What's Grinding Your Gears - Football Edition

[slartibartfast]

Presumably you've taken a corner kick before? It absolutely helps to have the ball as far away from the flag as possible.

Are you seriously trying to tell me these players are finding it easier to take a corner because of this than the players that had taken them just fine for decades previously?
And yes I could take a corner just fine with the ball on the line and I was utter dog shit so pretty sure a professional footballer can manage it, as they did before this dumbfuckery.
Edit, if you're taking corner and find the flag is in the way then frankly you're doing it wrong.

 

[Spurslove]

It's a spherical ball. It can not be touching the paint and still have part of the ball over the corner arc line.

Er..sorry, that's not clear to me. Why can't the player place the ball anywhere inside the area marked specifically for the purpose of taking a corner, rather than have 99.9999% of the ball outside it?

I can't remember the last time I saw a player place the ball fully inside the little marked area. There's absolutely zero advantage to be gained from placing 99.9999% of the ball outside it, so why can they not do it?

To me, it seems like an impossible puzzle for chimpanzees to figure out and none of them can do it. Weird.

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[Spurslove]

Spot on mate... We are though, discussing corner kick protocol when we really need to debate the 2 points lost yesterday, because of VAR... Off to bed now!!! ??

I was just waiting for someone to start us all of with the VAR debate again. I'm off to bed myself now, but believe you me and everyone else, I'll be back in the morning!! Night night all.

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[SpursTillIDie1882]

This is one of the things I highlighted earlier in the thread. It bugs the hell out of me but I can't really explain why. More often than not, none of the ball, not even any of the paint on it, is touching any molecule of the corner quadrant, and as if that wasn't infuriating enough, the idiot linesman is usually looking straight at it and waves the player on.

Exactly as you say mate, what possible advantage can be gained, sending the ball 30-40 yards into the goalmouth, by not placing the ball where it's supposed to be placed for corners. It's all there, marked out and even so, the players are unable to put the fucking ball where they're supposed to put it. So WTF is stopping them?

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Exactly, and recently ive seen son do it quite a bit this season, when before he wasnt, what worries me is that somehow VAR will find away another way to disallow a spurs goal lol (not that we score many from direct corners, but still )

 

[Delboy75]

I find it quite surprising there aren’t more choreographed set play free kicks in football akin to plays in NFL. 90% of free kicks out side the box in range of the area but to far to shot are still just lumped into the box. With all the technology they have I’m surprised they can’t come up with a few original choreographed patterns of play. I think I saw one from a kick off recently that was great.

 

[Gb160]

Set pieces, mainly Spurs' inability to be even slightly threatening from them.

Free kicks since Eriksen left have just been dreadful, and corners we seem equally toothless at.
Maybe its just me but other teams always seem to pose some some sort of threat.

 

[Marty]

Set pieces, mainly Spurs' inability to be even slightly threatening from them.

Free kicks since Eriksen left have just been dreadful, and corners we seem equally toothless at.
Maybe its just me but other teams always seem to pose some some sort of threat.

Man United have not scored a single goal from a set piece (excl. penalties) this season so I can assure you it isn't just us

Corner takers that can't beat the first man always bug the hell out of me and Eriksen was a huge culprit of that. In the risk/reward stakes you hit an inch perfect corner that perfectly skims over the nearest defender's head maybe 1 in 50 and the other 49 make you look like an idiot. Surely there's a higher chance of a reward by walloping it high into the mixer?

If 12 year old me could get double figures assists from set pieces every season (left footed inswingers, that was the only thing I was good at!) then professional footballers who have thousands of hours of practice should at least manage to create more real chances from set pieces than they actually do.

 

[taidgh]

Man United have not scored a single goal from a set piece (excl. penalties) this season so I can assure you it isn't just us

Corner takers that can't beat the first man always bug the hell out of me and Eriksen was a huge culprit of that. In the risk/reward stakes you hit an inch perfect corner that perfectly skims over the nearest defender's head maybe 1 in 50 and the other 49 make you look like an idiot. Surely there's a higher chance of a reward by walloping it high into the mixer?

If 12 year old me could get double figures assists from set pieces every season (left footed inswingers, that was the only thing I was good at!) then professional footballers who have thousands of hours of practice should at least manage to create more real chances from set pieces than they actually do.

I don't think it's that easy. The alternative to whipping a ball in is to clip in a ball. This gives defenders time to read the flight of the ball and top-level centre backs are tall, too athletic, and too good in the air to concede from those. I was no great footballer, and I'm not all that tall, but I would rarely lose a header from a corner if the ball was floated in.

 

[taidgh]

Are you seriously trying to tell me these players are finding it easier to take a corner because of this than the players that had taken them just fine for decades previously?
And yes I could take a corner just fine with the ball on the line and I was utter dog shit so pretty sure a professional footballer can manage it, as they did before this dumbfuckery.
Edit, if you're taking corner and find the flag is in the way then frankly you're doing it wrong.

Yeah, I am. I think players are finding ways to whip balls in with technique that simply wasn't used 20+ years ago. It's not as easy to whip the ball in when the ball is closer to the corner flag, as you can't wrap your foot around the ball properly. While you may have been able to float a ball in back in the day, I'd guess they were nowhere near what the likes of TAA, Ward-Prowse, and Son are managing to do now.

In any case, can't for the life of me how people have lit upon this as something to be outraged about. What does it matter if the ball is inside the arc or touching it? Seems a proper case of grumping that 'football was better in my day'.

 

[Serpico]

Small things but annoy .

Keepers handling the ball outside the box.
Once the keeper get the ball and defenders run up pitch, the linesmen follows.
At this point (in the past) keepers would take a run, loft the ball and kick it long. They would maximise the penalty area space, often going beyond the line before they release the ball.

Keepers still do it today. Foster did it the other day against us.

Throw ins-on many occasions the players feet are on the line which is a foul throw as the ball is off the pitch.

By the refs giving up a lot os small things it overall undermines their authority.

 

[Spurslove]

I was just waiting for someone to start us all of with the VAR debate again. I'm off to bed myself now, but believe you me and everyone else, I'll be back in the morning!! Night night all.

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Right. VAR again. I've been under the impression for many many years that if a goal is scored and the player who scores it is level with the last defender, then the benefit of the doubt is afforded to the player who scored the goal and the goal would stand.

Along comes VAR and suddenly, we're talking about millimetres. The refs who devised VAR must have all sat round a table and decided that the idea that a player scoring a goal, deemed to be level with the last defender should be scrapped, and millimetres between the attacker and the last defender should be the deciding factor.

If there is still such a thing as 'the spirit of the game' this is certainly not within it.

Let's bear in mind too, that Kanes wonderful goal at St Marys was given as a goal by the ref but clearly, the millimetre Gods have over-ruled him. So, the question has to be, why was the ref not asked to go and check the pitch side monitor and decide for himself whether he was right to award the goal or wrong because the computer has decided that Kane's toenail was a few millimetres off side?

Again, if there is still such a thing as 'the spirit of the game' this is certainly not within it.

And why was the ref not asked to go check the monitor for the Forster own goal, which by all accounts, should have stood as there was no clear foul against him? (Again, the over protection of goalies has grown to ridiculous proportions over the years).

The ultimate question has to be, who exactly is refereeing matches these days? Who has the ultimate authority to say yay or nay?

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[SixtyFour]

If there is still such a thing as 'the spirit of the game' this is certainly not within it.

I hear you load and clear. The offside law is there because the spirit of the game is that you have to run, dribble or pass through the opposition to get near their goal, not lump the ball up to a gaggle of your beefier team-mates lurking menacingly around the opposition keeper. The offside rule that helps codify that was written for human eyes and ears. The current VAR re-interpretation is a tiresomely slow mess, dreamed up by a bunch of technocrats who - wild guess - iron their underpants.

Another of the 703 things that grind my gears about VAR offsides is that in the case of these “level to the human eye” decisions VAR actually makes things statistically worse doesn't it? I mean, 100% of them should be onside, as written in the laws of the game. Level is onside. But once the VAR team have fiddled around with their armpit finders and coloured lines and quantum probabilities, something approaching 50% of them will be judged marginally offside. Now take your average belly-wobbling, parks-football assistant ref. If they simply guess, and flag 50% of these tight cases offside, they pretty much match that. But if they even call say 20% correctly, judging the players to be level, then they are actually doing better.

 

[Spurslove]

I hear you load and clear. The offside law is there because the spirit of the game is that you have to run, dribble or pass through the opposition to get near their goal, not lump the ball up to a gaggle of your beefier team-mates lurking menacingly around the opposition keeper. The offside rule that helps codify that was written for human eyes and ears. The current VAR re-interpretation is a tiresomely slow mess, dreamed up by a bunch of technocrats who - wild guess - iron their underpants.

Another of the 703 things that grind my gears about VAR offsides is that in the case of these “level to the human eye” decisions VAR actually makes things statistically worse doesn't it? I mean, 100% of them should be onside, as written in the laws of the game. Level is onside. But once the VAR team have fiddled around with their armpit finders and coloured lines and quantum probabilities, something approaching 50% of them will be judged marginally offside. Now take your average belly-wobbling, parks-football assistant ref. If they simply guess, and flag 50% of these tight cases offside, they pretty much match that. But if they even call say 20% correctly, judging the players to be level, then they are actually doing better.

My friend, your graphic depiction would rank very highly in my list of quotes of the year (if I only had such a thing).

What referees have done to the game with their evil purpose-built weapon called VAR is nothing short of criminal. If there was such a thing as the spirit of the game, VAR has murdered and cremated it.

People say 'these decisions even themselves out over the season' but they shouldn't have to. All the close calls, such as the one we were discussing with Kane on Tuesday, should be made within the spirit of the game. That's all we ask, which apparently these days, is asking the impossible.

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[SpursTillIDie1882]

Players constantly deliberately kicking the ball away when their team concedes a free kick or deliberately standing infront of the ball to stop a free kick taken swiftly, therefore taking a big element of the advantage of being awarded the free kick ... What makes it worse is REFs do bugger all, when they have been explicitly given the authority to book players for this, especially for kicking the ball away. The distance kicked is immaterial whether its 100 yards or 3 yards away from the spot of the foul/play.

 

[Spurslove]

I'm going to nominate teams who choose to 'play the ball out from the back' despite being no bloody good at it, especially against teams whose modus operandi is to press the ball and close down the play at every opportunity. It doesn't bloody work and it serves you bloody right for getting caught in possession in and around your own goal area!

FFS!

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[Chezaspur]

Goalkeepers making a comfortable catch/save and then throwing themselves to the ground. Even Hugo's doing it.

 

[easley91]

Players who claim something awful and sinister happened to them when it was either a pure accident or nothing at all. Using tonight as an example - Cavani claiming he got elbowed when he was just brushed by fingers on the cheek.

 

[Delboy75]

Sky wheeling out experts on THFC that were barely even 1st team regulars and had about 50 appearances like Ramon Vega.

 

[PCozzie]

Not my gears being grinded (ground?), but Sean Dyche is having absolutely none of these namby-pamby, hoity-toity, so-called footballers.

 

[Spurslove]

Players who claim something awful and sinister happened to them when it was either a pure accident or nothing at all. Using tonight as an example - Cavani claiming he got elbowed when he was just brushed by fingers on the cheek.

This is one of my biggest issues with the modern day football. Cheating is now very much a part of the game. All players cheat throughout the 90+ minutes at some time or another to gain an advantage by conning the officials. It sickens me that the game has morphed into what it is today, with players blatantly cheating to get their fellow professionals booked or, in some cases, even sent off. What's just as bad, is when a player blatantly cheats to con the ref and get's ignored, he goes bonkers and starts throwing his arms around with mad bulging eyes in an absolute rage.

That's entertainment folks!

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