Whitey Grandad

I was thinking about the studs earlier. When I played at school we had studs that were made out of a stack of leather discs. They were nailed through the sole of the boot and the ends were hammered over. Sometimes the nail ends would dig into your foot. Then came the nylon studs either fully moulded or screw-in. These caused a lot of nasty cuts if the wearer had worn them on concrete and the edges had got some vicious edges on them. There was a period when the linesmen would check the studs of substitutes before they could enter the field of play.

If you went to A&E with that you’d be laughed at. Not a chance of a stitch there. How would you describe it? It certainly isn’t a laceration. A graze/scrape perhaps. I’m guessing that Hackett was nowhere near the ground when he watched it. Reckless is a yellow card.

I would like to think that none of our players would be a big enough woos to take a photo of it and put it on social media.

Just a surface scratch. When we were kids we used to get worse than that just falling off our bikes. I love the wy that some of the media describe it as a 'gruesome injury'. There won't be a permanent scar. Execpt mentally, perhaps.

It was only a scrape and if you don't come off the pitch at the nd of the game with half a dozen of those then you haven't been trying.

1. We also hit the woodwork from Broja's header. 2. That foul was a tug back by Adams (?) 3.. Several minutes after the incident VAR stopped the game and then somehow concluded that there had been a foul by Romeu outside the box. A ridiculous waste of time but it gave us a chance to have a breather and it broke up City's momentum. I agree about Armstrong. He tried to oull out but his studs scraped down Laporte's thigh. Probable yellow, never a red. Probably looked worse for anyone watching on television but nothing nasty in it for those who were at the game. An example of where VAR is no use for judging the severity of a challenge.

Some did, many didn't. Foreign hauliers would also collect goods from a UK location and deliver them into the EU, or vice versa. It is called cabotage.

Initially I was but the Firmino case is all part of the new officiating environment. I agree that the modern interpretations of offside are causing all sorts of anomalies.

Tony Cascarino has three Saints players in his team of the week today, Perraud, Salisu and Walker-Peters.

The commentator on the early game yesterday said something to the effect of “Can Liverpool take advantage of Manchester City dropping three points yesterday”.

No I didn’t. Don’t make things up to suit your own agenda. Firmino was offside yesterday and even jumped for the ball. Did VAR cancel the goal?

Nope, not me. What the feck did Kevin Friend think that he saw to give that as a penalty? Incidents like that are destroying the game.

And and time again they don’t put it up. Which was my point. If the defensive side have the ball and it was goes out for a corner for any reason the flag doesn’t go up. It happens. Often.

That hasn't been happening.

These officials know what they are doing and they are doing what they have been told. In some cases the defender has put the ball out for a corner but because the attacker has not interfered the offside has been ignored. Had there been no attacker the defence would have cleaned up.

Yeah, right. If he had been blocked then that's probably true but a goalkeeper can be impeded without there being any actual physical contact. There were at least two attackers who were in an offside position and who were moving towards where the ball was going to drop. In my day they would have been flagged offside. Don't they count as 'impeding' the goalkeeper? I view it as a deliberate tactic.

That circumstance has already arisen several times this season.

But there have been situations where the flag has stayed down even though the attacker is clearly offside and then the defenders have conceded a corner for some reason. Shouldn’t the offside take precedence over the corner. And that’s without the possibility of an injury occurring that could have been avoided.

I think the decision to go with Forster instead of McCarthy has a lot todo with our improved results. Sure, Forster has his weaknesses and we need a better keeper but that can be addressed in the summer.

I thought that too at the time but I can understand his uncertainty. Laporte may have been onside but he was supported by a vanguard of offside colleagues who would have made his attempt at claiming the ball more difficult. Technically they were not ‘interfering with an opponent’ under the modern interpretations but they were a distraction and were blocking his possible approach to the ball. Laporte had it easy because his flanks were protected.

I loved the bit at the end when he and Forster embraced. Perraud didn’t even come up to Fraser’s chin.

That’s how things used to be and that’s how I think things should be. Offside is offside.

Meh, he could have drawn that on after the game with his lipstick

We both thought that Armstrong hadn’t touched Laporte and that he was overreacting.

Ours is international size, like most of the others. 1m longer than Anfield and the same width.