ohmelads

If it did, it only ruined the final for you due to your pre-existing ideas about the concept of VAR - as it did nothing bad tonight. The first goal was from a free kick awarded from a clear dive. It's not in VAR's remit currently but it seems so wrong, considering we all (including VAR refs) saw it on replays within 5 seconds It's tough cause if VAR call that, they're basically becoming the ref and will have to call out all dives or wrong free kick decisions. A goal came directly from it though, so it'd be good if something could be done about that type of situation in future. Fuck knas what, like edit: maybe they could be given power to inform the ref of any clear dive (if he wrongly gave a free kick).. anywhere on the pitch Don't see how it's not within VAR's remit. It's a clear infringement (simulation) leading to a goal. Should have been flagged up and disallowed. Had it not led to a goal then it wouldn't fall within their remit but it surely does in this case as it's specifically designed for errors leading to goals, red cards, mistaken identity and pens. If an unfair free kick doesn't lead to a goal then they couldn't do anything about it so I see your second point. I guess they will have to wait and see if it goes in or not, or change how they use it.

Rio Ferdinand doesn't think so. I agree those past failings have been mainly down to awful management, hence why I gave Southgate credit. However, the obvious truth is, your opposition or obstacles are the teams/players contesting you; not the past. I still think the jury is out on this current crop of players (Southgate too). Out of interest, which international teams do you think the jury is not out on?

Great goals by Pogba and Mbappe and they certainly know how to close games out but the ref has ultimately been the difference and both decisions look dodgy to me on the replays. It's sort of spoiled the final to be honest and what has been a class tournament. I'm all for VAR once it's ready but it's been a mixed bag and had a decisive and controversial say in the final.

Ref could be man of the match here.

Good post. Of course it's an opportunity missed but there are loads of positives to take. Southgate has got rid of the old guard and brought through a young team that play for each other and the shirt. We haven't had that in a very long time. Apart from Young and Vardy, the squad will be in their prime at the next world cup. Kane, Alli, Sterling, Maguire, Stones, Rashford, etc will all be in their mid-late twenties. We have a team of U17 and U20 world cup winners to bring through as well. I'm not saying we will be successful but as you say, the ingredients are there to do damage. We have to keep in mind this is a transition period and most of those Croatia players have played together for years. When we failed to get the second goal and they were turning the screw, it was all about "game management" and doing whatever it takes to slow the game down. France for example shut the game down against Belgium and we were unable to do the same. Croatia were relentless second half and more than deserved their equaliser. We were beaten by a better side on the day, a side that thumped Argentina and that might just win this world cup. I hope Croatia can do it but the scheduling seems slightly unfair because France have that extra day's rest at the end of a long tournament.

Embarrassing from Neymar.

Not convinced about the easier side of the draw. On paper I see a harder last 16, easier quarters, harder semis (Spain have looked the most talented side so far). We should only be thinking about the next game, and that's what I think both coaches did. I can sympathise with the decision to rest players because, as SimplyAnth mentioned above, you could put our your best team and still lose, with the added risk of injuries and suspensions to your best players. I don't think either manager was plotting routes to the final. They were simply thinking about the next game with the added benefit that if you do go far, you've given backup players minutes and kept players fresh. I'm disappointed we didn't win and I think we could've made 4 or 5 changes to protect the obvious key players without going for 8 swaps. Time will tell I suppose.

Looked good a few years back but seems to have lost all form. If Rafa can get him back to his best (a la Diame) then he could be an inspired signing. Looks like he'd be more suited to a midfield 3 - not sure I'd want him in a 2 with Shelvey because he's pretty slow. He has talent, bags of PL experience to bring to a young squad and has been a captain for Korea. A small risk and could be shrewd business considering our usual pathetic transfer budget.

Looked outside the box

Reading some of these comments you'd think we had a prolific striker lined up, or that our other strikers were doing well.

Let's keep in mind his competition is Gayle and Joselu.

As a Newcastle fan I was all for the idea. But given how it's been used, now I'm starting to wonder why an organisation as corrupt as FIFA has pushed it through so quickly. At the end of the day it looks like you're still at the mercy of someone giving seemingly bizarre decisions. Now goals can be disallowed and pens awarded for the slightest thing, and huge offences ignored. So far I'm not convinced it's led to better refereeing. It is worth persevering with but the idea to trial it at a world cup was nuts. I realise they got it right tonight in the Germany game and those types of decisions (clear cut) are really what we were told it was designed for.

Ridiculous he doesn't pick up more cards for his constant antics. Refs have bottled it and he knows it.

I assume you're referring to the tabloids and not the everyman in the pub. England fans are consistently among the most pessimistic you'll find.

Joselu is s***, but he will probably follow instructions where Mitro won't. Rafa is quite tough on that, he had the same issue with Mbemba. From a fan's POV it is frustrating, but we've had managers who didn't know their own minds before and it hasn't gone well for us. If we want to see Mitro playing for Rafa, he'll have to convince the manager he can toe the line. I guess I'd just like to know what these instructions are, because I can't say I've noticed joselu contributing much of anything. Even weird boring intangible shit. I can’t have that, I’m afraid. In the first half of the season, Rafa set us out in a very specific type of counter-attacking line-up. Up top, he needed a guy who could contest a quick ball forward, hopefully holding it up. He also needed to press the defenders in a particular manner and in tandem with a #10. His fifth choice summer signing, a Stoke reject, was a player he felt could do what he wanted than Mitro. There are times when I like what Joselu does, but I’ll freely admit by the time he was dropped for Gayle he was playing like a donkey. And he’s missed some chances, my God. But Rafa picked him over Mitro because Joselu did what he was told as best he could. Hope Mitro has a great World Cup and gets a career defining move, but not sad it won’t be here. We can only speculate. Think it's more likely something has happened behind the scenes with Mitro and Rafa simply had to pick the players he had left (Gayle and Joselu).

He's surrounded by 3 players, nowhere to go, knows he's inside the box and goes for the dive. His foot's stood on which gives justification for a pen, but the problem is he's already going to ground which is the main counterargument. It's not a pen I could ever see the Toon getting.

According to the Times, the FA are looking at leaving the decision to the VAR official, rather than the official alerting the referee to have another look. I can see the wisdom of that. Once the referee was shown Tarkowski's challenge, he really had no choice but to give a pen. It would have been very difficult, under public scrutiny, to use the sort of informal discretion that people are talking about here (ie had the attacker lost control of the ball, was the contact accidental) Similarly, the VAR official may have simply thought, in practice, that looks dodgy, the ref ought to have another look, rather than deciding that the mistake is 'clear and obvious', which is of course a subjective judgement anyway. If you want decisions to be tempered by what you might call common sense, taking into account the 'grey areas', then I think it helps if the judgement rests with one person. All of which, for me, makes it annoying that they've decided to use VAR at the World Cup before it's been properly tested out and refined by experience. That's what I originally thought it was - ref in another room watches the video, tells the ref his decision. And only for certain situations such as penalties, crossing the line etc. There's a way that VAR can work but it needs a lot of adjustments. Me too. Thought it was going to be quick and simple: clear and obvious error, video ref has a word in his ear. Replays can't eliminate those grey areas and the tech was surely only ever supposed to get rid of the howlers and blatant injustices. Once a ref stops the game for 2 mins to leave the field and watch telly, he's under pressure to give the decision. Especially if he's done it several times already in the match and given no decision each time. After wasting everyone's time on 'false alarms', it ramps up the pressure to give a decision.

It bugs me. Another thing that bugs me, Matt LeBlanc said the thing he doesn't like about the UK is the food. What's he eating or not getting here that he can get in the USA? Is this a serious post? Variety and choice of food in America is far greater than here, due to the much greater cultural diversity and the easier access to ingredients. Only if you're comparing Newcastle to New York! London is as diverse as any city in the world. I've only been to the west coast states but I wasn't impressed by the food. Perhaps you need to know where to go or perhaps it just depends on personal taste. I wouldn't say there's more variety there at all, unless you have a bizarre craving for bulgogi tacos and like your food smothered in lots of low-grade cheese, oil, and mayonnaise. Their Asian, Middle Eastern, French or Italian food is as unauthentic as ours is. Just like us, they cater it to local tastes. There will always be different pros and cons. We have far more variety of Asian food, and with Europe on our doorstep we have much better access to subtle flavours like cheeses and cured meats and so on. But if you're into Tex Mex or southern BBQ for example then you'll obviously find far better over there. It all depends on what you're after. Anyway, back to Merino!

It's obviously not ready and has turned cup games into a joke this season. Fans and players not knowing what's going on, refs using it for all sorts of decisions it wasn't designed for, ridiculously long stoppages. I bet there are plenty in the game who are already looking at how it can be used to bring in advertising like in American sports. Mental to be trialing this at a World Cup.

Agreed. Huddersfield or draw. Worst case scenario is Palace and Stoke win and we're 2 points above the drop and a bad week could drag us into the bottom 3. Best case scenario we're 5 points above with a game in hand, games running out, and those teams have used up of their more winnable games.

Felt before the game that, in the circumstances, this could be the most decisive fixture of our season. The position of the two clubs at kick off, the 3-week break right after it, and one of the few clearly winnable games left; the type of game we've thrown away until now. A 6-pointer. We're not home and dry by any means but we've taken the pressure off going into Huddersfield. Fair play to Rafa for the team selection and starting on the front foot. Man for man I'm not sure we're any better than Southampton but we look a better unit and you have to credit the manager for that.

Strawman argument right there.

Strange post. There wouldn't be any discussion about Mitrovic if our top striker had managed more than 5 goals all season. Or if we didn't look useless in front of goal every week. To call what's gone on the last 100 pages or so a "discussion" is generous on a level I didn't know existed. Discussions usually have finish lines. Outcomes. Not circular arguing by people talking past each other with fingers in their ears going "la la la can't hear you." Not one single step of progress has been made towards consensus or answering the plaintive mating cry of the blue tailed mitrononce as it warbles "but why, but why" in its nest. It's all very pointless. As is complaining about it, I'm aware. But I've got it off my chest now, so as you were. Why would you expect to reach an outcome, consensus, or finish line when you're talking about ever-changing scenarios such as a club's form and player selection? Last I checked this is a football forum. By your logic, we should shut down every thread on here because I don't see a consensus in any of them. The whole point of a forum is that people will exchange views, often opposing ones. We have here a situation where our top scorer is on 5 goals, and looks unlikely to reach the 9 goals which a striker on our books - who has been farmed out on loan - reached in his first season in the Premier League at the age of 21. Now said striker is playing and scoring regularly - albeit at a lower level - and it's inevitable people will draw comparisons at a time when the club are desperate for goals. We can't just throw toys out of the pram because people have opposing views.

Strange post. There wouldn't be any discussion about Mitrovic if our top striker had managed more than 5 goals all season. Or if we didn't look useless in front of goal every week.

I don't really buy the 'following instructions' angle which I think started off as speculation by one of the Chronicle hacks who passed it off as fact. In the last 10 minutes when you're chasing a game and players are tired and playing off instinct more, a lot of teams bring on a wild card. Either an inconsistent flair player or more often a big bastard to create chaos. They know the defending team will sit deep, and it offers a chance to launch balls into the box. We should know - we've conceded a few of these ourselves this season. We simply have no option like that to bring on without Mitro. Instead we bring on Joselu. Joselu was in the starting lineup every week for ages - what instructions was he following? I certainly hope all those sh*te performances weren't what Rafa was asking him to do! Gayle too has had his fair share of awful games where he's offered absolutely nothing on and off the ball. Are we supposed to believe Rafa has looked at that and thought "well done, Mitro wouldn't have done that"? At least with Perez you can make a case for his workrate. If we had any half decent striker then I might believe he's been left out the squad and farmed off on loan for tactical reasons. There's clearly more to this than meets the eye.