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

Offsides are the one thing they should be able to do right with the new system. Talk of 6 inches or a clear gap changes nothing, all you've done is move the line where they have to check. This comes up every time and is a baffling suggestion

Then you get an "Henry handball" incident happen after they have used all their challenges and you are right back where you started, with people complaining because life is not fair.

think you’re missing the point of the suggestion - it’s fine that calls would still be close, with a millimeter on or off - what it would fix is that offside becomes a position where you might have actually gained an advantage.

The whole point of offside was always that you were far enough ahead of the defender that it could actually be seen by the linesman’s own eyes - whereas now we have offsides where absolutely no visible advantage was gained. In the past, everyone would have looked at these, even in freeze-frame, and said “yeah that’s level, good goal”. The ‘advantage gained’ part of offside has been lost, so one way of bringing that back would be to move the line to a position visibly in front of the defender.

Yeah there would still be tight millimeter calls, but that’s ok - we’d at least have changed the use of technology to better match the original intent of the law it’s enforcing.

The reasons his studs were up doesn't make a single bit of difference, he endangered an opponent and was deservedly sent off

You need to have a look at United's figures. They could stay inside ffp guidelines and spend £500 million on transfers.

The Glazers don't care about anything but money and the value of their assets. The reason they allowed Ineos in the door was concerns for their assets valuation. They could sort their stadium out and buy all around them and still not have any financial issues.

It absolutely isn't.

I've said numerous times in this thread it's a process issue. PGMOL were using an external source to the game to re-referee the game and have since switched tact to now just use it for extreme circumstances (after previously admitting they didn't want to do this as to not embarrass their mates).

What happens in the match absolutely does matter what happens for that one tackle. Some referees are more lenient than others. Some let more things go, but are consistent throughout that one game. When an external source comes in then after 30/60/80 etc mins and says no I want you to change that one tackle but ignore the relevance to others. Players know what referees will allow/not allow after the first few mins. There is regularly games taking place where the players know that the referee will allow a certain type of tackle to and so they will do it. And vice versa.

The fact you can't see that and can only see the name of the player used in the examples says it all. I bet if I used a different players name, with the same process and outcome, you wouldn't be disagreeing. You keep referencing the player and his club, I keep talking about the process. And I have said I have no problem with the outcome of that incident either which makes it even stranger.

But the referee saw it in front of his eyes and he said that it was a yellow card in accordance to the other tackles he had allowed/disallowed in the game and somebody else overruled him and said no it's different so was overrule. You can apply that to at least one game every single week of the league this season. That's the process that needs to change.

If not, then just get rid of referees altogether and let cameras decide everything.

Just on the referees, I just noticed a couple of weeks ago how these same referees are very good in Europe. So my opinion has changed, it's not that they are terrible it's that they are being badly directed in England.

It seems like FIFA are testing the coaches challenge.

Don’t make frivolous challenges and then you can make as many as you like

There needs to be a punitive aspect to raising a challenge and getting it wrong. NFL you lose a time out for example

The punishment is that you lose a challenge. You get 2 challenges per match, but if it's a successful one, then you don't lose it.

I think what it means is there'll be no VAR intervention until the coach challenges a decision. If anything it should speed up the current situation because VAR won't review everything.

There's too much money riding on the Premier League to have the attitude that the incompetent officials will do their best, and we should be happy with it.

This is exactly what would happen. You'd have someone, probably a retired referee review it and tell the manager how likely it is that the challenge would be successful.

If it was going to be a City player it should've been Rodri. If it had to be an England international, which we often see, it should have been Rice imo.

Though the decision was correct. But when rugby tried the challenge system it was a mess for the reasons people have already suggested in this thread - frivolous challenges to disrupt play etc.

I think the challenge system is a stupid idea, especially if it is addition to how VAR currently runs, as they should be reviewing all instances anyway

A challenge system will lead to further pressure or bias, as there will be pressure to confirm these challenges, that the club think they missed or got wrong.

Although it would be interesting to see all Man City challenges upheld, and the distribution for the rest of the teams😊

How many VAR officials do we need to just do their job properly and make the right decisions. I mean we are talking about obvious mistakes that are been made, not small debatable instances most of the time.

Now if they removed VAR and only used Goal line, auto Offside, then maybe a challenge might work for other stuff then. But will the refs still let things go as they know the team can challenge?

But what if you challenge and obvious foul, 1 min or even 2min from the Goal (with no change of possession), at some point they'll have to say goal stands but it was a foul and you keep your challenge?

Also with penalties, a foul is a foul inside or outside box, and they need to stop this minimum contact (especially trips at speed, or kicks to the back of legs), and mutual holding, because most times it obvious who's doing the real holding.

And if you block a short on goal, or a cross to a Striker,with your hand, it should be a penalty, even if accidental, unless the ball would have hit the body anyway.

And then we have the independent VAR review panel, made up of 1 premier league, and 1 PGMOL official out of 5, seriously how is this independent, can we get their reviews without these 2 and the majority of the other 3. Would be interesting to see the difference.

A challenge system would result in less VAR interventions and stoppages. Not sure how that’s going over a couple of posters’ heads.

And managers having someone with a screen telling them whether a decision should be challenged or not is perfect. That would mean challenges would, generally, only arise where a mistake has been made. Of course there would have to be a short enough time limit for managers to make the challenge.

People losing all their challenges due to poor manager challenges is good too. If that means a team has no challenges left for the second half (for example) that’s on them. And it’s not like it’s a massive disadvantage, it’s just the same as having no VAR (which is what many want anyway!).

Brighton confirm DeZerbi will leave at the end of the season.

Regards,

P.

Ipswich are a bigger club than Brighton

I'm surprised that Brighton have announced that. With such a massive managerial merry-go-round this summer, they definitely could have brought a >£10m fee in for him as so many clubs are looking towards new managers.

Maybe there was a falling out behind the scenes.

Bloom is a genius, but it doesn't take a genius to see that De Zerbi has hit the wall after a fast start. They would have been struggling in the bottom half of the table under him next season for sure.

Very interesting to see who they appoint and if Bloom can continue to get it right.