Halsey: Referee standards have dropped to alarming levels

[Pidge]

9 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

Shirley we can’t expect a replay? 
 

We have to be careful, we’re walking a fine line between being trying to force a fundamental change for good and looking like sore losers.

 

Consistent transparency

Defined terms

Clear processes

 

Would be a nice start. Some accountability for PGMOL.

[niallers]

Can you imagine the levels to which we would be shafted if it was to be replayed? Jurgen would be forced to stand in that Hanibal Lector face mask and vertical stretcher contraption on the sideline, whilst our players wouldn't be allowed even touch the ball for fear of reprisal from the spurs jersey wearing officials.

Still fancy Darwin to get the winner though.

[Razoray]

https://x.com/Derekfallon/status/1709113714345918472?s=08

 

 

 

There have been discussions lately about a fly-on-the-wall series about the Premier League’s match officials. An attempt to shed light on the human side of the refereeing fraternity, apparently — to show they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure.

 

It’s just a shame there were no hidden cameras at Stockley Park on Saturday evening to record the moment Darren England, on video assistant referee (VAR) duty for the game between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, distractedly told referee Simon Hooper “check complete” in the belief he was upholding an onside decision, rather than an offside call, which resulted in Luis Diaz’s legitimate goal being wiped out.

 

There could be nothing more humanising than the embarrassing revelation that England “lost focus”. Which of us hasn’t done that while sitting in front of a TV monitor for hours on end? And it turns out he had taken an eight-hour flight back from the United Arab Emirates the previous day — along with Dan Cook, the assistant VAR. Who can blame them for losing focus? Come on, give the guys a break!

 

Unfortunately for England, Cook and their employers at Premier League Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), this controversy isn’t going away.

 

The PGMOL statement on Saturday evening spoke of “significant human error” — saying that the “clear and obvious factual error” made by linesman Adrian Holmes, in flagging Diaz offside, “should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention. However, the VAR failed to intervene”. A “full review” has been promised.

 

Liverpool, who fell 1-0 down just two and a half minutes after appearing to go 1-0 up, have not taken Saturday’s defeat lightly. A club statement on Sunday spoke of “sporting integrity being undermined” and, ominously, of their determination to “explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution”.

 



Luis Diaz’s goal for Liverpool against Tottenham was wrongly disallowed for offside (Sky Sports)

 

It is not yet entirely clear what Liverpool meant by that, but they have started with a formal request for PGMOL to release the audio of the in-game exchange between England and match referee Hooper. The mind boggles as to what Liverpool imagine they might find here. Laughter? An eerie silence? Someone phoning through their pizza order for half time? Fantasy Premier League talk? A discussion of the range of in-flight refreshments and entertainment on Friday’s flight back from the Middle East? Who knows?



GO DEEPER

Liverpool VAR controversy: What are their legal options?

What is certain is that, just over a year into his role as the PGMOL’s chief refereeing officer, Howard Webb faces a crisis. Errors and controversies are nothing new in the Premier League, but the high-profile, bizarre nature of Saturday’s cock-up raised serious questions — about the working environment at Stockley Park, the rigour and focus of the VAR protocol and, not least, a new policy of allowing match officials to travel far and wide to do extra work.

 

PGMOL is big on optics. There is a reason, for example, Michael Oliver, its leading referee, is not allowed to officiate matches involving Newcastle United, the club he supports — or indeed their fierce rivals Sunderland.

 

It’s nothing to do with trust or the idea that his allegiance might get in the way of integrity. It’s all to do with optics.

 

PGMOL decided long ago it would be unfair to put referees in a position where they might be accused of a vested interest. The job is already hard enough — and the accusations of bias or agenda vehement and wild enough — without putting officials in charge of games involving their favourite team.

 

So why on earth, in an era when two of the Premier League’s pre-eminent clubs are owned by the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia respectively, would the PGMOL allow its leading match officials to take lucrative assignments in the UAE Pro League and the Saudi Pro League?

 

The optics? Not great. Everyone knows that Sheikh Mansour, vice-president and deputy prime minister of the UAE, owns Manchester City. Less well known is that the UAE Football Association has held talks with City Football Group chief executive Ferran Soriano about a “framework of joint cooperation” and that the UAE Pro League’s main sponsor is the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), whose board members include City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak.

 

In that context, allowing a group of PGMOL officials to fly to the UAE last week to take charge of a match between Sharjah and Al-Ain — Oliver as referee, Stuart Burt and Cook as assistants, England as VAR — looks inadvisable in the extreme. Not because of doubts about integrity among the officials or the authorities in the UAE, but because having referees on the payroll of another league, with close links to the ownership of Premier League clubs, inevitably brings an extra level of scrutiny that match officials really could do without.

 

State ownership has brought so many unwanted complications and entanglements into football, but this is one area where the game’s authorities have the opportunity to respond with a polite no — which is exactly what the PGMOL should have done when receiving requests for their referees to work in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

 

Webb has supported the principle of Premier League referees taking overseas assignments, believing they will be better for the experience of working in the UAE, or in Saudi Arabia, as Oliver, Burt, England and Simon Bennett did for a match between Al Nassr and Al Hilal in April — or in Super League Greece, as Craig Pawson did last May, or Japan’s J1 League, as Andrew Madley did in June — and for the increased international exposure. Beyond that, having worked for both the Saudi Arabian Football Federation and Major League Soccer, Webb has been keen to strengthen links between the PGMOL and other refereeing bodies.

 

Surely that requires an urgent rethink. It is one thing for Oliver and his team to take charge of a Champions League match in Europe on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and then a Premier League game at the weekend. It is quite another to do so in the UAE on a Thursday night, take an eight-hour flight back on the Friday and then find themselves on VAR duty (or, in Oliver’s case, fourth-official duty) the following day.

 

Even without the uncomfortable question of being paid by authorities close to Manchester City’s owners — or in the case of Saudi Arabia, Newcastle United’s owners — that itinerary seems problematic.

 

It has become increasingly clear that some officials regard VAR duty as arduous. Mike Dean, who retired from refereeing at the end of the 2021-22 season, spoke recently of “getting into the car on Friday and dreading Saturday” when he was in the offices at Stockley Park. “I was thinking, ‘I hope nothing happens’,” Dean told Simon Jordan’s Up Front podcast. “I used to be petrified sitting in the (VAR) chair.”

 

Whatever your thoughts on the VAR system, it is not an assignment to be undertaken reluctantly, wearily or with a feeling of dread. It requires total focus. That does not appear to have been the focus on Saturday evening. Whether or not last week’s trip to the UAE was a factor, it has done nothing at all to enhance trust in the process.

 

Anyone who has refereed will tell you it is a thankless task — whether at grassroots level, where there are so many terrible stories of officials being abused, intimidated or assaulted, or at the very top of the sport, faced with an unenviable combination of matches played in devious, dishonest spirit, at an extraordinary pace, in atmospheres where you can barely hear yourself think, in the knowledge that your attempts to interpret and implement vague, subjective regulations will attract fury and worse, no matter what decision you make.

 

It is striking — perhaps even slightly gratifying — that so little of the fall-out from Saturday night at Tottenham has focused on Holmes, who initially raised the offside flag. That was a split-second mistake made under extreme pressure. He got it wrong, just as Liverpool defender Joel Matip got his angles wrong when he sliced the ball into his own net in the final seconds of the game. Human errors of that type should always be understood and excused.

 

It is far less easy to excuse such a glaring error from a VAR, whose sole responsibility — free from the atmospheric pressures of the stadium, blessed with the ability to pause, rewind and watch again in slow motion — is to ensure that glaring errors are picked up and brought to the referee’s attention. What’s that line? You had one job.

 

Except it transpires that Darren England didn’t. Unusually, he had two jobs last week. One of them involved going all the way to the UAE to watch a match on a TV monitor — and, one would assume, being paid handsomely for his trouble and his expertise.

 

Only he can say — and even then perhaps not with total certainty — whether or not his exertions and itinerary had any impact on his concentration levels on Saturday evening.

 

But these are questions that Webb and the PGMOL should not have allowed to arise. That one job is already challenging enough when, even if they get 99 per cent of their job right, it will be the other one per cent that everyone talks and rages about.

 

Referees need to be protected and given the best possible conditions to excel without their authority and integrity being questioned at every turn. Packing them off to far-flung destinations seems unhelpful at best.

 

Webb feels the experience and the exposure is beneficial. After the experience of the past few days, England might feel he has had enough exposure to last a career — just another fallible human being in an industry that demands perfection. Or failing that, concentration.

 

[Razoray]

2 minutes ago, Razoray said:

https://x.com/Derekfallon/status/1709113714345918472?s=08

 

 

 

There have been discussions lately about a fly-on-the-wall series about the Premier League’s match officials. An attempt to shed light on the human side of the refereeing fraternity, apparently — to show they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure.

 

It’s just a shame there were no hidden cameras at Stockley Park on Saturday evening to record the moment Darren England, on video assistant referee (VAR) duty for the game between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool, distractedly told referee Simon Hooper “check complete” in the belief he was upholding an onside decision, rather than an offside call, which resulted in Luis Diaz’s legitimate goal being wiped out.

 

There could be nothing more humanising than the embarrassing revelation that England “lost focus”. Which of us hasn’t done that while sitting in front of a TV monitor for hours on end? And it turns out he had taken an eight-hour flight back from the United Arab Emirates the previous day — along with Dan Cook, the assistant VAR. Who can blame them for losing focus? Come on, give the guys a break!

 

Unfortunately for England, Cook and their employers at Premier League Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), this controversy isn’t going away.

 

The PGMOL statement on Saturday evening spoke of “significant human error” — saying that the “clear and obvious factual error” made by linesman Adrian Holmes, in flagging Diaz offside, “should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention. However, the VAR failed to intervene”. A “full review” has been promised.

 

Liverpool, who fell 1-0 down just two and a half minutes after appearing to go 1-0 up, have not taken Saturday’s defeat lightly. A club statement on Sunday spoke of “sporting integrity being undermined” and, ominously, of their determination to “explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution”.

 



Luis Diaz’s goal for Liverpool against Tottenham was wrongly disallowed for offside (Sky Sports)

 

It is not yet entirely clear what Liverpool meant by that, but they have started with a formal request for PGMOL to release the audio of the in-game exchange between England and match referee Hooper. The mind boggles as to what Liverpool imagine they might find here. Laughter? An eerie silence? Someone phoning through their pizza order for half time? Fantasy Premier League talk? A discussion of the range of in-flight refreshments and entertainment on Friday’s flight back from the Middle East? Who knows?



GO DEEPER

Liverpool VAR controversy: What are their legal options?

What is certain is that, just over a year into his role as the PGMOL’s chief refereeing officer, Howard Webb faces a crisis. Errors and controversies are nothing new in the Premier League, but the high-profile, bizarre nature of Saturday’s cock-up raised serious questions — about the working environment at Stockley Park, the rigour and focus of the VAR protocol and, not least, a new policy of allowing match officials to travel far and wide to do extra work.

 

PGMOL is big on optics. There is a reason, for example, Michael Oliver, its leading referee, is not allowed to officiate matches involving Newcastle United, the club he supports — or indeed their fierce rivals Sunderland.

 

It’s nothing to do with trust or the idea that his allegiance might get in the way of integrity. It’s all to do with optics.

 

PGMOL decided long ago it would be unfair to put referees in a position where they might be accused of a vested interest. The job is already hard enough — and the accusations of bias or agenda vehement and wild enough — without putting officials in charge of games involving their favourite team.

 

So why on earth, in an era when two of the Premier League’s pre-eminent clubs are owned by the vice president of the United Arab Emirates and the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia respectively, would the PGMOL allow its leading match officials to take lucrative assignments in the UAE Pro League and the Saudi Pro League?

 

The optics? Not great. Everyone knows that Sheikh Mansour, vice-president and deputy prime minister of the UAE, owns Manchester City. Less well known is that the UAE Football Association has held talks with City Football Group chief executive Ferran Soriano about a “framework of joint cooperation” and that the UAE Pro League’s main sponsor is the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), whose board members include City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak.

 

In that context, allowing a group of PGMOL officials to fly to the UAE last week to take charge of a match between Sharjah and Al-Ain — Oliver as referee, Stuart Burt and Cook as assistants, England as VAR — looks inadvisable in the extreme. Not because of doubts about integrity among the officials or the authorities in the UAE, but because having referees on the payroll of another league, with close links to the ownership of Premier League clubs, inevitably brings an extra level of scrutiny that match officials really could do without.

 

State ownership has brought so many unwanted complications and entanglements into football, but this is one area where the game’s authorities have the opportunity to respond with a polite no — which is exactly what the PGMOL should have done when receiving requests for their referees to work in the UAE and Saudi Arabia.

 

Webb has supported the principle of Premier League referees taking overseas assignments, believing they will be better for the experience of working in the UAE, or in Saudi Arabia, as Oliver, Burt, England and Simon Bennett did for a match between Al Nassr and Al Hilal in April — or in Super League Greece, as Craig Pawson did last May, or Japan’s J1 League, as Andrew Madley did in June — and for the increased international exposure. Beyond that, having worked for both the Saudi Arabian Football Federation and Major League Soccer, Webb has been keen to strengthen links between the PGMOL and other refereeing bodies.

 

Surely that requires an urgent rethink. It is one thing for Oliver and his team to take charge of a Champions League match in Europe on a Tuesday or Wednesday night and then a Premier League game at the weekend. It is quite another to do so in the UAE on a Thursday night, take an eight-hour flight back on the Friday and then find themselves on VAR duty (or, in Oliver’s case, fourth-official duty) the following day.

 

Even without the uncomfortable question of being paid by authorities close to Manchester City’s owners — or in the case of Saudi Arabia, Newcastle United’s owners — that itinerary seems problematic.

 

It has become increasingly clear that some officials regard VAR duty as arduous. Mike Dean, who retired from refereeing at the end of the 2021-22 season, spoke recently of “getting into the car on Friday and dreading Saturday” when he was in the offices at Stockley Park. “I was thinking, ‘I hope nothing happens’,” Dean told Simon Jordan’s Up Front podcast. “I used to be petrified sitting in the (VAR) chair.”

 

Whatever your thoughts on the VAR system, it is not an assignment to be undertaken reluctantly, wearily or with a feeling of dread. It requires total focus. That does not appear to have been the focus on Saturday evening. Whether or not last week’s trip to the UAE was a factor, it has done nothing at all to enhance trust in the process.

 

Anyone who has refereed will tell you it is a thankless task — whether at grassroots level, where there are so many terrible stories of officials being abused, intimidated or assaulted, or at the very top of the sport, faced with an unenviable combination of matches played in devious, dishonest spirit, at an extraordinary pace, in atmospheres where you can barely hear yourself think, in the knowledge that your attempts to interpret and implement vague, subjective regulations will attract fury and worse, no matter what decision you make.

 

It is striking — perhaps even slightly gratifying — that so little of the fall-out from Saturday night at Tottenham has focused on Holmes, who initially raised the offside flag. That was a split-second mistake made under extreme pressure. He got it wrong, just as Liverpool defender Joel Matip got his angles wrong when he sliced the ball into his own net in the final seconds of the game. Human errors of that type should always be understood and excused.

 

It is far less easy to excuse such a glaring error from a VAR, whose sole responsibility — free from the atmospheric pressures of the stadium, blessed with the ability to pause, rewind and watch again in slow motion — is to ensure that glaring errors are picked up and brought to the referee’s attention. What’s that line? You had one job.

 

Except it transpires that Darren England didn’t. Unusually, he had two jobs last week. One of them involved going all the way to the UAE to watch a match on a TV monitor — and, one would assume, being paid handsomely for his trouble and his expertise.

 

Only he can say — and even then perhaps not with total certainty — whether or not his exertions and itinerary had any impact on his concentration levels on Saturday evening.

 

But these are questions that Webb and the PGMOL should not have allowed to arise. That one job is already challenging enough when, even if they get 99 per cent of their job right, it will be the other one per cent that everyone talks and rages about.

 

Referees need to be protected and given the best possible conditions to excel without their authority and integrity being questioned at every turn. Packing them off to far-flung destinations seems unhelpful at best.

 

Webb feels the experience and the exposure is beneficial. After the experience of the past few days, England might feel he has had enough exposure to last a career — just another fallible human being in an industry that demands perfection. Or failing that, concentration.

 

Olly Kay is a high profile journalist - good that him and Miguel Delaney have been on to this 

[gkmacca]

The Echo hacks really are odd. I listened to their podcast yesterday - they managed to find a hack who is a part-time ref, and most of the discussion was straining to sympathise with the plight of referees and how it's nonsense that LFC has any cause for suspicion of recent games. No wonder they categorise their mp3 files as 'Blues Music'. 

 

The Super League opposition showed that sports hacks can be tenacious against the authorities when it suits them, so it only makes their default cravenness all the more noticeable. It's been one of the worst seasons, if not the worst of all, seasons so far for widespread incompetence and inconsistency in terms of refereeing, and then THIS, and yet within a couple of days most media figures are already trying to put the controversy to bed. And you'd at least expect the local press, with their reliance on the club, would make an effort to stand firm. Hopeless.

[gkmacca]

13 minutes ago, Razoray said:

https://x.com/Derekfallon/status/1709113714345918472?s=08

There have been discussions lately about a fly-on-the-wall series about the Premier League’s match officials. An attempt to shed light on the human side of the refereeing fraternity, apparently — to show they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure.

 

 

How would people feel if, say, a fly-on-the-wall series about the Cabinet was offered 'to show they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure'? Would people welcome it and then say, 'I see it properly now. No point in calling for resignations, demotions, investigations, elections - sure, they've made terrible mistakes with huge consequences, but, hell, they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure'.

 

This get out of jail card - 'We're only human!' 'Russell Brand says: "I'm only human!' 'Liz Truss points out: "I'm only human!"'- is getting played by every crook and clown out there. I don't need to be told that someone is human. But that doesn't change the implications and obligations involved when reaching a judgement about serious mismanagement and/or misbehaviour. 

[Creator Supreme]

I really don't see anything other than LFC coming out of this looking like the bad guys.

 

The media wagons are already circling (step forward Sutton and Neville you pair of bells). The narrative will be driven by the press on behalf of Webb and PGMOL, and we'll just look like bitter crying cunts.

 

I hope I'm miles out.

[DaveT]

9 minutes ago, Creator Supreme said:

I really don't see anything other than LFC coming out of this looking like the bad guys.

 

The media wagons are already circling (step forward Sutton and Neville you pair of bells). The narrative will be driven by the press on behalf of Webb and PGMOL, and we'll just look like bitter crying cunts.

 

I hope I'm miles out.

Sadly, you’re dead right. There are too many vested interests involved in perpetuating the myth that the integrity of the self-proclaimed ‘best league in the world’ is beyond reproach. We can already see it happening. The tone in comments sections of national newspapers has already shifted from sympathy and outrage to ‘whinging scousers’. 

[DaveT]

44 minutes ago, gkmacca said:

 

How would people feel if, say, a fly-on-the-wall series about the Cabinet was offered 'to show they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure'? Would people welcome it and then say, 'I see it properly now. No point in calling for resignations, demotions, investigations, elections - sure, they've made terrible mistakes with huge consequences, but, hell, they are just normal guys trying to do an honest job, at times under intolerable pressure'.

 

This get out of jail card - 'We're only human!' 'Russell Brand says: "I'm only human!' 'Liz Truss points out: "I'm only human!"'- is getting played by every crook and clown out there. I don't need to be told that someone is human. But that doesn't change the implications and obligations involved when reaching a judgement about serious mismanagement and/or misbehaviour. 

The irony is that the ‘we’re only human’ defence should only serve to remind us that humans are susceptible to bias, unconscious or otherwise and corruption as well as incompetence and lack of focus. And the media generally is too dumb - or unwilling- to understand thd difference between systemic and human failure. This was a case of both on a staggering and unacceptable scale.

[Scott_M]

Mancthony Taylor the ref on Sunday. Expect us to concede 47 fouls, 9 yellows, a red or 2 and Klopp to be sent to the stands as the PMGOL show us who is boss.

[Scott_M]

Last season we on average conceded 12 fouls per game. After Klopp criticised Tierney v Spurs, Taylor had our next game at home to Brentford and we conceded 19 fouls. Coincidence?

[Pete]

10 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

Mancthony Taylor the ref on Sunday. Expect us to concede 47 fouls, 9 yellows, a red or 2 and Klopp to be sent to the stands as the PMGOL show us who is boss.

I expect this game to be comparatively quiet really.  It would look exceptionably suspicious this weekend if they were blatantly fucking with us.   If anything over the next few games it'll be death by a thousand cuts.  

[Scott_M]

13 minutes ago, Pete said:

I expect this game to be comparatively quiet really.  It would look exceptionably suspicious this weekend if they were blatantly fucking with us.   If anything over the next few games it'll be death by a thousand cuts.  

That’s what I meant in follow up post on Brentford last season.

 

Any big decision or VAR will have additional scrutiny but if Brentford was anything to go by, little 50/50’s won’t go out way, every soft foul will go against us,  every break in play to stop us will be made, minimal advantages will go to our, erm, advantage…

[DaveT]

1 minute ago, Scott_M said:

That’s what I meant in follow up post on Brentford last season.

 

Any big decision or VAR will have additional scrutiny but if Brentford was anything to go by, little 50/50’s won’t go out way, every soft foul will go against us,  every break in play to stop us will be made, minimal advantages will go to our, erm, advantage…

Exactly. Taylor will give his standard 18/19 fouls against us (the likes of Pawson, Kavanagh will typically give 10-12 free kicks against us). 

[Scott_M]

4 minutes ago, DaveT said:

Exactly. Taylor will give his standard 18/19 fouls against us (the likes of Pawson, Kavanagh will typically give 10-12 free kicks against us). 

Watch our players be assaulted in the derby and nothing happen…

[JustTosh]

35 minutes ago, Pete said:

I expect this game to be comparatively quiet really.  It would look exceptionably suspicious this weekend if they were blatantly fucking with us.   If anything over the next few games it'll be death by a thousand cuts.  

Yes.

 

And that is one hell of a good reason to continue our war against them. The sooner we lay down arms, the sooner they can start their pay back ageneda.

[gkmacca]

46 minutes ago, Scott_M said:

Mancthony Taylor the ref on Sunday. Expect us to concede 47 fouls, 9 yellows, a red or 2 and Klopp to be sent to the stands as the PMGOL show us who is boss.

 

Yes, and as the respect-worthy preening poppinjay that he is, he'll probably do that camera-catching nod as if to say, 'Yup, I mean it, and I'm in charge, so there's nothing you can do about it, yep, I'm king of the world!'

[JustTosh]

2 hours ago, Creator Supreme said:

I really don't see anything other than LFC coming out of this looking like the bad guys.

 

The media wagons are already circling (step forward Sutton and Neville you pair of bells). The narrative will be driven by the press on behalf of Webb and PGMOL, and we'll just look like bitter crying cunts.

 

I hope I'm miles out.

I hope I'm miles out.

 

You will be because DEngland is lying. Whatever the truth really is we shouldn't come out as the bad guys for exposing it.

[Evelyn Tentions]

I'd like to hear the audio for at least 5 minutes afterwards to know what VAR said to Hooper after the restart.

[Razoray]

2 minutes ago, Evelyn Tentions said:

I'd like to hear the audio for at least 5 minutes afterwards to know what VAR said to Hooper after the restart.

After rewatching 20 minutes of the first half today, I'd like to hear the audio of the entire 102 minutes. There were multiple disgraceful decisions in the game. 

[Dicko]

The more I think about it the worse it seems. 

We are expected to believe that the same individual who was all over Curtis Jones sending off producing the outcome he thought was correct, just a few minutes later had suddenly stopped paying attention. 

 

Don't piss on my hand and tell me it's lemonade.

[Razoray]

3 minutes ago, Dicko said:

The more I think about it the worse it seems. 

We are expected to believe that the same individual who was all over Curtis Jones sending off producing the outcome he thought was correct, just a few minutes later had suddenly stopped paying attention. 

 

Don't piss on my hand and tell me it's lemonade.

Porn on the FF. Tut Tut

[Lee909]

3 hours ago, gkmacca said:

The Echo hacks really are odd. I listened to their podcast yesterday - they managed to find a hack who is a part-time ref, and most of the discussion was straining to sympathise with the plight of referees and how it's nonsense that LFC has any cause for suspicion of recent games. No wonder they categorise their mp3 files as 'Blues Music'. 

 

The Super League opposition showed that sports hacks can be tenacious against the authorities when it suits them, so it only makes their default cravenness all the more noticeable. It's been one of the worst seasons, if not the worst of all, seasons so far for widespread incompetence and inconsistency in terms of refereeing, and then THIS, and yet within a couple of days most media figures are already trying to put the controversy to bed. And you'd at least expect the local press, with their reliance on the club, would make an effort to stand firm. Hopeless.

 

They journos don't want to rock the boat that pays them well with nice perks of meals etc at games. Or access to players and trips to cover games,gets interviews etc. 

[Barrington Womble]

2 hours ago, Scott_M said:

Last season we on average conceded 12 fouls per game. After Klopp criticised Tierney v Spurs, Taylor had our next game at home to Brentford and we conceded 19 fouls. Coincidence?

 

1 hour ago, Scott_M said:

That’s what I meant in follow up post on Brentford last season.

 

Any big decision or VAR will have additional scrutiny but if Brentford was anything to go by, little 50/50’s won’t go out way, every soft foul will go against us,  every break in play to stop us will be made, minimal advantages will go to our, erm, advantage…

This is how it's gone since the klopp incident anyway. I don't see how it can be warse than anything we've seen this season and the end of last 

[gkmacca]

1 hour ago, Lee909 said:

 

They journos don't want to rock the boat that pays them well with nice perks of meals etc at games. Or access to players and trips to cover games,gets interviews etc. 

 

Well, as far as local hacks are concerned, the club is the one that does that, not the PGMOL. As far as the other hacks are concerned, they didn't mind rocking the boat over the Super League, and they don't mind doing so when there's some player in big trouble, or some transfer crisis. And besides which, why should any club resist the PGMOL being forced on the back foot? Surely most of them WANT that?