Man Utd ‘robbed’ by VAR vs Bournemouth as Liverpool ‘liability’ has ‘forgotten even the basics’ | OneFootball

Manchester United were ‘robbed’ of all three points against AFC Bournemouth as VAR ‘bottled it’ in a ‘disgraceful showing’.

Also, Mohamed Salah has been told to copy Cristiano Ronaldo and one reader has threatened to ‘shut down’ our ‘pathetic website pronto’.

Man Utd ‘robbed’ vs Bournemouth

Take a point tonight all things considered, but what a disgraceful showing from the ref and VAR. Amad was clearly fouled in the box and a penalty should have been given in real time – I guarantee had he not already awarded one that he would have done so. Then for VAR to bottle it as Bournemouth went up and scored, what a joke.

To top it all off they find 9 minutes added on from god knows where, and play 11. Sure why not play on until you can gift Bournemouth another goal, eh?

For Attwell and Pawson read Laurel and Hardy. Except with fewer laughs and more gaffes. Robbed of 2 points. Garey Vance, MUFC

Good match, great second half decided, in the end, by an inconsistent referee who was clearly scared to make a big decision in one direction. If United hadn’t already had a penalty, does anyone honestly believe he doesn’t give the Amad one? Of course not.

So another week, another result changed by refereeing that is left in the hands of one, flawed individual who naturally has bias from any number of things, having to run 10k in 90 minutes and so forth. Completely understandable.

If only we could come up with a way for another set of eyes – maybe even using other tv angles – to help them in such situations. Ah well. Ryan, Bermuda

Should we really respect referees?

We’re constantly being told we need to respect referees, that they’re doing a difficult job, etc etc etc. Respect is earned, and frankly AI could do just as good a job as they do now. If it was a penalty against Maguire, it should have been a penalty against Amad. If after reviewing the incidents your decision making is 50:50 then we could just replace the ref with a coin tossing machine.

The refereeing is an embarrassment and I’m starting to wonder if the only point of VAR is to allow match-fixing through inconsistency and shambolic decisions, like ruling out goals because foreheads are offside but allowing wiggle room for Wirtz. Tell me honestly, what is there to respect? Daniel, Cambridge

The Chelsea pile on

I get it Football365, you love a Chelsea pile on, however, lets examine the statement made by the football authorities into the decision made to fine Chelsea.

“The Premier League assessed a series of recalculations of the club’s historical financial submissions which took into account the payments made for the benefit of Chelsea FC. Importantly, having undertaken that assessment, the Premier League Board was satisfied that in no scenario would the club have breached the League’s Profitability and Sustainability Rules during the relevant periods, had the relevant payments been properly included in the club’s historical financial submissions.”

So, in essence, if they’d have put the payments to agents through the books, nothing would have happened and Arsene Wenger was then and remains now wrong.

Even Arteta knows that Wenger’s methods were wrong which is why he’s turned Arsenal into the polar opposite of a Wenger side, although he has kept the constantly cheating part and become instead a fusion of Rugby and WEF with a bit of football tacked on as an aside, that they are cruising to the league title shames the league. Mark

Wayne Rooney’s ‘utter nonsense’ on Neymar

Wanted to chime in on the whole Neymar debacle that was on Stick to Football because they’re chatting utter nonsense. How can Rooney say he wasn’t a top top player? Neymar at his peak was better than Rooney but wasn’t there long enough for many reasons. But people act like he was never consistent or never made it. He was probably expected to be better, but the same can be said about Rooney. Neymar turned up for Brazil. He has 8 World Cup goals to Rooney’s 1. He has the most goals ever for Brazil. Even if you don’t agree with Balon Dor rankings (below), give or take his positions were correct. His record in the CL is pretty good too. 81 games 43 goals & 43 assists . Compare this to Rooney who had 85 games 30 goals & 15 assists. This is the only two competitions they both played in and Neymar did a lot better.

2011: 10th (While playing for Santos) 2012: 13th (While playing for Santos) 2013: 5th 2014: 7th 2015: 3rd 2016: 5th 2017: 3rd 2018: 12th 2019: 16th 2020: Not nominated (cancelled) 2021: 16th 2022: 13th

I’m not having a go at Rooney at all. I’m using him because he’s the one who mentioned it and if he compares well to Rooney he’s obviously a top top player. They both were elite at a young age and faded fairly early. Neymar can’t move anymore and Rooney had to shift back to midfield for United and England which despite revisionism was a disaster.

Jill Scott chiming in saying Mane was better was quite laughable. Neymar scored 100+ goals for 3 different clubs and I know the standard was different but it was fairly obvious whenever you watched him that he deserved to be at the top level. He consistently had the best dribbling stats in Europe behind Messi and the numbers were insane. I’ve seen a lot of his opponents speak about how great he was and so many young players today cite him as their ideal, most notably Yamal. I remember watching him in the 2021 Copa America final v Argentina and he was a one man army. He was going past players with ease and being hacked constantly. Funnily enough Messi had a mare that day but ended up with the trophy which was unfortunate for Neymar.

Anyways, I just don’t understand how people don’t rate him highly. It doesn’t help that he’s not likeable but I think it’s all based on how hyped he was coming up. I would say for 6/7 years he lived up to that. Dion

Missing the point on Salah

Salah has been great, no question about it. His debut season and performance in 2/3rd of last season were memorable, very much the kind which would be counted as best individual season in the Red shirt. His title winning contributions have similarly never been ignored and he is one of those who’s song is regularly sung at Anfield or even by the traveling support.

Where I think you are confused is the justified criticism Liverpool fans, like me have of him. Yes, I was one of those who; even with the numbers last season wasn’t sure we should’ve extended his contract without a paycut. My priority for the renewals were VVD>Trent > Salah.

The drop off in form was entirely expected after a season like he had last time. The level of drop-off though has stunned even a pessimist like me. If you’ve watched our games, you’d have seen a Salah where he seemed to have forgotten even the basics like passing and taking on his man. Now, I know he’s not alone in giving underwhelming performances, but a player of his stature is expected to lead by example and he was actively a liability.

Added to this is his insistence on playing every minute, he’s visibly shown annoyance whenever he’s been subbed off. As a senior figure, that is not a good look. Lastly, there needed to be a shift in his game to adapt to his age. Like Ronaldo did, Salah needs to adapt his game now that he doesn’t have the pace to beat his man. He can still contribute a lot like the 2nd half vs Galatasaray showed, but he needs to accept that he cannot and should not be the main man anymore.

Levelling (justified) criticism in the present doesn’t preclude appreciation for the past. Abhinav, Mumbai

A 2nd leg up?

With both Villa and Forest being out of the FA Cup, their Premier League game (sandwich in-between the Europa League QF legs) could be brought forward a week to give both teams a rest ahead of the Europa League 2nd legs.

Obviously won’t happen because, you know, it would actually make sense, and we can’t be having any of that can we?! Gary AVFC, Oxford (Ligue Une absolutely would)

I wholeheartedly agree, but it’s fair to point out that this is also in fact just a refereeing error. He should have issued a shed ton of yellow cards at the time, and that would have been the same end result. But he didn’t. It is as simple as that. My point is that from one perspective, it is just a refereeing blunder.

The PGMOL noticed that the Diaz goal against spurs should have stood (most obvious example of them fessing up on audio which came to mind) after about 20 seconds. Then when they realised that it would be noticed by the millions of people watching it they concluded that it was too late to fix, so the 2 month window does stand out a bit.

Why the vitriol for Americans?

AK (Keep Americans away from the beautiful game please), why the vitriol to America? I mean hey, keep us away from bombs and missiles – I get that totally, but soccer? Damn.

And I think maybe your “beautiful game” has been in America longer than you’ve been alive. How old are you AK? I’m 60 years old and began playing soccer/football in 1974 in Atlanta…52 years ago…I’m still playing O30 league locally and in O60s national / international (seniors ) tournaments with a bunch of my buddies who all grew up playing soccer in America in the 1970s.

AK, are you English? If you are, you’d understand why growing up in USA in the 1970s we would have missed the English top flight and national team news, since of course England didn’t make it to the WC in 1974 or 1978. So our heroes growing up were Beckenbauer, Muller, Cruyff (we all practiced Cruyff’s as 8-year olds) and later Maradona…players from the countries that were, um, worth a sh*t on the world stage during the era…

My pals and I religiously watched Soccer Made In Germany, a weekly round-up of the Bundesliga action narrated by Toby Charles. There was no Soccer Made in Blighty available, BTW…and we did have our own soccer league, NASL, although the league was run like a Trump casino and imploded through unsustainable over-expansion in the early 1980s. I stood on “the terraces” for the Atlanta Chiefs, one of 3000 fans which was the average attendance in the old Atlanta-Fulton County stadium w/a capacity of 55K. Not exactly cold Tuesdays eating pies in lower English leagues, but kinda, yeah…without the cold.

So AK, you couldn’t keep soccer away from Americans 55 years ago. And we are still ganking your “beautiful game”. Does it keep you up at night?

Touche, though, AK, on the baseball slight – made me smile. Shameful that USA couldn’t win the championship for the sport they invented. Similar to men’s cricket World Cups where it seems England’s former colonies have mainly whipped up on you lot as far as I can see since 1975, although credit to your 2019 England side for winning one WC out of 13 playing game you boyz invented…

Again, sorry if I’m assuming that AK is from England – he just gives off that vibe, TBF.

BTW, I always thought Eric from LA was probably an ex-pat but hey, we’re all just who we are, whatever that is and wherever we are… but can we still be fans of your beautiful game, AK? Am I allowed to play the sport 3x a week with my mates?