Checko

Trying to think of Afican players who played for us. Tiote and Cisse just played for us I think. Ba played for West Ham, us and chelsea, but I think he was only at Wham for like half a year. Beye played for us and Villa I think. Not sure who else he would have played for. Geremi was just us and chelsea. Atsu same I think. And babayaro. Mbemba just us. Martins same. We signed Diame from west ham. Did he play for anyone else before west ham? Seem to remember him being a useful Football Manager player for quite a while back in the day.

Is Ayew one of them? Feels like he's been around forever for a few teams?

Yeah it is a judgement call at the end of the day, and if you don't think it meets the definitions then no free kick for you and that's fair enough. But, he is sticking his head into where someone already has their head and so risks the clash of heads that way, in the same way attemping to kick a ball and being late and kicking the player would often be a foul. There's no exact dividing line here, it's a judgement really on whether he was showing sufficent care and attention in his challenge.

Here's an article about stopping promising attacks that I largely can't be arsed to read. But skimming it one thing it does talk about is possession. "This is a key aspect of SPA [stopping a promising attack]. Without possession or the likelihood of an attacker to gain possession of the ball when the offence occurs, there can be no SPA." So in a handball like Burn's, the fact you can't be sure where the ball was going to go, or if the attacking team would have retained posession possibly means it arguably doesn't fall into the definition of stopping a promising attack. Or at least my guess is that's why there was no booking. Again it's a judgement call. For the record I do think it was a handball though.

I think the rule you're thinking of is in the list of what makes unsporting behaviour, which is a booking: "commits any other offence which interferes with or stops a promising attack except where the referee awards a penalty kick for an offence which was an attempt to play the ball or for a challenge for the ball" Not sure when an attack becomes 'promising' though

Again, making contact with the ball is irrelevant if his challenge was careless, reckless etc.

Is Dibling that good? Had a look at his FBRef stats and they're pretty poor, though probably massively affected by being in a struggling team. Did a quick Dennis Wise scout and he looks pretty fast, dribbly and two-footed, but a lot of the clips were youth/reserve football and was largely just him being faster in a straight line than others in his age group. Is he actually a top prospect or is he get getting overhyped cause he's a winger whose name sounds like 'dribbling'?

Yeah and referees too sometimes! Football's not a no-contact game, but it is those key ideas of 'is the challenge careless, reckless etc.' that typically makes something a foul. Hell, even if you don't make contact with the player it can still be a foul if you threaten injury or prevent them playing the ball due to fear of injury.

Just because you make some contact with the ball doesn't mean it's not a foul, we see that all the time. "A direct free kick is awarded if a player commits any of the following offences against an opponent in a manner considered by the referee to be careless, reckless or using excessive force: (...) Careless is when a player shows a lack of attention or consideration when making a challenge or acts without precaution. No disciplinary sanction is needed Reckless is when a player acts with disregard to the danger to, or consequences for, an opponent and must be cautioned Using excessive force is when a player exceeds the necessary use of force and endangers the safety of an opponent and must be sent off" - https://www.thefa.com/football-rules-governance/lawsandrules/laws/football-11-11/law-12---fouls-and-misconduct So presumably the ref judged his challenge was careless: he was looking at the guy throughout and stuck his head in and made contact with his head. I don't know whether I'd have given a penalty or not as I haven't seen it at full speed and things do look worse in slow motion, but far less contact with feet is often given as a foul.

Only if he wants his house to be firebombed every week.

Yeah, I think it helps to consider this: Let's say you're a big team, top 10 side for the past decade. Top 4 the previous 5 years. Start really badly one year & get a new manager in November. First year they improve and finish 11th. Then next year they do really well and finish 2nd. Then after that they seem to regress and despite spending a lot of money finish 12th, then 13th, then finally in the 5th year they're top half again, 6th. Would you stick with them going forward? Would you have stuck with them that long already? What would you have done with Sir Alex Ferguson?

Yeah I think Anderson's thriving because he's moved and been given the chance. At his age he needed to be playing first team football week in week out.

If it hits the arm/hand accidentally it's only a free kick if: 1. You score off your arm 2. You score immediaely after it hits your arm (i.e. Joelinton scores. A teamate can score after it hits his arm) 3. It hits your arm when it was making your body unnaturally bigger. I.e the position of the arm can't be justified by your movement on the pitch. Only 3. could apply and his arm was down by his side so not making his body unnaturally bigger so no free kick. Accidental handball's usually just waved play on because of this. It is a judgement call, but this decision was pretty obviously correct IMO.

Also the saudi football twitter account breaking this has 1500 followers. So is quite probably bollocks.

Sounded from Hope's video the other day that they would basically be buying out his contract. So maybe about £1,000,000 is my guess, plus we save about a million on wages. Good luck to him.

I dunno, he's always been an absolute miserable bugger when he loses tbf.

I think the main problem before was he was far too aggressive: you've got to be risk averse as a defender 'cause losing a 50/50 close to your goal can put your team in a lot of trouble. He's a lot more patient now and picking his moment better. He's now looking a solid defender who also happens to be great on the ball.

I'm planting my flag in the sand here and saying that having centre backs who are opposite-footed really doesn't fucking matter. What really matters is that you have two good players that work well together.

1 away from equalling it (6), 2 from beating it.

If things had been equal would it not have been a draw?

Didn't Tino basically just shut down Martinelli last time? I'd be inclined to keep him in.

Burn as well. There were a lot of injury stoppages. Edit: Plus Botman went down with cramp in injury time so that added to the 10 minutes, along with a bit of timewasting.

The handball rule is not fucking complicated. Why do no professional pundits seem to know the rules?

Yeah those 'I'm just going to run straight into the defender and throw myself to the floor' freekicks are the worst.

Phew, missed the first 20 mins but we dominated what I saw of the 1st half and deserved the lead. We were playing some nice stuff. Second half we just stopped trying to play and just booted it back to them all the time which was quite frustrating. That said, Gordon and Barnes' chances were maybe as good as any they created 2nd half. Generally we defended solidly & great to see Botman back. Wish we would be a bit more patient and confident on the ball to see games out, but we're looking tough and organised to break down so maybe just booting it away and sitting in a low block is the % play. I try not to be too biased with officials' decisions but I did think they got the rub of the green with a few. That said that can happen away from home. Wins vs Villa, Man U and Spurs, very nice. Now a run of winnable league games and a cup semi. Bring em on.