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

Haaland's explicit tweet warrants a lengthy ban . There was a lot of parents being asked what the meaning of Wt* when it was tweeted by their childrens hero .

If anything he'll get in trouble because his "Wtf" tweet is also sharing illegal stream footage of the match.

It's easily top 20, arguably it's second behind the offside that never was, amazingly the same ref as well. If the roles were reversed and it happened against Spurs people would be calling it corruption. There's just no justification at all for the ref to blow his whistle to award the free in that situation.

I dont see any problem.

I know and I do think he was pretty mich blameless for the offside, it's just kinda funny he's the same ref for two of the most bizarre and unexplainable incidents happening this season.

PL players and managers are getting worse each season. The rant by Arteta, the behaviour of Haaland yesterday, it's completely unacceptable and completely OTT. It should not be tolerated and if the PL are serious about respect for officials they need to come down hard. Of course their track record is far from consistent in this matter so I won't hold my breath.

As for yesterday Haaland would want to take a look at himself as to why they didn't win the game. He made far more mistakes than the referee!

As much as I enjoy seeing City get some decisions actually go against them there is no defending that call by the ref.

He plays advantage and City use that advantage to generate a ball through the spurs defence - at this stage the ref has no business making a call on if Jack Grealish has the speed to go through on goal or not. Once the ball is played by a city player forward that is them taking their advantage and the game moves on.

From there he can only stop play for another foul or offside - which did not happen. It's a shocking call

I see next manager to go manager has been pulled by the bookies. Heckingbottom must be on the verge of the chop

it's nowhere near 2nd. Wolves have had 2 decisions worse in the last month.

it was abysmal, but there is logic. if everyone just takes a step back, he clearly did not realise that the Haaland ball was going perfectly into Grealish's path, and he didn't want them to lose the advantage. whether he misjudged the flight of the ball, or whether he didn't see Grealish at all, I don't know.

now, it was crap. he got it horrendously wrong. but it was nowhere near corruption.

the rumour is Doku got a knock.

i will say, City's general reaction after the game to the terrible refereeing decision was excellent bar Haaland acting like a 10-year old. Bernardo rather blamed the team's performance, Dias said it was a bad mistake (and that's pretty much it) and Pep refused to say anything.

so fair play to them.

That happens often enough the ref blowing up when the advantage is in play. I'd hardly hang him out to dry over it.

However the same ref made the highest profile error I've seen, the fact he is in charge of the PL game of the weekend is farcical.

Anyone know who Haaland brushed shoulders with when he was storming off, hair down? Looked deliberate by the other party and Haaland turned around (when he knew he was well past him) giving a mouthful.

Yeah, way way too early to call it back for no advantage. At first, I thought the linesman must have flagged or something but no.

Let the ball be played and if there is no advantage sure come back, but you can't call no advantage when the pass is mid-flight. After that, the game moves on and there is no reason to stop it unless Grealish is offside or another foul happens.

The ref absolutely cannot make a call in that situation to say Grealish didn't have an advantage

With VAR we have seen Refs let play continue on a bit more usually so I just can't get my head around what the ref thought happened that he had to step in. It's so poor.