General Premier League Thread 2023-24 Mod Note in op 27/6/23 And 21/05/24

So, VAR. One week a VAR looks at a pull in the box and gives a penalty. The next week a VAR looks at a pull in the box and gives no pen. Same with a handball. If it’s not going to be consistent, it’s gotta go.

Fair play to the Luton coach & players in getting their scalp, of sorts, at home against the big boys. Tiny bit of luck but they fought very well and got a point out of it.

Their fans absolutely do not deserve to though with their constant tragedy chanting throughout the game and feed the scousers nonsense. I think there was a new rule of some sort that came in this season regarding that so hopefully the club get a strong wrap on the knuckles about it.

Tragedy chanting should result in serious punishment. Clubs should be made play behind closed doors if they do it. That would stop it.

I'll stop believing its corruption when key decisions go against City and Newcadtle. They appear immune at the moment.

All games are (or should be) monitored with CCTV. Even if you don’t want to do that, then other things could be considered. Loss of points. Fines. Forfeit home games. This type of awful behaviour only survives because it is allowed to. Come down hard and it’ll stop. One random fan throwing a coin isn’t what I’m talking about. But hundreds or thousands of fans from a club chanting about Hillsborough, Munich, whatever, then that should warrant a warning, then the section where it’s coming from chould be closed the next week. That would end it.

It was caught on camera today, loud and clear. Everyone can hear it. It's not the first time and won't be the last time this season, unfortunately.

What do ya mean by tragedy chanting?

Was there chatting at the Luton game?

Predictive text!

Didn't watch the game, so wasn't sure if the discussion about chanting was of today or some other game over the weekend.

Agree, no place for it and very serious repercussions should happen if you are caught. Takes a special kind of scumbag to sing such things.

This is ridiculous. The majority are ordinary, decent people.

The responsibility for this should fall on the Premier League. They should have officials monitoring games and directing the club on who needs to be banned. If the club don't follow through then they should pay for it but I'd be quite confident they would do what they're told.

ah ffs, its actual meaning and intention is very clear, and always has been. There's no place for it in football, or society.

I think if you ask random football fans what's the first thing that comes to mind with that chant, 95%+ will say Hillsborough. And much more importantly, if you ask any of the families of the 97 victims what's the first thing that comes to mind when they hear that chant, they'll say the same thing.

The "well the name of the disaster is not specifically stated" thing is just a cynical get out that's used in an attempt at plausible deniability. Everybody knows what it's invoking.

In today's social media society it is. Brainless and quick to find guilty, that's what we are dealing with these days.

It doesn't matter about the truth.

I'm not sure about it but usually the chants are a dig at the opposition and not as awful as is being suggested here. Obviously there are some horrible racist and homophobic chants out there.

Thing is with this one, it's like it's encrypted or something if you want to decide it's a direct attack on what happened at Hillsborough.

It's a bit like how that awful newspaper acted at the time of those awful deaths. That's accuse and ask questions later.

If it is an attack on Hillsborough then it should be punished and all those instigating it should be banned for life from all football grounds.

I hope it's not and Luton fans were never like this back in the late eighties and early nineties. Times move on though and things change.

Aside from the fact that the song is obviously connected to Hillsborough, the idea that millions of fans of one club have some sort of collective victim mentality is one of the most ridiculous things I’ve ever heard.

When I first heard the chant I assumed it was about Liverpools reaction to the Diaz offside decision.

When I saw that it got such a response I looked it up and it is now clearly about Hillsborough. Even if that wasn't how it started out, that's what its about now. Anyone caught should be banned.

The victim mentality thing is a Tory construct aimed at the people of Liverpool as a whole not just the soccer team. When you consider what happened in April 1989 it’s pretty disgusting.

Opposing fans sing feed the scousers to Everton fans too.

It's about as subtle as a sledgehammer in the face.

Being charitable, always the victim means Liverpool fans were the victims of Hillsborough so are always the victims, or some cutting edge socioeconomic satire like that.

Why would people use the deaths of 97 people to make a point?

Nice to see.

I do think it’s unrealistic for managers to call out injustices on behalf of other teams publicly.

Everything they say is said with a view to being beneficial for their own team. Arteta will say he’s unhappy with something that happens to Arsenal one week to put it in refs minds to stop it from happening again, and he’ll be more diplomatic about other things not affecting Arsenal so it doesn’t sound like he has an issue with the quality of refereeing overall.

Privately though, the clubs themselves should be holding PGMOL to account for every obvious wrong call/apology throughout the season to ensure they don’t happen again.

Yet he said this about referees after the Diaz debacle: “I think they are trying to make the best decisions, they are trying to protect the game, they are trying to get as much support and be ruthless when they need to be."

So yes, it's tribalism. People have an issue when it happens to their team, not before.

Having said all that, anyone genuinely equating the Arsenal decision to the Diaz one are insane. The Arsenal one was 3 subjective calls where the referees all deliberated on each individual decision and came to a conclusion.  You can have an issue with the end result, but the system at least worked and you got a decision they all agreed on, and it was implemented.  The Diaz one had the referees agreeing that it was a goal, but confusion meant the goal wasn’t awarded.  That is complete and utter incompetence and objective failure, with no subjective argument against it as a fúck up.

Yes, the common denominator is bad officiating.  But the Diaz one is the one that really should’ve brought about change, but the likes of Arteta essentially ignored it.  If you can’t force change on the back of that one, then it won’t happen.  Whether we like it or not, on pretty much every decision they can always argue a bit of subjectivity.  They couldn’t with the Diaz one.

So Arteta can do all the moaning he wants because he had his chance to help affect change, and he blew it, because in reality, he doesn’t actually care about the integrity of the game.  Not one bit.  He cares about HIS team, and that is it.  If he cared about the game, Diaz’s goal was the chance to press it home.

Colwell turning his back on that, awful.