If I may quote Bill Shankly who I am sure was one of your favorite mgrs...“When I’ve nothing better to do, I look down the league table to see how Everton are getting along.”
I've actually met James Linington's grandfather after a U13 game I was AR on in NJ. He was a spectator and came up to me after the game and told me how his grandson was a ref in the Championship.
To be fair, I didn’t want my post to be a knock on James Linington. All I’m saying is that any referee at the SG2 level being forced into what’s essentially a Champions League qualifier final is being put into a situation where they could be set up to fail. That’s on PGMOL and the Premier League, not on the official himself.
Thoughts on the foul that led to Mount's free kick goal in the Chelsea-Wolves game? My head was turned to my computer (ManU-LC game on there) so didn't get a great look. NBC didn't show a close-up replay during the halftime highlights. Good spot by Kavanagh on the handling that led to the first Bournemouth goal. The replay showed the traffic he had to look through in order to catch it.
i went to 4 screens by the end of the day! TV, iPad, iPhone, Mac. i have lost track of who was the referee for each match, but I think it was Attwell on Chelsea? Anyway, I remember thinking he was well placed to see an angle we didn’t see on replay which was to the left even with the two players and looking almost between them. I don’t imagine there was much contact, but it’s still a foul.
Yes, Attwell was on the Chelsea-Wolves match. I think that was the general idea there as well. Enough contact for a foul, and one that if called more often would reduce some of the other issues we see around going to ground and some escalation in the Premier League. Hard to really tell about officiating since I was watching three games (TV, laptop, and phone), but I don’t remember any major officiating issues in the games I was following. Turns out Oliver’s West Ham-Villa match became the most dramatic with what transpired in the last 10 minutes or so. I do think the change on the Arsenal PK was the right call. That was, for me, a clear foul.
How’s the old Hawkeye system feeling right about now? Great in Birmingham, but no so good down South.
The most interesting officiating question for me ended up being completely academic. On the Manchester United penalty, Atkinson carded Evans for the DOGSO-yellow foul. I'll stipulate now that there was absolutely enough to justify that call because of the way he got his leg from behind--no questions or complaints from me. But it did seem like VAR was taking the time to ensure Evans didn't get a touch of the ball. For me, that touch of the ball would not have been enough to negate the foul, but I worry it might have been enough for the VAR. With all that said, Morgan 100% fouled the attacker from the left with his simultaneous tackle. It's clear that he hits the left leg before even coming close to challenging for the ball. Truly, it felt like Atkinson just picked what he thought was the worse tackle and carded that one. So my academic question is/was: is there a world (once again, based on a slightly different set of facts) where a VAR says "actually, Evans didn't foul him but Morgan did... so change the yellow from Evans to Morgan?" By the protocols and what IFAB/FIFA envisage, I think there is in other leagues. My worry is that English VARs don't think creatively enough and that there would be tunnel vision ("yes or no, did Evans foul him?") on an incident like this in the EPL.
I was wondering the same thing on that play, as it seemed a surprisingly long delay for a pretty straightforward play. It raises some interesting protocol questions. If VAR decides the foul that was called was clearly not a foul, but that a foul on the other player, while the better call, was not clear error not to call, do we get a DB to the GK instead of. PK because of how the pieces play out? And then it’s different if the R says “I had a foul on both and went with the worse one.” Even though though our crack announcing team described it as a second yellow....
Mike Dean's face as he was overruled by VAR on the final day! Time to retire? https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/f...-Mike-Dean-reacts-overturned-VAR-Arsenal.html
Well, the yellow card is what really makes this interesting. If it was just a question of "who fouled him?" it really doesn't matter that much so long as the VAR sees a foul. If there was no card, you're not going to drag everyone through a process to get to the same decision (penalty). But, given the card... everywhere outside England, the VAR would actually be able (and, perhaps obligated?) to recommend a review because the decision (again, in this hypothetical with a slightly different set of facts) to call a penalty on Evans was wrong. So a referee would go to the monitor, see Evans wasn't guilty of a foul, but also see Morgan was guilty of a foul and misconduct. Because it's a penalty, it's a backdoor way to fix a yellow card. Of course, now that I write all of that, I realize "mistaken identity" is the easier fix. A yellow can be changed for mistaken identity via VAR (without a review) if it's clear. So again, in the hypothetical, a VAR could simply say "card Morgan instead of Evans because you wrongly identified the foul." The more I think about it, the more my concern really just applies to England and what I fear is a tunnel vision "did he get the ball? oh good, then it's not a penalty" philosophy.
This is what I assumed the check was looking at - however now that I think about it more I'm not sure this counts as mistaken identity. Mistaken identity is A punched B, Referee sends off C for the punch by A. In this case, A trips B, C (for arguments sake) makes a fair tackle that the referee wrongly calls a trip. Referee cautions C for DOGSO. It seems like the review options are: - VAR says C didn't foul, referee says he thought both players fouled at same time, English ref just listens and caution switched to A - VAR says C didn't foul, A did, VAR recommends on field review, referee awards PK for the other foil and switch caution to A - VAR says result is a PK which is not error, screw the caution (which I don't think is correct path)
In England, there are no OFRs for penalties (or at least there weren't this season). So your second option isn't an option. The more I think about it, the more I started making a mountain out of a molehill. I know for a fact that VAR is used for "no, that caution was wrongly assigned" in other leagues. When there is enough time to do so, the VAR is used to double-check identity on any cautions that might be in doubt (and also to confirm everyone is recording everything correctly). So in a scenario like this, where two players simultaneously tackle... if one tackle was fair and the other wasn't, and either would be DOGSO by their nature... it would be very easy to use the "mistaken identity" route given the natural stoppage and check for the penalty. Again, back to reality (and away from my hypothetical) my real fear is that an English VAR might have overturned this if they saw a substantial touch on the ball from Evans and simply ignored the foul by Morgan and the foul action by Evans.
From today’s Swansea-Brentford Championship semifinal leg 1 playoff-a pretty controversial send off from Keith Stroud. https://streamable.com/q8679n I could absolutely understand a caution for this given the speed and how he collects the plant leg, and maybe that’s why Stroud decided on a SFP send off. However, even after watching it more than a few times I just don’t see how this checks all of the boxes for excessive force or endangering the opponent’s safety. I’m not even going to consider “he got the ball”, as this challenge definitely is not fair in my opinion.
He missed an absolutely clear foul. Dawson blatantly went through Lacazette's back. The fact that VAR even had to intervene reflected poorly on Dean.
I think this is a stretch. Literally no one on the field appealed for a penalty. Even the player who crossed it was more worried about getting a corner than an asking about a foul on the player he was crossing toward. It's a foul and it should be a penalty. But I'm more than a bit surprised it was given by VAR in England, given standards to this point. Because it's a somewhat unusual penalty and--outside handling decisions--England has not used VAR to give penalty decisions that no one or very few people expect. As for the initial article and Dean's reaction... "social media reacts!" stories in tabloids could be the lowest form of "journalism" in the current age, and that's saying something. Dean's expressive, as we already know. He sort of gave a "huh, that didn't even cross my mind" eyebrow raise. The idea that he was irritated or angry at being overruled to get the right call is that sort of conclusion that regularly gets jumped to on Twitter.
Hard for Lacazette to appeal since he was down holding his head and neck. The others didn't appeal immediately because the ball was still in play and Ceballos could've scored. Your link above is a brief highlights package only --- I could be wrong, but having watched the full match in real time, I recall several Arsenal players pointing to Lacazette as if to ask "WTF." As for Dean's expression, I didn't comment on that specifically, much less try to draw any inference as to what his expression meant, so I'm not sure why you didn't quote the poster who did. My only point was that he missed a clear penalty.
Point stipulated. But the player who got fouled (or thinks he got fouled) always appeals if he can. I'm thinking of the other 10 teammates. Don't buy this at all. I've seen a few soccer games as I know you have, too. Attackers appeal all the time when they feel their teammate was unfairly felled and the ball is still in play. The crossing winger would almost have reflexively done so in most instances similar to this if he truly felt there was a clear argument for a penalty. It just didn't happen here. It is 14 minutes long and dedicates about 1:15 to an incident (cross to VAR decision) that took about 2:50 of real time, so while it's not everything, it's a lot. And my point still stands. It shows cross through foul to corner kick uninterrupted. If Arsenal teammates said "hey, what the f***?" once they saw their teammate still laying on the ground once the ball went out of play (which is something I'd expect), that's substantially different from "hey, ref, that's a f****** penalty!" We both know that professional players have no problem arguing the latter. Look, I agree it's a penalty. I'm only debating the assertion that the miss by Dean reflected poorly upon him. I'd posit there isn't an EPL referee in the league who calls that live. If there is--well, Dean is probably the most likely candidate, given his reputation for pointing to the spot. This actually opens up a very interesting discussion for next year about how VAR gets used on penalties and whether or not an introduction of OFRs would change things substantially in England. But arguing that it's a stonewall penalty that everyone saw and expected misses the mark for me because it doesn't mesh with the reality of this league. And in nowhere in my post did I suggest that you did. But I'm unaware of some standard where I need to go back and quote @balu in order to make my point about the article. I hadn't been on the thread since it was posted. I chose to make a point about your commentary of Dean, provide the link to the actual decision, and lament the type of journalism that started the discussion.
Are the standards for wrongful dismissal the same in the EFL as they are in the EPL? Seems like something that might be governed by the FA, but I can't recall for sure. If so, I think that gets overturned. It's not a red. I have a hard time seeing yellow in England. It's an aggressive tackle, but it's executed quite well. Likely has to be a foul in most levels below this and maybe even here, but it's a huge leap to a red card. This is the type of challenge, for instance, that I think goes unpunished in the penalty area in the EPL (via referee or VAR).
I did some checking and didn't see anything specific on the EFL website concerning player/manager discipline. The only items I saw were for team penalties like what is happening with Wigan. I have to think that since it seems like the FA is the organization associated with these misconduct charges and that suspensions in the EPL cover both EPL and FA/Carabao Cup games, that the same process to review/appeal sendoffs applies for the EFL. If so, I agree that this will probably be overturned. I know we talked about the potential issues that could have arisen in the key Premier League games, but another factor was that because of the SG2 referees on fourth official and/or VAR duties in the EPL on Sunday, we are seeing what can happen with moving down the depth chart on SG2 officials. I frequent a different, UK-based referee forum quite regularly, and let's just say that several of them don't have the highest opinion of Keith Stroud. I know the schedule is incredibly compressed this year, but PGMOL and the EFL had to know scheduling a playoff semifinal on Sunday would cause trouble. I get there's TV involved and all of that, but couldn't they have played both semifinal first legs back to back today to get some of the better SG2 referees (or even SG1s who were fourths or VARs yesterday) to be in the middle for these games? It just seems like a big miss from an assigning perspective.
It might be easy, but it wouldn't be right. It's not a case of mistaking who the player was that he called the foul on, but a case of calling a different foul.
I understand what you're saying, but I think from a practical standpoint this is too rigid of a principle to uphold in a situation like this. Two tackles are attempted at the same time. In this case, both are fouls. But in a scenario where a referee picks one to punish with a card and the other was actually the foul... unless the referee is actively saying "no, Morgan's tackle was clean," I don't think it's really violating any codified principle for VAR to say "hey, you picked the wrong tackle and carded the wrong guy." In this situation, there would always be a way to solve the problem because it was also a penalty. But simultaneous tackles at midfield with one being clean and the other one not? I think a VAR would be expected to intervene and tell the referee that he's carded the wrong guy. And the only legitimate entry point is "mistaken identity" if it's not also a penalty or a potential red card. From an objective standpoint, I know you're right. But again, if the referee is saying or willing to say that both actions were foul tackles, I think you'd find that VARs would feel obligated to intervene here if the chosen tackle for the yellow card was proven to be clean (while the other foul did rise to the level of misconduct).