DaveT

No transparency. No accountability. Lots of incompetence. Some clear bias. Lots of back covering of their mates. The technology is not perfect but works just fine most of the time. The problem is with the users. Cahill and Dublin on MotD were talking about having ex-pros in the VAR room, which makes sense. However you only need to have played a bit of footy at amateur level, which probably most of us on here have done, to have an appreciation of what these players are up to and when they're conning the refs. It's crystal clear that none of the current refs have played any footy based on the number of times they woefully misinterpret situations.

Cheers

How does the photo ID thing work - do they ask you to send a photo of your driving licence/passport? (is thta why they recommend using a phone?)

Pretty dire. But......it's blowing an absolute gale up here, you can see the ball clearly holding up, fading, sticking etc. I don't think the two muppets on the commentary team have mentioned it once. Must be sitting indoors in front of a screen.

Only one defender on the bench. Did I hear the other day that Lovren is injured? Again.

Pretty much captures most of my feelings. I was pretty confident when the team news cam out and after 20 minutes I could only see one winner, and it wasn't City. We were much the better team early on, could/should have had a couple and they looked really nervous at the back. We were getting behind them regularly in that phase. I don't necessarily agree with the Ederson handball thingy, but he definitely gained an advantage and the episode once agan underlines the handball anomaly i.e. accidental handball gets treated differently when it's about scoring a goal versus stopping one. I agree with Klopp that the main difference was about using the moments, they did, we didn't. I think the reason we didn't was that, although the effort and willingness was there, we didn't have the sharpness and focus in the head to exploit the moments. That's the only way I could explain the stupid decisions (Robbo going awol, Trent throwing it in straight to to one of theirs) or the complete lapses in concentration - Sadio letting the ball run past him when the goal was gaping. Anthony Taylor lived down to expectations - we were still winning the ball back from them high up late in the game - only for him to give them soft free kicks. Taylor or Tyler, can't decide who's the bigger cunt. Let's hope we get our heads sorted out for the remaining games, it would be such a shame for this brilliant season to fizzle out in a whimper.

I wonder if Taylor would have given it had it been at the other end. Answers on a postcard......

And guess what, the same ref (Taylor) who arguably cost us the title with that appalling decision has been chosen for next Thursday‘s game. Couldn’t make it up.

Lost count of how many free kicks should have been awarded to Arsenal but haven’t been given

That's cos he only ever gets to referee us in derby matches, and there's absolutely no evidence that he's ever favoured either team. Referees from Greater Manchester, however, regularly officiate City or United games. Struggling to see the consistency there, but, hey, what's new?

We talking Supremes or Bananarama here?

Werner would have been great for us 2/3 seasons ago when we were more into Heavy Metal/Gegenpress. Not sure he's got the right attributes for us now when everyone, inclduing City, are wary of even coming out of their own half. He likes space to run into - we don't get so much of that now. I thought keita was brilliant in his breakthrough season with Leipzig. He and Ox give us something Gini and Hendo don't, which is the ability to break the lines, through either dribbling (Keita), or power/pace (Ox). I watched the Leicester away game again the other day, Keita played really well for 70 minutes - as did everyone that night. There's more to come, and next season, if and when that happens is crucial - he really needs to kick on. If he continues to be injury-prone and unreliable, then it's deffo time to get shut. Finally, an arl arse comment - as a kid, all I ever wanted to do was go out and kick a ball. Doing it on a computer would have been a very distant second. Watching somebody else playing footy on a computer......jeez.

45. Millwall

Hope you’re all feeling better. (Hope you kept the lurgy in Aughton!) Looking forward to the first retro report

'For once the horror show involving Ederson had nothing to do with his face.' Love it. 'Diega Cosat, the Elephant Man' got a brief airing the other night. All a bit uglyist, I know, but you just can't help but crack a smile.