2025-26 UEFA Champions League - See Mod Note Post 1

Its bizarre the side that benefit most from refs seem to think the refs are against them.

What tactics do you think will be outlawed?

If grappling and shoving are clamped down on, does that not also favour Arsenal ? I mean, they are bloody good in the air even if people like to pretend their prowess at corners is some sort of conspiracy. Arsenal not being allowed to grapple in the box also means other teams not being allowed to grapple them, so how does a rule change hurt them ?

Just looking at it that’s 8 fairly crap finals in a row after last night. Must be due an absolute cracker. Madrid 3 Liverpool 1 being the last decent one and even that was just a horror show by an individual player and Bale’s golazo.

Clamping down on pulling and dragging will affect Arsenal more negatively from the defensive side of things as they are worse than anyone for it. But it might also help them from an attacking point of view. I don’t know how the refs allowed Saliba game after game to just make it his business to crash into the opposition keeper. Especially after the incident at Old Trafford on the opening weekend. And one Arsenal player always throws himself to the ground when defending corners. They have mastered the current rules and everyone else is annoyed about it. They tried to catch up and now we have the meat wall, the legacy of English refs not willing to make calls. Arsenal were right to do it, they saw a way to get an edge and took it. But it remains to be seen whether any clampdown will hurt them.

Always remember Dida diving the same way, to his right, for all 5 penalties he faced in the 2005 CL final

Wasn't a terrible tactic, 3 out of the 5 penalties went to that side and he saved 2 of them. Hamann's was just a little too high but wasn't top corner or anything

FIFA have introduced some new rules for the WC which should also be brought in for the PL. 10 seconds for a sub to come off is one that I like.

What happens if they are injured or pretend to be ?

The referee can also initiate a countdown for restarts which would have been very handy in the Champions League final.

Important exception is if the injury was caused by an offence which led to a yellow/red card.

In that case the 'fouled' team isn't penalised by either the 10 second sub rule, or the 60 second rule.

So they are making efforts to avoid unfairness to injured players. It still leaves some holes though - on a quick read it seems as if something like a hamstring injury when no-one touched you will lead to your team not being able to make a sub for 60 seconds.

“The killers spent more time in psgs half than arsenal did over the whole match”

They were time wasting taking a throw in at end of first half. Delighted for rice and all the day trippers.

As ever always amusing seeing the english lose

Do you think they'll be catapulted out of the stadium?

Obviously the referee has discretion. If a player is genuinely injured they can get their treatment on the field before leaving no matter how long it takes and the substitute replaces them before the restart.

If the player with the broken leg wants to come back he'll have to wait a minute to crawl back on but otherwise it has no effect.

Hard to avoid the feeling though that if rule changes don't hurt Arsenal, people will still find a reason to be annoyed. The fact is: Rice and Saka's deliveries are incredibly consistent so no rule change is going to change that. Arsenal are a big, strong, tall team which makes them hard to handle in the air — again a rule change isn't going to change that.

I have no issue with banning grappling though one thing I will say is that grappling also gives smaller players a way of taking on bigger players in the box. In a straight up jumping contest where there is zero tolerance of grappling, players like Gabriel (6'3"), Saliba (6'4"), Havertz (6'4"), Merino (6'2"), Calafiori (6'2"), Mosquera (6'3"), Rice (6'2") etc would have even more of an advantage and the only way to even those odds would be for opponents to stack their teams with big men too.

How? They'd have to stay off the field for at least a minute before returning.

Well then the time spent limping off will be added on. The rules arent about penalising genuinely injured players. They dont expect someone with a broken leg to be just dragged off the pitch by their hair. Its to stop the fake injuries.

I have zero issue with Arsenal being so defensively solid or focusing on set pieces to score. The amount of focus the entire team keeps through games is very impressive - not many could contain PSG as effectively as they did.

What I hate about the team is the amount of antics they get up to outside of the rules. Going overly slowly to put the ball back into play, grabbing at set pieces, rolling onto the pitch(or shoving injured opponents off the pitch), loosening keeper gloves etc. This is one of the biggest clubs in the world with some of the best players in it - so it’s awful to watch them spend so much time focusing on winding up their opponent rather than focus on creating opportunities for themselves through football.

Would love to see rules brought in to discourage time wasting and to stop the nonsense that happens at corners. They feel like they’re exploiting loopholes in the rules that are definitely not in the spirit of the game.