Premier League 2016/17

[Cornpattbuck]

If anyone now is against video refs (and effective playing time) I will seriously question their football "sanity".
Too much added time, a blatant hand ball in an obvious off-side position with the ref and assistant having a clear view of it all.
On top of that Graham Poll comes out with this nonsense:

GRAHAM POLL'S VERDICT

Referee Craig Pawson couldn’t see the last-minute incident involving Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Laurent Koscielny and even if he had, it is a 50-50 call.

I watched the replays three times and I still don’t know whether it was deliberate handball on Koscielny’s part.

The defender’s arms are only up because he was trying to play the ball with his feet.


And, well, err...surprise-surprise: Wenger did not see the goal! I bet he would if it had been Burnley that socred.

http://www.101greatgoals.com/101ggv...idnt-see-koscielnys-handball-v-burnley-video/


If people still believe the richest football league in the world if free from corrupt refs, well, then think again. The proof was right there for everyone to see.

What the fudge is Poll on about? Since when were you allowed to accidentally handball into the net? What I'm a bit stumped by is where the lino was? Wasn't mentioned by MOTD etc - just the refs positioning...

 

[Gb160]

Lol at the corruption claims, come on lads you're embarrassing yourselves.
Funny how no one questions the integrity of the refs when we get a decision that goes our way.

 

[DIEHARD]

In all honesty it wasnt handball but it was certainly fucking lucky. There is alot of moaning about refs way too much.

 

[UpTownSpur]

Guidolin sacked, Bob Bradley appointed. Stupid decision, deserve to get relegated.

 

[Pellshek]

Bleacher Report on Twitter pointing out that today is Guidolin's birthday. Ouch.

 

[yankspurs]

Bleacher Report on Twitter pointing out that today is Guidolin's birthday. Ouch.

Ooof. That's brutal.

Giggs was the favorite apparently. So im thinking this telegraph sting is about get juicier.

 

[Hans Moleman]

If anyone now is against video refs (and effective playing time) I will seriously question their football "sanity".

While it sounds good in theory, in Australia everyone hates it in the NRL (Rugby League). Refs become reliant on it and refer every small decision to it, it takes up time which can ruin a teams momentum and bores the fans. It also sucks the life right out of the game. The worst thing about it is even after looking at it 10 times they still cant come up with the right call every time.

Although i'm pissed off about the goal yesterday i'm glad there are no video refs.

 

[Marty]

Guidolin sacked, Bob Bradley appointed. Stupid decision, deserve to get relegated.

Those who believe Bradley is a stupid appointment haven't seen his work first hand. I really think he can work at a club like Swansea.

 

[E.L.Strict]

If anyone now is against video refs (and effective playing time) I will seriously question their football "sanity".
Too much added time, a blatant hand ball in an obvious off-side position with the ref and assistant having a clear view of it all.

I'm totally on the corruption bandwagon, but I have to say I can't totally back video refereeing. Mainly because I think there is an increasingly large opportunity for officials to actually improve their performances. AKA "the standard is dropping."

From a non-corruption point of view, I think the officials are so scared of being the decisive factor that they end up being the decisive factor. Hopefully it's the pressure that is on them, rather than anything sinister. Personally I think there are a few things that could be done to improve things enough to not need video refs. For example, making sure refs are in proper shape is a huge one.

Lol at the corruption claims, come on lads your embarrassing yourselves.
Funny how no one questions the integrity of the refs when we get a decision that goes our way.

Aren't people questioning the integrity of refs in games that we aren't even playing in? I see your point, but the problem is we all see a lot more of Spurs than of any other team, and so the majority of our reactions are going to be based on those. Secondly, unless you watch whole matches, you're unlikely to get the whole story. If you watched our match vs Liverpool then you may think the referee was awful because he didn't send Mane off. If you just watched MotD then you wouldn't even be aware of this issue because I don't think they even touched on it. Same with our match vs Middlesborough and Danny Rose's farcical yellow for handball and our unsuccessful penalty claims. No mention on MotD. You might think that the ref vs City was awful for not sending off Sterling, but again I think MotD didn't address this. I'm not saying that they SHOULD have made a big deal of these events, but trying to point out that you really have to watch the 90 minutes in order to gauge the referees performance.

Also, I actually think that the integrity of officials was being mentioned last season, and even when we were getting the rub of the green, which we did most of the year. There were two occasions when Dier ridiculously avoided a second yellow card, once against Chelsea and once I think against Arsenal. Both right under the nose of the ref, and both imo clear, clear second yellows. The officials helped us rob Man City twice last season, with a combination of farcical offside calls and a debatable penalty. Obviously the Chelsea game also had 2 or 3 other clear reds right under the noses of officials which weren't given. Even though we benefitted, it definitely didn't seem fair. Just off the top of my head that's 4 massive matches where arguably got an unfair advantage. The Dier reds are especially unexplainable, imo, given the position of the officials.

I agree that you can see a difference in the way things are discussed depending on whether they were for or against us (or for against a rival,) but that in itself makes the discussion look more biased than it is. When we benefit or our rivals lose out then everyone is laughing and making jokes about how bad a decision it was. People are still saying the decision was bad, it's just less of "a thing" because people aren't ranting.

It's the same with things like Bale's sudden physical transformation, our decision to tap people's phones, and the mysterious and unexplained spontaneous combustion of Archway. At the time you'd see a lot of jokes and laughing about how dodgy those things looked, compared to the outrage surrounding an incident like Lasagne-gate. I don't think that people believe ONLY lasagne-gate was dodgy, and I don't think that people think that dodgy decisions ONLY go against us, it's just that people genuinely feel differently about these events.

But yes, I do think it would help if more of the people who now believe there is corruption in the League started actively looking for it instead of waiting for it to come to games that involve us or our rivals.

I think the first way that people will suspect corruption is when it costs their team. I know that for me personally, it was the lasagne. But I was still so focussed on Spurs, and Spurs being screwed that even though I was now a fully fledged conspiracy guy, the following year Calciolpoli went right over my head and I remember being confused as to why some big Italian teams were in Serie B on Football Manager. So clearly I wasn't really paying attention. But then over time there were things that stayed in my head that didn't involve Spurs, like Barcelona's refs, especially sending off Van Persie that time, the sudden rise and dominance of Spanish sportsmen, Torres' remarkable decline, Wenger's comments about blood values and possible draw fixing, and so on.

Then it became about looking back, particularly at Wenger's early career and seeing that the French match-fixing scandal was why he went to Japan, taking the whistle blower with him and employing him to his day. The relevance of all those events to Platini. Then about what happened in Italy, and then things that I had watched at the time but not thought about, like South Korea's run in that World Cup. Or those recorded comments by that Triesman guy who was mentioning the idea that Spain were somehow colluding with Russia to bribe referees at that year's tournament. The idea that the 2014 world cup draw was fixed by Valcke, at that time an "innocent" man.

I was a bit suspicious about Fergie's final season where United seemed to get "aided" to go on win the league with ease. Then last year Leicester happened - and obviously there is no way in hell, having already considered what I've considered, and read what I've read, that I can believe that it was legitimate. Now since April there has been this "drip, drip, drip" of stories, that doesn't look good. First a little bit about the possibility of doping, then a little bit that brings into question the integrity of officials, and now a little bit about under the table deals and hidden ownership of players. Not to mention this is all sandwiched between the news of the governing body of the entirety of football being totally corrupt, and news about state sponsored doping in Olympics and TUE abuse by athletes.

At this point I'm 100% sure that if there isn't corruption in football then I've permanently ruined it for myself by considering it in detail. Seeing as it may not be, it could be worth ignoring totally. Just a word of warning lol.

 

[kazzah9]

https://twitter.com/GerrardsPrime/status/782563327654391809

wtf?

 

[Hazardousman]

If anyone now is against video refs (and effective playing time) I will seriously question their football "sanity".
Too much added time, a blatant hand ball in an obvious off-side position with the ref and assistant having a clear view of it all.
On top of that Graham Poll comes out with this nonsense:

GRAHAM POLL'S VERDICT

Referee Craig Pawson couldn’t see the last-minute incident involving Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain and Laurent Koscielny and even if he had, it is a 50-50 call.

I watched the replays three times and I still don’t know whether it was deliberate handball on Koscielny’s part.

The defender’s arms are only up because he was trying to play the ball with his feet.


And, well, err...surprise-surprise: Wenger did not see the goal! I bet he would if it had been Burnley that socred.

http://www.101greatgoals.com/101ggv...idnt-see-koscielnys-handball-v-burnley-video/


If people still believe the richest football league in the world if free from corrupt refs, well, then think again. The proof was right there for everyone to see.

The second you question if corruption exists in the game you are met with funny ratings on here or told you are a conspiracy nut LOL.

I can't understand the logic of people that seem to think that the premier league or a sport with billions invested into it is free of corruption, why is it so far fetched? It's not like people are saying aliens are going to come down and give us all an anal probe.

Football has been rife with corruption for years, just because nobody has the bollocks to dig deep enough to show it up means nothing, even Mark Halsey said the PGMOL was dictating what ref's did in the league, asking them to say they didn't see incidents when they did.

I mean the fergie years were evidence enough, it keeps happening because people sit and laugh and cast it aside as ridiculous, well the reality is the jokes on the fans who have that attitude because the corruption is ruining football games that people pay good money to watch.

Of course this is just my opinion but I feel it's a little bit ridiculous to cast it aside as some conspiracy nonsense considering all the evidence.

 

[Hazardousman]

Lol at the corruption claims, come on lads you're embarrassing yourselves.
Funny how no one questions the integrity of the refs when we get a decision that goes our way.

I literally slammed the ref in the game when we played Middleborough... and we won that game.

I don't know where you get the idea that people are ok with it if things are "going our way" I have been wanting video tech for years, unrelated to us.

 

[Hazardousman]

http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/former-premier-league-referee-mark-8760242

This is exactly what I thought happened with Dembele, the eye gouge was right in front of the official and he was looking directly at it imo and yet he got a retrospective ban.

https://www.theguardian.com/footbal.../2016/mar/04/referees-premier-league-silenced

^Another interesting article worth a read.

 

[Gb160]

I literally slammed the ref in the game when we played Middleborough... and we won that game.

Did you? Thought they would've shown that on the telly.

 

[nightgoat]

Also, I actually think that the integrity of officials was being mentioned last season, and even when we were getting the rub of the green, which we did most of the year. There were two occasions when Dier ridiculously avoided a second yellow card, once against Chelsea and once I think against Arsenal. Both right under the nose of the ref, and both imo clear, clear second yellows. The officials helped us rob Man City twice last season, with a combination of farcical offside calls and a debatable penalty. Obviously the Chelsea game also had 2 or 3 other clear reds right under the noses of officials which weren't given. Even though we benefitted, it definitely didn't seem fair. Just off the top of my head that's 4 massive matches where arguably got an unfair advantage. The Dier reds are especially unexplainable, imo, given the position of the officials.

Just to add something to that Arsenal game, the move for Sanchez's equaliser started with a Giroud header from an offside position. I was in the East upper directly in line with where he was and could clearly see it. Watching the game back afterwards, when the ball was played forwards to him BT were showing a replay, or a close up or something so they missed it. MotD didn't mention it either, but a whole load of people who were sat in the East or West stands would have seen the offside and that the goal shouldn't have stood, but it was totally ignored from all coverage of the game.

 

[davidmatzdorf]

I literally slammed the ref in the game when we played Middlesbrough...

WTF were you doing on the pitch?

And why weren't you nicked?

And when are you going to stop misusing the word "literally"?

 

[davidmatzdorf]

Here's an oddity about our results so far this season.

If you compare them to the first 7 matches of last season, we are 5 points ahead of last season's tally.

If you compare them to the corresponding matches last season (Middlesbrough = Norwich City), then not only do we have the same points tally, but every result has been the same:

• Home wins against Palace, Sunderland & Man City
• Home draw against Liverpool
• Away wins against Stoke & Middlesbrough/Norwich
• Away draw against Everton

Statistically a bit anomalous.

Last season we drew our next match, away to West Brom. Our 8th match was also a draw, away to Swansea.

 

[spurs9]

In all honesty it wasnt handball but it was certainly fucking lucky. There is alot of moaning about refs way too much.

Even if we accept that it isn't handball, surely it is offside?

 

[DIEHARD]

Even if we accept that it isn't handball, surely it is offside?

I thought that at first glance but infact koscielny himself, and not Ox, who kicked the ball against his arm. So it definitely wasnt offside although you can certainly argue that Ox was interfering in play.

 

[mstill13]

He kicked it at himself. It was VERY flukey. But not offside or a deliberate handball.