General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

You're not.

It's not the primary reason he was bought. His feet are more important to how Ten Hag would ideally like to play. And not every keeper is prime Alisson or Neuer who can do both.

Onana will let in stuff the best shot stoppers won't. But the idea is that he makes the team better at progressing the ball.

Whatever about Eth's comments on the Hojlund/Gabriel incident (i think it a penalty) or Gabriel stopping Evans from getting out to Rice (its debatable, both at it), his comments about the Garnacho offside infuriate. The system accounts for angle. Everyone should know it. Unless there is a player the VAR just hasn't seen, which has happened, if it says they are off, they are off.

Overall I thought United probably did enough to get a draw. Disappointing we couldn't snatch it with a late winner, never mind conceding two and losing it!

Taking Varane, Martinez, Shaw and Mount out of the starting line up makes things difficult. Hojlund and Amrabat will make a difference. Mainoo too, imo, when he comes back.

The difference I found with ETH is that he was adamant that every decision went against him - and he chose to list them without prompting. Even the offside, which i found particularly mad. He doesn't normally come across like that. He seemed genuinely hard done by, and I genuinely felt it was a weird look. It came across as straw clutching.

I think he's frustrated. I think his recruitment team screwed him. He wanted the likes of Amrabat quicker. He has annoying injuries to deal with. He still has Maguire. He still had to play Martial. And then he has a painful last minute loss to deal with, and the frustrations cut loose in the form of moaning a bit too much about everything.

Antony now in a spot of bother after allegedly assaulting his girlfriend.

There are some pictures on Reddit of her hands...I haven't seen them but juding by the comments they are not for the faint of heart

Yes, I think refs are swayed by public opinion and are afraid to make calls that will see them attacked in the press all week. So managers putting pressure on the ref, feeding the media love of crapping on them, has a real world impact on the pitch, imo.

I don't buy in to the conspiracy level stuff aimed at referees and whether they are giving favourable / unfavourable decisions consistently to certain teams on a somewhat conscientious level. Fans of clubs who are involved in high stakes games, whether it be a knockout game or a game involving teams in a title challenge, will always focus on and react more strongly to decisions made in those games. If they think there is a pattern then cry conspiracy. I think what VAR has shown, much to everyone's frustration, is that the standard of refereeing in the EPL is extremely poor and wildly inconsistent from one referee to another. The referees are simply being exposed now to far more scrutiny.

The reffing team that didn't give Wolves a penalty were hammered by the media for a week and dropped from PL games the following match day.

Did the reffing team that didn't give United a penalty for the Romero hand ball receive the same treatment? Or missed Pellestri getting clipped from behind in the box in the same match?

I can't believe people don't think refs are swayed at all by public discourse. Guess y'll don't feel home crowds can yield any pressure either. Wonder if these same people think Fergie never had any sway over a ref either....

I think it is present girl friend, but didn't have any idea about there being two pending/open cases.

United really great at picking players with the right attitude. Christ. Just burn the club to the ground.

Can't stand Sky taking the pìss out of fans leaving early when they schedule games where your only options are leave early or wait until 6am for a train. Maybe not the case for yesterday but they're always at it.

I don't think you can compare penalties awarded across teams. There's so many variables such as possession spent in opposition box and type of players involved in incidents.

I agree that the refereeing errors tend to balance themselves out. But the issue with that is there's a big difference in missing out on a penalty when 3-0 up or in another game when it's all square in thhr last minute.