Cardiff v Manchester city

[zarathustra]

If we ignore the blatant blue spectacle views of bloovee who thinks any questionable decision that goes against City is due to some conspiracy by premier league referees.

At full speed I thought it was yellow, but the other angles etc showed it to be a horrific challenge.

As for the offside, I’m not sure but it’s not even the worst offside call of the decade, let alone the season.

Why did Lee Mason not give a red for the challenge? No idea, but it’s pretty easy to misread something at that speed and I’m sure we’ve all made similar mistakes, although perhaps not on a challenge of that severity.

I’m not sure where thebassistant on that side was situated and whether he would have been well placed to identify it as a red.

VAR would have been helpful here, but one of the limitations is that it can only be used from Premier League grounds due to the number of cameras available.

 

[santa sangria]

The offside: I can't find an angle that shows whether Sane's body was behind the 2nd last defender? Maybe.
When the ball is kicked Sane is not directly in line between ball and keeper but the ball and keeper are going one way, Sane is coming from the other, he must e pretty close to directly in line when the ball leaves the boot... is he "clearly obstructing the opponent’s line of vision"? Maybe.

Is this really a bad call? is this really a clear and obvious mistake? For me, no. Sane's body could be in an offside position, he is in the middle of the box between the shooter and the keeper. Would the VAR overrule this if the AR flagged offside and the ref blew? I don't think so.

But if there was VAR, the AR would not have flagged and would have left it up to the AR, no? What would the VAR's decision have been if there had been no flag - if the footage available was maybe offside, maybe interfering... probably goal, maybe?

In real time it looks offside. I'm with the officials. Sane makes a bad run, in front of the goalkeeper, towards an offside position at the very least... the offside law exists to deter goalhangers...

 

[bloovee]

You DO get some tasty 'challenges' outside of Man City's games!

Amazingly Bristol City appealed this one - less amazingly appeal was rejected.

The point is that the offender was sent off. City have suffered half a dozen "tasty challenges" this season with no red card.

 

[Peter Grove]

In defence of Lee Mason, I have to say that when watching the game in real time I did not spot the fully horrendous nature of the Joe Bennett challenge. Neither did the co-commentators on the game - and the pundits analysing it afterwards also said the same thing. I thought Bennett had stuck his leg in between Sane's legs causing him to trip, rather than catching him full on the leg as was actually the case. It's only with the benefit of slow-motion replays and freeze-frame that you can see what really happened.