Jürgen begs to differ…..
Jürgen Klopp – He knows a penalty when he sees one!
Question: When is a penalty not a penalty? Answer: When the referee gives it but Jürgen Klopp disagrees with the decision.
Actually, the more astute of you will have noticed that the answer given is not quite true.
Just because Klopp disagrees with the decision doesn’t mean the penalty is unawarded, much as he thinks it should be.
No, he really is quite a reasonable person, just ask Simon Mignolet. As soon as the offside rule was explained to him he realised that Harry Kane was onside when he was brought down making the awarding of a penalty the correct decision.
Just to clear things up, Kane was offside when the ball was originally played to him. However, before reaching him Dejan Lovren tried to intercept the pass and got a touch on the ball. This, apparently, began a new phase of play and now, because Lovren was the last player to touch the ball, Kane was onside. Confused? We are not surprised!
In the good old, bad old days, a player was either offside or he wasn’t, it was pretty straightforward. He was also judged to be offside when he received the ball, not when it was played, which made the lineman’s job a lot easier as he only had to watch the ball and where it went.
All that has happened in the last few years is that the powers-that-be, in an attempt to simplify the game and make it easier for referees, have actually made it more complicated and difficult for referees. Still, that’s progress for you!
The historical, (hysterical is probably more appropriate), madness of the keeper…..
Thibaut Courtois – Doing nothing to dispel the age-old theory that goalkeepers are completely insane!
Goalkeepers are completely mad! This is not a new revelation or an important discovery just unearthed, it has been a known fact for years.
Thibaut Courtois, for example, when conceding a penalty to Watford berated the referee for what he thought was a wrong decision.
This after he charged out at the onrushing forward, threw himself to the ground in front of said forward and missed the ball completely. What he didn’t miss was the leg of the Watford player and a penalty was given, quite rightly.
In attempting to explain why he was right and the referee was wrong Courtois pointed out that he had tried to get out of the way by “making himself small”, which conjures up a comical image of the 6’5” keeper curling himself up into a ball and pretending that he is invisible!
Until goalkeepers stop dashing out and hurling themselves at the feet of opposing players in the area then a penalty will be the outcome 99% of the time. It is not up to the referees to get it right, they have it right. It is up to the goalkeepers to bring their brain onto the pitch with them and not leave it in the changing room.
How United fans will miss Antonio Conte…..
The disappointment felt by most Manchester United fans if Antonio Conte is sacked by Chelsea in the next few days is brought on not by any feelings of sympathy towards the Italian but because he will have, conveniently, managed to extricate himself from a meeting with José Mourinho at Old Trafford on February 25th.
City just didn’t have the players, honestly!…..
Pep Guardiola insists that only having six fit players on the Manchester City substitute’s bench against Burnley was due to injuries and not a demonstration aimed at the authorities or referees because of their failure to ensure that he had seven players fit enough to fill the bench.
The moon is also made of cheese and would be nice on toast.
And finally…..
Today is the 60th anniversary of the Münich air disaster. We are not going to write reams and reams about it as there are others who have done, and will do it, much better than we could so we will leave them to it.
Here’s what we think are four of the best reads on the subject. They are all from The Guardian who lost one of their favourites in the crash.
The Munich disaster 60 years on: ‘They were the best team by far’
As long as there is football there is good reason to remember Münich
Donny Davies the Guardian correspondent who died in the Münich air disaster
How the Münich disaster devastated – and changed – football journalism
Suffice to say that the team which was decimated by the crash in 1958 would probably have become the first British team to win the European Cup and may well have done so many years before Celtic actually managed it in 1967. That’s how good they were!
As is always the case on this day, we remember the ones who didn’t make it home.
WHY SAY ANYTHING? 