smiffy

I must say I am a little dissapointed Bats, I didn't think Vulgar ,Moronic ,Childish ,Gutter humour was your style , I would have thought DB7'S reaction to this would have been more of a case study for you ?

I May be getting older ,but I refuse to grow up

smiffy

Very classy db7 ,I don't think you can top that (At least I hope not for the sake of the decent people on the site ) You've won the cup and if that's what you call a reasonable response , You can keep It ,you've gone way below any level I would dream of .
Lets have another big hand for " The Administrator "

I May be getting older ,but I refuse to grow up

DB7

Smiffy, rather than abuse thinly-veiled as sarcasm, please comment of the topic.

smiffy

Thanks db7 this post highlights your problem.
You are the one who left offensive images on the site and then you accuse me of being the abuser A little bit like Mascherano abusing the referee ( I know you can't see the truth for some reason ) and then not understanding why he was sent off .
You mentioned a ref siege mentality in an earlier post but I think Liverpool and some of their fans are displaying classic victim mentalities.
Alan hansen and Mark lawrenson , two great ex Liverpool players were in total agreement with Steve Bennett ,he had no option and gave Mascherano more than one chance.
I didn't think my sarcastic response to your vulgar post was thinly veiled ,I'll clarify that for you ,It WAS sarcasm.
I won't post any further on this topic as there is no point , I'll try to put it in a nutshell for you, It's not about YOU being wrong and ME being right It's about MASCHERANO being wrong and the REFEREE being right.

I am very dissapointed in you db7 you obviously do a lot of good work for the forum and I thank you for that , but when it comes to football your values become a little clouded and unfortunately you have lost my respect

I May be getting older ,but I refuse to grow up

David Brent

France 1 England 0

Nothing much to get excited about yet with this mediocre England performance.
Calamity James handed the French yet another victory. Otherwise the French were also very uninspiring.
Apart from Beckham the other players need to learn how to cross balls and find each other with passes. Downing's crosses in an attacking position were woeful.
I wonder why Carrick was left out of the squad?

I know this was only a friendly and I know the new boss is still testing the water but I certainly cannot see this bunch of players ever coming close to winning a World Cup.

Dave.

batman

It was indeed a dull match with both sides displaying no creativity whatsoever. Downing's crosses have always been woeful, he must surely be the most over-rated player in the Premiership. He's what they used to call a kick and rush player. A refereeing question .... why wasn't James even booked for the penalty incident? As the last person he should have been sent off. The ref then booked Ribery for taking his shirt off. If you apply one rule surely you should apply all of them ...

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"

Harleybloke

What gets me in all of this is the media response. They want to have their cake & eat it. The number of times Andy Gray has a rant about a ref...........

.....You couldn't hear it, if they were shooting at me with howitzers!

smiffy

Refereeing a Premiership game is a thankless task , I wouldn't do it for a kings ransom. I used to think Andy Gray was a good presenter,but he has definitely lost the plot. He makes comment about the way "HE" thinks the ref should have interpreted a situation with all the benefit of hindsight and all the technology at his disposal,yet he himself displays a very limited knowledge of the laws of the game .
I think the media ,and anybody who makes their living from Football ,Should have some level of accountability with regard to bringing the game into disrepute.
The Mascherano incident has illuminated a massive problem within our game , he is not the only culprit and by no means the worst,in fact until the OT debacle I can't remember seeing him behave in such a manner.
The Media are not helping Referees OR football clubs and people like Andy Gray need to be brought to book for inflaming an already volatile situation .

I May be getting older ,but I refuse to grow up

scholes

I had to listen to Alan Green's commentary on the Utd v Liverpool game.
He's rather biased towards the latter team and it shows.He doesn't pull any punches either :
Accused our Rio of trying to get a member of the opposition sent off - AS IF?
Openly complained about the Torres booking.
Constantly jibed at the vitreol shown towards Liverpool by the United fans _ of course the sentiment is never returned there is it?
Droned on about a banner hoisted at the end of the East Lancs road which read
"96 - not enough" an allusion to Hilsborough yet failed to mention that Liverpool fans are constantly making references to 1958.
It's Liverpool v United for heavens sake. It's the battle of the North West.
It's 18 championships against 16 -17 this year if Utd are successful.

Edward G

Excellent.

Someone finally realises that referees are human and are trying to do a job that thanks to cheating players, biased and loud fans, belligerent managers and a blinkered media has finally become impossible.

Yes, an erroneous refereeing decision can decide a match but so can diving players ! Andy Gray has made a very easy choice that will endear him to many footy fans by criticising the soft target of referees and accusing them of being more interested in making a name for themselves or being noticed than in doing the right thing. There are probably one or two who fit this bill but does anyone really believe that referees who do this job for little thanks and scant financial reward really set out to deliberately make the wrong call ? Why not step into the referees shoes, Andy? Because it's much easier to be the king in a paper castle like the TV studio than enter the cauldron on the pitch! I'm not even going to get into the Mascherano debate - it's just one of a catalogue over recent times.

If a referee makes a critical decision that one set of fans blames for their teams exit from major competition (particularly national teams) then the chances are some moron will find out his address/phone number or email address and leak it to the web for the mob to use and launch verbal attacks on the man or his family - or even property. How many top flight referees have retired early because of this kind of harrassment? That's not great news if we want to encourage and bring through top quality referees.

Thanks to media pressure, the completely unreasonable ranting of managers and the lack of responsibility of many players referees are more or less thrown to the wolves.

No one ever compliments referees who in the main make split-second decisions that are spot on. The next time you see a replay that shows that a referee was right to rule offside, disallow a goal or award a free-kick play the tape back and listen to the loud chorus of booing from one set of fans that precedes his decision!

Who would want to be a referee?

My tuppence-worth on making the game more manageable.

1. Introduce chip techology in the boots, the ball and along the touchlines to solve once and for all the "did the ball cross the line" and "offside" fiascos.
The game is nearly too fast for referees and some linesmen/women to call offside effectively - many times they seem to guess that the striker must have moved ahead of the defender too soon as - this penalises the pacey forward players.

2. Ban players other than the captain from questioning the refereeing decisions. Yes,a player has a right to question a decision but they continually abuse the privelege and I am sick of seeing a group of players surround the referee - especially when most of the time they are not even involved in the incident itself!

3. Remove the active/passive bullshit attached to the "offside" rule so that there is no room for mis-interpretation by the referee.

4. Give the referee the right to refer a handful of critical decisions to a fourth official who can use video evidence to identify where contact is or is not made in disputed tackles or handballs etc. If it reveals the wide-spread practice of "simulation" - diving to you or me - the players should automatically get a yellow card. This is supposed to happen but is rarely enforced.

In summary, how can a referee sort out every decision cleanly when so much of his time is spent trying to fend away baracking players and when so much cheating is happening on the pitch that he would need OJ Simpson's legal team to deal with it.

Get real people!

Regards and remember it is only a game.

Edward G.

I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

scholes

Carrick pulls all the strings in the United midfield, and it was largely because of his "eye of the needle" passes that we were able to go on and win the Premiership last season.
He's a very under-rated and mis-understood player and keeps Owen Hargreaves out of the team. Very similar to Trevor Brooking and perhaps even Martin Peters so I'm surprised he isn't included in Capello's plans - I'm sure he'll be given a chance.
The French have some excellent young players who will go on to flourish.
I'm not sure who England have got waiting in the wings.
Theo Walcott and Wayne Rooney David Bentley Ashley Young and Micah Richards.

scholes

Agree. It works well in Rugby Union, why are they so reluctant to introduce sreen replays?

Edward G

The main fear is that it would interrupt the flow of the game.
Mind you, from what I saw last night in Paris last night it's more like a trickle at times! I think the video ref would quickly reduce down the cheating and diving as, after an initial flurry of yellow cards, players would realise they can't get away with it any more and the replays would focus attention on the worst offenders / clubs. Crowd pressure would work positively for a change as people would loudly voice their disapproval of repeat offenders...also the referee would be freed up to apply the basic laws of the game. Refs like a flowing game too!

I'm as mad as hell and I'm not gonna take it anymore!

scholes

That's not an individual that's a Portuguese man o' war.
How can you accuse Cristiano of such underhand tactics?

However your response above is well worth a membership to this forum.Very Funny even for one on the other side.

batman

He may be the equal best player in the Premiership (with Droggy) but he is a whinging so and so as well!

"Boom boom a baby .... Banham Zoo .... Banana pants! Hahahaha"