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

Sabitzers tackle is described to a T in the first sentence

“A tackle or challenge that endangers the safety of an opponent”

Micced up referees explaining their decisions in-game would be a disaster, and would in fact be a failure for the same reason that VAR is a failure.

Today you have refs making decisions that fans don't agree with. Make that change and tomorrow you will still have refs making decisions that fans don't agree with. The only difference is that now the unhappy fans will have specific ammo for their witch hunt.

The Sabitzer foul today for example, do people really think it would be better if the ref stopped play to explain that he thought there were mitigating factors? Bullshit. The people who thought it should have been a red will still think it should have been a red and the ref will get a torrent of abuse for making a decision that they didn't agree with.

These are subjective decisions and there will always be one side happy and one side sad about the decision made, so none of this technology actually solves the **** problem. Its depressing that the game of football does not seem to understand this concept.

Of course it works. They wouldn’t be doing it if it didn’t work.

It's pretty much the textbook definition. Generally speaking a tackle/challenge of an opponent for the ball that doesn't result in your getting the ball but there is contact with the opponent is what we then call a foul. He went to challenge for the ball, saw he wasn't getting it, pulled out of it but still made contact, hence a foul. Should have been a yellow, if VAR could give a yellow I've no doubt he would have got one.

If he had not been clearly attempting to avoid contact I would imagine VAR would have actually sent him off.

If the ref had just booked him like he should have there wouldn't be much about it, though tbf bar the internet's I suppose there won't actually be much about it.

Did you watch the game or just looking at the still?

It definitely deserved a yellow. If he got a red there couldn’t be many complaints either though

Fair play to MUST for this.

For the sake of the league, you'd hope that this isn't the end of the oppositions and that there are no more statebacked ownerships.

Do you want a league of statebackers having clubs acting as both a sportswashing vehicle and plaything?

It's the Manchester derby this weekend, but really it's Qatar vs Abu Dhabi. It's not a local derby anymore, it's not about the local people. It's about which nation spent the most money. And haven't they done so much great work for the surrounding areas, what a great bunch of lads.

If you can't beat them, join them. Is that it? I wonder how much money North Korea have lying around, will they choose to invest next? Tourism should soar there too if they get club X winning a few trophies. Maybe Putin after that. And then Syria possibly. Ah they'll win us a few leagues, I don't care who they are murdering on a daily basis as it allows me to wear a jersey down the pub again for the first time in 10 years and slag off my mates cos we finished ahead of them in the league table again this season. Mighty stuff.

On a slight tangent, there were many commentators such as Gary Neville in the past few weeks imploring us to remember that "VAR gets a lot more right than it gets wrong". "Don't forget all the decisions it got right". "Nothing is perfect".

Hey Gary, do you know who else got infinitely more decisions right than they got wrong? Referees, before VAR.

So tell me again how this is better?

Just watched MOTD2 and both ex-players, one ex Manchester United, have said that it was "endangering an opponent".

I think he was helped by the fact that there were 3 players on the ground at the time. Sabitzer looked guilty when the camera panned to him.

It looked like the referee was partially unsighted, so this looks like another VAR "bottle" decision to save face for the on field referee.

The BBC and Sky gave Rashford MOTM. I would have gone for De Gea for the 3 saves when the game was 0-0. Maybe they're saving it for his next clean sheet which would have him overtake Schmeichel, who he caught up today.