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Tottenham Hotspur 2 Liverpool 2 (Dec 19 2021)

     

     
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    Dave Usher

I don’t know what to feel about this one. It’s a decent point under the circumstances, the performance was quite good for the most part but on the balance of chances Spurs deserved something from the game. All that being said, we were absolutely fucking robbed by the officials so it’s hard to really think about anything else. 

 

Everything that happened in this game is skewed by Tierney and the VAR monkey failing to send Harry Kane off early on. If they do their job it’s a completely different game. It’s easy to have a go at Tierney and believe me I will, but the bigger problem here is Kavanagh on VAR. Tierney’s performance is bad, Kavanagh’s is fucking scandalous. 

 

I can always make allowances for the on field official as he only ever gets one look at an incident and it’s at normal speed. Sometimes one look should be all he needs (like the Jota penalty, which I’ll get to shortly) but with incidents like the Kane tackle it can be difficult to know exactly what happened. He might not have had a great view of whether Kane caught Robbo or not, or how high it was, or whether he got the ball first.  I can live with refs not being sure on first view and producing a yellow. After all, that’s what VAR is for. 

 

Kavanagh has access to as many replays as he needs from numerous angles. How the fuck is he looking at that and not telling Tierney it’s a red and to go and look at the monitor? Honestly, it’s mind boggling that a fully qualified, professional referee is looking at that and not saying “red card”. I don’t actually know how it’s possible to be honest, when literally everybody else who sees it knows it’s the textbook definition of out of control, high, endangering an opponent. It ticks every box. Listen to every pundit and it's unanimous. There are no dissenting voices, yet someone who is paid to do this somehow gets it wrong? As I say, I don't know how that is even possible.

 

Kane catches Robbo in the shin with his studs, at full force. He’s running at full speed and launches himself. Kavanagh apparently said the difference between this and the Robbo red card that came later was the amount of force involved. Seriously, he needs sacking immediately because if he’s telling the truth he’s incompetent, and if he’s lying then he’s dishonest. Force? Kane has a running jump and has his full weight behind it, whereas Robbo takes a wild swing from a standing start. There's no comparison. 

 

Thankfully Robbo saw it coming and ensured his foot wasn’t planted so he avoided serious injury. That’s not relevant though. Or at least it shouldn't be. Kavanagh has apparently used that as justification for it not being a red, which again is absolutely scandalous and to me amounts to a sackable offence. A player doesn’t need to be injured for it to be a sending off.

 

Being England captain probably helped Kane but I don’t think it’s just that, as the lad who fouled Jota for the ‘non penalty’ isn’t England captain but he got away scot free too. This is just Tierney being shit and Kavanagh just going with the outcome he wants rather than just doing his job without personal bias. 

 

What a cunt Kane is though. He said afterwards he wasn’t worried he’d be sent off because it was a strong challenge but he won the ball. The only touch he got on the ball was with his fucking hand! He was nowhere near the ball. Just say “yeah I was a bit lucky there but there was no intent”. How hard is that? I fucking despise him, he’s an absolute piece of shit. It bothers me that this isn’t widely recognised. This is a fella that lied about getting a touch on a ball and swore on his daughter's life, so that tells you all you need to know about that cunt. I saw someone on twitter referring to him as the Boris Johnson of football and that might be the most apt description of him ever. Other than "slobbering goon", of course.

 

The incident came at 1-0 and was shortly after Kane had scored. He’d almost bagged one just before that too only to be denied by a great block by Konate. That was concerning because we’d started the game really well and were creating plenty of chances. Then the first time Spurs got near our box they nearly scored, and the second time they got in they did score.

 

You could tell at that point we were vulnerable because of the midfield. The defence was exposed but it wasn’t a back four issue. There’s very little they can do really. The problem with the midfield was twofold; giving the ball away cheaply and not being in the right areas to ‘protect our attacks’. We’re usually really hard to counter attack on because the trio of Hendo, Thiago and Fabinho are great at stopping teams getting out.

 

You change out all three of those and bring in two players just back from injury and a kid making his first PL start, then there’s going to be an inevitable drop off as thee's no chemistry or understanding there. You've got three of them not working as unit because how could they really? They'd been thrown together last minute. I don’t blame the three midfield lads. You can’t expect them to replicate what we get from Hendo, Thiago and Fabinho and what happened here was unavoidable in many ways.

 

I have no doubt that Tyler Morton is ready to play in games like this, but not in a makeshift midfield. If you have to put him in there with, say, Hendo and Thiago, I’d have absolutely no worries about the kid at all. He didn’t even play badly in this game, at least not in possession. He was just left too exposed time and again because the gaps in our midfield were fucking massive. They often are when Naby plays.

 

He pushes forward because he’s great at nicking the ball in the final third. But when he doesn’t nick it and they play around him, there are gaps. I’m not blaming him specifically, it’s a structural issue that’s probably not there when you have Fabinho hoovering up behind him. But look at the second goal for example. The goal isn’t his fault as such (it's Alisson's), but that’s a good example of what I’m talking about. He tries to win it high and when he doesn’t they have too much time to play through us.

 

The first goal is partly on him too as he badly shits out of a tackle. The pass to him from Trent isn’t good but he wanted absolutely no part of that challenge and I cringe every time I see the replay of it. What an absolute fart. We also had Morton and Milner over on that side of the pitch which meant Ndombele had time and space to pick the pass for Kane.

 

I’ve been saying all season that it feels like most of the chances we give up come from us giving the ball away unexpectedly and then not being set as a result of that. The first goal wasn’t the most glaring example of it but it is kind of what I’m talking about. Trent had the ball, so now everyone other than the centre backs are switching to attack mode. But Trent under hits the pass to Keita, who shits out of the tackle with Winks and just like that we’re on the back foot unexpectedly and not quite set when the pass is played.

 

We never really got back into our set line as there’s a gap between Robbo and Konate and to make matters worse Robbo is a yard deeper than everyone else (something that has been happening all season). The pass was good, so was the finish, and just like that we’re behind.

 

It could have been worse too. Kane got away and crossed for Son who volleyed wide on the stretch with the goal gaping. An even closer call came when Son broke away and squared to Alli who was denied by a stunning fingertip save by Alisson. Son was also denied by Alisson when he went through one v one but he was offside anyway. Alisson didn't know that though.

 

The mad thing was those chances were totally against the run of play. We were bossing the game, passing it around well and creating loads of good openings. But in between that we kept giving it away cheaply and getting done on the break, which made for a wild game that had Neville and Tyler jizzing themselves about how everyone should be grateful that Sky were bringing such great entertainment in such dark times. Sickening really. The game shouldn't have even been played but seemingly it's only the non-Sky games that get called off.

 

Konate and Matip were going up against Son and Kane with no back up. As good s they are, there will be times when they get done because Son and Kane are two of the best forwards in the world. They're two of the biggest cunts in the world too, but they are great footballers, even I can admit that.

 

This is how we play though. We always defend that way but usually the midfield is preventing the opposition from getting the ball to their forwards more than once or twice a half. That’s what was lacking for us here. That and players just giving it away cheaply. Milner and Keita in particular kept under-hitting passes in the first half. After the break they were much better, especially Milner.

  

I thought we looked really good going forward though and got into some great positions. Robbo especially was marauding down that flank and getting into great areas, but invariably his end product was shite. He should have scored in the first minute but headed wide and his crossing was completely off until he produced a beauty for the equaliser.

 

That was class from him. Great run into the box, brilliant first touch to take it past his man and then he stood up a perfect ball for Jota to head home. What a header though. He’s so good in the air and that was a cracker.

 

He’d started the game very quietly but got better and better as it went on. He put in a huge shift and was knackered by the time he was subbed late on. It’s mad how he didn’t get a penalty though. You just can’t explain what happened there. Tierney had the best view in the stadium and STILL got that wrong. His reason was that Jota deliberately stopped so that the defender would run into him.

 

Firstly, that’s not what happened. Jota slows down because he’s setting himself to shoot. You can't shoot when running at full speed as you have to adjust your stride pattern and steady yourself. That's why Klopp had a go at Tierney about "you've never played the game". Secondly, even if he did stop it’s still a foul anyway. He doesn’t have to keep running, you’re allowed to do what you like. Run, jog, stop, it’s entirely up to you when you have the ball. And if you have your body between yourself and a defender and he trucks into you, then it’s a fucking foul whether you stopped or not.

 

So Tierney is pathetic in that situation. He’s displayed a total lack of understanding of how football works, which isn’t good when your job is to officiate football. But as bad as that was, even worse, once again, was that Kavanagh cunt not stepping in. Twice he’s seen clear and obvious errors and done fuck all. He's hung Tierney out to dry too, as it's the man in the middle getting all the flak from Klopp and the media. Kavanagh had a duty to get involved and help his mate out and he failed in that duty. And that makes what happened later with Robbo all the more sickening. I’ll get to that in a bit.

 

At half time I had two emotions. Rage and confidence. I was fucking steaming about the officials but having got it back to 1-1 and I was confident we’d go on to win the game. I assumed we’d sort out the midfield issues and stop the counter attacks, while we were doing enough in attack to make me feel that we’d score another couple of goals.

 

Neither really happened though. I didn’t think we were as good going forward as we had been in the first half and we were still vulnerable to those breaks. Still, when we got the lead I expected us to keep it so that’s disappointing. Spurs will complain about our second goal but there is no way you can disallow that. The rules were changed so that accidental attacking handball only applies if the player scores or directly assists. Mo did neither. They also wanted a penalty for something that happened seconds earlier. Never a pen, Alli just took a dive and didnt even appeal for anything.

 

So the only issue is whether it’s deliberate handball by Mo or not, and it clearly wasn’t. That said, Tierney and Kavanagh were making it up as they went so there was always a worry they’d disallow it. Klopp may have stormed the pitch and beat the shit out of Tierney if that had happened. What a ball by Trent though. It was so good that even Robbo couldn’t miss.

 

We should have turned the screw on Spurs then by keeping the ball and penning them back, but we just got ragged and sloppy instead. It was too easy how they got in behind us but it shouldn’t have been a problem as Alisson had it under control. Until he didn’t, that is. That was proper shit. He should never be allowing that ball to go through him and it’s really frustrating because other than that he’d been fucking brilliant. These mistakes are adding up now though and he needs to get his shit together. 

 

At 2-2 it was anyone’s game but then out of nowhere we were a man down. I don’t have any complaints about the actual decision but I have a massive problem with how they arrived at it. On first view I thought it was a red and that Robbo was in trouble, but Tierney gave a yellow so that should have been the end of it. Under normal circumstances I wouldn’t complain about that being a red. I don’t think it’s 100% a sending off, it’s probably 75% maybe 80%. Kane’s was 100%, but Robbo’s is one that would occasionally maybe only be a yellow. It was rash, wild, petulant, stupid. It wasn’t a leg breaker though.

 

So the problem here is that Kavanagh had not intervened on two decisions that were absolutely and categorically wrong, yet he stuck his little fucking manc beak in on one that wasn’t actually that clear and obvious an error. You seriously have to question Kavanagh’s motivation here. I mean, you just wouldn’t do it would you? If you knew you’d fucked up massively on the two previous ones by not getting involved, why would you interject yourself into this situation when it’s less obvious?

 

Refs naturally have a "balancing out" instinct. Mark Clattenberg even admitted this when he did Carra's podcast. It's just a natural thing to do, yet Kavanagh has done the opposite. This isn't a Tierney problem. He gave Robbo a yellow even though he almost certainly knew it was a red. He was 'evening it up' and at least trying to show consistency. Once again, Kavanagh has made him look like a cunt.

 

Tierney is just shit and had a bad game. I can understand that because refereeing is fucking hard and doing it in high pressure situations in full stadiums is even harder. I couldn’t do it. You know what isn’t hard though? Sitting in a quiet room watching video replays of incidents and making decisions on them. I could absolutely do that as it’s fucking easy.

 

That’s why Kavanagh’s role in this seems much more sinister to me. You go with the on field decision if it suits what you want but when it doesn’t you suddenly get involved? Fuck that. This cunt needs investigating, but because Klopp focused on Tierney I doubt anything will be said about the real villain of the peace here. I can explain away Tierney’s decisions by saying he’s shit and he only had one look at them in real time. I can’t explain away Kavanagh’s actions.

 

That sending off fucked us and I’d have gladly taken 2-2 at that point. So in that particular context I’m not displeased with the actual result. Spurs merited a draw based on chances but given everything we had to overcome here it feels like the lads deserved more. We went for the win and even with ten men we didn’t just sit in. I like that.

 

Klopp had made a positive change at 1-1 when he took off Morton and sent on Bobby to play in a four man forward line. Morton was on a yellow card and wasn’t really in the game much anyway so that was an obvious change. I thought Bobby was poor though and the tactical change didn’t really work. I mean, we did score and Bobby had an involvement in the goal, but other than that I didn’t really like our shape.

 

Going down to ten compounded that because Milner went left back and we were left with Keita in midfield on his own for a spell. Scary proposition that. Kostas coming on allowed Milner to go back in there, and then Gomez came on to give us an extra man at the back in the six minutes of stoppage time. We held out comfortably enough really, although Milner had to make two or three really good late interventions. I thought he had a really good second half after struggling in the first.

 

Quite a few of the lads blew hot and cold, even Joel, who is usually just flawless all the time. He had a couple of ropey moments but also made up for it with some of his mad runs forward. One of them took him all the way into the box and he should have gone himself but instead tried to play in Jota.

 

Mo was quiet and didn’t look himself. I don’t think he was fully fit, maybe he has the same illness Hendo has. Our best players were Mané and Konate. I thought Sadio was electric in the first half and although he faded a bit after the break, overall he played well. It’s frustrating we didn’t just have him continually run at that shite right back who was a booking. Sadio had him beat all ends up and we should have used that more.

 

Konate was star man though for the second time this week. He’s dominating at the moment and looks much more settled and confident now. I honestly don’t think this game would have been any different even if we had Virgil back there. The problems originated higher up the pitch and Konate did all he could to stem the flow. 

 

Really, this game shouldn’t have even been played. Other teams are getting games called off but we have to play despite having at least four players ruled out with Covid. Chelsea had to play too, but other teams are allowed to call games off, presumably because unvaccinated players have to isolate when they’ve been in contact with someone who has tested positive whereas our lads are all vaxed and only have to isolate if THEY test positive. That seems really fucking unfair to me, but Sky were never going to allow their big game of the weekend to be called off.

 

I don’t know what’s going to happen now as it doesn’t seem feasible for us to play our next three games with a depleted squad. Three games in six days we’d have unless there are postponements. There’s no perfect solution here as if games are postponed they still need to played at some point and there’ll be a backlog, but playing these next three games in a six day period is surely not an option.

 

The whole thing is a mess but it sure feels like both us and Chelsea have been shafted here, doubly so in our case as we also had to deal with Tierney and Kavanagh who are worse than fucking covid. And Kane, who's worse than.... well worse than pretty much anything or anyone you can name. 

 

 

Team: Alisson; Alexander-Arnold, Matip, Konate, Robertson; Morton (Firmino), Keita, Milner; Salah, Jota (Tsimikas), Mané (Gomez):


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Great report Dave, and spot on about Kavanagh. There's a link on another thread to an article in the Independent, and the lead photo is a picture of Robbo scoring and being booted in the face by Emerson-Royal, who was already on a booking (I was wondering later on where he'd got that mark over his eye from). Something else 'missed' by the useless cunt on VAR.

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Spot on Dave. I was angry before kick off, livid for a lot of the game itself and i'm still angry about it now. Jurgen saying "i have no problems with other referee's, only you" to Tierney was quite telling too. 

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Yeah spot on all round though I'd be harsher on Keita whose passing was crap and bottling was unforgivable.

I was ranting about Tierney but you're right, it's Kavanagh who should be under the spotlight. That game should have been very different because he's either corrupt or a totally incompetent Raab-like tit.

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Spot on with the lot there.

 

When you have 2 people looking at the same incident, there is always the chance of differing opinion, a good example being City pen last week, I thought it wasn't, a mate thought it was and you could argue all day. Yesterday though, there were 2 incidents that were unambiguous, every single person watching with benefit of replays thought a red card and a pen. 100% no doubt.

 

I know Shearer was more pissed off about the Newcastle one, also scandalous, but it was good to hear him speak so strongly about it and use the word "incompetent ".

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Great report. Thought Naby was really poor in the first half but we know what happens when Fab is missing. Loved that Klopp was still going for the three points playing with 10 men. Furious with the incompetent officials but this line (Klopp may have stormed the pitch and beat the shit out of Tierney if that had happened) made me laugh out loud. Liverpool and Chelsea were screwed over yesterday while full strength City motored on. The integrity of the league is being damaged.  

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It's quite absurd to suggest that there's not something going on here. Unquestionably the Kane-off and penno would have been given to the red OR blue mancs. The Robbo-off, as you rightly say, only adds insult to injury.

 

Nothing will be done. Tierney won't be held to account and Kavanagh less so. Which suggests to me that the problem lies beyond the pair of them. 

 

Arguably the biggest crime of all, is that they had a lovely relaxing two week break beforehand, whereas we most certainly did not. 

 

Great report Dave. Deeply accurate. 

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Great report Dave. As you say, the game could have been a win, loss and as it turned out, a draw.

 

I think we were robbed yet again by the officials. It seems to me that many times, the on field officials abdicate all but the 'major' decisions to VAR while VAR very much depends on who is doing the review. Many times, they dont want to overrule the match officials but I cant get my head round the shocking decisions in this game.

 

To a man virtually, everyone involved in the game has said Kane's a red card and Jota should have had a stonewall pen. Hacket, Clattenburg, hacks in the print media and all the Sky pundits.

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The thing that bugs the shit out of me is there is zero accountability. They can make any decision they fucking like and no matter how bad/incompetent/bent it is there’s no microphone waved under their nose asking for explanations. Yes the referee has to do a report but what’s Tierney gonna say about refusing the pen? “In my judgement…” blah fucking blah and that’ll be the end of it. Where is the accountability? Who is going to take that prick to one side and say “here lad, you fucked that one up, don’t do it again or your toast.”? And as for that ballbag on VAR….

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Spot on.

Let’s also not forget the failure to send off Cresswell after 5 minutes at West Ham for that shocking challenge on Henderson. 
And that Tierney is the same bent cunt who blew for half time five seconds before the end of the MINIMUM amount of added time, with Mane chasing a through ball on United’s goal

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This is why I don't watch Liverpool on the telly part the umpteenth. I don't think my blood pressure would cope. What really boils my piss is how there will be no consequences for the officials. They'll close ranks then quietly admit after the posse has moved on, with much use of the passive voice, how 'mistakes were made' and 'lessons will be learned'. You can see it today on Ref Watch where Dermot Gallagher repeatedly says Kane was 'lucky', as if the decision was made by rolling the dice, which it might well have been:

 

 

Rory Smith nails the overall frustration with officialdom:

 

Going back to the Ref Watch, kudos to Rob Wotton for asking the question that was on everyone's mind, i.e. why should there be a difference between a tackle which ploughs through your ankle or through your leg bone.@dave uwill no doubt put such perceptiveness down to his recent increase in scalp real estate.

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Kavanagh should be banned from any Liverpool or Everton games. His bias shaped the game he as good as match fixed. The refs being untouchable and unquestioned is obscene. A manager should be able to say exactly how he feels snd not be fined the facts will prove if they have a point or not.

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Alan Shearer should have been asked about England captains getting preferential treatment. I remember v Leicester when he head butted Neil Lennon close to a World Cup, told the FA if he got banned he wouldn’t play for England. 

 

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9 minutes ago, Reckoner said:

Alan Shearer should have been asked about England captains getting preferential treatment. I remember v Leicester when he head butted Neil Lennon close to a World Cup, told the FA if he got banned he wouldn’t play for England. 

 

He was and he said they did. Don’t know what more he can do in fairness.

and it wasn’t a headbutt it was a kick.

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6 minutes ago, Captain Howdy said:

He was and he said they did. Don’t know what more he can do in fairness.

and it wasn’t a headbutt it was a kick.

He should apologise for being a corrupt twat

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12 minutes ago, Reckoner said:

Alan Shearer should have been asked about England captains getting preferential treatment. I remember v Leicester when he head butted Neil Lennon close to a World Cup, told the FA if he got banned he wouldn’t play for England. Maybe similar things going on here.

 

Shearer was asked that question MOTD 2 and grinned rather knowingly. The full clip is on BBC sport website. I watched Tierney and Kavanagh a fair bit when I was watching Championship games and thought they were two of the better referees at that level (not a high bar, admittedly) so I was quite pleased when they got promoted on to the elite list. Watching them know, they give me the impression of  two people who are content that they have 'made it'. They've not improved at all and in fact have actually got worse. All the evidence is that once on that elite list it's almost impossible to get kicked off it. Look how long it took to get Lee Mason off it. The result is that Tierney, Kavanagh and the likes of Attwell from last week are not going to be dropped and held accountable. The real villain of the piece is Mike Riley who selects, persists and protects these people.

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6 hours ago, dockers_strike said:

Great report Dave. As you say, the game could have been a win, loss and as it turned out, a draw.

 

I think we were robbed yet again by the officials. It seems to me that many times, the on field officials abdicate all but the 'major' decisions to VAR while VAR very much depends on who is doing the review. Many times, they dont want to overrule the match officials but I cant get my head round the shocking decisions in this game.

 

To a man virtually, everyone involved in the game has said Kane's a red card and Jota should have had a stonewall pen. Hacket, Clattenburg, hacks in the print media and all the Sky pundits.

Hacket's a smashing bloke. Real down to earth, I used to ref in the Wavertree Junior alliance and attended a semibar where he was the main event as a  current ref in the then football league.

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