Search results

Intolerable "safe refereeing"? That sounds a bit like the old newspaper report: "The game was spoiled by a referee who insisted on blowing for every offence".

I can't see that much difference. It's irrelevant anyway. If the City player had accidentally kicked the ball onto his own hand in that position, wouldn't it have been penalised as a handball? (A Wolves attacker did just that in another incident, and a FK was awarded. But that wasn't in the...

That's almost a philosophical question, if a player is spreading arms wide but the ball hits the arm near the shoulder. Does it matter that it's near the shoulder if the extended arm has made their body unnaturally bigger?

That's really not good enough. If Darren England as VAR thought the handball in City v Wolves was "unnatural" but the onfield ref didn't (even on review), but DE in the middle a day later in Palace v Chelsea agreed with VAR that a much less clear handling was "unnatural position" - then either...

Probably? Palace defender would have have had to have his arm amputated to avoid that. https://www.skysports.com/watch/video/13498901/chelsea-vs-crystal-palace-jaydee-canvots-accidental-handball-yellow-card-discussed If Darren England and the VAR today thought that was handball, the outlier is...

I hope you and others aren't just going off a still. The arms only go out when Marmoush looks as if he might cross the ball - or as if he might do what he did.

No one runs naturally with arms in that position.

It's not deliberate handball though, is it? If it was deliberate, there wouldn't be a whole clause in the laws about unnatural position as something distinct from deliberate handling (like it or not).

If EPL players get to think a Schmeichel star-jump is a "natural" position, they'll be giving away a lot of penalties in the World Cup.

So you think if Doku had played dead it would have been more likely to be a red card?

Er... what rolling around?

Glancing https://www.skysports.com/football/video/11095/13495317/roy-keanes-hilarious-reaction-to-diogo-dalot-foul-ive-given-out-heavy-tackles-its-a-red

Thanks for that attempt to bring a logical explanation to a bizarre situation! But if the VAR thought there was more than a little chance of the defender stopping the shot, why suggest an onfield review? (As you can imagine, trying to explain all this to City fans isn't an easy sell!)

I've already agreed that (despite holding each other) there was a case that Haaland in an offside position may have prevented the defender from blocking the goalbound shot. But it's equally arguable that the defender had little chance of getting to such an unexpected shot. So where was the C&O...

This would be less controversial but for (a) the Wirtz goal allowed that looked well offside and (b) people not understanding about needing two opponents nearer the goal-line. There's also the problem of defenders pushing attackers into offside positions (or maybe in this case Haaland being...

It looked like Haaland's foot was closer to the goal-line than either opponent, but then we've had other goals recently that looked clearly offside but (after frame selection and applying a 5cm tolerance) were judged onside. And no sign yet of the SAOT cartoon. I've got to ask what happened to...

I think it's only become a VC offence since the prominence of the women's game where most players have grabbable hair.

Make it part of AR's duty to prevent it. Or, to save adding to the laws, part of R's instructions to ARs where there's VAR.

While waiting for VAR ... (better without the music).

No-one's shown any other frame.