Vicario half the price and twice as effective as Onana, and why we must be kinder to refs…

A wide-ranging Mailbox talks Spurs’ new stopper, the consequences of blaming refs, Liverpool as losers, the atmosphere at the Emirates, and plenty more…

Get your views in to theeditor@football365.com

Actions and consequences
As much as I will have to tone down my internal monologue and discussions with friends, we all need to calm the hell down about referees. Multiple mails from clearly and understandably frustrated fans all about referees. Constant texts from my mates regarding what in their view were decisions akin to war crimes. It needs to stop. If this culture of questioning every decision, blaming them for entire results and citing corruption continues it will destroy the grass roots game as no one will want to referee. I saw a clear example of it yesterday.

An U12’s 9 a side game on a lovely sunny Sunday afternoon. Both teams hadn’t won yet this season so there was a bit of a hyperactive atmosphere. The referee came over before the match, chatted to both coaches and the parents. He seemed a fantastic bloke. Game kicks off and he handles the game and the kids perfectly. Explains his decisions calmly and doesn’t get much wrong.

Now we have had some bad experiences with referees so far this season (parents of opposing teams picking up the whistle never ends well at this age group) but my sons coach is always level-headed and adamant his players do not talk back to the referee or use their decisions as an excuse for losing a game. Our kids aren’t perfect but are getting message.

The other side clearly didn’t have the same ethos. Second half, the referee booked one of their players for dissent and he was put in the sin bin. This calmed things down until one of the coaches on the sideline exploded. The referee gave a goal kick. The coach believed it was a corner. I couldn’t tell either way and I was closer to the action. The now red faced and angry man stormed on to the pitch, spewing expletives calling the referee ‘f-ing embarrassing’. The referee calmly walked over and gave him a red card. Cue more expletives, a firm hand on the referees shoulder with a sarcastic “Well f-in done” and he stormed off across the pitch to the other sideline (In a sitcom he would have forgotten his coat and walked back across the pitch delaying the game further – no wait, he did). I’d like to think he sat in his car reflecting on being an idiot. I suspect he will be sitting at Christmas dinner still muttering “it WAS a corner though”.

For the last 5 minutes the opposition players, 11 year olds, felt enabled to give the referee dogs abuse about every subsequent decision. I don’t know if he chose not to hear it, or it went over his head, but they were accusing him of cheating and picking on them (he wasn’t).

Eventually the game ended, and our coach went over to the ref and thanked him. He was the only one who did. That referee had spent his whole Sunday refereeing. With his 13 year old son. He was on the sidelines after taking charge of some games in the morning and watched the whole debacle.

I can’t say for certain that all the recent talk about referees contributed to the events on Sunday, but it has seemed to give people further courage to abuse officials even at this level. It has to stop. So next time you call a ref a cheat, engage in a lengthy diatribe comparing two 50-50 incidents or go on a conspiracy/corruption rant just wind your necks in, eh? Your criticism is doing a lot more harm than good.
Funstar Andy

Spurs Vic-tory
I’m a big united fan but I can’t help but be impressed by the new kid between the sticks at spurs, Vicario.

He plays the ball with his feet, he plays the ball with his hands, there’s not much this guy can’t do and he’s a big reason why they’re sitting pretty at the top.

Just look at United and Onana. He is hopeless. Another mealy mouthed transfer that screams panic buy.

Glazers out
Anon

Bias365
In John Nicholson’s latest article about conspiracy theories, he mocks the notion that F365 is biased against clubs. Obviously (to most of us) the notion that a website, newspaper or the entire media has an agenda or vendetta against a club is absurd. But football writers are just people, and people are biased – often unconsciously, sometimes consciously. People have their own specific opinion or perspective on The Game/The World, and this influences how they perceive events.

I mean, are we all going to pretend that F365 has not been biased in favor of the likes of Marco Silva, Mauricio Pochettino and Romelu Lukaku, to use a few examples from the last 10 years?

Clear-cut examples of “bias against” are harder to spot and cite. But they are there from time to time. David Moyes’ second spell at West Ham might fall into this category. (I am also personally biased against David Moyes, so I’m not best placed to judge this!)

This isn’t a criticism of football writers, or an attack on F365. I just hope that John Nicholson and others haven’t persuaded themselves that they are bastions of objectivity compared to other reasonable, rational football fans. You’re just as bad/good as the rest of us.
Oliver Dziggel, Geneva Switzerland

Order among chaos
Reading Johnny’s column on conspiracy theories made me realise that these people are just looking for order among the madness. Previously this would have been filled by religion, if you can’t understand how the world was formed and humans came to be, decide that a guy in the sky created it in 7 days and that men came from dust and women from a rib.

The decline of religion (at leasr in the west) has left a void, nature abhors a vacuum so people have decided that the royal family are lizards, Bill Gates is tracking your movement and Darren England hates your club.

On a lighter note, it was good to see West Ham pick up a point against one of the CL clubs and Kudus looks dangerous. Needs to be given a start in the PL now. Awful decision to not send off Guimaraes.
Andy the Hammer (Referee’s name was Bankes, money is held in banks, Saudi has loads of money. Makes you think…)

In defence of Sandro Toonali
Today when reading Winners & Losers, I couldn’t help but pick up on another little dig at Sandro Tonali – a common theme of F365 over the past few weeks. It’s become one of a few sticks to beat him with since he joined:

‘He doesn’t want to be here
He can’t play with Bruno
He’s too slow for the Premier League’

And many more. The reality is that almost every player Howe has signed, as well as those he inherited, has taken time to adjust to the intense football brand he employs.

Howe publicly stated his frustration with our pre-season schedule and his ability to spend time on the pitch working hard, which Tonali joined late. He’s then had a brilliant first game, followed by City, Liverpool and Brighton in succession, where he progressively looked more and more startled. Since then he’s shown flashes of what we signed him for – hardworking with brilliant passing intertwined – first half against PSG especially (an environment he was more comfortable in).

Where he’s struggled is the intensity of the Premier League, knowing he has to put the graft in almost relentlessly through the game and adapting to our press (the lack of desire to close down Kudus for the WH equaliser a good example). He hasn’t had the gentle ‘bedding in’ Howe has given most new signings because of all the injuries we’ve had.

The reality is, this is the exact reaction Gordon had when he signed (and warranted yes), but after enough time with Howe and his team mates, Gordon has been one of the best players in the league this year. Can you imagine what Tonali will be like when he’s fully adapted?
Harry, York

Read more: Premier League winners and losers: Arsenal, Spurs, Maguire great; City, Frank, Klopp questioned

Losers Liverpool
Interesting piece on Liverpool on this weeks edition of Winners & Losers.

Liverpool are in the losers section…

Funny enough I agree that this version of Liverpool are quite like the 2017/18 vintage. Scary good in attack and suspect at the back. However not quite sure they should be anywhere near the losers section.

Summary: Firstly 5 of 8 matches so far played away from home. 4 of those matches were against Chelsea, Newcastle, Spurs and Brighton – all 4 of whom should be around the top 4 battle this season or even better. The other away match was against a very good Wolves team that will be top half at the end of the season.

Next, and no conspiracy theory for this one, just facts – Liverpool have been battered by the refs. Not just the Spurs game, although to rub salt in the wounds Kovacic against Arsenal just got away with both of the fouls that got Jones & Jota sent off in the same game..But honestly its wider than that – Liverpool have had 4 red cards and 2 public apologies from the PGMOL inside the first 7 games. That’s not normal or right and for the love of everything good and holy hopefully it won’t persist.

Lastly as result of abnormal quantities of red cards and just injuries Liverpool have been without some really important players at the back for a large part of the season. This surely goes some way towards explaining the aforementioned ‘suspect at the back’ part of Liverpool this year. Konate out for 3 or 4 games, Trent as well, VVD missing 3.75 games through that red card. It’s been very inconsistent back there.

And with all of the above, Liverpool are STILL only 3 points away from a league leading Spurs team that needed a farcical disallowed goal and 2 extremely contentious red cards in order to beat Liverpool at home via a 97th minute OG.

To sign off here I’ll remind this kindest of editors that they posted one of my earlier-season Liverpool pieces, after 3 games I think it was, laying out why I thought they would be challenging for the league. This is me not only doubling down, but going further and saying Liverpool will win this bloody thing.

Stay classy through this International break peeps. I’m at Anfield in 2 weeks to watch Klopp take on Sean Dyche’s TOTAL FOOTBALL.
Patricio Del Toro

Winners Everton
Glad to see we were in the Winners column. May we see more of that continue.

Nice comments from Matt Stead on Sam Johnstone yet, once again, we have yet another attempt to unseat Pickford (tongue-in-cheek) from his England number one role. I’m sure Sam has done wonderfully (I haven’t seen Palace play this season) but those numbers Matt put out on Sam (where do you guys get these statistics ??) were amazing.

However…

…as was with everyone before him, there just seems to be this concerted effort to replace your number one. I’d be all for that if Pickford’s form for England warrants dropping but it simply hasn’t. I can’t tell you how incessantly boring the campaign for “Ramsdale for England #1” was before that ship sailed. We had shouts for Pope as well. Now Johnstone. There will be others.

Look, here’s how football works, and it’s amazing that this is having to be explained on a football website.

Players get dropped when their form suffers, they’ve been injured, or they’ve done something stupid that warrants suspension. Pickford’s form for England has been solid, he hasn’t been injured, and I hope he doesn’t go out and do something stupid. Furthermore, he’s been reliable for Southgate. What England wouldn’t give for eleven reliable players that can be counted on every time they take the pitch. Yes, I know that’s unrealistic but all things being equal, you don’t drop your reliable, in-form for England goalkeeper.

But wait, what about his form for Everton? Surely, we can use that yardstick no? You could but again, two totally different teams and two totally different situations. And the funny thing is that Pickford’s form for Everton has been, well, solid. Yes, we’ve allowed goals but most of that is down to a porous defense (save us Jarrad Branthwaite !!!) and not a ton of individual errors on his part, something that unfortunately, has become a semi-regular part of Ramsdale’s game and why the shouts for Ramsdale have, well, calmed down. If Pickford was letting goals in at an alarming rate due to consistent individual errors, then yes, I’d understand the concern that you could see that seep into his England form.

Overall, I think a lot of people still view Jordan as the goalkeeper of about four plus years ago where his errors were, shall we say, a little more egregious (read: They’d make all the highlights reels) and were a cause for concern. He’s really eliminated a lot of those issues out of his game and has honestly been a key cog in keeping us up in the Premier League. Southgate stuck with Pickford when his club form wasn’t great, and he and England have been rewarded with workman like, solid performances. I just don’t see the sense in replacing a reliable known quantity with quite a bit of international experience now. The Ramsdales, Popes, and Johnstones will get their chance. It just may not be this cycle.
TX Bill (signing Branthwaite to a new four-year deal was a must for us…and for Pickford) EFC

The Szobozlai crisis
At the end of last week’s Spurs-Liverpool match, I felt a lot of sympathy toward Liverpool, whom I thought were the more impressive side given the sendings-off. I wrote a letter (not chosen for publication) expressing this sympathy and predicting a lot of spurious Liverpool arguments about the red cards. Liverpool supporters’ letters to this mailbox since did not disappoint me. Foolishness was frequently expressed, but I tried to keep a kind heart because of the incredible injustice of the Diaz offside call.

Not being a Liverpool supporter, I wasn’t exactly fighting mad when Szoboslai was hauled down, but I was puzzled at the lack of a card. Surely, the laws demanded a red card, even if a kindly referee might brandish a yellow instead? To suggest that wasn’t a goal-scoring opportunity because he hadn’t touched the ball is ludicrous. I can hardly believe PGMOL would lean on such sophistry in order to justify a mistake. That sort of basic failure of understanding of the laws really shouldn’t happen for a referee of professional matches, and it stinks that it’s happened to Liverpool twice in a row. [note: this does not imply that I believe in an anti-Liverpool cabal.] I’m sympathetic to the argument that sports media coverage seems designed to make nobody want to do the referee’s job; there’s truth there. But when a referee forgets a law of the game that hasn’t changed in some time, it has to call training practices into question. Are referees just being emailed a PowerPoint presentation about this year’s changes and asked to sign a form attesting they had watched it? Because that doesn’t really seem like a best practice in the corporate training environment.

Since I’m a Toon supporter: the West Ham draw was a debatably earned point. I wouldn’t have complained if Bruno had been sent off. Tonali needs to find his sense of responsibility, pronto. I still can’t decide if that Pope save where he deflected the ball past what felt to me like an endless row of Hammer feet in the six-yard box was genius or blind-ass luck. Thank goodness for Isak. Somebody should do a data-driven piece on how Isak and Wilson get their goals. Wilson misses chances, but usually finds a way. Isak creates seemingly easy chances that he almost never misses and loses a lot of balls trying to do too much. In the end, they’re both bloody effective.
Chris C, Toon Army DC

Haaland holding back City
Many years ago, Man Utd had a striker who was one of the best in the world in RVN, that corresponded with one of Utd’s poorest trophy hauls during Fergies time. Ruud was banging in goals for fun, but the overall result was worse than when the goals were spread amongst 3 or 4 of them. The trouble is, if you are a team that relies on that one player to score the goals and that player has a dip in form, out injured or doesn’t get the chances, you struggle.

Yesterday, it was like City were playing with 10 men, Haaland was invisible. They should literally have been playing with 10 as how Kovacic stayed on for that tackle when other players from Cities direct rivals are walking for it?

But anyway, would City have still won the CL without Haaland? Yes, nobody could touch them last season. But is that saying that City were that much better or was the opposition that much poorer? Would they have still won the league? Probably, he helped them but only due to how well he started the season. If you look at him from Feb onwards, he wasn’t pulling in anywhere near the same numbers is that because the opposition had worked him out? After 8 games last season he had 14 goals. After his 5 against Leipzig, he then went on to score another incredible 2 in the remaining 5 CL games.

So although City have an incredible goal scorer in Haaland, to say he is the best we’ve seen in the league is a bit disrespectful to the other, more complete strikers who have come before him.

Last season, it worked at the start, but no way are City going to be able to carry a player who is just a goal scorer with their style of play. He is still relatively young at 23 but does anyone else feel that Haaland can improve his overall game and make him more of a team player, even under Pep? I’m not so sure that type of player exists in him. I’m not taking anything away from him, give him a chance and he’ll score, but when he doesn’t get a chance, what really does he bring to the team? Alverez looks a more complete player, in my opinion.

Does anyone also think that with Spurs being top and playing some good football, have anything to do with Kane not being there? Harry is by far a better all round player than Haaland, however the main source of the Spurs goals was always on Harrys shoulders. So many pundits were saying that spurs will miss him, but again, in my opinion, Spurs are playing better without him, that might be because of the manager and change of style/tactics. Again, no disrespect to Harry, as I said, sometimes having one player who is your main source of goals, is detrimental to the overall team success. I’d rather have 4 players hitting 10-15 a season than 1 hitting 30+
Hypothetically, if Spurs won the league this season or even a cup, does that mean that Harry actually held them back from reaching their full potential? Who knows.

Regarding Liverpool, I’d say there are 2 players holding them back, VVD who is playing worse than Maguire this season yet avoids critics because he did something a few seasons back and Mo Salah who has been incredible but, I’d say if the Saudis come in with anything north of 100 (which is still preposterous) like it was reported then they are mental not to take it. It’s a Coutinho moment all over again for them, and look what Klopp did when he went. Sometimes, you just gotta let them go.

Last bit, although Utd have been utter garbage so far, they are only 6 behind City and 5 behind Liverpool. Just think what we could do this season if we had a decent manager who stopped holding grudges against players he hasn’t given a real chance to (especially when 2 of those so called not good enough players just saved his embarrassing butt) or playing his faves even if it means playing them out of position because 1 time 10 games ago they did something. Or realise that a player like Bruno is only good when the going is good and at the moment, Bruno should not be starting.

How good was it to see the 2 players you lot and Hag have been saying are not good enough come along and save us from another embarrassment? To say McTominay isn’t as good if not better than a slow, aged Casemiro or Maguire isn’t able to play better than Varane is just silly, we don’t play any worse with them and at least we have 2 guys there who want to prove a point, where a defeat does generally look like it hurts them. Give me that all day, along with the young lads like Garnacho. I’d rather lose with players who give a shit than lose with a bunch of players who are really only there because nobody would ever give them their ridiculous contract. I’m looking at you Varane, Casemiro, Rashford, Bruno. Just seems that like Hag and the mailbox picks teams on names rather than performance.
Hugo

Suck it, City
Just a quick reply to Paul, Manchester…

You’re probably right, Man City will go on to win the title.

It doesn’t change the fact that we were the better team yesterday. We limited you to 4 shots on target, your lowest tally in 13 years.

We beat you for the first time in what felt like aeons, removing a massive psychological barrier from in front of us.

Oh, and we did all that without our Rodri (Saka), a barely fit Martinelli, Nketiah as our striker and a Chelsea has-been in our Defensive Midfield.

Wonder what the scoreline would have been if both teams were fully fit. But they weren’t, soooo… yeah.
Malcolm, AFC

…Nice of Paul (Manchester) to write in and argue with himself.

I haven’t really seen any Arsenal fans on this website claiming that this is Arsenal’s year after beating City. Most fans I speak to are aware that this win only made Arsenal joint first with Spurs and we are currently only 8 games into the season and therefore you can’t accurately predict what will happen.

It would be remiss of me not to point out though that regardless of how lucky a goal is, it still counts. It may have been heading wide, but it didn’t go wide, it went in the net and helped Arsenal gain 3 points. Obviously City never score goals via deflections or get dodgy penalties so I thought I would be a good person and let you know that particular rule of football.

Oh, one more thing. Perhaps City could have played their £45million midfielder instead of an 18 year old right back, maybe that would have helped, as far as I am aware nobody forced Guardiola to not pick his England international footballer in the position he is best at.

OH wait, just one more thing, for real this time. Kovacic didn’t seem to be physically unable to challenge moments after his first yellow when he stupidly flew into a tackle on Declan Rice, but as I said, City don’t get lucky so you wouldn’t know what it was.

Anyway Paul, at least I am now talking to you rather than the imaginary conversations you appear to be having.
Andrew (Barnet)

Seismic City win
If you want to know just how big that win against City was, I can tell you the following.

Right after the game, I get a text from a guy, who used to be our neighbour but moved many years ago. He is a life-long Juventus fan, follows the Italian league, not the Prem. He just wrote: “Nice scalp you got there. Well done!”

Next morning, I get a text from Jamaican guy, who was our PhD student but has moved hundreds of miles for a postdoc a couple of years ago and has not been in touch. He is a Real Madrid fan, follows Spanish footy, etc. “Just saw the news you beat City. Awesome!”

So, this made ripples across football communities, people not even invested in either City or Arsenal or even the PL for that matter felt it was significant enough to warrant a text.
András, Gunner in Northern Sweden

Electric Emirates?
So Joe, AFC, East Sussex kindly informs us about The Emirates, and that ‘and the atmosphere in there these days is hard to top in this country’.

I wonder how he knows this. Is there some metric somewhere that I don’t know about? Has Joe been to all 92 football league grounds to evaluate this?

And if the atmosphere is so terrific, why persist with the tacky flag waving people behind the goals?
A, LFC, Montreal.

Inherited yellow cards
Watching Kovacic get substituted having come so close to getting sent off is something in football that has always frustrated me. Would seem to encourage tactical fouling with managers knowing they can pull the player off before he gets a second yellow (although did think Pep took an unnecessary risk leaving him on into the second half).

What about changing the rules so that the yellow card carries over to the substitute? Means that the “position” as opposed to the player is affected and ensures the caution is in place for the full game and not able to be tactically erased through substitutions.
Dave, West Clandon

Muddled refs
It doesn’t seem that long ago that every studs up tackle was called a leg breaker or a career ender, now it’s apparently debatable whether they’re even yellow cards or not. Football finds itself in a really confused place where you can receive an immediate booking for waving an imaginary card but be given the benefit of the doubt for putting your studs in someone’s ankles. A booking is supposed to be a warning that you’ll be sent off if you continue that behaviour but if the referee doesn’t follow through with that then yellows lose all meaning. In no other walk of life would being given a warning be a reason why someone gets away with doing the same thing again. Not enforcing the rules affects games as much as enforcing them but letting players off with horrible tackles benefits the perpetrators and punishes the victims. It’s time to revisit what the rules are even for because it doesn’t seem they’re ensuring a fair game.

Bookings seem arbitrary right now. You can be booked for your first run of the mill foul or you can get away with running half the length of the pitch to Rodri, sorry I mean clothesline, your opponent. Emerson got booked for waving on Sunday and in the same game Almiron didn’t. If the same referee doesn’t enforce this clear rule in the same game then there has to be some other criteria being used that shouldn’t be, the sport should not be governed based on whatever vibe the ref is feeling at that particular minute. If you’ve as much chance of getting booked for accidentally clipping your opponent’s trailing leg as you have for injuring one of your rivals key players then why wouldn’t you go balls out?

Also, it shouldn’t be a referee’s responsibility to ensure the entertainment value of a game. A nasty tackle in the first minute should be treated the same as any other time. Players shouldn’t get leeway because they’re playing in the weekend’s marquee game. Just enforce the rules, any responsibility should lie with the players who spoiled the spectacle through malice or carelessness.

Player safety, fairness and sporting integrity as always seem furthest from the minds of football’s governors.
SC, Belfast