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Tottenham wearing L plates

Tottenham wearing L plates

Tottenham wearing L plates

Tottenham, a club run properly by Daniel Levy, beat Liverpool 2-1 with another late injury-time winner and by the way, there should have been more than 6 minutes.

The coverage in the media of the Tottenham vs Liverpool game at The Tottenham Hotspur Stadium has been terrible after BeIN Sports posted a tweet, according to Richard Keys, that went viral, as they had drawn lines on the pitch when VAR inexplicably hadn't.

A clear goal, we could all see that with the naked eye.

Unfortunately, the whole discussion after the game from all media was that and the game was almost an irrelevance to them.

The on-field officials gave offside. The VAR officials had been officiating in Saudi Arabia 48 hours earlier and all four of them were not watching the game at that point.

The VAR officials didn't see the linesman's (to give them their old term) raised flag and assumed it was a goal so they checked that he was onside and said check complete.

The ref blew to start the game, Spurs took the free-kick and at that point, it is too late to go back and change the decision, it isn't in the rules. Once the game has re-started that's it.

A debacle and the VAR guys have been suspended from their next two games this weekend.

Remember this.

Sissoko Penalty


Let's go back to the beginning though, the ref was terrible once again.

Liverpool should have been receiving yellow cards very early on, but weren't.

They, just like Chelsea used to do, were committing cynical professional foul after professional foul to stop Spurs breaking quickly and allow Liverpool teammates time to get behind the ball.

Plus a player picked up the ball and wouldn't give it back to allow them to get behind the ball again, another yellow card. 

These delaying and stopping tactics have to be cut out of the game when consistently used like this.

If any of those had occurred in the last 15 minutes they would have been yellow, so why not in the first 45 minutes?

There were at least 3 if not 4 yellow cards that should have been shown.

A failure to do so means a side can keep doing it until they are booked but by then they have got away with doing it for three-quarters of a game.

It is a form of cheating, tefs have to cut it out early and allow teams to play football.

The referees are not good enough and the application of the laws is not good enough. 

I have mentioned this before but there should be a campaign to get ex-professional footballers through a fast-track programme to become referees.

A referee is paid between £120,000 to £300,000 at elite level with more in Saudi Arabia.

Referees do physical training but how much decision-making training do they do?

We live in a virtual reality world, are referees officiating in a virtual world as a part of their training, surely that should be compulsory to improve decision making otherwise they are in effect, training on the job.

How many of the have actually played the game because they don't seem to understand it.

I have discussed how to improve the mentality of players, how to control anxiety and thus make less mistakes, but isn't this exactly what referees need as well?

The first step for me though is to implement decision-making training.

Next, everyone has forgotten Tottenham are wearing 'L' plates, we are still taking driving lessons with a new managers tactics.

There are simply far far far too many incorrect decisions given and it hasn't improved, indeed it has got far worse in my opinion.

OK, so we seem to be a natural behind the wheel to some extent but also things to work on, like the mental lapses that allowed their centre-back to just run through the centre of the pitch past 3, 4, 5 unconcerned jogging back players.

It seemed like the mentality was, we have 11, they only have 10 so it doesn't matter. It does.

OK, 10 men.

When you go down to 10 men you still have the same number of defenders on the field as you just play with one less attacker.

When you play with 9 men the same applies, you play with no attackers.

Liverpool defended brilliantly, they were heroic, but we were bereft of ideas of how to play.

Our wide men didn't stay wide to stretch them.

Kulusevski, for instance, came inside as soon as he got the ball, thus reducing the gap between each defender and minimising the risk of a through ball.

We were never going to beat them in the air with Sonny as a centre-forward and three tall guys vs Richarlison was hardly likely to work for us either.

Our best Premier League start to a season and sone fans turn on Postecoglou already, obviously people more interested in their opinion than actually supporting Spurs, an anti-crowd member obviously.

Spurs are getting results while we are learning and I'll maintain it takes a season to learn a new system to elite level,

Let's just enjoy it.

COYS


3 comments

  1. Like you Clive, I'm always very conscious of how we so frequently get disadvantaged by the ref's decisions. People who claim it all balances out in the end are assuming that the system is based on attempted fairness but, as any scientist will (should) tell you, you cannot base results on hypothoses, they must be based on observation. It has been my observation for many years that certain teams get consistent advantages and others disadvantages. We're unfortunately in the latter group.

    I noticed exactly what you say on Saturday. I was actually amazed that any Liverpool players were sent off at all. Not because they shouldn't have been, just that life has taught me not to expect such important decisions ever to go our way when there are any sort of questions about it. The penalty against the Arse last week being a perfect case in point. Not to mention multiple yellows over both weekends for challenges that weren't even fouls.
  2. Certainly their first (disallowed) goal was perfectly valid. I thought so when I first saw the replay. By then though, as you rightly say, we had already suffered a number of poor decisions to our disadvantage. Clearly though, as we know only too well, those decisions that result in a direct change to the score are the ones that make the biggest difference. Generally more even than red cards.

    Over time though, and with your prompting, I've realised that we can only really progress if we put all of our focus onto improving our own game. If we allow ourselves to get too distracted or upset by the frequent errors of the refs then we are further disadvantaged even than simply by the decisions themselves. That was a hard lesson for me - learned over a long time (Still learning really).

    COYS!!
  3. The constant "little" professional fouls are frustrating & have to be punished early in a match.
    Arsenal get away with them in the final 3rd constantly. For example, in a recent game they were awarded a penanlty. Within that same phase of very good attacking play, they impeded & dragged down a defender then went on to win a penalty. Why no-one complained, including the commentators beats me. Play should have been stopped and the earlier foul given against Arsenal. It happens all the time & teams who are adept at hauling down or blocking defenders gain unfair advantage on a regular basis.