No2

Delighted with my decision to invest zero minutes of my time on Amorin.

That's a statement that will always be true, not sure of its relevance here though. With your constant GOT references I can only assume you think these calls are insane. I was on the same page until very recently. Incidentally the decision that sent me over the edge was the one Dave references in Pod and its from months back, a goal not disallowed for City against Fulham, very similar to Wolves last week, Mo away to Burnely and countless others, main difference being this one was allowed stand. That's just not a goal anymore, the one time out of 100 it slips through and it's Man City and Michael Oliver again. Michael Oliver and his crew, since his trip to referee Sharjah and Al-Ain has been appointed and directly influenced the outcome the 3 biggest away games Man City have. 1) As VAR, directs ref to to the screen for a penalty for a grab by a Man Utd player on Rodri. Technically a foul but we're in 10 penalties a game terrority here. Happy to be corrected on this if you can point out other times dragging as been pulled up by VAR, particularly interested in occasions when Oliver was reffing the game and had his extra eyes point out an error. 2) Doesn't send off Kovacic away to Arsenal. Both tackles could be perceived as red, as yellows they are indisputable so a red card. 3) Doku kicks Mac Allister in the chest, no penalty given. 4) His mate Darren England say fuck off play on at Spurs. It's not a good look when you come back from Sharjah versus Al-Ain and started giving City decisions like that. I've repeated the names of those teams so people can familiarise themselves with them. They're not famous clubs, they don't appear to be attempting to grow the league so the idea that the top ref is needed over there is a tad suspicious in my view.

Clattenburg quit the PL in 2017 to go to Saudi, to replace Howard Webb, who had earned his coin already. Added to that Michael Oliver didn't go to Saudi, he went to Abu Dabhi, which doesn't appear to have had any kind of investment in football terms. How anyone can look at Olivers decisions in City's favour and not scream corruption is beyond me. City fans used to have him down as a City hater, I know I used to have him as my ref of choice for big Liverpool games, he was the best by a mile. City knew that come the big games he's the one they would roll out so they bought him.

I gave Ait Nouri my boy status in 2021. He's quality but seems to have the stamina of a wet paper bag. He's probably best signing for a team that can afford 90m on a 60 minute player.

That's why I questioned the relevance of any time line? What's different about now to 2019?

What has your reference to 5 years ago got to do with anything?

That statement has a lot of truth in it but completely misses the point. Forest's statement wasn't about a referee that can make mistakes on a football pitch. It was about a guy watching a TV screen. A guy with access to multiple replays, angles, speeds. He's comparing apples with oranges. Like the Diaz one, nobody I can recall anyway had much of a go at the actual linesman that missed an easy call, these things happen. You can't miss things that obvious with access to a screen.

Luton were deducted 30 points in the year Atwell became a professional referee. Looks to me like a career decision thinking Luton would be out of existence and he was free to do what he wanted.

I'm glad Forest have shone a light on this although I think they have chosen the wrong target. Yes Luton are rivals with them now but Luton have been rivals with Burnley, Sheffield Utd, Everton, Brentford, Bournemouth and so on at various stages this season. He can't be ruled out of reffing all of them, just like Oliver can't be ruled out of reffing Newcastle's perceived rivals. Couple of caveats to the above, I haven't seen today's incidents and I don't believe for a second he supports Luton.

I need a shit, meant to say pitch.

Solid 3 points, we were fairly ordinary in the most part, Quansah was good, as we're Cody and Diaz, Ali and Virgil very comfortable. I thought Harvey done exceptionally well to stay on the shit, he was pure muck.

Just seen the clip, he's give a goal kick too. Money well spent that.

Good pod lads. What a weird game, first half we were good I thought, Mo's miss was criminal but the bigger issue is how we folded after that. It was like last week, we looked clueless, flummoxed was the word I used last week and I think it applies again for the 2nd half. We simply didn't know what to do, I assume Atalanta dropped much deeper to stop those Trent long passes and after that we literally had no plan. The management team have to share as much of that blame as the players. Every change we made us worse, Gakpo at left back? What was that about?

I'd agree Jones and Jota look rusty, Mo, Ibou and Trent don't look fit, Trent over stayed his welcome last night by a good 10 minutes, I thought Jurgen was poor on that one.

No hypocrisy there, she's pointing out that real people live in Jerusalem, Israel has stated and shown many times that the "people" in Gaza aren't really people, they're human animals, terrorists, vermin, whatever suits your mood.

Most of the lads that have returned from injury have been shite. Klopp has said we don't train, we just recover, surely that has something to do with it, the intensity isn't there in training for the lads to pick it up. Robbo has been better in recent weeks and Ali just strolled back to world class but the rest have been miles worse than the kids that covered for them.

Some times you look at things and think that's not normal. Exhibit A, one of those teams makes more commercial revenue than the other. All above board of course. Exhibit B, one of those teams has a coach convicted of doping. Exhibit C, I'm sure it's totally unrelated to exhibit B, but one of those teams looks a million times stronger, faster and fresher. I'm sure history has tonnes of examples of 33 year olds coming back from hamstring injuries and playing 120 minutes in their first game back, against one of the quickest attackers in the world.

Guardiola was screaming at the team and giving mad instructions in the huddle before the shoot out. Must be still on the drugs. One or 2 his players look like they dabble too. Walker just back from a muscle injury and he's still sprinting full tilt after 120 minutes.

Nacho is available on a free, I've never seen him have a bad game. Could do worse than a straight swap for Joel.

Unexpectedly nice evening of football that. Bernardo Silva took that peno like he had a cup of tea in his hand. Ha ha that was beautiful.

This was in Dublin, so Leinster Senior League, by that stage I was in the Jonny Evans stage of my career, so washed up and playing for a shit team.

Manè scored a last minute winner and Mo filled his boots one night, that's at least 2 I can remember in the Klopp era. Not sure he's lost one other than the covid non event.

I played a match once where the referee had sent me off the previous week for handball on the goal line. There was a referee observer at the original game and he came over and apologised to our manager at the end of the game, said it was never a handball. When we had that same ref the following week I was the captain and was chatting with the ref in the centre circle before the match and told him what the observer had said, told him the league had wiped the suspension, even added some flavour to the story and told him I have a written apology at home. I've never enjoyed a match as much as I enjoyed that one, I realised pretty early I had free reign to do what I wanted. Even the lad I was marking began to find it funny, I kicked and dragged him all over the pitch. The funny thing about the whole episode was it was a clear handball and red card.

From doubters to believer's.

Fanta