lurka the proximity of the deflection is there to mean did the player have a reasonable amount of time to avoid a handball and in this case for taa a very convenient handball, the answer is yes, aguero stood near taa is looking at the ball as it hits silvas arm and in the time it takes to hit taa's arm has managed to turn his head 90 degrees, interestingly taa looks at the ball when it strikes silva but instead of following the ball, as would be the natural thing to do, then looks straight ahead so to make it look like the handball is accidental, i think oliver may not give it because from his angle its difficult to tell how far away from the body taa's arm is or maybe he just wanted to avoid the big decision

or hand to ball should I say ^

whatever we think about the current rules, and handball is bar far the most difficult rule to write and apply, there needs to be consistency, they are very good at chalking goals off, var anywhere else i think would have given a penalty, had the ball gone out of play immediately we would have had a 3 minute stop while var looked, as liverpool scored so quickly after it upped the stakes too high and i think var bottled the correct call, it suited me personally but objectively i think they got it wrong and in the long run that is a concern

I'm not saying it's right, but again, can someone please explain to me how you can possibly class Bernardo Silva's as a handball if they score and not if they don't?!?  You cannot have it both ways! 

The game is an utter mess at the minute, and the rules, their inconsistent interpretation and VAR are all contributing to that.

wolf is 100% right .it should be hand to ball or a deliberate act of handball ,otherwise ,play on .That is how it used to be ,and how it should be again ,accidental handball should never be given as a penalty.

I'm really not convinced the referees are following the law change. Neil Swarbrick on sky now saying it wasn't a deliberate handball. But it doesn't have to be deliberate if his hand has made his body unnaturally bigger.

Leaving this incident aside, it's almost physically impossible for a defender to jump for a ball without moving his arms so by that logic unless his arms are stapled to his side then " his arms make his body unnaturally bigger" every time he even moves. You can't have a set of laws like that - it's utterly ridiculous to expect players not to move their arms when playing football.

A penalty gives an 80-90% chance of a goal which is a completely disproportional punishment to a player that doesnt have his hands by his side like a robot.. does anyone really think had it not brushed the liverpool players arm city would have had a 80-90 % chance of a goal? Of course not and the laws in the game should reflect this. We never had these problems back in the day with innocuous flicks on hands resulting in penalties.. some laws like the back pass rule have advanced the game but this is an utter farce. Infact why not bother going for goal at all, just wait till a defender moves his arm a few inches into an " unnatural position" blast it like a rocket from 2 yards at the arm and get a penalty with an 80% plus chance of a goal.

does anyone really think had it not brushed the liverpool players arm city would have had a 80-90 % chance of a goal?



thats not the question though, however correct it may be.

The use of video assistant referees (VAR) in Premier League games has been given a mark of seven out of 10 by the man in charge despite strong criticism.

Neil Swarbrick says VAR will evolve and asked for fans to be patient after another weekend of controversy.

Wouldn't it be a bigger problem if a penalty was awarded directly from an attacking player handling the ball accidentally or not? If the ball had come directly from Silva's boot, everybody would likely agree a penalty was a fair decision.

But the lawmakers have used a sledgehammer to crack a nut as they were brought in to stop a situation were Llorente scored accidentally with his arm for Spurs against Man city in the champions league and now ludicrously they have taken it to the n'th degree whereby the ball only has to slightly touch the shirt sleeve of an attacker with the attacker not gaining an advantage because he has not controlled the ball or it has not changed direction because of that slightest touch and the goal is subsequently ruled out,i am sure i speak for the overwhelming majority of fans in that we don't want to see goals chalked off as in scenarios like that.

offside rule was originally written to combat players seeking an "unfair advantage". how the f@ck is having your toe in front of a defenders shoulder blade in line with this principle? whoever is running this is just a myopic idiot.

Article in the Athletic this AM which details the Sheff United offside decision and shows an image which shows that Dier's knee was nearer to goal than his head and that the image initially used appears to show otherwise because the camera angle gives a false perspective. But the new image only shows a close up of Dier and not the Sheff U player and is therefore useless imo.

They should be using clear and obvious for offside. VAR was not introduced because fans wanted to see toes and armpits called offside. We just wanted to see decisions which we could all see at home were clearly wrong being reversed and that's what we were told it would correct.

heres another take on the salah offside

https://www.sportbible.com/football/football-news-funny-fan-on-twitter-uses-his-phone-as-own-personal-var-and-its-brilliant-20191110

Rider
Date Joined: 03 Jun 01
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12 Nov 19 11:32
Joined: 03 Jun 01 | Topic/replies: 7,755 | Blogger: Rider's blog
for offside i have to wonder about the accuracy of the lines drawn, do they know they are perfectly perpendicular to the touchline?, the salah one didnt look so, i tried measuring from the dark strip of grass both side of the line drawn to form a ratio top and bottom and it wasnt the same by about 10%, of course the dark strip may not be cut square but it makes you realise how easy it would be to get this measurement wrong and also that the system shouldnt be adjudicating to centimetres

basing decisions on pseudo science. awful.

It is not pseudo-science although it looks that way. I think the mapping tachnology is accurate. The problem is people fail to understand how perspective works. There is no issue if the camera is directly in line, but when it is not then a player on the far side will often look further forward than a player on the near side. You can see this from the grass strips which are the same width across the pitch but they look narrower on the far side than they do on the near side and the difference is greater the futher away from the camera they are. Look at the Salah offside still, the camera is not in line, look at the width of the strip Salah is in on the near and far sides. Then look at the width of the strip Robertson is in which is further from the camera. Do the lines look straight to you? The strips both look narrower on the far side of the pitch.It would help greatly if they explained this to fans.

I still would prefer to see clear and obvious used for offside tho, I don't think fans ever wanted calls like this being made.

By far the biggest variable with the offsides (and the reason it is subjective, not objective as some claim) is when to freeze the frame.  Test 10 different VAR operators and there is no way they will all freeze at the same frame. Quite often it's nothing much more than a guess because the foot is obscured by a player or the ball itself, or the angle is not side-on, and it can make well over a yard of difference because of the speed that everything moves.

TV producers can be well off on this also.  The freeze frame on the Salah goal shown on TV which "proved" it was onside was late imo (even allowing that it should be when the ball leaves the foot rather than when it first contacts).  We weren't shown the official VAR review of this anyway (if indeed there was one)

There are many things that need to be addressed if they are ever going to get VAR to an acceptable level of being advantageous.

That means looking at how far back to take an issue when a goal is scored, the hand ball / ball to hand nonsense, the offside debate and when to over rule an official. If you cannot get over those problems then scrap it.

Is there a way to refine it and make it an asset ?

Maybe but it will need law change and / or rule amendment.

One thing is blatantly obvious from the inception. Refs get it wrong, But we knew that already. How can we help them .....

Well lets try this. If an initial infringement in the build up to a goal is missed by the ref then hey ho...that has to be ignored. Currently it is bollox.

The hand ball affair is difficult. I would be in favour of one challenge being permitted per half by each team if they feel the decision has gone against them. If upheld then the challenge remains intact. Timescale for appeal. 10 seconds. No time to analyse fully simply the gut reaction , same as the ref gets. After that no whinging permitted. It is the END of it.

Offside is difficult and i do not have a definitive answer. My gut feeling is that we need a change in the law and there has to be clear daylight and i mean about a foot ( ? ) but clear,  to be called offside. We may get more goals per game then perhaps ????

Not easy. VAR can also be used to assist the ref in goalmouth incidents like deliberate pulling to ground etc etc. If THE PLAYERS KNOW THEY ARE GOING TO BE PENALISED IT WILL DIE OUT. Also they can tip the ref off if he has missed an incident off the ball and he can then blow up and refer to the video recording briefly. Fans must be kept in full contact about what is occurring.

Maybe that will work ?

Agree about the shirt pulling Geordie but if they stat firm on it for a few weeks it will disappear out of the game, Pull a shirt and it is confirmed then peno, card and move on. You watch it fade away