General Premier League Thread 2022-23 - mod note in OP 12/03/23

jacool

In other news, seeing Dyche in the crowd at Forest-Leicester made me put a sneaky tenner on Rodgers at 14s in the sack race. 🙂

Fitz*

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110089#Comment_120110089

No, he is not shooting. But we know that now, after the fact. At the time, he was shimmying over the ball, and at the split second time, the keeper will have to react to those body movements in real time and act accordingly - set his feet for a shot etc.

https://twitter.com/PetrCech/status/1614268394282389506?t=s7uhO2NH0RQmvJ_MqYaASA&s=19

IMO, if you run towards the ball as if you are going to play it, you are interfering with play. If you are standing offside but stand still, then you are clearly trying to not interfere. You can't just stand offside, shield the ball while it's moving and let someone else shoot at the last second.

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110105#Comment_120110105

What's especially maddening though, is that goals like today, or Mo's last week, are left to stand -- and meanwhile, guys who have half a pinky toe offside, with absolutely no advantage whatsoever from their position, are flagged. If you literally can't see if someone is offside with your own eyes, then they're obviously not having a clear advantage.

It's all backwards - the point of the offside rule is to stop goals coming from players in advantageous positions. We could all see the advantage gained by Liverpool and Utd respectively by players standing in offside decisions, benefitting from defenders having to take their existence into account.

So, if we want to have an attacking free-for-all, grand, but adjust the rest of the rule to match and make it so you have to be fully beyond the last defender to be offside. Having half the rule be super conservative while the other half is super liberal just doesn't make any sense.

TherapyBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110105#Comment_120110105

That step Akanji takes to make sure Rashford is offside is all that’s needed to disallow the goal. If Rashford isn’t there to force Akanji to take the step you could argue that he’d have reached the ball before Bruno.

astrofool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110146#Comment_120110146

Bruno came from an onside position, all the step meant that Rashford couldn't touch it, Akanji still has to react to Bruno regardless.

StringerBell

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110128#Comment_120110128

I actually agree with most of this, and said so at the time. It doesn't "feel" right at all for that to not be called offside but I'll take it. Any fan would when it goes for you naturally but it just isn't in the spirit of the game it something less stupid sounding maybe if that's a bit too much.

The issue is more with the rule of course not any particular team gaining advantage or being hard done by it.

Rashford is involved in that bit of play, he is a big part of the goal whether he touches the ball or not, whether he directly impedes an opponent touching the ball or not but it isn't his fault that the rules are what they are.

Delighted it got us back on level footing and we managed to go on and secure a massive victory.

nullzero

Naughty Manchester United winning football matches.

Go back to being the worst run club in the league and hurry up about it please.

TherapyBoy

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110172#Comment_120110172

The step also added a movement away from the direction of play for Akanji.

Take Rashford off the pitch for that piece of play. If that same ball is played forward & Rashford isn’t there to chase it, Akanji doesn’t take a step to play him offside.

The issue isn’t whether Bruno is on or offside (very much onside from what I’ve seen), it’s whether an offside offensive player causes a defending player to act or react.

It doesn’t matter now anyway, the game is all said & done. Well done Man Utd, a good result!

Drumpot

In fairness, I’d be confident that most long term Pool forum members know I’m not trying to wind anybody up. Just genuinely surprised at how bad things appear to be at Pool recently.

ShamoBuc

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110261#Comment_120110261

We've been saying it for a while. It's like the perfect storm in lots of ways, loss of form, injuries and not buying midfielders is catching up with us.

Many pool fans won money betting on Brighton today I reckon. Once our outlet and chaos maker Nunez was not going to be involved, we knew we wouldn't get anything today, but we were worse than we feared though.

Avon8

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120108308#Comment_120108308

Tony Bloom strikes again. Picks far from the obvious option for the second time running, this time even moreso, and nails it again.

Already the most successful man in history at analysing football, he now looks to be one of the most successful at the actual running of football also

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110113#Comment_120110113

The sack race is shaping up to be the Dyche race.

Will_I_Amnt

Benitez had an Everton record only marginally better than Lampard who most people cannot believe hasn't been sacked.syey. Jeez. As for him being a proven PL manager....bar one season out of many where he finished second in the PL what else has he done in that league?? Anyone would think Liverpool, Newcastle and Chelsea hadn't all sacked.him too!

~Rebel~

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110431#Comment_120110431

Neither Newcastle nor Chelsea sacked him… Chelsea was a “til seasons end” contract, and he won the Europa league with them. Their fans hated him from before he joined so he was never going to be there longer than that short term deal, which was completed. (Everton should’ve learned from that one - even if he’s a good manager, it’s very hard to win over fans if they have pre-existing hatred from his successes elsewhere).

And Newcastle were trying to tie him to a new deal, which he rejected because Ashley refused to provide transfer funds. So he chose to leave when his contract ended - their fans loved him and wanted him to stay.

He also did an obviously good job at Liverpool, which fell apart a bit at the end with Hicks and Gillette steering the club into bankruptcy, and Hodgson. Nothing but good will from Liverpool fans for Rafa though.

He was also sacked from Everton with them 6 points clear of relegation, in 15th - as opposed to joint last as they currently are.

The fella has plenty of flaws, but your post is just miles away from the real world - I can only assume you just don’t like the guy or something.

NIMAN

I see Chelsea are about to hijack Arsenal's move for Mudryk.

Does he not play on the left side, same as Felix? Another example of Chelsea buying the wrong type of player to one they actually need?

breezy1985

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110275#Comment_120110275

I don't think Nunez has done nearly enough yet to prove he would have changed the result of a 3-0 loss.

El Gato De Negocios

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110542#Comment_120110542

The XG stats probably would have been off the charts though.

y0ssar1an22

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110089#Comment_120110089

i was told that when i was like 6...play the whistle.

GoldFour4

Watching MOTD this morning. I can’t understand how Rashford doesn’t interfere with play for the Bruno goal regardless of how much it’s discussed (I’m completely impartial to both teams).

He’s effectively shielding the ball for him and continues his run as if he’s going to play it - under the guidance for officials to not raise the flag until after the chance the city defenders have to stay with him.

pjohnson

I see since Everton fans couldn't get the the board they started confronting their own players instead. Classy.

You'd think they'd be happy with the much demanded modern manager Lampard playing the game the "right way".

jacool

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110582#Comment_120110582

When you were 6, the flag went up. Back then, all that time ago(!!) football was a lot more Shankley-esque. "if you are not interfering with play, what the hell are you doing on the field in the first place?"

Defending will react by becoming a blacker art to regain some balance. Yesterday was the first time I saw lots of off-the-wall blocking by defenders stopping strikers when balls were being played back to their keepers. Players will always learn and adapt, we, the fans will go mad!!

One bright light out there, Thomas Frank. Here's hoping things don't go all Potter-y on him. He can't do anything wrong currently and the club looks to be flying. I'm aware of the Toney thing, but not a time line for any ban.

doc_17

I was forwarded a clip of TAA being flagged offside in the match yesterday, someone took a shot for outside the box, TAA was out wide and clearly offside. The ball deflected in his direction and he followed it out for a throw and was flagged offside. Even though he wasn’t shielding it or racing with a defender. The officials even have a clean divergence in what they think the rules are so hopefully Webb will sort that from happening again.

GoldFour4

This is shaping up to be cracker of a season at both ends of the table. Relegation in particular is very open.

SlickRic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110179#Comment_120110179

This is the correct take. Everyone knows this is the correct take, but tribalism stops some people.

Every fan takes the decision going for their team, but they know its nonsense. Same as the Salah one.

What you can't shy away from is Utd took full advantage, and City do as they sometimes do in these situations and capitulate for 5 minutes.

eh i dunno

Hard to believe Dyche is going to be in so much demand this week

nullzero

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110724#Comment_120110724

If he goes to Everton he can call the fans out for a fight at his first presser.

pjohnson

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110736#Comment_120110736

Doubt he plays the "right way". They'll demand someone who keeps Lampards "right way" ethos intact.

SlickRic

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110666#Comment_120110666

The issue yesterday in the derby wasn't the officials on the pitch. They came to the correct conclusion.

VAR interpreted the situation a very particular way and overturned.

Fitz*

Apologies for the poor image but I just wanted to mock something up, just on the topic of offside.

The team is black have the ball and are attacking high up the pitch. They are recycling the ball, and the left back passes backwards towards the centre back. But he over hits it, and the attacker in blue, who is in an offside position races through in on goal and scores.

Should that be an offside? The tracker didn't really influence the defenders pass, he just took advantage of it being a bad one.

Then, that is similar to the Salah goal last week where he was stood in an offside position but the defender also took the last touch to play the ball to him. But this time, the argument is that the defender played the ball because Salah was standing there and tried to clear it, not knowing that he was actually offside. He probably was influence.

But then how do you prove influence?

Then you have the Rashford incident yesterday.

Are we really at a stage where there is going to have to be 3 or 4 clearly written different offside rules and variations with multiple scenarios included to try and have standards set for 'influence'.

thebaz

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120110845#Comment_120110845

I know we are in a **** dark place - but are Everton fans the only ones that dislike negative Pullis style football ??