The Rolling Football Thread: season 2024/25

[DuncinToffee]

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

“Some people think football is a matter of life and death. I don't like that attitude. I can assure them it is much more serious than that.”

Watching Galatasaray v Spurs, us down to 10 men, them 3-2 up.

Fully expecting us to be on the receiving end of Man City's wrath at having lost 3 on the trot! If we can keep the result respectable that would be good.

Jordan Pickford!

Not much else to say about that match.

Sounds like it was boring as hell until that moment Dunc. Might end up being the shortest highlights programme ever. 🙈

A draw away for the local derby against Montrose for Arbroath today. Another goal was ruled out "controversially" apparently though. I had considered going as it's just 15 miles up the road but my back has been a bit dodgy and I didn't know the situation if there were going to be seats available or not as I've not been to Links Park before and DH couldn't go.

Superb by Brighton! I would have preferred for another of City's losses to have been in the Prem rather than Champions League, but I'm delighted to see them drop more points regardless. They will probably go on their usual 596-match winning streak in the new year and win the Prem again, but I'm enjoying this season so far!

That really was a match of two halves. That was so scrappy in the end though and all that shirt pulling got crazy.

Absolutely delighted with that. Fabulous 2nd half performance, Hurzeler seems to have a real knack for turning games around which is a huge skill.
Brilliant to see O'Rielly score and best of all not get injured! And Pedro back too.

Well done Brighton!

Now it's another bloody international break! 3rd one and we are only 11 games into the premier league season- that seems excessive

Another jeffing interlull! More injuries.

No Norway, you're not having Ødegaard this time, he's not fully fit from last time...

Fullkrug still hasn't recovered from the injury he got in the first international break. 🙄

I'm just glad I'll be back at Gayfield next weekend. Missed the last two home games due to having Covid then being at a wedding and at least we don't get affected by international breaks there.

Gladbach held Leipzig to a 0-0 away - which feels like a win to me.

The big Steel City Derby today. I can only hope it goes off peacefully.

So Liverpool dispossessed an AV player by standing on his foot and then scored their second goal.

How was it allowed to stand?

Watch it again. No foul (as every single commentator has agreed). In fact, you see that Pau Torres runs into Gravenberch (not the other way round), and the outside of his foot is on top of the outside of Gravenberch's.

Do you also feel that Bailey didn't commit a professional foul on Mo Salah (that it looked as though he would have got away with had Nunez not fortunately scored)?

Thanks, I didn't have the commentary on. It just looked like a foul to me, just as well I am not a PL referee.

Yes, I thought that should have been a red, just like Saliba's the other week. Lucky for AV that he scored.

@MustTryHarderAndHarder To be fair, if you had been the on field referee, I doubt you would have done a worse job than David Coote! He made some very strange decisions both ways, particularly when it came to bookings: booked one Villa player for a foul on Van Dijk (if I recall correctly) that, yes, was definitely a foul but I didn't think it warranted a yellow card; yet Coote also gave a free kick for Ollie Watkins' swan dive but didn't book him for simulation (and it looked like he didn't think Bailey fouled Salah, which is incomprehensible). As is the usual lament these days, it's the lack of consistency that frustrates fans.

Well, at least it was both ways, unlike Kavanagh who only makes decisions in City's favour.

What did you think about Konate's "shoulder barge" on Ollie Watkins in the box. I thought it should have been a penalty,

@MustTryHarderAndHarder I honestly don't recall the Konate-Watkins incident you mention - do you remember when it was, and I can look at it again? Was it when the Gravenberch-Pau Torres thing was happening? If so, I didn't think that was a foul: not every instance of obstruction, arms across bodies etc in the penalty box is a foul, unless we don't want football to be a contact sport any more. Holler if it's a different incident you meant, though!

My feeling during/immediately after the match was that I didn't think there were any incidents for either side that warranted either penalties or red cards (and I didn't agree with all of Villa's yellow cards, as I've previously said), other than Bailey's professional foul (which needed a card but obviously not a penalty).

One other thing I have been pondering re inconsistent refereeing: it's so interesting to see the different approach to handball taken in the Prem compared to the Champions League - the Prem refs have it right in this instance. Gvardiol's handball v Brighton yesterday might have been given in the CL; there were a few really harsh handball decisions given in this week's CL games (e.g. for the penalty Haaland missed v Sporting Lisbon, and there was another one in another match where there was absolutely no way the penalised player could have avoided being hit by the ball).

There are some stills here. It was towards the end of the first half I think:

x.com/UTDKara/status/1855348657119428859

Yes, the CL handball rules are very harsh. Merino (Arsenal) was penalised for a handball when he couldnt' have done anything about it on Wednesday against Inter Milan.

That was the Watkins swan dive that Luis Suarez and Anthony Gordon would have been proud of! 😅(The video you posted with the stills incorrectly says Liverpool got a goal kick - it was a free kick awarded for simulation.)

Merino handball: yes, that was the other example I was thinking of. Ridiculous decision.

Nobody does a swan dive like Arjen Robben

Jürgen Klinsmann is asking you to hold his beer...

Spurs were awful against Ipswich today.