DaveT

Gutless and brainless. The referee shaped the match in the first half, should be a steward’s enquiry into his performance.

Nice one. It amazes me how Juergen has kept going with all the adversity constantly thrown at him throughout his managerial career. At Dortmund he was up against a club that regularly nicked his best players off him. Here, he's been up against the oil cheats, and even then, lots of other shit along the way. Divock on fire? - along comes Funes Mori to break his ankle. Sakho - heroic on the Europa run, along comes a dope charge which puts him out of the final, but eventually just disappears (we end up with Kolo Toure in defence). Pandemic comes along - first title in 30 years and we can't even celebrate with the team, Alisson loses his Dad in a drowning accident, Klopp can't get to his Mum's funeral. The Diaz kidnapping! The one season we're relatively unaffected by injuries, we won the fucking thing. Small wonder he needs a break. But what a fantastic 9 years it's been. Will we ever see such a perfect fit between manager and club again?

Harvey’s role in tgdd ex Gravenberch goal shouldn’t be underestimated. Having crossed the ball, he chased back to intercept Iwobi’s pass before laying a nice, albeit straightforward ball to Gravenberch for an assist. I think Leno ‘s save from Gakpo - who had a good game - was better than you give him credit for.

Bit of a tough lesson for the lads, they were kicked, pushed, grabbed all game on a pitch that was no better than a local park. Good prep for a cup game away to a league 2 team. At least Bajcetic got 45 minutes.

Yup, complete with clear cut offside not spotted by linesman. Which of course is why VAR was brought into the PL. unfortunately the idiots at PGMOL have made a complete bollocks of it. Championship is deffo way more fun than the PL.

In other news…. Arsenal’s constant good fortune continues with the news that Chelsea’s best player and top scorer Cole Palmer is ill and unavailable tomorrow night. Feels like the stars are aligning for those smarmy fuckers.

Watching Murphy and Jagielka on MOTD2 and Refwatch with Dopey Dermot is hilarious. The whole situation is farcical. I did learn, however, that PGMOL has apparently decided to ‘raise the threshold’ for handballs in the last month or so. When was that announced?! Is anyone officially aware? As for the 3rd Forest penalty shout, there can’t be a better example of ‘clear and obvious’. Taylor said Young got the ball, he clear didn’t…. irrespective of who he supports, Atwell should face some consequences for not calling that out. Oliver and Taylor clearly don’t like being referred to the monitor…. and Webb needs calling out on that situation.

Nice to have a referee who didn’t apply a different set of rules to us and penalise our every challenge. Maybe that’s why he’s only reffed us a couple of times and not the 5 or 6 times the Manc refs have had us.

Agree. Michael Oliver’s failure to give Chelsea a clear penalty- or even a corner from a clear deflection- just adds fuel to the fire.

Neville thinks the Young handball wasn’t a penalty. Not sure what he’s been watching the last 5 years. Knobhead

First freeze frame showed clearly it was onside. Didn’t need more than a glance, but ….

Did they even need to draw the lines?

This team lacks that bit of nous and grit - 2 minutes before half time the attitude should have been to dig in and see the half out… Much less likely to happen with a Milner-type or, dare I say, it a Henderson on the pitch.

Shocker - referee doesn’t fall for outrageous dive

Who is on VAR? Because he should be telling Taylor that Young got the man and not the ball.