Other matches 20th to 25th April
City edge past Chelsea 1-0 to reach the FA Cup Final, Chelsea have no-one but themselves to blame, they had some good chances.
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Comments
3 penalty claims by Forest were all turned down. The first, not a pen for me, but, you can't help feeling that if it were Salah it gets given by VAR even if it isn't onfield. It's the old "there's contact, he's entitled to go down" (Sky 6 clubs) versus "there's not enough in it for me, he's gone down too easily" (the rest).
Second incident, the handball by Young. These are given all the time under the current interpretation; his arm is clearly away from the body. Again, Sky 6 clubs definitely get this decision, either onfield or referred by VAR to have another look, and, tbh, these have generally been given this season across the board.
Third incident, well, it's a penalty, and it's a clear and obvious error. I hate that phrasing, as if there's a mistake, regardless of how clear and obvious it is, we should correct it if we're going to use VAR at all. But under any usage, the defender doesn't get the ball and clears out the player, it's a clear penalty. How has the VAR not even sent this to the ref to have another look?
The advantage rugby has is that it's commonplace for refs to look at decisions as they're shown on the big screen (with audio as well for viewers) on a regular basis; the ref gets a second chance to have a look at contentious decisions on a regular basis within each game to confirm or change his own original decision with the benefit of a better view or different angle. In football, a ref is only sent to the screen if his mate, the VAR, sees something he feels he has to call him out on, and, as Mike Dean (was it) even admitted, you sometimes don't want to cause your mate the stress even though you know he's made a mistake.
VAR needs a major overhaul imo.
The offside rule needs changing and it shouldn’t be determined by the size of players’ feet.
Take each contentious decision from each round of Premier league matches in the season finishing up now and employ three of the most experienced Euro referees to view each one online at home in turn and simply submit what they feel the correct decision should be, as best possible without revealing the decision given on the day.
We would get a unanimous or split decision on each call which could then be compared against the actual decision given which would show if any clubs were in receipt or favourable decisions or not. I think it would show the bigger the club the more favourable close calls.
In fact, a quick look shows that, in the 41 matches since he first played, Southampton have 69 points from the 31 matches he's played in (average of 2.22 points per game) compared to just 8 points from the 10 games he missed (average of just 0.8 ppg). In the 10 games he missed, Southampton lost 5 games, compared to losing just 4 matches that he played in; of those 4 losses, 3 were in the first 4 matches he played, and in 2 of those he was classed by Transfermarket as playing CM, rather than DM where he played in all bar one of his other matches.
So, it would seem as though Downes has been pivotal to Southamptom's season, and he's been getting very good reviews on their fan forums too. It will be very interesting to see what we do with him next season. Moyes didn't really seem to give him much of a go, especially not as a DM which seems to be him preferred position this season. If Moyes goes, would a new manager get a better tune out of him, or is the Championship (or maybe lower PL) more his level? Would any money we get for him, should we sell him, be better invested in the squad? What will he want to do, stay where he's playing well and seems to be appreciated, or return to the club he supports but where he may well be mostly on the bench?
Lots of questions, I wonder what the answers will be.
Like so many things it will depend on who comes in as manager. I think it must be 99% certain Moyes is leaving as were he not I could not see how the club wouldn't make clear these stories of us sending jets to bring in people for talks about his job would not have been denied.
And then there were two.
Palace have suddenly found some serious form, their last three matches have see them beat Liverpool, ourselves and now Newcastle.
Salah, since his injury for Egypt hasnt been the same plater and I truly wonder if we are seeing his decline? Perhaps they'll cash in on him and it will be a new no Klopp, Salah (and Mane/Firmino - the great front free IMO) future for Liverpool.
Hate to want Arsenal to win it now (especially with Spurs away next) but ANYONE rather than City! If Arsenal do manage to come through these games and get more points than City it will be some achievement
So somewhere between 6th and 14th.
As for our season, we now have little left to play for now other than pride, I would like to see a few kids have a run out,
It was truly unfortunate that Earthy was injured so soon after coming on as surely he would have featured in our final games.
Liverpool, on the other hand, have literally just thrown away any chance of delivering anything more than the League Cup in Klopp's final season. They got knocked out of the EL from the easy half of the final 8 draw at the first hurdle, and have lost 2 of their last 3 matches to bottom half opposition in the PL to leave them very little chance of the title; if only one other team was involved, then that team might have a hiccup to give Liverpool a chance, but exremely unlikely that both Man City and Arsenal stumble enough to let Liverpool back in.
They'll be desperate to beat us, especially as they'll get the first blow of the weekend in, but that desperation may play into our hands. I'd rate our chances of avoiding defeat higher than it usually is against Liverpool.