Palace 1-1 Brighton. Estupinan goal disallowed when VAR drew lines incorrectly.
– Arsenal 1-1 Brentford. Pinnock goal allowed to stand when VAR failed to check it for offside
– Aston Villa 0-0 Sheffield United. Hawkeye failed to see the ball had crossed the Aston Villa goalline.
– Last Saturday at Spurs.

These four games should all have either been replayed or been corrected by the officials at the time. Because they weren’t the result/outcome of each of these games are invalid.

All of the other incidents are subjective and whether you agree or not they are the interpretation of the ref at that moment. Not even worthy of discussion with regards to being replayed, regardless of how contentious they may be. We are only talking about black and white decisions being incorrectly applied. I can only think of these four.
Dale Derrivale

Let’s go round again
On Klopp calling for the game to be replayed…

Firstly, full disclosure, Spurs fan here. Yes, the VAR no goal was an incorrect decision, just like we were the victims of an incorrect decision in the CL final and (in my view) when Romero’s handball was given against Arsenal. Every team is the victim of incorrect refereeing decisions.

The game should not be replayed because of the precedent it would set. If they replay this game, every time an officiating error is made, a club would be able to demand a replay. And what happens if there is another F*&k up during the replay? How many times would the same game have to be restarted?

Reform VAR, by all means. There have been sensible suggestions in the mailbox. I wouldn’t shed if a tear if they did away with it. And referees should be banned from paid officiating elsewhere. But replaying the game would be a dangerous precedent.

Kind regards
Sam E

…We get it, Kloppo, you’re a competitive man and a bad loser. That is partly what we admire about you and has pushed you to win trophies.
Yes, Saturday against Spurs was unfair. But a replay, really?
Haven’t all teams had their dodgy decisions, offside calls and harsh sendings off, both for and against?

And how can you ever get the same conditions? What if the crowd is not the same, and instead of excitement there’s just antagonism in the air? Does Jota play in the replay, given he was available for the first match, but should be serving a ban? What other players are fit enough to play, and change the tactics? What if this time Diaz races through and misses, or Gakpo is injured and can’t get the equalizer?
You can’t change reality, and the next match could see someone else sent off or injured. Instead of playing again until we get a win against Spurs (who were more disciplined than the Reds to be fair), just take the defeat on the chin and move on. Play against Brighton with fire in your bellies but cool heads.
Paul in Brussels (gutted for Antwerp in the Champions League)

Move on?
I repeatedly see people saying “it’s human error, accept it an move on”

Ummm why?

Let’s imagine next month your employer pays you £1. When you ask him about the mistake he says ‘yeah accounts messed up. Just a human error..accept it and move on yeah?’
Who will accept that and move on?

And that’s just your wage. Imagine if a human error could result in hundreds of millions of pounds changing?

Accept it and move on is the dumbest non answer anyone can give. To this day England fans still complain about maradona, the lampard goal etc so clearly people don’t accept it and move on – and we know it ain’t Liverpool fans moaning about those since it’s pretty well known Liverpool fans don’t care for England games much.

Next is the “Liverpool think everything is a conspiracy”
1. There was a genuine conspiracy to hide a great injustice and blame said injustice on the people suffering from it. Everyone from police and media all the way up to government was in on it.
2. I havent seen any Liverpool fans suggesting conspiracy, all I’ve seen is them suggesting incompetence by the refs and pgmol for allowing them to ref in a different time zone one day before.

Liverpool fans don’t think things are a conspiracy, they thought that once and were right so forgive any skeptism we might have when the powers that be say “these aren’t the droids you’re looking for, move along”

Finally I think klopp asking for a replay was really dumb. Complain sure. Suggest changes for the future of course. But asking for a do over was never gonna happen (even though arsenal did grant it once when they scored a goal when the ball should have been returned – so there’s presedent).
In addition it’s now definitely made sure whatever few people did agree with us will now also succumb to the “entitled Liverpool” narrative.

Liverpool either need a PR team or need a new one because that plan was DOA and should never have been suggested
Lee

Why do we tolerate inconsistency?
The most frustrating thing for me about VAR is not the laughable and egregious failure surrounding the Diaz goal; nor the continued incompetence of VAR more generally. It is those people who argue that the entire concept of VAR is inherently inappropriate because it erodes the inconsistent, chaotic drama that everyone supposedly loves about football. They long to return to the primitive status quo before VAR when incorrect decisions were made all the time and accepted as “just part of the sport”. One week a decision goes for you; the next week it’s against you. It all comes out in the wash so why change anything?? Stop trying to make football perfect! I don’t mean to pick a fight with SS’s mail, but it really does exemplify everything that is fallacious about that side of the debate.

Unfortunately, there seems to be a considerable cohort of fans who believe that we shouldn’t aspire to improve the officiating in football because we all enjoy the inaccuracy and its ensuing controversy. This is nonsense. As well as fuelling the boring discussion around which team has been most hard-done-by by past decisions, it’s a terrible standard to apply to professional sport. No one hopes to make football “perfect” (whatever that means) but if certain technologies exist that can help referees arrive at the correct decision more often and eradicate “clear and obvious errors”, there is no logical reason not to use them. Yes, VAR’s application has been dog-shit imperfect so far, but we shouldn’t let the imperfect be the enemy of the good.

Forgive me for being prosaic, but surely – in all sport – any measure that enhances the accuracy with which scores are recorded, fouls are identified and winners decided is a good thing. If words like “good”, “right” or “just” mean anything in sport, then they apply here. We know referees will do their best and are only human, so if the sporting action is too widespread, too fast or too complicated for a sole referee to survey adequately, then it makes sense to use a team of referees. And if certain elements are too difficult for even all of them to assess, it makes sense to use technology to help come to the right decision. In fact, you could argue that linesmen were an early iteration of VAR in football: they offer an extra perspective – crucial for certain rules like the offside rule – which is not available to the lone referee in the middle. Would these chaos advocates like SS wish to get rid of linesmen because it would be more dramatic and inconsistent if referees had to judge offsides?? It may seem like a straw-man but it’s actually the logical end-point of this position, the reductio-ad-absurdum of which is to remove any refereeing and rules whatsoever. Surely none of them in their right mind would argue against the use of photo-finishes in athletics, hawk-eye in tennis or goal-line technology in football? Yes, these are all used for fairly simple, binary decisions but other sports like cricket and rugby have shown that even in greyer areas, the referees can work with the technology to come to a better informed decision. So why can’t football?!

It has been said umpteen times, but transparency is the key. As long as the players and the spectators know how the VAR is arriving at its decision, it will be easier for everyone to accept and the time spent waiting for a decision will be much more tolerable. The review process may even bring a certain frisson of its own as it does in tennis or cricket. And to anyone arguing that VAR is causing too much of a delay to proceedings – that is bollocks. You are not a Military General or a Titan of industry; your time is not that precious. You’ve given up your entire Saturday to go to the arse-end of Sheffield and watch 22 blokes kick a ball around. You can afford the rest of us an extra moment or two to ensure that the referees are coming to the correct decisions. The integrity of the competition will be protected and we’ll all be much more satisfied in the long term.

Funnily enough, as I’m writing this, I’m watching the officials decide whether or not Newcastle have scored a second goal against PSG. It’s clear, thanks to goal-line technology, that the ball has crossed the line but they seem to be checking an offside in the build-up. No one really knows. Darren Fletcher is telling us that the crowd are looking up to them in the commentary box because they’ve got access to screens up there and might be able to shed some light on proceedings, but they’re none-the-wiser. Aren’t offsides supposed to be automated in the Champions League, they ask? PSG are appealing for a handball in the build-up; the players are surrounding the ref. It’s taking ages; the fans start booing. Eventually, after a couple of minutes, the goal is awarded. A perfect example of how technology can support and bring clarity to the refereeing process but is being inadequately deployed.
WD, London

Liverpool’s embarrassment
Perfectly understandable for Liverpool fans to be outraged. The decision was unfathomable – a tribute to the ongoing catastrophe that is PGMOL. If this had happened to Spurs, Barry Fox would be writing letters to Parliament. If it had happened to Arsenal, my fellow gooners would be sewing voodoo dolls of Howard Webb. I’m sure the heavens themselves would have been torn asunder by United fan’s reaction.

That’s allowed, because we’re just the poor halfwits who prop the game up financially, emotionally, socially, and politically.

But it is staggering to hear a Premier League manager (and a former player, at that) suggest a game be replayed because of an official’s decision. Such incredible ignorance of the history of the game. Worse, ignorance of the manner and spirit in which the game is meant to be played.

As incomprehensibly poor as it was, this mistake was not the worst decision ever made; it does not ‘mean more’; it is not even unprecedented. The undeniable truth remains that if VAR had not been in use, the decision would have been exactly the same. Despite defeat – in a game where he had two players sent off – Klopp has been offered the high moral ground. Why can he not be man enough to accept that and move on?

Liverpool FC is diminished by its official statements; the Premier League – thanks to both PGMOL, and Liverpool’s reaction – is a laughingstock.
RJ

That’s you, that is
With everyone seemingly hating Liverpool, it gave me the idea of me telling everyone what this Liverpool fan thinks about their club….

Arsenal- No real hatred, hoped they’d won the league last year, manager seems to overthink.

Aston Villa- Always have a feeling they should be better than they turn out to be, big enough club to have actually been better over the last few years.

Bournemouth- Just waiting for them to be relegated, not because I want them to go down, you just know it will happen

Brentford- Love Thomas Frank, one of those clubs you’d root for if in a relegation battle

Brighton- Can we have their scouting department? Actually why haven’t one of the big clubs moved for some of the Brighton scouts? Seaside Retirement home for Liverpool players, which is just lovely.

Burnley- Hated them under Dyche, sorry that still lingers a little.

Chelsea- Fake, plastic and everything seems to be contrived. Stop waving plastic flags. Need their own scouting team instead of just signing Brighton players or whoever Liverpool are after.

Crystal Palace- Despite nearly ruining Liverpool (OK I’m exaggerating) I like that Roy is doing well. Please stop with the drums… nobody likes drums.

Everton- Dyche will take them down, if not this season, then eventually. Think I’d prefer them staying up for Merseyside Derby day. (and as is customary to say….an easy six points a season)

Fulham- Sorry, I literally have no opinion or anything to say, that’s not a slight in anyway, I’ll pay more attention if I ever do something like this again (I won’t, it’s taking forever)

Luton Town- Great story, actually dreading playing them, because if we don’t win 4-0 or more the media will be awful to read, and they’re call Town. None of this City, United or Hotspurs bollocks… Town, lovely.

Manchester City- Just admit the money has made a difference? Liverpool are not your rivals no matter how much you want them to be, will probably be found as cheats then get a slap on the wrist.

Manchester United- One of the 3 traditional (not modern, artificial) superclubs. Replaced us as top dogs, then replaced us as an inconsistent s**t show of a club. Always funny to see them have seasons like they’re having. If we liked you we might even have empathy.

Newcastle United- Disappointed. Their fans seem to have changed since the money. Like a nice lad, who got a well paid job and turned into a knob.

Nottingham Forest- Always felt like a proper Premier League club, despite only being in it for six seasons. Can never decide if they’re a ‘big club’. Two European Cups, but more seasons outside the top flight than in it.

Sheffield United- Laver, laces on your shirt, lovely. Get watching Luke Chambers, you’ll end up signing him, you seem to like ex Liverpool left backs.

Tottenham Hotspurs- Was quite funny watching Spurs fans get caught between wanting to defend Liverpool getting a goal ruled out but still wanting to say what a s**t show the VAR decision was. White Hart Lane was fantastic. It was a blatant handball.

West Ham United- The blowing bubbles thing is a bid odd thing and gets even stranger when you look up its origins (I’m sure blowing had no other connotations in the 1920s). Stadium looks a bit naff, I was genuinely pleased when you won the Conference League though.

Wolverhampton Wanderers- Had the actual former Spain and Real Madrid manager in charge. Now have the only guy the club could afford in charge. I still think Steve Bull when your club in mentioned.

I advise nobody do the full list, but anyone got anything better?
Graham (Don’t get wound up, it’s only a bit of fun)

Just me?
I can’t be the only one wanting the game replayed and Spurs to absolutely tw*t Liverpool can I??
Sara HTFC

VAR WARS: 16 Conclusions
Stating some obvious and some not-so-obvious conclusions about football’s most talked about topic from the weekend.

1. We are burdened with bias. Depending upon which side of history we are (or want to be), we will see the weekend’s incident as one of: 1) Why-Us FC, 2) Victims FC, 3) So-what FC, 4) What-about-us FC, etc.
2. We are driven by history. I watched the Champions League final on TV last year and heard about the delayed start. And WITHOUT any additional thought, I believed the initial explanation given – thousands of Liverpool fans showed up without tickets (as they always do). Sometimes, the truth isn’t as simple as people make it out to be.
3. There are subjective decisions. Most footballing decisions are subjective and open to interpretation because they fall on a spectrum. Jones’s red card, Jota’s two yellows, the penalty review against Onana in Man United’s first PL game of the season, etc. These decisions can be interpreted differently; they are more likely to be impacted by human errors, creating more debate than others.
4. There are categorial decisions. These are yes or no choices. Did the ball cross the line, was the player offside, was there a beach ball on the field, etc.? If and when you have clear evidence (unlike the 2005 CL semi-final), the answer can only be a clear yes or no. Less chance of a mistake.
5. Almost 99% of decisions can be rationalized. But the offside isn’t one of them. Similar incidences have occurred in the past. In the game where Pickford injured Van Dijk, I believe VAR thought it could not review for dangerous play because of the offside. Which, of course, was incorrect. I don’t watch ALL the games, so I assume there were a few others. The back-of-the-envelope calculation would say (and I have no way to back this up) that if a referee+VAR makes, on average, ten decisions per game, then over 380 games, 3800 decisions are made. And ~40 decisions per season are rare and require more scrutiny than others. I am sure each PL club could come up with at least two examples – just not this bad IMO.
6. We hide behind rules and processes, which leads to inaction. John F. Kennedy said: “There are risks and costs to action. But they are far less than the long-range risks of comfortable inaction.” The VAR team chose not to act after the error was discovered. If they had acted swiftly, it would have been unprecedented but the right thing to do.
7. We need courage in such moments. Someone needed to say, this is a critical moment, so let’s take a few seconds to sort this out. Sadly, the courage and leadership were nowhere to be found between the referees, VAR, AVAR, etc.
8. We suffer from the gambler’s fallacy. In 100 flips, a fair coin is supposed to land on heads 50 times. By the 80th flip, if heads came only 30 times, it is irrational to expect the next 20 flips to be all heads – but sometimes we do. Similarly, if a decision went the other way in the first half, we can’t expect it to “average out” by the end of the game. The rest of the decisions have no material impact on the next decision – or this is how it is supposed to be.
9. I heard contempt in the VAR audio. Whoever said, “It’s coming back, mate…” as soon as the flag was raised sounded dismissive. I can expect any fan, Spurs’ or not, to say it, but to hear it from the collective refereeing team was weird. It stuck out. I can’t explain why.
10. You can’t, or rather should not, rewrite history—no need for a replay. The game would be better if we remember it this way than to try to correct it when it is too late.
11. Writing 16 conclusions is hard. Writing 16 good ones is next to impossible.

I’m squarely in let-us-do-better FC,
VKD

FFS, PGMOL
Very much not wanting to add to the chorus of people implying any underlying corruption around the disallowed Diaz goal – it was clearly just sheer incompetence and a remarkable inability to maintain the required level of focus from the official in question. However I do still very much question the narrative that Simon Hooper and other ‘on-field’ officials weren’t aware of the mistake until halftime, and the response from PGMOL which was totally gutless.

Aside from Gary Neville saying he saw images of Hooper “looking sick”, in the aftermath of the incident when the two VAR officials and the Reply Operator are talking about delaying the game and referring to ‘Oli’ calling in (allegedly Oli Kohout, VAR Hub Operations Executive at PGMOL), you hear 4th Official Michael Oliver responding to the discussion. Maybe PGMOL would claim that one of the VAR officials pressed a button to communicate with the ‘on-field’ team and then didn’t respond back to Oliver, however the whole thing is thrown into doubt with an opening statement that says not all of the audio was relayed to the officials but it not being made clear which aspects were. What exactly did they hear? We’re led to believe there is constant communication between all officials.

This is important because, despite their insistence that they “can’t do anything” after the checks completed, whilst they might not have been able to retroactively award the goal, they could have delayed the game to relay the mistake to the two coaches and hopefully a fair minded guy like Ange Postecoglou would have instructed his team to allow Liverpool to score. We’ve seen such things happen before – both coaches directing their teams to concede and referees stopping play to relay messages to the bench.

If it is true that Hooper, Oliver and Co weren’t aware until halftime, that’s far worse than making the mistake in the first place. And then why did PGMOL wait until after a game is finished to release a statement and fess up. If it was clarified straight away then there would have been at least an opportunity to rectify it. The PGMOL should have shown far more leadership and integrity rather than avoiding the issue until it’s too late. Of course there won’t be a reply, but I still think there are more questions for PGMOL to answer.
Tom, Wirral.

Ten Hag’s transfers
RQT says “The Onana and Mount signings were baffling”. I completely agree, the Mount signing is even more confused by the Amrabat signing. I don’t think those 3 guarantee a level above De Gea and Fred. There were far better ways to invest the £120m+…

But, any discussion around ETH, Sacking and Transfers, needs to include Antony, (the Brazilian Dan James). ETH coached him for an entire year and somehow still thought he was an £80m+ player. On that transfer alone he’s opened a large door waiting to be pushed.
Nick – United did make a profit on James – J

Onono
Worst “upgrade” since Bosnich and Taibi.

Bring back Dave.
Simon MUFC

FIFA at it again
To stray from the current narratives of both how terrible VAR and my team are, I thought I would mention Fifa’s new plan for the 2030 World Cup.

Because it wasn’t enough to stretch it over three countries for the 2026 one (spanning thousands of miles) they have one upped themselves by now saying the 2030 version will have matches in 6 countries, across 3 continents.

Football as it is needs to improve massively to minimise the carbon footprint it leaves, so the response from the head organisation in football is to…. Increase it more.

If course it is about money – Infantino must have realised that he needed more when EA refused to bow to him and his video game aspirations have lead…. Nowhere.

It is a disgrace – it will be our children and grandchildren who suffer, and countries should take a stand and refuse to play along with this farce anymore. But they won’t, because what do lives or the planet matter when glory (or in England’s case, perpetual failure) are on the cards.

Yet another World Cup I will not watch.
Andrew (MUFC)

Taking a stand
As Mark Twain said, It is better to keep your mouth closed and let people think you are a fool than to open it and remove all doubt. K, in the mailbox should take heed of this after he answered his own sneer at Arsenal for having an average attendance of just 24,000 for the 92-93 season, laughing and wondering if we were rebuilding a stand….um, yes K, that’s exactly what Arsenal were doing. The entire North bank of Highbury had to be rebuilt following the Taylor report and the required safety measures needing to be put in to place in football grounds. Somewhat ironic that a Man City fan clearly proud at showing his club do in fact have some history and loyal support before 2008 shows such little knowledge of football before this date!
Rich, AFC