Football: half-way point

[ljkeane]

I missed the first half but United are actually seeing more of the ball than I would have predicted 0-3 down to City.

ETA: I think Can would be a decent enough signing for United (depending on the fee involved). I’m not sure why everyone seems so down on the idea other than that he used to play for Liverpool.

[Soylent Brown]

31 minutes ago, ljkeane said:

I missed the first half but United are actually seeing more of the ball than I would have predicted 0-3 down to City.

City stopped trying after half time. United were lucky Sterling was pants too - he should have had at least one.

[Daemon the Leaner]

Well, we scored one, so, so long for Woodward triggering our transfer window I guess.

As hard as I want us to sign midfielders, I'm actually not bought on Can at all. Apart from him, I suppose we could target many players from up-mid to low-mid table... heck, I'd even take Longstaff or Rice, (both of them if we can) despite that being terrible buisness.

[Consigliere]

Just kill me if we sign Longstaff or Rice. Looking to sign English players (and not even any of the good ones) is a waste of money. These players would be grossly overpriced and there are literally dozens of Longstaff and Rice level players across Europe who wouldn't cost anywhere near as much. Anyway, this was an expected result. We were never going to beat City over two legs. I only wish we had sent out the kids earlier in the competition and got knocked out. 

I'm highly skeptical of us doing any business in the window. January is generally a difficult time to do business especially to bring in players who can actually improve the quality of the squad rather than just make up the numbers. Can is a maybe since Juve are overloaded in midfield and he's not a starter there anyway. Rabiot is highly unlikely since Sarri has started to play him more. There have been rumblings that Barca might be willing to part with Vidal this window although Inter are probably favorites there. 

[Iskaral Pust]

Phil Jones got a new contract extension less than a year ago.  For four more years, and a valuable option on a fifth year.  Still funny.

[Consigliere]

United do love to reward mediocrity. We've got so many players phoning it in on contracts they could never hope to get anywhere else. We're also paying a league one level manager at least 10x what he's actually worth. 

[Soylent Brown]

Longstaff struggles to get games for Newcastle - surely you'd be better off using your own kids-who-aren't-good-enough-yet rather than spunking £50m on someone else's?

[Consigliere]

That would be the logical thing to do but then again we have clowns running the club. 

[ants]

VAR has been fantastic.  It has established three things beyond question:

1. That even with several minutes to make a decision, and multiple replays, that referees indeed are rubbish at making decisions.  The number of times that VAR has made incorrect overturns, or failed to overturn, and it is clear to everyone what the right decision should have been should establish beyond all doubt that the umpiring profession is full of idiots.
2. On close off-sides, that pundits and fans don't actually care about correct results, or consistent results, as long as it leads to more goals (or their team winning for fans).
3. That the English can't implement anything without ballsing it up.  Just because a system has been running elsewhere reasonably well, won't stop the English putting in some of their own rules that will make things worse (not going to the monitor, high bar to overturn).  

17 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Anthony Taylor has been utterly broken by VAR. He just leaves everything these days, scared to make a decision. He's horribly fucked up in the last three games I've seen him referee.

VAR corrected him TWICE in one game the other week!

Was that the West Ham match?  In which case he was totally right on the red card.  It should not have been overturned.  

[BigFatCoward]

Anyone know more detail about the malaga coach being suspended? It sounds like he is a victim and it seems an utterly shitty thing to do. 

[Soylent Brown]

5 hours ago, ants said:

VAR has been fantastic.  It has established three things beyond question:

1. That even with several minutes to make a decision, and multiple replays, that referees indeed are rubbish at making decisions.  The number of times that VAR has made incorrect overturns, or failed to overturn, and it is clear to everyone what the right decision should have been should establish beyond all doubt that the umpiring profession is full of idiots.
2. On close off-sides, that pundits and fans don't actually care about correct results, or consistent results, as long as it leads to more goals (or their team winning for fans).
3. That the English can't implement anything without ballsing it up.  Just because a system has been running elsewhere reasonably well, won't stop the English putting in some of their own rules that will make things worse (not going to the monitor, high bar to overturn).  

Was that the West Ham match?  In which case he was totally right on the red card.  It should not have been overturned.  

Nah, Spurs-Chelsea.

Disagree about offsides - if they need more than a minute to make a decision, it's close enough to give the attacker the benefit of the doubt. People seem to have lost sight of why the rule was introduced in the first place.

[ants]

1 hour ago, Soylent Brown said:

Nah, Spurs-Chelsea.

Disagree about offsides - if they need more than a minute to make a decision, it's close enough to give the attacker the benefit of the doubt. People seem to have lost sight of why the rule was introduced in the first place.

To get the right decision?

Offside should be a consistent, bias free approach to calculation. As soon as you introduce elements of subjectivity you’ll get inconsistencies, as the umpires have shown they can’t give good results anywhere else. So stay with the process and if you’re offside, you’re offside. 

[Soylent Brown]

1 hour ago, ants said:

To get the right decision?

Offside should be a consistent, bias free approach to calculation. As soon as you introduce elements of subjectivity you’ll get inconsistencies, as the umpires have shown they can’t give good results anywhere else. So stay with the process and if you’re offside, you’re offside. 

To stop people goal-hanging. In tight situations attackers always received the benefit of the doubt.

And they're not necessarily coming to the right decision anyway- due to the cameras being used, the margin of error is such that borderline VAR offsides are a complete farce.

[Consigliere]

From my understanding, the offside rule was meant to prevent 'goal hanging'. Now while a few millimetres offside is still offside by the letter of the law, I don't think it is in keeping with the spirit. In my opinion, VAR should not be allowed to use those lines. The analysis team should provide the video ref with a freeze frame and the ref should be required to make a decision in no more than 15 seconds. If a conclusive decision cannot be reached with the naked eye within 15 seconds then it is not 'clear and obvious' and the on field decision should stand.

[A Horse Named Stranger]

3 hours ago, Consigliere said:

From my understanding, the offside rule was meant to prevent 'goal hanging'. Now while a few millimetres offside is still offside by the letter of the law, I don't think it is in keeping with the spirit. In my opinion, VAR should not be allowed to use those lines.

All depends on the definition of clear and obvious.

Either the player was on-side, or he was offside when he scored. The latter is obviously an irregular goal, no matter whether you're offside with your toenail or left testicle.

Yes, football was more fun without the minutes of checking back and forth between VAR and on field ref. But then again, how many times do you have the VAR interfere for other stuff than narrow offside.

The clear and obvious part IMO applies for tacklings/battles for the ball, particularly in the box. Was it a foul, a dive, or just a normal battle for the ball in which the attacker went down a bit too easily. The last part is the tricky one for the clear and obvious part. Not every contact between defender and attacker is a foul, this is football and not basketball afterall. If there was contact the VAR will hardly interfere with the on-field referees call. Unless they see evidence that there was actually more/stronger contact than the referee initially believed, or if he fell for a dive.

Then we have the neverending story about handballs. Which is a story of its own. Natural positioning, yadda, yadda, yadda.

Other than that, individual penalties. Sometimes referees get the assessment of fouls wrong, particularly in high speed situations. Did the defender intend/had he any chance to play the ball, or was he basically just hacking away at the attacker to stop an attacking situation in midfield? With the former he might get away with yellow, while for the other he is off with a red. But that's again something the onfield ref should review himself, after the the VAR interfered.

[Soylent Brown]

Nothing about marginal offside calls is clear and obvious when you're working with technology that has a margin of error of around 150mm though.

[Corvinus85]

So then a margin of error should be applied to VAR in favor of the attacking player.

[ants]

15 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

To stop people goal-hanging. In tight situations attackers always received the benefit of the doubt.

15 hours ago, Consigliere said:

From my understanding, the offside rule was meant to prevent 'goal hanging'. 

I frankly find it amazing that offside was introduced for goal hanging only.  If that was the case, why not allow offside up to a certain point on the pitch (e.g. the 6 yard or 18 yard line).  That said, clearly offside isn't used just to stop goal hanging anymore, but results in a complete change in the style of play.  So to hang any decision around offside and VAR around the fact that offside was originally brought in to stop someone loitering 1-2 metres from the goal line through the match is a little silly.  It would be like someone arguing about gun control using the argument that guns aren't dangerous anyway because the original pistols couldn't hit the side of a barn.  

15 hours ago, Consigliere said:

Now while a few millimetres offside is still offside by the letter of the law, I don't think it is in keeping with the spirit. In my opinion, VAR should not be allowed to use those lines. The analysis team should provide the video ref with a freeze frame and the ref should be required to make a decision in no more than 15 seconds. If a conclusive decision cannot be reached with the naked eye within 15 seconds then it is not 'clear and obvious' and the on field decision should stand.

I think the evidence from this season is that the naked eye is just not good enough.  Some of the lines showing a foot or shoulder playing someone on or off, where the pundits and the naked eye didn't pick that up, show the weakness of the human measurement.  

15 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

And they're not necessarily coming to the right decision anyway- due to the cameras being used, the margin of error is such that borderline VAR offsides are a complete farce.

11 hours ago, Soylent Brown said:

Nothing about marginal offside calls is clear and obvious when you're working with technology that has a margin of error of around 150mm though.

You know, I've done some googling and so far the only source I can find on the margin of error was the Daily Mail claiming it.  Not exactly the greatest source as to what the margin of error is.  Is there any other source for the margin of error apart from the Daily Mail? 

They claimed it on the basis of the video frames being 0.2 seconds, so theoretically you can't capture the exact moment of the ball leaving the player exactly.  IMO, this is a flawed argument.  A 0.2 gap is clearly far superior to the naked eye, which is the alternative.  Using the cameras puts a consistent and definitive approach to the position, and someone who is "truly" the other way is just lucky/unlucky.  If that is the only camera available, it is the only evidence available.  So anyone arguing anything else is just going "maybe".  Arguing that where it is within a certain distance it should go the attacker's way is just adding bias.

If you want to have a margin to favour the attacker, lets be clear you want to deliberately bias the game to get more goals.  And create results where some teams will fairly be able to say we got cheated, because the technology says it was offside.  I think that would be worse than the current situation, where the rules are clean and the same for both the attacker and the defender.  

[Soylent Brown]

5 hours ago, ants said:

I frankly find it amazing that offside was introduced for goal hanging only.  If that was the case, why not allow offside up to a certain point on the pitch (e.g. the 6 yard or 18 yard line).  That said, clearly offside isn't used just to stop goal hanging anymore, but results in a complete change in the style of play.  So to hang any decision around offside and VAR around the fact that offside was originally brought in to stop someone loitering 1-2 metres from the goal line through the match is a little silly.  It would be like someone arguing about gun control using the argument that guns aren't dangerous anyway because the original pistols couldn't hit the side of a barn.  

I think the evidence from this season is that the naked eye is just not good enough.  Some of the lines showing a foot or shoulder playing someone on or off, where the pundits and the naked eye didn't pick that up, show the weakness of the human measurement.  

You know, I've done some googling and so far the only source I can find on the margin of error was the Daily Mail claiming it.  Not exactly the greatest source as to what the margin of error is.  Is there any other source for the margin of error apart from the Daily Mail? 

They claimed it on the basis of the video frames being 0.2 seconds, so theoretically you can't capture the exact moment of the ball leaving the player exactly.  IMO, this is a flawed argument.  A 0.2 gap is clearly far superior to the naked eye, which is the alternative.  Using the cameras puts a consistent and definitive approach to the position, and someone who is "truly" the other way is just lucky/unlucky.  If that is the only camera available, it is the only evidence available.  So anyone arguing anything else is just going "maybe".  Arguing that where it is within a certain distance it should go the attacker's way is just adding bias.

If you want to have a margin to favour the attacker, lets be clear you want to deliberately bias the game to get more goals.  And create results where some teams will fairly be able to say we got cheated, because the technology says it was offside.  I think that would be worse than the current situation, where the rules are clean and the same for both the attacker and the defender.  

They use cameras that record at 24fps - it's not difficult to work out; this isn't some Daily Mail conspiracy. And that's not the end of the inaccuracy either - they need to create a reference point using a part of the player touching the ground, and available camera angles don't always allow that. No one is claiming that it's less accurate than eyeballing it, just that it's not completely accurate, and that obsessing over offside margins thinner than the lines they use to measure them is not improving the game in the slightest.

The offside rule wasn't meant to be fair, that's the whole fucking point. The rules are meant to favour the attacking player! Just as the backpass rule was introduced, this is something put in place to encourage attacking play.

Not many people want tons of shitty 0-0 draws full of stoppages, believe it or not.

[mormont]

13 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

No one is claiming that it's less accurate than eyeballing it

Another way to say this is, 'it's more accurate'.

14 minutes ago, Soylent Brown said:

The offside rule wasn't meant to be fair, that's the whole fucking point. The rules are meant to favour the attacking player!

This is the opposite of being correct. The entire existence of the offside rule is in order to handicap attacking players. Various refinements or supplementary guidance have been made in an effort to reduce that handicap a bit by allowing attacking players the benefit of the doubt in marginal calls. But at the same time, technology has developed that allows those marginal calls to be less frequent. And bluntly, it was already being used, just not by referees. TV companies were using it after and even during the game to point out when marginal offside calls were wrong. This was not a sustainable situation and to pretend that the game can credibly go back to it would be mistaken.