Carabao Cup semi final

Well seeing as we should be there, after being cheated out of the match by Lee ****wit Mason, I suppose Spurs should be our adopted club.

Good to see the Michael Oliver/VAR combo in full swing. Big dramatic pause, before Oliver lived out his boyhood dream by drawing out an airbox then pointing to the spot for a Tottenham penalty. It's great to see someone really enjoying his job.

 

Seems like we're going down a different route to the World Cup by not encouraging refs to go over and watch the footage on the pitchside screen. It was the right decision though.

Oh and I expect Michael Oliver's boyhood dream would see him giving the penalty to Newcastle.

 

Shame they didn't switch on VAR for our match with Spurs.

 

Until they realise they need to involve the fans by showing the VAR feed on the big screens it'll never properly catch on.

 

Why are the Spurs crowd boooing Alonso?

 

Chelsea’s issue likely was that the best angle wasn’t available to whoever was viewing it because had it been (as subsequently shown on social media), the officials would have seen Kane was indeed marginally offside with his upper half. So correct decision not made in fact...

 

Which is why for offsides that are close they should stick with the decision made by the Assistant. Assistants could give these offside decisions either way as it is so close so like in cricket with Umpires call they should stick with the original decision.

And you could also argue it is not ‘Clear and Obvious’ that the decision was incorrect which is what they keep telling us VAR will be used for.

 

I don't think that was their issue at the time as the players on the pitch had no idea about camera angles. Apparently they were complaining about the influence the linesman stopping had on their defensive efforts.

Both angles aren't perfect - Chelsea's makes it look more offside than it was, the official one makes Kane look just about onside. I think the VAR made the right decision with the tools available to him. The lesson probably is more investment in cameras is needed to provide better angles for the VAR.

 

I wondered.

A stalwart of my FF set up & male lead good looks.

 

Or common sense.

Advantage to the attacker.

 

Google his driving skills......

 

I see both Sari and Pochettino are not happy with the VAR system. Both are managers of top 6 clubs. Of course they don't like it as they know eventually they will lose out on key decisions to smaller clubs, when they've been getting away with the rub of the green for years. That will all stop. They know it and fear it.

 

The problem with "advantage to the attacker" or "only correcting an obvious error" is where you draw the line. If it was agreed that Kane was 2cm offside what do you do ? Allow play to continue ? But you can see he is offside....just. What about 5cm ?? Personally i think you have to go with a matter of fact and ensure you have the cameras and agles to aloow this. If you genuinely can't tell then yes you make no intervention but what if the ref had stopped play based on the linesman's flag ? Will refs now be more inclined to ignore linesmen because it's easier to allow play to continue and correct later than wrongly flagging ? It will never be perfect.

 

I thought the idea was the linesman wasn't supposed to put his flag up for offside in VAR games until the phase of play/move had reached a conclusion?

 

That's right. The linesman essentially made a mistake on this occasion but it must be hard switching your instinct from match to match depending on whether it is a VAR game.

 

yes, not ideal

 

How did Burton get to the semi final and can Man City hit 20 goals in the 2 legs?

 

I want to switch off. I want to look away. But I can't.

 

Shame,although City haven't scored for ten minutes so things are looking up!

 

Oops!

 

If you look away, just a glance, Nan City score 2 more.

 

And another!

 

Have Citeh played their over 60s women’s team tonight, then?

Burton must really be *****.

 

9-0 lol

 

Only 2 mins added on probably saved them from 10.

 

Highest winning margin in a semi-final, surely?

 

Burton will wim 10-9. Heard it here first.

 

A lot of people on social media moaning that they fielded a strong team but let's face it, for Burton players would want to play against the best players and their fans want to watch the best players against their team.

Showed a lot of respect for city to play that team.

 

You are as relentless as the Man City attack was this evening HB!

I look forward to seeing the top six clubs win very little after VAR is introduced across the board.

 

If you can’t decide within 10 seconds, advantage to the attacker.

The VAR delay is tedious beyond belief.

In cricket, there is a tantalising process leading to a brilliant denouement, all seen by the ticket buying crowd.

In footie, they’ve stopped the only interesting bit when the ref trots over to the tv by the pitch. Exhilaratingly amateurish.

 

Stockley Park will find ways of retaining the natural order.

 

They will still win things, but they won’t get it all their own way from next season onwards.

 

I fear your post count will dramatically reduce as a result

The top 6 (or so) will remain the same of course but i do wonder what people will discuss post game. "I see VAR was correct again" "yeah it's good isn't it" Gonna be tedious that.