Whitey Grandad

There was a time.

Stick me down on the touch line and I'll tell you. Jay's right leg is certainly nearer the goal, and probably his chest as well. Take away the defender's right arm and look again.

Gerrard quoted the officialas saying 'I think so'. That seems pretty definite to me. I can't find that guidance in the current documents, which do change regularly, to be fair.

That's very true. I also think that all professional footballers would benefit from going on a refereeing course and taking charge of a few games so that they could get a better understanding of what's involved. I expect that if you had 100 different linesmen in that particular situation some of them might very well have allowed play to continue, but it certainly wasn't the worst offside decision I've seen in the last few weeks.

From that image it looks like a correct decision to me.

It would appear not.

I'm sure that advice still applies but isn't that an old document? If he wasn't sure he wouldn't have raised his flag.

This may come as a surprise to some but many professional footballers and tv pundits do not know the laws of the game. The first game of the season after the toss-up ruling was changed Tony Adams won the toss and insisted that he wanted the kick-off.

I'm sure that if he was unsure about whether he was 100% sure he surely would not have flagged. That picture shows him offside (ignore any arms) and the linesman is in the perfect position.

Let's be charitable and say that he was taking his time to think about it. Fonte's leg was locked straight and his studs were showing maybe. I don't know of any ref who takes account of the rolling around, but it's always possible.

'From the replay'. There is nothing about benefit of the doubt in any of the Laws of the Game.

It looked a good strong tackle to me form my excellent position 50 yards away in the Kingsland. Then on MOTD2 from a lower angle you could see that the follow-through caught Tiote on the ankle. Booking? Perhaps.

No need for technology on these ones. They were both in the referee's quarter of the pitch. Definitely Atkinson's decision for the second. I saw Adam asking the linesman why and he then pointed to the referee. It looked pretty definite to me that he was passing the buck.

I think it goes back further than that. When I first heard about the ruling it was said that it was to prevent the possibility of crowd trouble. Nobody said anything about embarrassing the referee.

Impossible to tell from the replay.

Nor without doubt onside. If Jay's nose is one inch nearer to the goal then he is offside. There is no mention of 'benefit of doubt' anywhere that I can find. But as I said above, technology has no place in football. My comment was in reply to 'being at the ground trumping replays'. If you want a decision then have an independent body train and appoint an official to run up and down the line with a flag. I still maintain that the replays do not show him to be onside.

yup, unbelievable. Clear two yards of daylight from my angle.

I come back to my earlier perhaps philosophical point that the game is not played with technology but human beings. The flag went up, end of.

Because that's what the bloke with the flag does and nobody else matters.

Well perhaps he did? Look again at the part about 'head, body or feet' and see if Jay's head is not nearer the goal than the defender. Arms and the bits on the end of them are ignored. 'Clearly offside' doesn't come into it, he's either offside or he isn't. I will admit that my view when running the line was that if you had to think too long about it then don't do anything, a bit like pulling out from a side road.

Nothing in the Laws about that. Level is onside, that is all.

Offside if 'Any part of the player's head, body or feet is nearer to the goal than the second to last defender' http://www.fifa.com/mm/document/worldfootball/clubfootball/01/37/04/27/interpretation%5flaw11%5fen.pdf

No they're not. They could just be stumbles.

Not usually. You have to watch everything at the same time, which is of course impossible, but you can shift your glance very quickly from the kicker to the receiver. It's also very important to maintain your position level with the second to last defender. As a referee I often had to work without any linesman and have a lot of experience of judging offsides from a central position. I must admit that from my position in the central Kingsland it never occurred to me that Jay was offside but having seen the tv replays I cannot say that the linesman was wrong.

They do no such thing. Even with all the technology the evidence is inconclusive. In my opinion you cannot say that the linesman was categorically wrong.