IMO it was better back in the day when players protected themselves and the referees only sent people off if they were told to fck off lol. Kidding aside, this season a few veteran refs retired. The guys who are filling the breach aren't as experienced and they're not as consistent across the board. They need games and time to develop along. Next season should see improvements. Also I do blame Cas for not being more disciplined. He made a dumb tackle to get the yellow card last time and yet again we play CP and sure enough he does even worse this time. Does the cold make him play stupider lol? Also 10hag maybe should have had him on the bench sooner both times. As for Ericksen, bad luck, but he didn't need to be on the pitch either. 10hag needs to protect him better. The guy has a pacemaker and he seems to be running more than anyone else.
There is 1 new ref this year. And 4 last year. That's less than 25% of the pool of new refs and new guy this year has done maybe 5 league games thus far this season, which is roughly normal for a new ref. The PGMOL dont throw new guys to the wolves. You've over played the new ref thing here IMO. They have been poor for a host of other reasons, not inexperience. In our case specifically, Mariner is one of the most senior refs around now.
Refs are shit everywhere, you should see the ones in the Portuguese Liga. Are there any leagues that have consistently good refereeing? In my eyes it's a grassroots issue, who wants to be a referee these days, at the levels they have to start at all that abuse in kid's games and non-league. Only the most egotistical survive to the top level
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.li...ier-league-face-referee-shortage-24288283.amp Didn't say new. Said not as experienced.
I've many thoughts about this match but I really wanna say that ETH has done absolute wonders on AWB. There are still flaws and I completely get it if we move him on in the summer. I think if we move him on now, it will be for a good fee. AWB's confidence has returned and he's taking on players and he's playing first time passes. He was an integral part of our 2nd goal with a couple good passes in the build up. I understand if ETH wants to add a starter (because he thinks Dalot isn't good enough) and as such, we would then replace AWB with new RB, but I think I'd be happy with AWB as a backup RB, assuming he's not playing every week. Fred was amazing in this match. On and off the ball, he was terrific. He made so many runs, truly incredible player. I always knew there was a player in here, but freed of the shackles of Scott, he's been immense. I think Wout has been slightly unlucky not to score his 2nd goal for the club, but I also believe that if we replaced him with an elite striker, we'd be creating more shots and better chances. He's just "okay" and really nothing more. This is not a complaint. I'd happily have him as a backup 9. We were so good in this game. You can see the players understand their roles. I laughed out loud at a moment where Antony recovered the ball in the right back position and AWB was pretty gassed. He was 20 yards up the pitch from Antony and he had his hands on his knees taking a breather. He just didn't have the capacity to make himself available for a pass and despite that, we made an entry into the final third via Shaw like 8 seconds after that. You might wonder why does it matter that AWB was too gassed to make a run or make himself available but the fact that he could be unavailable and Antony be nowhere near RW and the other players have the ability and knowhow to take up positions that make entering the final 1/3 easy is just night and day from last year. I think up until we scored the 2nd goal, Palace had 1 shot on target and they'd created like 2 threatening opportunites outside of set pieces. We kept possession easily, we generated chances and we kept them away from our goal. Most impressively, we were able to do all that while sticking to our game plan. We were patient on the ball and we didn't force it -- although Marcus did take a few ill-advised shots. I think we can live with him doing that given the form he is in. The 2nd goal was a 16 pass move and we kept the ball for over a minute, working it left to right, back to the left. Right before that we had a similar period of dominance where we kept the ball for over a minute and moved Palace around. In the past, up 1-0 or tied 0-0 we'd lose the plot and concede a counter attack goal. We were in control and could do almost whatever we wanted up until the red. One of the most complete hour + stretches of football we've played in years. DDG was ass again. Richards managed to get his head on an outswinging corner about 4 or 5 yards from goal between the posts. There were no players crowding DDG. In the build up to the corner that led to their goal, De Gea failed to catch a simple cross. We are gonna improve significantly with a competant GK. If we give ETH some good transfers we are gonna cook man. I'm so happy.
De Gea was in good form early on with a couple of fine saves, classy ones, but he does not intimidate. The best keepers intimidate and get the better of the opposition a great deal on that basis. I could easily forget the fact he's 6'4". It's pretty inexcusable he doesn't come off his line more effectively given that. As far as the passing goes, I think the criticism here is harsh. Even Allison, Emi and Ederson have made mistakes on the ball as often and as bad as de Gea has this season, but unlike de Gea, they are more intelligent on how to develop the play from the back and are extremely comfortable getting well out of their goal area in order to offer something on the ball. CP let us play. Rope-a-dope stuff, but they got too comfortable sitting back and allowed us to make easy work of them until we got wound up over nothing, put a man down, and they came off the ropes.