The Rolling Football Thread, season 2023-24

[DuncinToffee]

Football fans join in to share the joy, the heartache and VAR frustration ⚽

The thing about football - the important thing about football - is that it is not just about football.

Just watching MotD, both Havertz and Bruno G should have been red carded, ball was out of play and it was a foul on Gabriel.

VAR had a mare there, couldn't see clearly

We had a VAR decision going our way today and then a fluke goal gave Brighton the draw. I would have taken that result beforehand but now it feels like 2 points dropped.

2 wins and a draw in 6 days, happy with that

Nice to see somebody else in a VAR controversy. Liverpool fan here, and still not quite over ours a few weeks ago!

It was your first time Tokyo. Next time will be skightly easier

Just watching MoTD now. So many fabulous goals.

I'm should be peeved about the Newcastle goal as we had a very similar and less clear cut goal disallowed.

Seems we've had loads of VAR decisions go against us, but we had the decision on the opening game of the season against Wolves.

I'm thinking it'll all come out in the wash, no point being bitter when we're just crap 😂.

Lovely racial abuse Joe Willock received after the game yesterday 😒

Absolute Neanderthals. He wasn’t even involved in any kind of controversy. Not that it would be ok even if he had.

And I’ve seen the goal back now. The ball has been shown conclusively to be in by the slimmest of margins, I agree with Neville (and almost every other pundit/commentator I’ve heard back - aside from Keown) that Gabriel was already heading down to get the ball so im not convinced by the calls of a foul, either way there is enough room there for doubt, offside was inconclusive and handball totally irrelevant as Joelinton didn’t score. In those situations you have to go with the onfield decision as there are no clear and obvious errors made by the ref. On another day the ref would have blown the whistle and I don’t think that onfield decision would have been overturned either so I guess it was lucky.

Arsenal had one shot on goal all game.

Havertz should have been off first, that was the incident that might have changed the game initially.

Come on Eddie, if this goal was given against your team, you would have had the same reaction.

It doesn't matter that Arsenal were poor, the goal decision was a farce. And the ref bottled it on many occassions.

Racial abuse is unforgiveable.

I'm not a fan of how VAR is being used in football.

However. The VAR/Ref situation described here should not be allowed to happen. I'm not saying the refs were/are corrupt, but there should be no cause for any doubt on this.

Yes, it's a shame that Havertz's wasn't a 5th as well.

Arteta is blaming everyone but himself. Yes, that goal should not have been given, but we had one tame shot on target and that was it for the whole game.

Yes, the game changed after the goal as they didn't need to attack, but we kept Havertz on when he was a walking red card and had Trossard, Zinchenko, Elneny etc on the bench.

When is Arteta going to admit that he made a mistake buying Havertz and that he has destabilised the team by making the goal keepers compete with each other.

I think coming second last season has gone to his head.

He said recently that he has calmed down on the touchline as it was making Arsenal look bad. He also needs to stop blaming other people for his own mistakes.

It's just a shame that once again the talking point is VAR rather than the football.

And Haaland going off at half time does my FPL no favours

Yes, but we are only talking about that because we didn't deserve to win. If we had won, it would have been forgotten.

Oh absolutely it’s the kind of goal you’re pissed off about if it’s given against you, I’m not really disputing that. But I completely understand why the decision stood. And that’s the key, it was too difficult for VAR to overturn the onfield decision as the evidence wasn’t conclusive. Had the ref blown the whistle then it would have gone the other way. It comes down to what is essentially a coin toss and luck of the draw which in this instance fell to us. Suggestions of corruption and our owners paying off PGMOL are just laughable. We got a bloody apology letter from PGMOL last season after Joe Willocks perfectly good goal against Palace was disallowed. Elliott Anderson had his perfectly good goal disallowed against Forest last season and that’s without mentioning the dubious offside that was given against us at Anfield to rule out our second goal against them last season also. I have no doubt that at some point this season we’ll be up in arms as well.

Grateful to have forgotten to change mine this week and left Salah as captain.

If Haaland is out for any length of time it’ll really shake up FPL!

We have a whole collection of PGMOL apology letters

At least Klopp had the good sense to take Konate off unlike Arteta with Havertz.

@EddieHowesShithousingMags Re Joe Willock: every single match day seems to be followed by at least one club saying a player has been racially abused. I’m beyond sick of it. It sickens me to my very soul. We all slag off players who we think haven’t done the business in the way we expect them to - but how on earth is the colour of their skin relevant to their performance (or lack thereof)?

Racism has always, sadly, been part of my experience growing up in Britain (I am not white). Football fans were particularly horrific for it in the 70s-90s but it seemed to have got better in recent years in terms of match day crowds at least. The resurgence of cowardly racist attacks through social media has exposed the rot that I guess was just driven underground. I have happily taken my DC to Prem and England games without worrying they will hear racist crap being chanted; I don’t know now how safe I feel anymore. I’m not stupid - I know that racism was always there. It just scares me how blatant the racists have become again.

It’s horrible Burblish and it makes me sick to my stomach that you and your DC’s need to think twice about your safety at games. And that’s what they are games - supposed to be fun and enjoyable. I don’t know what the answer is but I wish I did.

Anyway, back to just football: @DuncinToffee I loved how Klopp not only swiftly hooked Ibou off before the ref could do it for him, but was also honest in his post-match interviews about why he did it! 😁Refreshing to see a manager admit his player got lucky for once! (And, unlike the Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota reds, I don’t think we could have complained too much if Konate had been sent off!)

Arteta needs to watch himself - he seems to spend more time out of his technical area than in it!

@EddieHowesShithousingMags Thanks, mate xx I will still keep taking them (won’t be beaten by brain dead racist dickslaps) but it’s like my ears are now super vigilant, so that I can distract or move them away if things are being said, y’know? Fortunately I don’t feel in threat of physical harm, but it’s just so degrading when you hear racist remarks.

Klopp couldn't really say anything else after that action

Anyway it finally feels like Everton is heading in the right direction, and fans moaning about the 2 points lost rather than celebrating the 1 point was kind of nice.

Early days but I dont feel like we'll regret selling Havertz to a rival like thought we would. He is carrying on his form from last season as it stands.

Obviously may change..

It always felt like Everton had some really good players but the scores never reflected that. It's nice to see Dominic Calvert Lewin back. I think he is so good to watch. My other bias is that I really like Janes Garner. He gives 100% and is very flexible. Steve Cooper really liked him when he was on loan to Forest. For some reason, Ten Hag never gave him a chance.

I've just seen the Newcastle goal. I am firstly staggered that VAR "can't give a good angle to see if the ball is out". How is that even possible? The purpose of VAR being there must surely include this basic tech?

So OK maybe the ball wasn't out. But that two handed shove? There is no way on earth they couldn't work out that wasn't a shove. It was pretty blatant.

But as pp said: if you get these goals given, you're glad of it. If those decisions go against you, you are allowed to grumble.

And VAR and how it is used needs to be completely rethought.

I can't argue with that. Arteta has got plenty of goodwill, so if he just holds up his hands and says it was a mistake, or he's not yet ready, nobody would come calling for his head.

At the time I said we should have got Mount instead, and I don't think I was wrong.

And as for the racism, it's been getting worse everywhere since Brexit, and social media makes people think they're invulnerable.