The Spurs Chelsea game was superb entertainment. Probably the best game I have watched as a neutral in years. The two Spurs boys can have no complaints about their red cards, both probably should have gone for the first offences. To lose Madison and Van Der whatshisface as well is a big loss for Spurs. I think I said a few weeks ago that we only find out how good they/Ange are when things go against them. Well, that game was definitely things going against them. So now we see.
Needless to say they have City in a few weeks and will have van der thingy and Romero both missing along with possibly Madison. Not like City's luck to get things going their way.
And I do agree that the standard of refereeing in the PL is poor. For Professionals, they really aren't very good. As
@theforceuk says, in any other line of work they would have been fired. Politics is a poor example as you HAVE to be an incompetant, egotistical, lying, two faced, arsehole to even stand in an election
Hard to be sympathetic when Arteta has to be the biggest hypocrite going, though! The fuss over these decisions, firstly Liverpool, now Arsenal is crazy, considering all the things that happen to other clubs. During lockdown, we lost to Man U and the ball for the winning goal was WAY out of play. So much so, that it went over the coaches heads! How much furore and outrage was there about that? PGMOL said they didn't have cameras in the correct positions to tell, yet fans managed to draw lines on the stills that show it clear as day. Moyes was livid, but it was instantly forgotten.
I remember that, and I remember being livid that it was given. It wasn't a matter of 'was it out or not' it was out by FEET and about ten feet at that. Utterly utterly ridiculous that the ref and lino didn't notice the ball had gone over the line, over the roof of the stand, over the channel, and into France, before coming back in to play.
I think half the problem of managers getting all upset about any remotely contentious VAR call is the fact that they use it as a means of deflection. "Guys, we only lost cos VAR shafted us." Or effectively, "Here media…talk about this VAR thing and not how **** my team were."
Jose and Fergy used to do it every time they lost. It got very very predictable (can you sense my love of Jose shining through?) yet the media fell for it EVERY SINGLE time. Almost all PL managers now try the same trick. None are exempt.
Think of it like this, how many times have you seen a manager lambast VAR/ref? A lot. Probably three or four times a weekend. Can you think of a single example where a manager came out and said "we got lucky, VAR won us that game"? I can't.
The fact Ref's VAR don't/aren't allowed to speak to the media just means they are a punch bag that doesn't answer back and an easy kop out for all managers.