European nations league

[Durhamfootman]

OFFS!

typical England... get the first goal then miss a sitter to go 2 up, before conceding the equaliser under extreme pressure. Then they straight away get a great goal ruled out by the tech by the thickness of a toenail and finally back pass their way to giving the ball away in front of goal to go 2-1 down...... in a semi final...... again!

Dutch players should have come out for extra time with napkins around their necks while they waited for England to put it on a *modded* plate for them

Stones has had a *modded* shocker tonight.

[budgetmeansbudget]

If we have to put up with that sodding offside nonsense in the Premier League next season thousands of people will start cancelling their sky subscriptions.

Sat there for two minutes with not a replay in sight, and then we get half a second glimpse after the goal is ruled out.

Who decides when to freeze the footage when the offside decision is made. Is it guesswork, has the ball left the players foot by half a millimetre or half a nanometre when the footage is frozen.

As usual treat the paying public like dirt, don't tell them a thing, don't show them anything either.

As for this game England have been awful, trying to play out of defence when they haven't got the ability to do so, and eventually they naturally fuk up.

[Durhamfootman]

agree. the VAR decisions took far too long, with nobody knowing what was going on.

Both decisions I saw were correct, but there is no excuse for leaving people in the dark while somebody no-one ever sees makes their decision.

They had a TMO referral at the Falcons -v- Sale fixture in March. the ref wanted to know a/ was the ball grounded, b/ was there an offside in the build up to the try and c/ was foul play involved. It took the best part of 10 minutes to sort it all out, and nobody in the crowd had the first idea of what was going on. Football needs to be smarter in their use of VAR than that.

[Durhamfootman]

England were poor tonight. Half of the players looked as though they hadn't played for ages, and the other half looked as though they played too much. They were much better in the group stage while the season was going on and perhaps the finals ought to be played earlier. The Ch Lge and Europa finals were played far too late in the season and had a knock on effect for this. Somewhere down the line these players are going to have fit in a holiday and lots of footballers will be back for pre-season training in about 3 weeks.

Good competition though, I think. It has much to merit it. Miles better than a load of old friendlies. Just needs a tweak or two

Oh..... and VAR should only be allowed to rule out goals that England concede...... not the ones that they score, otherwise it's no improvement on what the ref and their linesmen have been doing to England for decades.

[budgetmeansbudget]

England didn't deserve to win but I'm not convinced by the offside decision. Show me the technology which proves that the ball was one nanometre from the passer's foot when the frame was frozen.

Noone ever discusses that aspect of it, just the toenails width showing the attacker ahead of the defender. I bet if you take the play back a single frame he is probably onside.

Put it this way if that had been Holland's goal I wouldn't have been unhappy if it was allowed to stand.

[yuppie]

think last night showed how good a manager Pep is. back to back titles with Stones and Walker in his team, miracle worker

[Durhamfootman]

ah well... he's sensible enough to not play Stones very often, which is perhaps why he looked a yard off the pace all night. He lost his man at pretty much every NL corner.

I like John Stones, btw, but his being at Man City is not helping his career or England's prospects.

[Durhamfootman]

The worry is that Maguire seems likely to be not playing for Man City next season as well.

[Durhamfootman]

England didn't deserve to win but I'm not convinced by the offside decision. Show me the technology which proves that the ball was one nanometre from the passer's foot when the frame was frozen.

Noone ever discusses that aspect of it, just the toenails width showing the attacker ahead of the defender. I bet if you take the play back a single frame he is probably onside.

Put it this way if that had been Holland's goal I wouldn't have been unhappy if it was allowed to stand.

I would... I'd have been delighted if that was NL and VAR overturned it.

I guess the point of VAR is that if everyone just accepts the decision then the game is allowed to continue. Unlike human error, techie error is impartial and consistent. A bit like hawkeye in tennis, if the tech says the ball clipped the line by a nano millimetre then it's in and everyone accepts it and moves on. Football players and fans need to do the same

But it can't be slow

If it takes ages to make the decision, the game will become something fundamentally different from the free flowing sport it's supposed to be. We cant have endless referrals and endless delays or we might as well all start watching American football and switch on for the football results show at 6.30 on a Saturday instead of 4.45

on the offside decision.... It wasn't that long ago that offside was supposed to be clear and obvious, not marginal and involving fractions of an inch, but there you go... the TV demands fractions of inches and officials who can't get fractions of inches right every time get pilloried. So we need VAR..... but not endless delays

[sussexpob]

think last night showed how good a manager Pep is. back to back titles with Stones and Walker in his team, miracle worker

Football evolves so quickly, and from the space of Stones looking great at Everton where he was known for his ability to play it out, defenders nowadays are almost like midfielders from 10 years ago, with goalkeepers also needing to pass and strikers now able close down and tackle much like defenders. Everyone plays the high press since the age of Barca ended, and sadly, it seems Stones is just crap on the ball. Kyle Walker I think is a top player, I used to have my doubts, but I dont think you can single him out overall. But Stones just isnt good enough on the ball, you can press him to shreds and he makes mistakes. Pickford too got closed down and whacked a few goalkicks straight out for throw ins deep in our half. For me it was Lingaard coming on that changed the match. He's terrible, and Holland gained a foothold on the ball (and we kept losing it) as soon as he came on.

From a general point, Id love someone to break down football matches and make a convincing argument for teams always trying to pass it around the box in high risk situations to retain the ball, rather than leather it. I am sure having defenders mess around with it and getting caught out leads to so many more goals and opportunities than it does losing the ball up the field, but I guess I am in a minority, because no one does it anymore.

[sussexpob]

As for VAR, get rid of it. I used to argue for it, now after a couple of years floating around, I cant stand it. The VAR ref just ends up picking the side the ref didnt on the coin flip, and the fact a team cannot challenge a decision is ridiculous. There is also that inconsistency with the phases that are said to be affected enough to be looked at; I have seen more than one example where a clear free kick has been ignored, the ball is won from a foul, and 12 seconds its in the net and ref is looking at the striker a yard onside and giving it.

The net effect at the moment seems to be...

1. The "deliberate" part of the handball rule no longer exists, and VAR gives everything.
2. If there is at least 40% doubt on the refs decision, it gets overturned regardless.
3. It settles nowt.

The African Champions League final the other day ended with a team walking of and conceding the tournament because the ref wouldnt use VAR. Thats how ridiculous its got in a short space of time.

[yuppie]

The Africans cup final seemed farcical.

Looking at some of the decisions, can kinda understand why the team walked off, especially since one team had the benefit of VAR in the first leg, and in the second the opposition team did not. Even though it was made to look like it was working.

From the little i watched last night, I though McGuire was also a liability. Holland seemed to want him to come out with the ball. Left a lot of space behind.

Seems like the dutch worked this England team out.

[Durhamfootman]

As for VAR, get rid of it. I used to argue for it, now after a couple of years floating around, I cant stand it.

here to stay, sadly. Football authorities see it as the way forward and the TV doubtless loves it. It will evolve the way referrals have in cricket where it goes from a facility to correct very obvious mistakes to something designed to correct minutiae. The thinking will be that once we get used to having 2 or 3 instances of players standing around having a fag for 5 mins, we'll soon get used to seeing this several times in each half...... and it will be called 'progress'

I'm not against it in principle, but I worry that it will get out of hand

[Durhamfootman]

That TMO referral that I mentioned earlier took so long that physio's came onto the pitch to co-ordinate warming up exercises for the players to stop them (presumably) from getting cold and risking injury.

we can't have that in football

[Durhamfootman]

England win another penalty shoot out to finish 3rd

they scored all 6 of their penalties and Pickford saved one at the end

that's 2 penalty shoot outs in a row