The9

What if there's a diving player whose feet are behind the defender but his head is well past? How do you determine when the ball is kicked? How do you determine whether a player is interfering? What about minor undetected deflections on the ball after the initial kick? And so on. We had the "offside decision" discussion before, it's quite difficult to propose a method of working it out with technology without human interaction, and it's quite difficult even with that. The best one I came up with was the lino having a "someone is offside" indicator which he can have in his line of sight in order to be able to decide if they're also interfering when the ball is played - and even that assumes the wearable tech is at the furthest-forward point of the attacker and furthest-back part of the defender.

In which case you're just wrong, because he wasn't. Maybe you've missed the defender immediately in front of him?

We haven't, Sepp has, and he's better than us.

Which begs the question: "why are none of the 2002/3 side up there?". Admittedly it was only 8th, but, you know, Modern Football and all that.

One thing that does annoy me though (slightly contradicting my last point!), commentators saying strikers who are "looking along the line" shouldn't be offside. If you're in the middle of the pitch with defenders around you it is much easier to determine if you're offside than if you're out on the wing, when any calculation involves a calculation involving an arbitrary vertical plane running parallel to a vanishing point in line with the goalline or edge of the box and probably only one nearby defender to check your position against... whilst you're running and considering how to control the ball. So in conclusion, running the line is easy, running the wing isn't. Which must be down to not having to think about controlling the ball or beating the offside trap too.

It's bloody easy if you're fit enough to keep up with the last defender, unless you don't concentrate or don't know what you're doing. I will accept that giving offside calls after a 40 yard pass from a ball right on the touchline on your side of the pitch is more difficult than it looks (in fact, impossible), but the general job isn't that hard.

He is if he's actually IN line to judge, and not out of breath, or changing direction, or his view isn't obscured, and if he's actually looking at the right place, at the right time. There are plenty of arguments against the introduction of technology, but I'm pretty sure "it's not as good as a person doing it" isn't one of them. In fact, just as images get captured and manipulated, it's impossible for a human to accurately judge when a ball is passed due to speed of light and sound considerations (and of course it's atomically impossible for anyone to be "level" as well, but anyway, Science).

The "problem" is that some people see "not offside", don't know the laws of the game, or miss something glaringly obvious, and still come to the wrong conclusion. Mostly, that isn't the case with the officials (though I will admit to having stand up rows on the pitch with the refs when they don't know the laws... in parks matches) .

No he wasn't. He was level with the last West Ham defender who was immediately in front of him - but there were two Saints players in offside positions (though not interfering) who blocked the lino's view of the incident altogether.

I'm completely against it for the same reason I'm completely against all technology involved in refereeing decisions - because it's not available at all levels. I can't argue that goalline tech (and to a lesser extent vanishing spray) has been a huge success, and I guess I should just accept that at some point we're going to go down the road of video reviews which the fans can't see and thus create more controversy not less, whilst probably being more accurate overall, though slowing the game in some instances. I'd also point out that if this was in place, Saints wouldn't have scored more goals in that match. Ramirez's header wouldn't have led to the wrongly-awarded corner Saints scored from. Or would it? That's all assuming that Allardyce used his review for that corner decision and Koeman used ours for the offside - this system wouldn't even have guaranteed those decisions would be challenged, and might have remained wrong. The arbitrary nature of this "one" challenge means you could get a situation where a goal is wrongly awarded but there's no challenge left, you might even get a situation where there are two possible fouls in an incident leading to a goal and only one can be overturned by challenge, which is fundamentally less fair than the independent arbiter(s) making a genuine error which could have happened to either side.

Yeah, I'd heard they were playing a bunch of kids - saw them against Newport in the League Cup earlier in the season and althought they rested a few they were unrecognisable from the Prem side of 2 years ago and it was a fairly close game. They didn't seem to have much of a plan either, but I guess that happens at that stage of development with any disjointed team - I remember Saints (reserves) looked pretty disjointed at Stevenage a couple of seasons back, and still hammered them score-wise.

It wouldn't have happened to any goalkeeper who was paying attention to the conditions, or any which had started to react to the position of the ball and his defenders before it bounced. Unfortunately Boruc's arrogance cost him, in failing to make a note of the conditions and considering that the ball might do what it did. He wasn't helped by his centre-backs both deciding it was carrying through to him and parting to the wings to get in position for the anticipated subsequent roll out. They should have actually defended the ball, but even with that, his starting position was neither a keeper who was sweeping up behind the defence, nor that of one who was placed to receive a backpass/back header from them, nor one that considered a wind-assisted bounce at a ground known for it's exposed nature and in a match where the pre-match build up had repeatedly featured shots of things blowing over (eg corner flags). In fact, he was side-on, about to face the other way, barely paying attention even after the kick was taken. So it couldn't have "happened to anyone", it could only have happened to someone who was probably over-confident and definitely not paying enough attention.

That solves that then, it'll be Fonte and Alderweireld. Unless Gardos is preferred to Fonte, then Alderweireld can play RCB. But somehow I doubt that will happen. I also have to stop slating Forren as a bit of a joke now too, having seen him comfortably contain England's best strikers on Friday night. My updated team is: Forster; Clyne, Fonte, Alderweireld, Bertrand; Schneiderlin; Tadic, Ward-Prowse, Davis, Long; Pelle Subs: Boruc, Gardos, Yoshida, Wanyama, Cork, Isgrove, Mane. Assuming fitness. I'd be inclined to leave Mane on the bench given his trip to Senegal (similar with Yoshida's journey but then I'd drop him anyway). I still keep wanting to add Ramirez - who makes a great impact sub across the attacking midfield, even if he's flattered to deceive. For a side which is meant to have improved its depth, we're struggling to cover attacking midfield positions at the moment.

Interesting to see the struggle he's had getting Reading up - one of the reasons I thought he was nuts for taking the job with them almost certain to go down - if he'd sat out and waited for the next season he'd have been a prime candidate for any of Palace, Fulham or Norwich, and all of them were more likely to stay up than the Reading job he took. Now he's stuck with the tag of a Championship level manager who once got a team promoted of the Championship (and second to the team he can't currently get promoted at that).

Same problem as last year, and the main reason it was obvious Cortese's assault on Europe was doomed to fail, despite us going into the match with Arsenal in mid November last season in position to go top, albeit having had a relatively easy schedule until then. We were fine as long as we managed to only use about 14 players all season. Once you got into Fox, Hooiveld, Gallagher* and Guly territory we looked more like a lower mid-table side than a top 6 one. *young, hungry and guaranteed to improve.

We were poor at defending against teams who usually set up to play either on the counter or using long balls - the obvious examples at St Mary's were West Brom 2012/13, Newcastle 2012/13 (home and away actually) and Villa (2013/14). As for the top sides, who were usually set up for a short passing game and thus more susceptible to our pressing game, we often gave them a better game than you'd expect from a midtable side, but still lost more than we won. It was pretty obvious when Arsenal only played well for 10 minutes at St Mary's in January, that any top team playing at their usual high tempo and with a specific gameplan to switch the ball quickly was able to beat us. The same went for the crappy sides who had the opportunity to test Yoshida over the top without a defensive shield. And on top of that, we lost to bloody Cardiff at home last season, which I still haven't worked out.

Equally, don't get me started.

Also just saw he was in Bulwark overnight last night, which is near Chepstow right next to the Severn Bridge, so that answers that.

According to this, Marylebone Road: http://www.jellyfishlivewire.co.uk/benalis-big-run/benali-s-big-run-route-confirmed

If he's in Sherston he'd have taken the old Severn Bridge, that's "somewhere north of Bristolish".

Given that pedestrians can only go over the Severn Bridge and not the Second Severn Crossing, I'd be guessing he's going to be heading down the A48 to Chepstow, then over the Bridge to Aust, and... somewhere north of Bristolish (possibly through Yate and the like) to Swindon. If they've changed the pedestrian rules on the "old" Bridge, poor sod will have to go via Gloucester (probably via Lydney, which is a sod of a hill) and then there's a dual carriageway A road from Gloucester to Swindon.

Can we abridge the thread title to "Luke Sharticle"? I'm finding it amusing.

Oh and FWIW, wehen people said the thread had run its course earlier I didn't agree because I thought there was plenty of further discussion to be had. I'd say there probably wasn't, now we're down this cul-de-sac.

My auntie went to school with Tony Pulis, don't you know?

Point well made and understood. Slightly disturbing stalker notes though - even if I retired from proper football 11 years ago and completely from even sh1111tty football (read Internet FC games) in the summer.