sadoldgit

And yet Bellingham has “won” a few free kicks by doing exactly that and been praised for doing so by the pundits. This is the problem with VAR. It is taking grey situations and trying to turn them into either black or white situations. When you look at things in slow motion and still frames you are applying science to something that isn’t scientific. The whole “obvious error” thing is there for a reason. What was the refs first reaction when the incident happened. If he thinks it was a foul originally then there has to be a good reason for that. There will always be differing opinions, even with VAR people still dispute decisions. The reason VAR is despised so much is that it has taken the human element out of a sport that is all about the human element. Not only that, the decision making takes so much longer and isn’t necessarily better. Football, as we know, is a contact sport. Pundits and commentators have an expression for that contact. They call it a “coming together.” There have been a number of incidents where two players have challenged for the ball at the same time, made contact with each other and no foul has been committed. Do the forensic VAR test and then they decide, because one player has been a microsecond late, a foul has been committed. Has it really? Kane’s penalty offence was a perfect example. There was no intention to kick the players foot. They both tried to play the ball at virtually the same time (Kane believed that he did play the ball). In real time, to me, it looked like a “coming together” and the ref must have agreed as he didn’t give it. When you see a still frame Kane clearly gets there slightly later and kicks the players foot whilst both are going for the ball. The still clearly says penalty but in real time both players are challenging for the ball and whilst there is contact whilst doing so, you could argue that no foul has been committed as this came under the category of a “coming together.” I know that there will be disagreements about the decision still,but that is the basic problem. By trying to remove human fallibility we have just replaced it with human fallibility aided by technology. At least the gut instinct, right or wrong of the initial decision is made in the heat of the game. Has football improved since the days when the ref’s decision was final? Not for me. VAR is even making calls about corners/goal kicks now. How long before games are refereed by AI? Sorry for the long waffle. It has taken me a while to decide whether I think if it is a good thing or not. It has taken the decisions made in this WC to help me decide that, in this format, it isn’t.

Rice had been off all competition? What utter pony. He has been excellent apart from last night when he clearly should not have been on the pitch as he has been ill.

We are so reliant on Bellingham and Kane. We really need others to step up if we want to win this thing.

Just how good has Bellingham been for us in this WC? How good was it to see Haaland go off? Two players should not have started. One because he was not fit. The other because he isn’t good enough. Fair play for the changes at half time.

We are not France. We are not Spain. But we are in the semi finals 🥳

Good that they are raising money for charity, but if they want to put on a show, why not do it before the match starts? It’s bad enough with the hydration (coaching) breaks. They are trying to turn it into another Super Bowl.

I like it, apart from the awful sponsors logo.

I’m not sure how it works if they are deliberately trying to give Argentina pens in this WC given that Messi misses half of them. If he had any, Infantino would be pulling his hair out.

Only if the current holder of the FIFA Peace Prize gets involved. Interesting point though. I thought the point of booking players for taking their shirt off when scoring was down to the sponsors wanting their names to be seen on pictures of the goal scorer. There are no sponsors names on shirts in the WC.

Which have actually become coaching breaks with a bit of hydration thrown in.

The Belgium team had a meeting beforehand and were fired up by the red card situation. Sounds like Trump’s intervention backfired bigly which is just as well as you can just imagine the grief if Balogun had scored the winner. Trump hates losers, perhaps Balogun and Pochettino will be receiving visits from ICE agents soon!

When we bought him he did get in that team.

If they want to bring along an older player to add experience in the dressing room, just add one of them to the coaching staff. Job done.

It’s amazing isn’t it? Little Southampton FC cheat in the EFL and get the book thrown at them. The President of the US cheats for his national team in front of the whole world and FIFA bend over backwards to help him.

Second most successful manager is a pretty low bar to be fair. Apart from Ramsey every other manager has failed to deliver. No one is saying that Southgate was a poor manager. The point is, with what he had at his disposal we could have done better if he had not been so cautious. Losing is not the issue. It is losing when you have the potential to win that is so frustrating. England failed to qualify under Ramsey against Poland, but anyone watching that game will know that England gave everything in that match and left everything on the pitch. I wish I could say the same about the two finals and the semi under Southgate.

Not sure that anyone thinks that he is a genius so far. We have looked below par in the competition up to now but hopefully that gutsy display last night has given the squad what it needed to build the fighting team spirit that has been lacking. You can’t rely on a couple of players digging you out every game. That win last night forged England into a fighting unit. Norway will be tough. Like us they have a few quality players along with some decent but not great players at this level. I would have preferred to be playing Brazil, but hey ho. Bring it on!

He loved sport and he understands it really well, apart from knowing what a red card in “soccer” means apparently. This sums up Trump and his presidency perfectly. He decides what is right and wrong even if he hasn’t got a clue what is going on. What Donald wants, Donald gets.

Southgate was risk averse. Instead of “who dares wins” his motto was “who plays safe might not lose.” Yep, fair play to him for getting that far in competitions, but it is all about winning and I don’t know of another country who would give a top honour to a serial runner up. Can you image how Trump would have treated him?

Michael Stipe of REM fame loved this phrase. He was initially told that it meant that you like the smell of your own farts. Hopefully someone put him right. I can confirm that it means being blown up by your own bomb (used to blow in doors or walls in medieval times).

So did Archer. I think Fellows was disappointing last season. If you think he wasn’t, fair enough but his finishing was dreadful and he has shown that he can score previously.* Eckhert has shown that he can coach but he is not the Messiah. Buying players in the hope that your coaching team can turn them into something else is not a wise strategy (unless you have bottomless resources) as we have seen to our cost before. We had a good squad that was underperforming. Eckhert got us playing as a team, which Still failed miserably at, but not every player improved under him and his coaching team, which is my point. To point out the obvious, you can’t just assume that because he has got the best out of some, it will work for all. If that is the case and he can turn any player around, let’s save some money and bring back Downs and BBD. *9 goals for WBA

Considering that several EPL clubs are supposed to be interested in him (Everton, Newcastle, Fulham) along with some Serie A clubs I’m not sure why we are discussing the likelihood of him coming here on loan anyway. The idea that Eckert can turn every cow’s ear into a silk purse needs to be put to bed too. Fellows had a disappointing season. Robinson went backwards after a promising start and if DD stays I doubt very much if Ekhert will turn him around.

I think that he is one of those players who fails to live up to the hype. He didn’t do anything when he (apparently) chose Stoke over us, and not at PNE either. Yes, scored some goals for Hull and had a good season at Ipswich but was awful for Chelsea and the fans want him gone. Most of the stuff I had read from Everton fans is that they don’t want him there. £30m to £40m??? He isn’t coming here on loan and will probably end up as a 2nd string striker for a bottom half Prem club so I can’t see any point in speculating about him anyway.

How many times have we been linked with Liam Delap over the years? How many times has he gone somewhere else and failed to make the grade?