Football: Bernaburned

[polishgenius]

Clearly not a pen, but credit to Rashford: shit all game (clearly not fully fit) but kept his cool to lash that in.

 

[Philokles]

Genuinely one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen. No way can that ever be seen as intentional handball.

Then the referee just kept on playing hoping PSG would score so he will not have to face what is coming to him. 

[Consigliere]

Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah!

It's been a long time since we've had an amazing result in the CL. I don't give a fuck about the dodgy penalty. To hang in there and pull out a 3-1 win away from home against PSG especially with all the injuries we have and Pogba suspended was nothing short of incredible. Fuck PSG. 

[polishgenius]

Also: Dalot is a hell of a fucking player. Completely owned the right hand side, basically playing two positions while Young just filled in the occasional gap. He's brilliant.

[Consigliere]

6 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

Also: Dalot is a hell of a fucking player. Completely owned the right hand side, basically playing two positions while Young just filled in the occasional gap. He's brilliant.

Yeah, Dalot looks like a quality player. His delivery is certainly better than any of our other fullbacks. Hopefully Solskjaer (or whoever gets the job permanently) shows faith in him and makes him 1st choice RB. It'd be very disappointing if Young is still first choice next season.

McTominay had another good game at DM which is great because Matic was being run into the ground. Fred stepped up and had a good game too. Shoutout to Smalling as well - he defended really well tonight. He's poor with the ball at feet but when it comes to actual defending, he is miles better than Jones or Rojo. 

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Weird penalty day.

[Daemon the Leaner]

22 minutes ago, Philokles said:

Genuinely one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen. No way can that ever be seen as intentional handball.

Then the referee just kept on playing hoping PSG would score so he will not have to face what is coming to him. 

Well, if Kimpembe's arm is not on the road of Dalot's shot, I think it's a shot on target thus a chance of scoring. Plus, Kimpembe is (unwillingly, I know) clearly making his zone of intervention bigger. So, how is that not a deserved penalty??

Then, you are blaming the referee for actually awarding the extra time that was taken by the VAR call. 

Anyway.

I want to point out that both our CBs had a great game, which is a rare thing for Utd fans, especially in CL. Fred was fine too, I think it may be his 1st entire game for us. Hope it actually launch his Utd career. The funnier part of the whole is that Greenwood made his debut just to celebrate with the team, really I think he didn't touch a single ball. Lukaku MOTM of course.

[polishgenius]

4 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Well, if Kimpembe's arm is not on the road of Dalot's shot, I think it's a shot on target thus a chance of scoring. Plus, Kimpembe is (unwillingly, I know) clearly making his zone of intervention bigger. So, how is that not a deserved penalty??

The current rule is that the handball has to be deliberate or at least the arm be in an 'unnatural position' ie deliberately making himself bigger. Since he wasn't looking and as you say wasn't deliberately doing anything, it's not a pen. It's a silly rule really coz there's so much grey area but I don't think there was much here.

Also the ref played waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay more added time than was taken up by that review.

[Consigliere]

5 hours ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

Not to mention, that Mourinho left quite a bit of scorched earth behind when he left Madrid iirc.

Anyway, Real don't need to start from scratch. But they need/want to offload some players and get some new faces in.

Bale is rumoreldy topping their selling list, Benzema is somebody I would sell. I don't think their warchest is empty either, they probably won't get Neymar, but other than that they should get their targets. Somebody to compensate for 50 goals C. Ronaldo scored for them each year is hard to come by, but they really need some more firepower. I wouldn't be surprised if Bale buggered of to China, and Real (re-)invests that cash and some more into Kane. Easily one of the most complete/best CF today, and enough star power for Real to keep their fans happy with their new toy. Finding a new Manager might be trickier for them. Conte is still on the market though, isn't he, otherwise they will ask Deschamps I guess. As for the RW, I think they will at least ask about Salah at Liverpool. Then it's gonna be interesting how he reacts.

 

Real do need to freshen up the squad a bit rather than make wholesale changes. Bale looks uninterested and should be the first out the door but his salary (reportedly €600k/week) is going to be a problem. Even if he heads to China, Real are unlikely to get a big transfer fee for him because Chinese clubs transfer spending has dropped massively ever since the 100% tax on foreign transfers was introduced. 

I'd keep Benzema for depth but also sign another CF (Kane or Icardi). Salah would be too expensive, I think - Liverpool wouldn't want to sell but if Salah pushes for a move then I don't see Liverpool accepting anything less than they did for Coutinho. Nicolas Pepe would be a great alternative but I'm really hoping that United sign him because that lad is far too good to be playing for Lille. I'd be gobsmacked if he is still there next season. 

[Consigliere]

21 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Well, if Kimpembe's arm is not on the road of Dalot's shot, I think it's a shot on target thus a chance of scoring. Plus, Kimpembe is (unwillingly, I know) clearly making his zone of intervention bigger. So, how is that not a deserved penalty??

Then, you are blaming the referee for actually awarding the extra time that was taken by the VAR call. 

Anyway.

I want to point out that both our CBs had a great game, which is a rare thing for Utd fans, especially in CL. Fred was fine too, I think it may be his 1st entire game for us. Hope it actually launch his Utd career. The funnier part of the whole is that Greenwood made his debut just to celebrate with the team, really I think he didn't touch a single ball. Lukaku MOTM of course.

I don't give a shit about the handball because PSG (and Kimpembe) received a major slice of luck in the 1st leg. Kimpembe should have been sent off but instead he ended up scoring the opening goal. Fitting that he was the one to concede the penalty that knocked PSG out. Karma is a bitch.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Consigliere said:

Nicolas Pepe would be a great alternative but I'm really hoping that United sign him because that lad is far too good to be playing for Lille. I'd be gobsmacked if he is still there next season. 

He won't.

He is on the shopping list of a few major clubs, e.g. Bayern is heavily linked to him - not sure what that means regarding their interest CHO. And there are bigger clubs who want him, too (Barca rumoredly).

[Consigliere]

1 minute ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

He won't.

He is on the shopping list of a few major clubs, e.g. Bayern is heavily linked to him - not sure what that means regarding their interest CHO. And there are bigger clubs who want him, too (Barca rumoredly).

He's on the radar of lots of clubs. I don't think this would affect Bayern's move for CHO if we assume that both Robben and Ribery are on their way out. That leaves just Coman and Gnabry for the wings and Coman is made of glass. Moving to Barca would a terrible move for him because Messi likes to play off the RW - he'd disappear like Malcom.

[Daemon the Leaner]

4 minutes ago, Consigliere said:

I don't give a shit about the handball because PSG (and Kimpembe) received a major slice of luck in the 1st leg. Kimpembe should have been sent off but instead he ended up scoring the opening goal. Fitting that he was the one to concede the penalty that knocked PSG out. Karma is bitch.

...hell yeah. Shame I almost forgot that. 

9 minutes ago, polishgenius said:

The current rule is that the handball has to be deliberate or at least the arm be in an 'unnatural position' ie deliberately making himself bigger. Since he wasn't looking and as you say wasn't deliberately doing anything, it's not a pen. It's a silly rule really coz there's so much grey area but I don't think there was much here.
 

Yeah, I'm aware of your point. Definitely a weird rule. I do stand that the "unnatural position" part of the rule is the more important, and makes the penalty legitimate there. Otherwise, if you give the priority to the "deliberate attempt", player could willingly prevent scoring chances by doing handball "in natural position", i.e with an arm so close to their body that it wouldn't be considered as "unnatural", if you see what I mean.

[Mme Erzulie]

I'm no fan of ManU, but having watched the situation over and over again, I can see why the ref gave the pen. Kimpembe looks behind him as he turns around, and his right arm comes out from his body a substantial amount (it's definitely not "arms tucked in" or whatever), and his other hand is coming across his body blocking more of the potential trajectory of the shot.

Also hilarious to see Neymar's face.

I thought it was weird that the ref in the Porto - Roma game didn't even look at the second pen incident after having looked at the first one. They both looked very soft, but I'm not sure how one warranted a review and the other didn't.

Not completely sure how I feel about VAR yet - on one hand, it's certainly not eliminating controversy and debate, but on the other, it adds to the drama and tension. 

[Philokles]

18 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Well, if Kimpembe's arm is not on the road of Dalot's shot, I think it's a shot on target thus a chance of scoring. Plus, Kimpembe is (unwillingly, I know) clearly making his zone of intervention bigger. So, how is that not a deserved penalty??

Looks like it is going well over the bar to me, but that is pretty much irrelevant. As you say Kimpembe did not mean to do that - there is only a fraction of a second between it leaving Dalot’s boot and hitting his arm, so it was not deliberate handball.

 

18 minutes ago, Ser Glendon Fireball said:

Then, you are blaming the referee for actually awarding the extra time that was taken by the VAR call. 

Almost exactly four minutes from the ball hitting the arm to Rashford taking the penalty. The first 45 seconds were in normal time, yet the referee added over 6 minutes on top of the 3 added on.

 

That all but guarantees Solskjaer the full time gig. Might come back to bite them when the over a goal per game over performance on xG regresses to the mean.

[polishgenius]

Also, one more thing that's very obvious but bears repeating: Solskjaer managed the shit out of that game. Started badly and playing Bailly in that position was a mistake but (whether injured or not) made the right call to bring him off and reshuffle things a bit, and after that he made several little adjustments that kept them on their toes and slowly reduced their control.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, Consigliere said:

He's on the radar of lots of clubs. I don't think this would affect Bayern's move for CHO if we assume that both Robben and Ribery are on their way out. That leaves just Coman and Gnabry for the wings and Coman is made of glass. Moving to Barca would a terrible move for him because Messi likes to play off the RW - he'd disappear like Malcom.

They also brought in Canadian winger Davies this winter, and more interestingly Korean winger Wooyeong Jeong (I probably made spelling mistake there) is also pushing into their First team squad, and has recently debuted there. And he looked very decent (other Bundesliga clubs are atm lining up to get him on a loan).

[A Horse Named Stranger]

Just now, polishgenius said:

Also, one more thing that's very obvious but bears repeating: Solskjaer managed the shit out of that game. Started badly and playing Bailly in that position was a mistake but (whether injured or not) made the right call to bring him off and reshuffle things a bit, and after that he made several little adjustments that kept them on their toes and slowly reduced their control. 

I think this had more to do with Buffon's absolute howler. The second goal was real sucker punch for PSG and they were visibly shaken by that.

[Consigliere]

14 minutes ago, A Horse Named Stranger said:

They also brought in Canadian winger Davies this winter, and more interestingly Korean winger Wooyeong Jeong (I probably made spelling mistake there) is also pushing into their First team squad, and has recently debuted there. And he looked very decent (other Bundesliga clubs are atm lining up to get him on a loan).

Ah, alright. Didn't realise they made additional signings for the wings. Probably they'd then go for one of CHO or Pepe. The latter is going to cost a lot more so CHO might still be the primary target.

 

 

Regarding the handball: sure it was not deliberate but then again neither was Otamendi's against Schalke - that was a much worse call than this because Otamendi actually had his hands tucked behind his back and was actively trying to get out of the way whereas Kimpembe was actively trying to block the shot with his arm away from his body. 

[Corvinus85]

3 lucky goals, and the rest survival mode for Man U. They were painful to watch, especially in the first 30 minutes, but whatever, glad PSG fell on its ass.