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Football: fixture congestion


Iskaral Pust

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I can't believe we went more than 24 hours without someone starting a new thread.

Hull have reportedly accepted a 10m bid from Burnley for Snodgrass.  So they're throwing in the towel then.

Spocky finished the last thread with a mention of Maros Rojo avoiding red cards, unlike Xhaka.  Utd's favorable refereeing in recent months -- Rojo not getting red cards, offside goals galore, Herrera avoiding reds, Feghouli sent off for West Ham -- made me think that Mourinho's tantrums and fines early in the season were a worthwhile investment.  It did put pressure on the referees and suddenly United got a stretch of favorable calls.

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It is possible.

I don't know if anyone has studied this in depth, so thus far I'm relying on memory, but I remember clearly when Andy Johnson was labelled a diver by Wenger and Warnock (I believe - Neil, mind, not that other chap). Suddenly he couldn't get a pealty for neither love nor money, and sometime in March (?) Everton complained to Keith Hackett about the situation, sending in ten situations they felt should have been penalties. Hackett agreed on seven, I believe.

That Rojo has been unusually lucky is beyond debate, however. Not only has he escaped two clear reds, he got yellow cards for the fouls - which meant he couldn't be subsequently banned. That's enough to start buying lottery tickets.

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6 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

Coutinho has signed a new contract with Liverpool. That's some good news in an otherwise not great couple of weeks.

Feel like they always tend to drop good contract news after shitty games lol. Hopefully he's not off to Barca in 6 months like Suarez was when he signed his new contract.

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AFCON: Ivory Coast put up a rather meek defence of their title and crashed out at the group stage after losing to Morocco. On the up side for us, at least this means Bailly will be returning sooner than anticipated.

 

Lets not go pointing the finger at managers for poor refereeing (and there has been some shitty refereeing this season). Officials should be held accountable for their performances. Also the rule that the FA cannot take retrospective action if the ref has seen a particular incident (unless it is violent conduct or an off the ball incident) needs to be expanded to include challenges as well. Using the Rojo incidents, clearly the ref was wrong in showing yellow when red would have been more appropriate. In such/similar cases, the FA should be able to overturn the refs original (wrong) decision. I mean the FA can overturn a sending off on appeal so I don't see why they can't impose a ban for dangerous play even if the ref saw the incident.

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Well, that was disappointing.Klopp better get Can and Sturridge off.Put Origi and Wij on.What's Lallana doing?

eta:  WTF has happened to us? it's like we've regressed since the end of December? fatigue?loss of confidence? thin squad lacking quality if players like Mane go missing? What's Klopp's plan B ? :o

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Well done by Southampton.  In two cup games and a league game this year they comfortably contained our attack, albeit an easier task in the cup games.

Our poor form continues.  Same problems on display: low intensity presumably from fatigue, disrupted attack lacking the chemistry from before.  I'm not sure why we're slumping so hard but with no good options on the bench and no time to rest, I'm not sure how we'll fix it either.  As I posted last week, Sturridge and Origi have been much weaker back-ups than expected.  That's the part of the team where we had most depth and it hasn't panned out when we needed it.  I also think our MF is struggling, both with their own lack of incision and the lack of movement ahead of them.

Unfortunately we're in our worst form of the season just as our game against Chelsea arrives.

With Trent Alexander Arnold doing pretty well at RB, I think Klopp needs to look at using back-ups to give a player a rest here and there.  We don't have game-changing quality off the bench but they could be good enough as a stand-in if there's only one or two switches to the starting XI.  Moreno could give a lethargic Milner a night off without costing us too much (Milner is too exhausted to contribute much), and Ejaria and Gini could play for Can and Henderson.  I don't know what the answer is to Sturridge and Origi but it's not to move Firmino or Lallana out of their best positions any more.

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21 hours ago, Iskaral Pust said:

 

Spocky finished the last thread with a mention of Maros Rojo avoiding red cards, unlike Xhaka.  Utd's favorable refereeing in recent months -- Rojo not getting red cards, offside goals galore, Herrera avoiding reds, Feghouli sent off for West Ham -- made me think that Mourinho's tantrums and fines early in the season were a worthwhile investment.  It did put pressure on the referees and suddenly United got a stretch of favorable calls.

I don't see any evidence for United being favored. I recall several really unfortunate, point-costing calls this year in fact. Mourinho's post-match comments about how his team has played can sometimes be really off, but he's also correct to point out that the team has been disadvantaged. But of course everyone feels this happens to their team.

It would be wrong to suggest that United's rise the last few weeks is any way tied to refs suddenly favoring them. Unless by favoring them we mean "start treating them the same as the rest". 

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