A feline invader merits a Uefa inquiry, while Danny Welbeck showcased with impunity the English talent for deception also displayed by Sterling, Vardy and of course Dele AlliPresumably, everyone is up to speed by now about the reassuring news from Uefa, permanently trying to find different ways of curing football’s ills, that it has launched disciplinary action against Besiktas because of the pitch invader that briefly interrupted the club’s Champions League tie against Bayern Munich.Even by Uefa’s standards, it’s a belter of a story given that it was actually a ginger cat who had wandered in off the streets to investigate what all these silly humans were up to. Unfortunately for Besiktas, nobody at Uefa appears to be aware that...
The experiment, which has left fans without a clue what is going on, has shown control of a game is best left to the referee and linesmenAs a pundit, Robbie Savage is not generally known for being incisive but he was bang on the money with his condemnation of the latest VAR shambles. No one in the ground had a clue what was going on, was the gist of his Wembley assessment as Tottenham’s Cup tie against Rochdale was repeatedly interrupted.That is the whole problem with VAR, and the reason a groundswell of terrace opinion is forming against its use in other leagues across Europe. While it might masquerade as progress, it is actually just another slap in the face for...
The game is too emotional, and the experience within the stadium too important, for it to be reined in by a system that does not cater for eitherOne of the most striking aspects of the rolling-out of video assistant referees in English football over the last week is the almost daily reminder of the powerfully collegiate nature of referees. Gathered in significant numbers the refereeing community will come on like a particularly strident all-male lobbying group, flaring their neck muscles, explaining their judgments in that strangely tetchy technical language, asserting their right to be respected and supported with an air of lingering threat, like Fathers For Justice in shorts. This is their time now. And they’re going to fiddle with...
A six-game ban for Leeds’s Samuel Sáiz is the mandatory FA punishment for spitting but is it really twice as bad as elbowing or punching?When Samuel Sáiz spat at the Newport County midfielder Robbie Willmott he revived the forgotten scourge of football. After a few years away gobbing is back, effortlessly renewing its position as the No1 most offensive act in football. The only question about the seriousness of this act being; is it really?Newport had taken an injury-time lead in Sunday’s FA Cup tie with Leeds United when Willmott began strutting around, his shirt taut in front of him as if he was about to catch a falling kitten from a house fire. Sáiz, he claimed, had left a...
The Everton player, as well as Sergio Agüero, were involved in challenges that led to sending-offs, possibly through making them seem worse than they were, but still the FA’s new panel cannot make its first judgmentWhat a disappointment. The Premier League season is only two matches old and already it looks as if the Football Association’s initiative on diving and simulation is struggling to keep pace. Related: Calvert-Lewin and Agüero face no action under new FA simulation rules Continue reading...