The College Dropout

Reminds me a bit of us last season + Europe. I hope you go deep in the Conference League and lose some focus come April and May. I hope we are close enough to the top places when we are out of Europe. If we are still in CL come April, it's a fantastic season.

People treat VAR like a machine. It’s still people. People will always make mistakes. Even calling it incompetence is a lot (although it is). People don’t berate players or manager (in the media) so much for incompetence and they are paid a lot more money. Being a ref is a thankless job. Less and less people will want to do it. The upside is so low.

I read somewhere that assistant VAR tend to be more junior referees compared to the main one. I think that should change. It leads to deferential behaviour. Assistant VAR was useless. I guess 90% of ref talk is informal like in the video. For offsides there should be a simple script. Pundits scream for consistency but want refs to bypass laws when it’s convenient for them.

No I do not have the wording of the ‘laws’. But they followed the laws of the game by going with the VAR decision. It was just the wrong decision. I guess ‘VAR check complete - decision X’. When the game is restarted, that’s it there’s no further changes that can be made even if new evidence is brought to light. VAR checks will take ages now and people will complain some more. I do think new procedures need to be brought in and use of automated offsides too. I don’t believe the law around restarting the game should be changed though. Massive rabbit hole that. Upon further review - decisions will always be proven to be wrong. Where do you draw the line at bring backs? 30 seconds? 1 minute? People only want bring backs in this instance because it was immediately obvious in real time and on TV. But that shouldn’t have any impact on implementing the laws of the game.

It’s the rule of the game. It’s not up for interpretation for the VAR official or the referee. The VAR official has made a mistake and the game has restarted. Move on. The VAR nor the ref should decide to change the rules of the game. If you do that, everyone else will ask for important decisions to be reevaluated after the game has resumed. There’s been offside goals stood in the PL, VAR didn’t intervene a minute after Bournemouth had the ball over the line. It’s a bad decision like many others.

Agreed. It was a mistake. You can’t go breaking other rules because the official has made a mistake. It sounds like VAR ‘chat’ is like normal refereeing chat between officials. They need better scripts for final decisions. ‘VAR takes too long’.

Genuine question - if he's doing that now and there's a first-team squad position open.. why not keep him next season? Say he replaces Murphy's role. That's a lot of minutes.

Why would anyone offer more than the release clause?

The first point doesn't really matter to us. For FFP it's all counted upfront and we don't need the actual cash. Instalments might make it easier for the buying club to afford him though.

It's crazy to say but £100m is a tad low. If Nunes is £50m after that season with Wolves. Havertz £60m. Rice and Caicedo £110m. £100m... is just a bit too fair. I hope we're a level above West Ham, so that £100m won't go so far for us. I read somewhere we're doing the City "no unhappy faces" approach. So with that in mind it makes sense.

It's more of a Chelsea thing (KDB, Lukaku). City's are from the academy proper. While I agree this is the approach. RW is a position that is up for grabs in the squad. There's only Murphy & Almiron ahead. If we are heavily restricted by FFP next summer and he continues to impress Minteh could stay in the squad. If he's the real deal, surely he could bump Murphy into Manquillo status? Knock him down from "squad player / impact sub" to "fringe player" like on FM.

It's not unusual for Burn to have a troubled first half and be better in the second half. Whether it's him or tactical or both I don't know.

This lad shouldn’t even be getting this level of job.

Agree with most of that. But IMO it's too late to use the automated technology for this season.

In nearly every other profession, you make a mistake, you apologise. Maybe an investigation is done. Change processes to prevent it. Move on. People act like refereeing mistakes are the worst things ever. And only sometimes. I remember City beat us 1-0 at SJP when we got relegated under Rafa. Aguero scored a header from a freekick, he was miles offside the entire time. It was chalked up to human mistake and people moved on sharp. This was a breakdown in communication due to dodgy processes.

And i hate the "former players" narrative. It's BS. Former players do not know the rules of football. Their opinion is irrelevant.

Agreed. Everyone else gets to make mistakes except them.

For sentimental reasons I always wanted him to have a game in the CL leading the lads out. CL music playing in the background. Camera pans up to him. The vision ends there though. The actual match itself? Wow.

Is he actually going to though? I reckon at least 2 of Phillips, Hendersos, Gallagher & Maguire go if fit.

Just a shitty thing to say imo.

Aaron Hughes also had one of the best post-NUFC careers on that list. Proper player.

Janmaat was talented. But boy was he gutless.

The Babayaro dead brother line is out of order. And so is putting Hughes below Krafth, Janmaat & Manquillo.

Aye potentially a huge goal. And credit to Almiron. That goal was pure desire - and one of the worst goals another team has conceded against us - the defending was utterly pathetic. It was simply desire vs no desire. You could see on Almiron's face how much that goal meant to him.

As much as I love him, I don't think he's good enough for England. But neither are half the lads that get call-ups from top 6 sides. Grealish & Maddison struggled to get into the squad before they joined top 6 teams. Bet they don't drop out now.