10 Feb 2018 14:39:56
So City decide to have a meeting with the refereeing body. Can you imagine if United or Mourinho has made this statement? We would've got absolutely slated.
If you watch Barcelona and City, the moment any of their players loses the ball, they go to ground. And 9 times out of 10, the referees will give them a foul.
Instead of complaining, they should shut up and count their lucky stars that the refs are on their side most of the time.
Surely the FA must step in and take action against City. Because they're influencing the referees.
10 Feb 2018 16:53:39
Also in city's case whenever they lose the ball they foul the opposition to stop them breaking.
10 Feb 2018 19:40:46
Perhaps the referees should be informed that tactical fouls to prevent teams breaking should be a booking.
10 Feb 2018 19:50:12
Players should ask the ref before they play them. Can we tackle them ref. Or will we stand back and admire them, it's a man's game .
Go way and play a game of tennis or something.
When I played if I was up against a right good player my manager told me, make it hard for him and believe me 1 or 2 remembered leahy.
10 Feb 2018 21:53:48
The game has gone far too soft. You even have so called "hard men" pundits like Souness, Savage, Keown rambling on about technical parts of the game (something they showed very little expertise in as players) and criticising pansy-esque challenges for being too "agressive". The one thing they were meant to excel at was being men in a man's game, yet they have to pretend to be disgusted by a hard challenge now to appease their pay masters and wimpy audience.
I imagine that in the school yard these days the kid that is "too rough" gets picked last, and the kid that is best at Fifa on the PlayStation is picked first in a game of football these days. In fact are kids allowed to play football at lunch any more, or has that been outlawed for being too 'rough and unsupervised'?
10 Feb 2018 21:54:46
Was a 'man's' game Leahy. can't do much tackling these days.
10 Feb 2018 22:11:43
True, I hate the way it's gone now, I don't care what team you have, you can have the best flair players in the business but if you haven't a Roy Keane type player that drives a team on, the last minute of the game still playing like there's no tomorrow. A nut job if you like, football maverick.
Imagine if George best played today with the protection from the refs. great pitches. And the like. He would go up another level.
10 Feb 2018 22:29:53
I think it's called constructive fouling, Barcelona were fantastic at it, it's done before an attack is in full flow so it doesn't look exactly like a professional foul. It's full blown cheating but hard to ref the situation as it's not a violent foul or a foul in a part of the pitch where the opposition are close to goal or cohesively moving as a team in attack. they don't protest when the foul is awarded, they just track back knowing the job is done and the move is gone, quite often another player from the same team will help the fouled player up. This is accepted, because it would be 1) difficult to prove and 2) who would be despicable enough to do it. Football has a long way to go in weeding out the cheats, VAR is a great start, but it'll take time for this type of crap to stop.
10 Feb 2018 22:57:33
The absolute master at 'constructive fouling' is David Silva, he was doing it long before Pep came along to an amazing standard, but he has gone up a notch since Pep has guided him.
He gets away with twice as much as any other player as his pleading rat face is pitied by refs, and he has the deserved reputation of being a wonderful creator (so media and therefore fallible refs fall for the creator over destroyer) . The fact is, he is a crafty sneaky rat and is forever clipping heels of opponents or scything them down to stop attacks often with no punishment.
Wish the media would point it out more and maybe refs will have the balls to pull him up for it.
11 Feb 2018 09:14:54
Agree with all the posts above.
I feel that if football is played without the tough tackles then might as well fight for the PL title over table soccer!
Mind you I say tough tackles and not rough. Once in a while there will be rough tackles but if it gets out of hand I am sure the referees are there to ensure it doesn’t escape yellownor red cards.
We should trust the referees to handle the situations and that also the referees need to up their game handling skills. There is already a committee on retrospective punishments and appeals so just trust in the system. Pep making a molehill out of nothing is just trying to get away with smacking others and not punished if they smack people. What a “kitten†😡🤦â€â™‚ï¸. He should just p off.
11 Feb 2018 11:54:32
It jasmine got a bit ridiculous, the slightest contact in the box commands a penalty nowadays, no contact is allowed in the area it seems.
However, whilst Pep was whinging, there are some tackles that don’t get punished enough, every week I see cynical fouling that risks causing an injury and the ref just gives the player a talking to. Refs need to understand the difference between a tough tackle and a dirty one, many of them don’t seem to.
11 Feb 2018 13:14:11
Reducer fouls.