Cf

Big game this. League feels strong this year, and despite not a great start in terms of performances our position is decent. Anyone who falls away from the top 4 I don't think will be catching up easily. This is the sort of game that if you're not winning it you aren't finishing top 4.

That was a blatant a penalty as you'll ever see. Not even one game into the weekend and we have our VAR controversy already. What's the point of it?

We did what we needed to do and we are through. I'd have expected a bit more though. They were clearly there with no intention to win and just minimise the damage. But PL teams will do this too and this was a good chance to show we could beat the park the bus tactics and I didn't see anything to suggest we could against L2 opposition never mind PL.

Longstaff could have had an incredibly pointless red card there.

That looked painful.

Well now Wimbledon have to attempt to play football we might get some more out of this.

Worrying.

Just imagine we won all of these.

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What do you think VAR is? It's literally a human being watching a replay. People talk about "the technology". Apart from the semi-auto offside still to come the rest of it is a human being's opinion having watched a video replay. Something we could have been doing 20+ years ago. If the argument is "Video cameras are awesome" then yes I agree. I disagree with "Using video cameras to re-referee games is awesome".

VAR is the issue as the whole point of it is it's human's operating it. Remove the humans and you don't have VAR.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cjd5l8ll7zko 2 things to call out here. "I have no choice. He's put me in an awful position. Dec, you need to go I'm afraid." Dec? Fuck off. You're the referee. He's not your mate. And in terms of the Bournemouth goal... "The VAR looked at this and decided that, in his professional opinion, that was in the area of the arm that has to be penalised below the bottom of the armpit. That's the important reference point. I don't think that's conclusive enough to intervene. "Equally, if the goal had been disallowed by the on-field officials, I don't think there's evidence here to say that there's no handball either. So again, it goes back to referee's call. It's an important concept. And for those factual matters you need evidence. It's very clear that the on-field call is wrong, I don't think we have it here." The ref clearly can't see where the ball hits so what you're saying here is don't use VAR and just allow a random arbitrary decision from on-field instead? Because apparently watching a video of a ball hitting the arm isn't "conclusive".

Commentator referring to a Barnsley player as "going down in instalments" did make me chuckle tbf.

My problem with Neville is I just don't get the impression he actually likes what he's doing. He just sounds so down and negative about anything.

I don't want Joelinton sold, and if it wasn't for PSR it's not a discussion we'd ever be having. But I think at full strength he doesn't make the starting 11 more often than not. Superb bench option though, and there'll be games we want to play him. So I can see the argument in a PSR world why 40m+ for him would be appealing.

Longstaff is one of those players who falls under "great servant to the club, please don't make it so I start to get sick of the sight of him" so if he could be slowly phased out of the team that would be just lovely.

Is the legend for the bars off by a year here?

Agree that we are getting fortunate with the results and the performances need to improve (acknowledged by Howe and the players) but I think calling the result robbery is a bit of a stretch. Just from the top of my head in the first half we had the Murphy and Gordon chances which were both decent chances rather than half chances. And in the second half we had the Tonali chance and the late Barnes one (admittedly whilst they were pushing for a winner). All the while Wolves had some chances but it's not like they battered us or anything.

It's hardly been a vintage performance but I don't think we've been that bad. The mass subs at half time was essentially an admission the selection wasn't right but credit to Howe for making the changes. If we want to finish top 4 then away to Wolves is probably a game we should win but as cliche as it is there'll be few easy premier league away games.

We've got enough on the bench to turn this around but we should really make the obvious changes at half time.

Fucks sake.

Gordon gets fouled so much and no one ever gets booked for it.

He just took Bruno out there.

Seemed like Livramento was the one who got fouled there.

Probably the most possession I've ever seen us have.