Other club football

They’ll get away with it tonight, but Chelsea are utterly dreadful.

Son does brilliantly to fashion a chance which he can't quite take. Chelsea go straight up the other end and settle it. 3-1.

And another. 4-1. Good night for Manchester City.

Never seen such a bad team win a game 4-1

Or a worse performance by a player scoring a hat trick.

I fail to see how some of these Chelsea players are worth the money that was paid for them

Interesting how the London media repeatedly fail to point this out this apparent profligacy, but are quite happy to question the spending of a provincial club a bit further north...

It was an enjoyable game, but there was far far too much time spent waiting on TV decisions.

Kai Havertz should be the object of at least one money-laundering investigation.

Definitely time for a ‘margin of error’ allowance on tight offside calls. Two of those long waits were for ridiculously close decisions.
I’m sure there could be some kind of equivalent to cricket’s ‘umpire’s call’ for offsides that would cut down all this time taken considerably.

Umpires call, though, is for ball tracking, which will obviously have a margin of error.

They regard line calls - did the ball pitch outside leg? was the impact in line? as matters of fact. In theory, offside is a line call.

Wish they'd get on with it regarding Everton. AIUI the tribunal is considering the evidence and will then give out a verdict (and punishment). But even then it's likely both Everton and perhaps the FA will appeal. Then we've Christmas. It's going to be January/February minimum before we get anything decided. It's a really shitty process that isn't fit for purpose IMHO. It can't be right that you can break some rules but not get any punishment until a few years later (by which point the punishment is often meaningless if you're, for example, mid-table).

Instinctively that seems sensible.. though it could have unintended consequences. With VAR as a backstop, linesmen can be told to keep the flag down in the closest calls. If it’s ’umpires call’ then they would have to not do that, likely meaning more flags, both correct and incorrect.. and if the flag is raised incorrectly it stops play… so umpires call makes no difference. If they continue to favour not flagging for close offsides, then there is no actual umpires call.. you’re just giving attackers a bigger margin to play in, and that’s going to cause it’s own aggro.

We probably just end up mainly having the same painful process trying to draw lines in a slightly different place. So, maybe, if we’re going to draw them at all, they may as well be where they are, in theory, supposed to be.

I do wonder if it would work a little better if, instead of trying to pick the exact relevant body part to measure from, they just picked one. Forget whether one bloke’s left knee is ahead of someone else’s head.. maybe just look at the chest or the leading foot. And/or maybe also just say that ‘inconclusive = onside’ and give them a tight time limit.

Or, y’know, scrap it all because it’s shit and nobody likes it.

They are extreme cases but if a player launches himself at a diving header or slides to put in a cross, then judging by his "leading" foot or chest respectively looks ridiculous as neither are the relevant part of his body.

We have a winner. (Although, apparently, 50% of respondants to T'Athletics poll want keep it but that may reflect a US bias.)