DaveT

Bernard the Rat’s penalty…. Hilarious

The Grauniad quoting The Esk, whatever next!..... https://www.theguardian.com/football/2024/apr/17/everton-on-the-brink-questions-over-clubs-finances-are-more-urgent-than-ever

One last comment…. Whilst he didn’t make any difference to the outcome, -we could still be playing now without scoring, it was one of those games - I thought the ref was a total shithouse. He was mostly even handed, missed a couple of clear fouls for each team. But when palace started the inevitable time wasting and injury feigning, he took the coward’s way out and ignored it. I’ve noticed that the time wasting isn’t so obvious when you’re watching on tv, as the cameras focus on other distractions, but at the ground, it’s so blatant. At one point, Palace were taking an age over substitutions and instead of dealing with it, Kavanagh turned his back and started up a conversation with Virgil. When Ayew came on, his first 2 involvements were to, literally trip himself up, getting Curtis booked, then to flop to the floor winning another free kick for a non-foul. From that free kick, they almost scored…. despite Andersen shoving Virgil to the floor before setting up the Mateta chance. As I say, the referee didn’t particularly affect the result, but definitely added to the intense frustration of the afternoon. (Still can’t believe we didn’t score).

Feels like we’ve been defying gravity for a while and the ridiculous succession of injuries has caught up with us. It’s not just about the likes of Jota, Trent, Mo etc etc missing big chunks of the season. It also limits the amount of sensible rotation you can do. And some players have been over used, especially Mac. The lack of intensity in the first half today and also Thursday night is surely a result of this situation catching up with us. In the past week, Endo has looked like the stop gap bargain but we thought we were getting not the excellent DM he was for several months. Others are clearly still grasping for form and match fitness after layoffs. None of that explains why we can’t score piss easy chances. The harsh truth, as Arsenal are about to find out again, is that you need a near perfect season to beat the oil cheats, hardly any injuries, luck and decisions going your way. Arsenal have had most of that and it probably still won’t be enough. Hope to god this season doesn’t peter out in a whimper, Klopp deserves so much better than that. p.s. Honourable mention to the kids who got us over the line at Wembley and acquired themselves well throughout.

Dead right. Unfortunately that’s how it’s refereed these days (eg Curtis Jones red card). And when it suits them.

Agree totally about the Wolves offside, and made similar comments on one of the threads. Amusingly, on MotD they showed the line from the rule book which talks about being in an offside position and 'clearly obstructing the opponent's line of vision'. They then showed the Wolves player virtually standing on the goalie's toes, blocking any view in front of him...... and the intellectually-challenged pillocks still thought the decision was wrong. As for Jordan Ayew, he's always near the top of the Most Fouled charts on account of the fact that his first instinct is to flop to the floor at the first suggestion of a challenge. In this instance, however, Gvardiol just runs into him and flattens him. As it's City, there's no action. I'm getting to the point now where I just can't be arsed wasting emotional energy on it - it's just all so blatant, I've just about given up. And Burnley - probably the only time they haven't tried to play from the back was at Anfield, when they launched it every time. Their prerogative, of course, but they're not good enough to do it at this level anyway, so why pretend? Unless you've got a Kolossal Kunt as your manager.

It was the first item on this week’s Ref Watch…. even though all three of them agreed it was a straightforward and clearly correct decision!! Anybody other than us, it wouldn’t have even been referred to.

Yeah, I’m fully on board with anything that minimises or eliminates any subjectivity….. it’s the grey, subjective areas which allow these fuckers to influence results or rationalise away clear errors.

I didn’t have a problem with the Wolves decision, it was a case of reap what you sow. Put a man on the goalie with the sole intent of impeding him, you run the risk of getting caught offside. Tough titty, Wolves.

Both ties in the balance, excellent. Let’s hope for extra time, injuries, demoralising defeats etc. Arsenal are such a bunch of cheating, fouling whiny cunts. Always baffled me why teams don’t do more to stop Odegaard as he represents 75% of their creativity. After running the show for 29 minutes, Latimer latched on to him and he was mostly anonymous after that ;apart from flinging his arms around a lot). And of course they were able to field their strongest team yet again and a full bench.

That ship sailed long ago with the S.S. Sportswashing and Admiral Oligarch.

Excellent, totally captures my conflicting emotions…. and I’m still pretty emotional about this. I’m not normally one to hark back, but one thing that separates Diaz and Nunez from their predecessors is that extra level of intelligence - to pick the right pass (as well as the technique and composure to execute it). In the many many overload situations we’ve had this season, you just know that Bobby F (and to an extent Mane) would have picked the pass that would have led to a clear cut chance. Nevertheless, we’re so much further on than we could have imagined at the start of the season, but it feels like it’s shaping up like a Nearly but Not Quite season…… if only we’d converted a couple more of theses chances, if only Trent hadn’t hit the bar against Arsenal, if only Ali hadn’t fucked up at Arsenal, if only we hadn’t had so many injuries, if only we hadn’t been shafted by officials in the biggest matches. Klopp deserves so much more than he’ll end up with for keeping the PL vaguely interesting for the past 9 years.

Agree with this. It’s not acknowledged enough that, not only have we had far more injuries to important players than Arsenal and City, but that also means Klopp is more limited with his rotation, as well as having to play 18 and 19 year olds. It’s miraculous that we’re still in with a shout… and that’s without talking about the incredible ineptitude (if that’s what it is)of the officials.

This. I’d be tempted to take Bradley off early-ish, with that yellow card.

I thought that on Thursday, and assumed that Quansah would be starting today. And in fairness he had a decent enough game in the cup defeat.

The Harry Kane kiss of death. Arsenal really should be beating them over two legs.

Who's this Rogers who has just scored for Villa? Is it Don or Roy?

Agree with you about Gibbs-White, excellent little player. When they're not playing against us, I also like to watch Bowen and Paqueta (soooo glad City didn't get him), and that Semenyo lad at Bournemouth has looked pretty nifty at times. Ait-Nouri is close to being on that list. Everyone else in the PL (apart from the ex-LFC lads) is a complete cunt.

Would rather have Mac A in my team.

Also, our massive injury list has meant that loads of kids have been getting jumped up a level. Danny’s was playing for the u18s until around January. A lot of the U18 kids are playing with the U21s to replace the likes of Koumas, Danns, Clarke, McConnell who are with the first team…. even Nyoni and Nallo, both of whom still qualify for the u18s , have been on the bench for the first team.

Maybe the only point of interest from Brentford Brighton was that cunt Michael Oliver on VAR sent Andy Madley to look at a possible penalty incident ….. and Madley stuck with his onfield decision. Oliver won’t like that, the jumped up little egomaniac.

Which he (Rashford) will. For 20 minutes anyway. They will come out all guns blazing again - we have to ride the storm better this time..... then grind them into the dust.

And not to mention Bajcetic who was actually our best midfielder for a while last season (low bar, I know).

Must confess to a wry smile when I hear the City and Arsenal fans media apologists bemoaning their injuries, especially last week. Walker and Stones injured for England - yet Stones was on the bench at the weekend, and they just happen to have a £77m defender lying around twiddling his thumbs. An Arsenal fan was moaning about their injury list recently - Timber (not proven at PL level), Zinchenko (weak link), Tomiyasu (yeah, exactly), Jesus (ha!). We started Sunday with just one of what was our first choice back 5 at the start of the season. We had virtually a whole team (including world class players) out until quite recently. The position we're in - when you consider the lengthy injuries to Alisson, Matip, Trent, Robbo, Tsimikas, Thiago, Curtis, Gravenberch, Jota (twice), Bajcetic, Doak - is nothing short of phenomenal. I've some sympathy with Newcastle and even United (stop laughing at the back!) who have genuinely suffered from lengthy injury lists (mostly to shit players, mind) - but look where they are.

The Darwin one is a clear foul, the guy clear pulls him with both arms. But, well, Tierney. The Mo one, he kind of runs into Dunk’s legs. Not a penalty for me, but I’ve seen Taylor give a near identical one against us. And guess who is ref, inevitably, on Sunday?…