A few shocking realisations...

Spurslove · Aug 22, 2016

I was watching some games over the weekend and it seemed to me like free kicks are being given every few seconds by referees and I was getting rather cheesed off with it all.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that I don't know what a foul is any more.

Never before have so many frequent free kicks been given for so many seemingly innocuous contacts. It seems all a player has to do these days if anyone comes near him, is to stop, turn around to the ref and put his hands up, and he usually get's a free kick awarded. On occasion, the 'offending' player might even get a yellow card, which I find quite laughable.

I also have a problem when two players are running side by side for a ball and one of the players makes a perfect contact with the ball, pushing it over the touchline, causing the other player to fall over the first players legs.

How in God's name is that classed as a foul if the first player has made a perfect contact with the ball?

That never used to be the case. If your tackle was clean, there was no problem. So does the referees association make up it's own laws these days?

Modern football is really starting to wind me up, and the pathetic histrionics of the players is really starting to get to me too.

Rant over. :censored:

Dougal · Aug 22, 2016

Any challenge that looked like it required some thought and effort is now a free kick. Some of the free kicks over the weekend were ridiculous. It's been happening for years but to remove tackling from the game would be a huge mistake.

Pellshek · Aug 22, 2016

Spurslove said:
Suddenly, it dawned on me that I don't know what a foul is any more.

I think the precise opposite is true; I don't think it's ever been more obvious when a foul is a yellow or red card.

In the old days - as recently as the 90's I guess - the matter of yellow and red cards was hugely arbitrary and mysterious. Sometimes you'd get a yellow, sometimes you wouldn't.

Nowadays though, how often are you watching a match, see a foul and immediately shout "that's a yellow!". And 9 times out of 10 the ref agrees. There's a consistency and clarity to it that simply wasn't there in the past, such that I'd contend it's now pretty clear when a foul is a yellow or red and when it's not

Of course, there's no such thing as perfect consistency, but IMO it's more consistent today than it's ever been.

Drink!Drink! · Aug 22, 2016

unless of course the foul is committed by a man city or arsenal defender in their own box...

Gassin's finest · Aug 22, 2016

This is one of the many reasons why I only really pay attention to Spurs, and ignore the rest of top flight/european football. Much prefer to go see my local team in the lower leagues.

Syn_13 · Aug 22, 2016

The one that's confusing me is when a ref gives a free kick for a shoulder to shoulder barge. No arms extended, just a test of strength where both players are jostling for the ball. If it's well off the ball then I guess that's more understandable, it's pretty much obstruction unless both players are doing it equally.

Keep on seeing free kicks given for these, usually in favour of the defending team. I used to love a good shoulder to shoulder barge when I was playing football.

I think it was the Everton game. Kane got barged and the defender bounced right off him. Ref gave them the free kick. Couldn't get my head round it.

Tottenham_God · Aug 22, 2016

Syn_13 said:
The one that's confusing me is when a ref gives a free kick for a shoulder to shoulder barge. No arms extended, just a test of strength where both players are jostling for the ball. If it's well off the ball then I guess that's more understandable, it's pretty much obstruction unless both players are doing it equally.

Keep on seeing free kicks given for these, usually in favour of the defending team. I used to love a good shoulder to shoulder barge when I was playing football.

I think it was the Everton game. Kane got barged and the defender bounced right off him. Ref gave them the free kick. Couldn't get my head round it.

Spurslove said:
I was watching some games over the weekend and it seemed to me like free kicks are being given every few seconds by referees and I was getting rather cheesed off with it all.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that I don't know what a foul is any more.

Never before have so many frequent free kicks been given for so many seemingly innocuous contacts. It seems all a player has to do these days if anyone comes near him, is to stop, turn around to the ref and put his hands up, and he usually get's a free kick awarded. On occasion, the 'offending' player might even get a yellow card, which I find quite laughable.

I also have a problem when two players are running side by side for a ball and one of the players makes a perfect contact with the ball, pushing it over the touchline, causing the other player to fall over the first players legs.

How in God's name is that classed as a foul if the first player has made a perfect contact with the ball?

That never used to be the case. If your tackle was clean, there was no problem. So does the referees association make up it's own laws these days?

Modern football is really starting to wind me up, and the pathetic histrionics of the players is really starting to get to me too.

Rant over.

Yep. Its a bad look for the beautiful game, becoming almost a non contact sport. Here in Australia a lot of my knuckle head AFL playing mates call "soccer" a girls game or a "pussy" sport. Its becoming more and more hard to defend against these allegations.

Disconosebleed · Aug 23, 2016

Spurslove said:
I was watching some games over the weekend and it seemed to me like free kicks are being given every few seconds by referees and I was getting rather cheesed off with it all.

Suddenly, it dawned on me that I don't know what a foul is any more.

Never before have so many frequent free kicks been given for so many seemingly innocuous contacts. It seems all a player has to do these days if anyone comes near him, is to stop, turn around to the ref and put his hands up, and he usually get's a free kick awarded. On occasion, the 'offending' player might even get a yellow card, which I find quite laughable.

Referees are starting to pull players up for cynical pulls and trips, which they used to ignore. This is a good thing, not a bad thing.

I also have a problem when two players are running side by side for a ball and one of the players makes a perfect contact with the ball, pushing it over the touchline, causing the other player to fall over the first players legs.

How in God's name is that classed as a foul if the first player has made a perfect contact with the ball?

I can't think of any examples of this happening. In that situation it's a throw-in, if the referee gives a free kick he's just made a mistake, it's not a directive from the top that referees have to give free kicks for no reason.

That never used to be the case. If your tackle was clean, there was no problem. So does the referees association make up it's own laws these days?

By definition, if your tackle is clean there is still no problem. There have been moves in recent years to stamp out the sort of shit that should have been eradicated years ago - ridiculously over-the-top, uncontrolled tackles that happen to take the ball have to be punished, because otherwise those tackles will continue to happen and players will get their legs broken. "But I got the ball" is not an excuse for reckless, uncontrolled tackles.

Considering the amount of defensive cheating that goes on - to the point that the media seem to be struggling to get on board with the new directive allowing referees to give penalties for blatant fouls at corners - it's a good thing that directives are now being put in place with to deal with it.

Your assumption seems to be that moving away from the 'old' style of refereeing is a bad move. It isn't.

Disconosebleed · Aug 23, 2016

Tottenham_God said:
Yep. Its a bad look for the beautiful game, becoming almost a non contact sport. Here in Australia a lot of my knuckle head AFL playing mates call "soccer" a girls game or a "pussy" sport. Its becoming more and more hard to defend against these allegations.

You could defend it by telling them that if violence and machismo is all they care about when it comes to sport, their opinions are probably irrelevant.

There is a problem, as with the Kane incident mentioned earlier, where fair shoulder-to-shoulders are punished unfairly, but I think this is an annoying but understandable case of referees playing it safe by giving the decision the defender's way, because they know a wrong decision in the attacker's favour could lead to a match-defining goal.

npearl4spurs · Aug 23, 2016

Janssen, Dembele, and Kane seem to get so fouls called on them for just being stronger men than everyone else

Tottenham_God · Aug 23, 2016

Disconosebleed said:
You could defend it by telling them that if violence and machismo is all they care about when it comes to sport, their opinions are probably irrelevant.

There is a problem, as with the Kane incident mentioned earlier, where fair shoulder-to-shoulders are punished unfairly, but I think this is an annoying but understandable case of referees playing it safe by giving the decision the defender's way, because they know a wrong decision in the attacker's favour could lead to a match-defining goal.

It's more the theatrics that they find unbearable when a player gets a nic on the ankle which you can tell would no more than sting at best and does a flip and rolls 4 times like he's been shot.. pretty embarrassing and grinds me when I see it myself.
AFL players will have blood streaming out of their head or be knocked out cold after a full on head collision and refuse to show they are hurt and wish to continue playing I'd say this is the main reason for the comments.

I've played cometitive amateur football and loved a shoulder to shoulder sad to see the more powerfully built players be punished

PostmanNat · Aug 23, 2016

npearl4spurs said:
Janssen, Dembele, and Kane seem to get so fouls called on them for just being stronger men than everyone else

Agreed.

Real_madyidd · Aug 23, 2016

Pellshek said:
I think the precise opposite is true; I don't think it's ever been more obvious when a foul is a yellow or red card.

In the old days - as recently as the 90's I guess - the matter of yellow and red cards was hugely arbitrary and mysterious. Sometimes you'd get a yellow, sometimes you wouldn't.

Nowadays though, how often are you watching a match, see a foul and immediately shout "that's a yellow!". And 9 times out of 10 the ref agrees. There's a consistency and clarity to it that simply wasn't there in the past, such that I'd contend it's now pretty clear when a foul is a yellow or red and when it's not

Of course, there's no such thing as perfect consistency, but IMO it's more consistent today than it's ever been.

Rated this "disagree" so thought I would explain:

Whilst you have a point, over the past two weeks we have seen Costa score two winners when he shouldn't have been on the pitch for either goal. We have seen Arsenal - Coquelin (sp?) stay on the pitch even though he has committed multiple fouls. We can all say "oh that's a yellow" and we are correct (as everything is a yellow now) until the ref has to decide "Is that a second yellow?" - if so all bets are off. It's odd. Getting e yellow card should be a warning about future conduct but it has actually become a a licence to kick people.

StockSpur · Aug 23, 2016

Heres mine:

Player (with back to opponents goal anywhere on the pitch) sees ball in air, jumps up to head it somewhere. A player from the other team with absolutely no chance of making contact with ball throws himself up into the air behind first player and smashes forehead into the back of the opponents head who has no chance to defend himself. Both go down, one obviously hurt and the **** obviously pretending and the result is a drop ball restart.

How can this not be foulplay, its fucking dangerous firstly and secondly I think its a deliberate act to do another person harm, thats illegal.

FibreOpticJesus · Aug 23, 2016

Syn_13 said:
The one that's confusing me is when a ref gives a free kick for a shoulder to shoulder barge. No arms extended, just a test of strength where both players are jostling for the ball. If it's well off the ball then I guess that's more understandable, it's pretty much obstruction unless both players are doing it equally.

Keep on seeing free kicks given for these, usually in favour of the defending team. I used to love a good shoulder to shoulder barge when I was playing football.

I think it was the Everton game. Kane got barged and the defender bounced right off him. Ref gave them the free kick. Couldn't get my head round it.

A barge is not good defending it is a foul. If it is pure strength and the shoulders stay in contact then it is not a foul. However, poor refereeing or erroneous decisions like Kane's in the Everton game do make my blood boil. But worse is footy fans that think that a player coming from the side at pace with their shoulder against a player moving in a forward motion is a so called test of strength

BHX88 · Aug 23, 2016

My biggest bugbear is when an attacking player is shielding the ball by the corner flag surrounded by 1 or 2 defenders, and more often than not, the ref will blow for free kick to the defending team, regardless of foul play or not.

rebrab · Aug 23, 2016

FYI on the corner thing, Poch has told the players that anyone who gives away a pen from a set piece a la the weekend will get a 2 week fine.

Anyone who gets booked for talking back to the ref will also face disciplinary action

Pellshek · Aug 23, 2016

Real_madyidd said:
Rated this "disagree" so thought I would explain:

Whilst you have a point, over the past two weeks we have seen Costa score two winners when he shouldn't have been on the pitch for either goal. We have seen Arsenal - Coquelin (sp?) stay on the pitch even though he has committed multiple fouls. We can all say "oh that's a yellow" and we are correct (as everything is a yellow now) until the ref has to decide "Is that a second yellow?" - if so all bets are off. It's odd. Getting e yellow card should be a warning about future conduct but it has actually become a a licence to kick people.

In a weird way, you're proving my point; it was very obvious that Costa should have had a second yellow. (I don't remember the Coquelin incident). The fact we're able to readily agree on that shows, inconsistent application by refs aside, the laws themselves are actually much more consistent & obvious now than they've ever been.

Sandros Shiny Head · Aug 23, 2016

It annoys me when a long ball is played up top and the defender jumps over the striker to head it and the red gives a free kick to the attacking team. Why is it the defenders fault if the attacker didn't jump at all, it's quite dangerous as well as Sagna has done his neck in a few times because of it

Shanks · Aug 23, 2016

Sandros Shiny Head said:
It annoys me when a long ball is played up top and the defender jumps over the striker to head it and the red gives a free kick to the attacking team. Why is it the defenders fault if the attacker didn't jump at all, it's quite dangerous as well as Sagna has done his neck in a few times because of it

More than likely the defender has his arms over the attacker before the ball gets to them - you only see the result, not the actions before.

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