Interpolic

Reddit's pretty awful for football, especially r/soccer. Can only assume they're mostly American.

Totally agree re being for or against. When it came in I was really annoyed it was rushed through without any consultation re the implications of it etc. But now it's been here a while I'm convinced there's a net benefit and most of the setbacks are due to human error.

My perception is that they're getting loads more right than they were before. People forget that there were plenty of decisions that were objectively wrong every single weekend, that you just had to accept. There are far less wrong decisions now, as imperfect as VAR is. You can't really put the genie back in the bottle now so the main things to work on, for me, are: - Why is the implementation of VAR and general level of officiating worse here than in other countries and competitions? I swear I've watched World Cups and Euros where VAR has been seamless and there are next to no issues. What can we learn from other systems? - There is no excuse for lack of investment into tools that would help give the VAR officials the info they need to make surer decisions, e.g. Cameras that cover all incidents, line technology on the touchline, automated offside technology. In theory anything that is objective can and should be automated, and leave the subjective stuff to the matchday and VAR officials.

Looking at the overall picture I'm very happy with results and performances so far. We're going to drop points occasionally, it happens. But I'd say Brighton was the only truly poor performance and Dortmund and Liverpool the most disappointing results. We've come a long way and are dealing with the injuries exceptionally well atm. But I hope desperately that we start getting players back quicker than we lose them soon, because this surely can't be sustainable for too long with so few options to keep players fresh.

"It didn't feel like a difficult game to referee but it was made to seem that way at times" might be my new favourite post-match ref critique

Yeah this was so weird. Atmosphere was good all game, yet they sang some weird stuff. Think we're getting under their skin, add them to the list. I'm not sure I've ever seen a refereeing performance like that in the flesh before. He gave us absolutely nowt all game, seemed like he was getting a kick out of it. How we managed to get more yellows than them after what looked like a horror challenge from an Arsenal player before HT is beyond me. That said, I think it worked in our favour. Crowd was justifiably radge as fuck all game and the players feed off it and dig in. A very satisfying win considering their antics and the ref, and the Arteta stuff just makes it even better. Imagine having a classless man like him in your dugout, man. Deal with it m8.

With Gordon, his earnest commitment to the "one pillow or two" patter in the Amazon doc opened my eyes to his potential canny lad status.

Football ability aside he's top of my NUFC canny lad rankings atm: 1 Willock 2 Targett 3 Longstaff 4 Almiron 5 Murphy 6 Pope 7 Bruno 8 Burn 9 Botman 10 Gordon Congrats Joe!

Ten Hag is an embarrassment to the bald community

Piece of piss that mind.

Arsenal going out, let's just beat these cunts eh.

This game is absolutely there for us like.

Their crowd sounds scared.

The Matt Ritchie comeback story starts this evening.

Honestly it will be one of the highlights of the season when this fucking team sheet is announced.

Hinges on the next game really. Probably need to win it now. Do think less possession and the onus being on them to attack us in front of their fans might suit us, my main concern is how we deal with the atmosphere there.

I genuinely think there's far, far less of that these days versus the Robson era etc but then again we've been very spoiled lately. It was creeping in a bit today which is disappointing when we were always in the game and didn't remotely show ourselves up or owt. I think people have a habit of getting ahead of themselves and many will have turned up tonight expecting us to steamroll Dortmund, which is daft.

I think I made some awkward eye contact with you in the Leazes concourse btw @AyeDubbleYoo, I was just about to say hello but you were wandering past then the moment was gone I wasn't at my most socially confident today, sorry.

I was beneath the away fans in the Leazes and tbh where I was sat it felt impossible to compete with that relentless fucking drum That seemed to kill the atmosphere as well as Dortmund being the better side first half. There was no music on at HT and it was eerily silent, just no energy in the ground at all. Our fans seemed like they waiting for the team to lift them rather than the other way around, which isn't really good enough when our home atmosphere is our best chance of progressing in the competition.

Think we will need more points because the bottom 5 look like picking up far less than last season and those extra points effectively get distributed across the rest of the league.

it's massive. Last season we transitioned from a clean sheet machine who often struggled to find the net to a goal machine that always let one in. Now we seem to have the balance just right. The Liverpool game was a freak event that dented our confidence for a few weeks and I bet they all regret showing Man City so much respect the game before that. Since Brighton we've been mostly class.

I'm a recovering alcoholic and if a cancer patient said to me they were insulted I call my alcoholism an illness I'd tell them to STFU. Funnily enough, none of them have. I'm not sure that conversation has ever happened.

Surely the fact you know first-hand it runs in families should tell you it's an illness rather than a "character trait" or a "weakness"?

Yeah, @LiquidAK

Declined. Thank you though.