Manchester United pulled out the stops to run down the clock against Liverpool but we would miss waiting for the whistleIn the 76th minute of Manchester United’s win over Liverpool Lisandro Martínez boots it clear and collapses with cramp. As he lies motionless in his six-yard box like an extra from 1917, Michael Oliver stops the game. Fifty-three seconds later play restarts.In the 87th minute cramp has coincidentally taken hold in Martínez’s taller partner – this time in both legs of Raphaël Varane, the poor chap. He straightens them like a Playmobil figure as he gently falls over. Roberto Firmino kindly offers his hand. Varane refuses – there’s a tiny moment of him being dragged a few inches along the...
Football’s laws aren’t perfect so it’s at least worth trying to improve them. Grab a Sharpie and pull up a bean bag …Where is your arm right now? Would you say it’s in a natural position? Isn’t it always in a natural position? Is your natural position the same as my natural position?And if you’ve just wrestled with Davinson Sánchez for a few seconds before he volleys the ball from point-blank range vaguely near you, where naturally would you put your arm? This is a question for Ashley Barnes’s subconscious – or it’s a question that Ashley Barnes’s subconscious got wrong last Sunday. It chose … poorly. It was not the holy grail of natural positions – unless, of course,...
The marathon wait for a VAR check at Arsenal could have been tolerable if we could have listened inDuring the four minutes and 39 seconds that passed between the ball hitting the back of the net for Arsenal’s disallowed second “goal” against Manchester United on Saturday, the subsequent VAR check and Bukayo Saka wheeling away in celebration after scoring the consolation spot-kick awarded in its place, there was plenty of confusion. On the pitch, in the stands, in households around the country and even in the BT Sport commentary box – nobody except the referee, Craig Pawson, and his assistants seemed quite sure what exactly was going on.The big screen informed fans a possible offside was being checked and Eddie...
A zealous and over-literal refereeing culture is undermining the authority of officials whether they make mistakes or notJanny Sikazwe made a mistake and ended up blowing for full time after 85 minutes of Wednesday’s Africa Cup of Nations meeting between Mali and Tunisia. Forgetting to stop the watch during a water break (if that is what happened) is an understandable error – particularly given he was subsequently taken to hospital suffering from heatstroke – and one that could easily have been rectified.As it was, though, Sikazwe, an experienced referee who took charge of the 2017 Cup of Nations final as well as Belgium v Panama and Japan v Poland at the 2018 World Cup, looked rattled. He sent off Mali’s...
Comparative judgment used in marking essays could improve decisions in football and help restore common senseHow should an essay be marked? You might think a teacher should simply read it and make a judgment based on the impression it makes: logically coherent, offers evidence to back up its case, reads well, is original – feels like an A. But that, obviously, is risky. It’s subjective. What stirs one assessor might not appeal to another.So maybe there needs to be an agreed rubric. The essay must cover certain key points, achieve certain goals. But the danger then is that essays become box-ticking exercises, that a student could doggedly go through the checklist and achieve top marks despite making little sense: or...