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Napoli 2 Liverpool 0 (Sep 17 2019)


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Dave Usher

 

At least we played better than we did last year. The 2-0 scoreline was ludicrous really. We should never have lost the game at all but to lose by two was just taking the piss. If we never have to go to play in Naples again it will still be too fucking soon.

 

Whether we finish first or second in the group didn’t matter to me before, but it does now. I’m sick of Napoli. I’m sick of having to play them in pre-season. I’m sick of their rat fans stabbing people. I’m sick of their shitty fucking Kappa kit. I’m sick of their snide bastard players and I’m even sick of Carlo Ancelotti’s rogue eyebrow (and I’ve always quite liked ol’ Carlo). I want us to smash them at Anfield and then never have to play them ever again.

 

I must admit, I struggle to get up for the Champions League group stages these days. Since we’ve become title contenders these games don’t do anything for me to be honest. They’re a necessary evil but my blood doesn't get pumping until the knock outs come around.

 

So going into the game my feeling was that I’d like to win to keep the run going, but that if we were to come a cropper in any game we have coming up then this would be the one that would be the least damaging. Losing a Premier League game can have dire consequences, but basically, this game didn’t matter because whatever the result we should still go through anyway. 

 

That didn’t stop me from being fucking livid afterwards though. Livid at VAR, livid at Napoli, and livid at the amount of bollocks I heard on telly and read on social media about it. Yeah, I mean the penalty incident and some of the baffling takes on it. “He gave the ref a decision to make” “It’s not a clear and obvious error” “if that was at the other end I’d want it” and various other nonsense soundbites.

 

I don’t often talk in absolutes and I generally have respect for the opposing point of view. I'm not an "I'm right and you're wrong" type of guy. On this though? Nah. All of the above is absolute horseshit. It wasn’t a penalty. 100% it wasn’t. No debate, no room for ambiguity, it was just a dive and should have been a booking for Callejon. I honestly can’t get my head around how anyone sees it differently.

 

Are we that attuned to cheating now that an incident like this is somehow seen as contentious by people who ought to know better? Apparently so. This isn’t a 50-50 call. It’s not even a 90-10 call. In fact, it’s not even a 99-1 call. It’s a clear dive and the only ‘contact’ that is made (if you can even call it that) is Callejon ensuring that his leg brushes against Robbo’s on his way to the floor. 

 

We don't lose very often these days and I'd almost forgotten how it feels. If you take VAR out of the question then I wouldn’t be anywhere near as bitter and resentful as I am about this one. I don’t blame the ref for giving a penalty as in real time it looked like a clumsy foul from Robbo. As soon as it happened I said “oh shit that’s a pen”. 

 

So, even if replays had shown that the ref got it wrong I could have lived with that because it’s tough and mistakes happen. Refs will get some of these wrong as it’s impossible sometimes to get them right in real time. But isn’t that the whole reason they inflicted this video shit on us?

 

 

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I think the whole VAR thing is highlighting how slow refs are on picking up the latest ways players, teams and managers come up with cheating.  The whole pundit circus just adds to it.  Even Carragher was saying it was a pen.  He tends to do this a lot and I think it’s so he can claim no bias.

 

Years ago when players started diving and feeling for contact regularly you could understand referees and fans falling for it.  Kane is probably the biggest proponent of it i

of late.  He’s clearly convinced himself that it’s not a dive if he dives but manages to engineer contact and if he doesn’t get that contact then he was just unlucky.  You have a lot of people in the media who seem to think any contact equals a foul and it’s wrong for a whole host of reasons.  Last night was a perfect example of why.  They need to put this in black and white.  If you’re diving before any contact is made then it’s not a foul.  That fucking wanker Tomkins has said he thinks it’s a pen because the player was taking evasive action.  I’ve never heard anything so laughable in my life.

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Just now, The Guest said:

I think the whole VAR thing is highlighting how slow refs are on picking up the latest ways players, teams and managers come up with cheating.  The whole pundit circus just adds to it.  Even Carragher was saying it was a pen.  He tends to do this a lot and I think it’s so he can claim no bias.

 

Years ago when players started diving and feeling for contact regularly you could understand referees and fans falling for it.  Kane is probably the biggest proponent of it i

of late.  He’s clearly convinced himself that it’s not a dive if he dives but manages to engineer contact and if he doesn’t get that contact then he was just unlucky.  You have a lot of people in the media who seem to think any contact equals a foul and it’s wrong for a whole host of reasons.  Last night was a perfect example of why.  They need to put this in black and white.  If you’re diving before any contact is made then it’s not a foul.  That fucking wanker Tomkins has said he thinks it’s a pen because the player was taking evasive action.  I’ve never heard anything so laughable in my life.

Sounds like its taken right out of the Gareth Bale school for diving

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7 hours ago, Scott_M said:

They do go to the monitor in the CL. This should have at least been referred. I saw a completely nothing foul in the Inter v Sparta game be referred for a red card, which was completely pointless. 

Just seen that in the PSG game. It just makes me even more angry. How would they not look at that and at least tell the ref to have a look and see what he thinks.

 

Were the Sicilian mafia sat in the room with the video ref?

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17 minutes ago, dave u said:

Just seen that in the PSG game. It just makes me even more angry. How would they not look at that and at least tell the ref to have a look and see what he thinks.

 

Were the Sicilian mafia sat in the room with the video ref?

 

The VAR room and video refs were up in the Eagles Nest.

 

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Excellent report as per usual Dave,I agree with you on the VAR.... but what if as was suggested (by someone!)that captains are given 3 chances to question the decision (tennis & cricket)... works fine there & doesn't take long & everyone knows what the fuck is happening at least! 

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9 hours ago, dave u said:

Just seen that in the PSG game. It just makes me even more angry. How would they not look at that and at least tell the ref to have a look and see what he thinks.

 

Were the Sicilian mafia sat in the room with the video ref?

 

Yeah.

 

Klopp made a good point in his post match presser. He asked the room if anybody thought it was a penalty and 1 or 2 said they did (probably local Naples reporters). But the fact a couple did means it wasn’t a clear & obvious error. 

 

However, it certainly wasn’t a clear cut penalty either. Personally, I think if it was referred he’d have overturned it as he didn’t stand for any of their shit all night - and IMO it should have been referred.

 

I’ve said before I like VAR, or at least the idea of it, but the implementation isn’t as expected & it’s gotten worse since the World Cup 18 months ago (although not perfect, it was actually decent in Russia IMO). 

 

Anyway, I’m over it. Treat it as a minor inconvenience / annoyance and back us to win the next 4.

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1 minute ago, Butch said:

In the psg game last night the ref went to the monitor to view a possible handball and disallowed the goal on that review, why didn't the cunt ref in our game do the same. 

I think it all depends on whether he's advised by the video ref to go and check. The prick in our game must have told the ref "nah you're all good mate".

 

It's shite. And what makes it even more shite is it isn't used the same way in each competition. Until I saw the ref last night looking at the monitor I was under the impression that they'd scrapped that. Turns out it's just the PL that has.

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Guest Pistonbroke

It was clearly a dive. The VAR official was also a German and imo probably just went with his mate on the pitch so as not to make out he had made a mistake. The Official in VAR should be a different nationality to the referee imo, something that FIFA/UEFA should be looking into. 

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I wonder if we struggle when the pressure is off.  It's an easy looking group, big game Sunday "we will be fine" do we look a bit sloppy. Everyone knows in Eurooe l how we dominate in knock out games . Even though we scraped through the group last year no one wanted us cos they knew that when the heat is on we fight it with fire.

15 wins on the bounce in the premier league because those money dopers up the road keep winning.

The group stages seem a bit trite for us.

They need high pressure situations. 

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I am 100% in agreement with what you said on VAR usually I feel you're a bit too harsh on it but this is unforgivable. This situation is why we have VAR and they still managed to fuck it up.

 

Watching the match live I was 100% certain it's a penalty and was not even mad so the refs mistake is understandable but the moment VAR came into play and they went through with the penalty I was bitter for the rest of the match.

 

Somehow this makes me angrier than the mistakes that ref made against Leicester last year because here they looked at the mistake on camera and still decided to fuck us.

 

The way VAR has been implemented means no one is happy... even Man City who has had two goals correctly ruled out by VAR can feel bitter and hard done because there's no consistency at all. 

 

On that note, Steve McManaman said after that second goal that the penalty incident doesn't matter now because they scored again.

 

I fucking knew some mouth breather was going to come out with that excuse... Most football pundits honestly have no understanding of how football works

 

 

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7 hours ago, Butch said:

In the psg game last night the ref went to the monitor to view a possible handball and disallowed the goal on that review, why didn't the cunt ref in our game do the same. 

It’s the double standards of how they’re applying it. On a goal everything gets checked - offside, handball, any foul in the build up. On a penalty it has to be a clear and obvious error. It’s bollocks. Either apply it evenly or jib it. I’m in favour of jibbing it.

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