JRC

Blackburn fans despise him almost as much as us

We got beaten - battered even - by relegation fodder Watford in the title season, pre-covid and with the title still technically up for grabs. It happens, City's few losses in recent years have included Norwich, Palace and, er, Wolves.

It behoves the arlarses on here who saw his whole LFC playing career to ensure this is never forgotten or even questioned.

Should never forget that Carragher injured both groins in Istanbul

Agree, and never thought I could say that. It's a combination of the rest being so piss-poor and Taylor having acquired a level of authority he never had before. He used to look like a frightened rabbit and s***house teams knew they could bully him, but that seems less true now; unfortunately there's no evidence his decision making has got any better. You could have said the same about Webb in his 'heyday'.

There was an element of it in the Ref Nerd justification for Konate not getting the second yellow, but that was all to do with whether it was a 'Promising' situation and so worthy of a yellow (it wasn't because the Blue lad wasn't going to get to the ball ahead of VvD) NOT whether it was a foul or not. A penalty shout has no such context to consider, other than the foul being in the area.

Excellent today.

Suarez's first season had loads of near misses and woodwork alongside the mad genius. Villa away was almost unbelievable, but it all worked out in the end.

Takes yards out of some of the Everton lads who look like they're going backwards. Same in the first half when he led the counterattack for the blocked Diaz shot. Just ate the ground up.

Reports from Spain that Arsenal are in for Andre now

Those streets were like lobster pots. Kids would show you in to park your car and it to be 'minded', but you had to pay again to be guided out because they were just rammed in. Got chased there twice - once by Utd after the FA cup semi-final (79?) and once after the League Cup replay vs Everton, when City rolled up outside and just lobbed bottles and bricks into the terrace along the side (Kippax?). Tough ground to be safe at.

Rather impressed with the way Dom motored up the pitch behind Nunez for the second. Outstrips the Everton midfielders and defenders with ease. (Following a brilliant pass from Mac, of course). Starting to love this midfield; quite like the simple use of little 1-2 triangles to release Trent into the midfield space beyond the press - we'll make better use of it on other days; has echoes for me of how Neal used to move up the pitch alongside Kenny and Lee/Johnson/Case etc.. BTW, one report (F365?) had Doucoure and Onana as the best players on the pitch apparently. Seriously? Do these people go to football matches at all?

OK; Young clearly got away with a yellow for kicking the ball away. s***e rule, but, you know. This argument is bugging me. Klopp didn't take Konate off because he knew it was a second yellow, but because he knew the next one would be. Good management, not an admission of guilt. Dyche not only gave Young a tough ask against Diaz from the start, he didn't rectify it when he had the opportunity. And if Klopp had got a yellow, there would have been a massive condemnation of him, with Dyche (who I quite like tbh, and didn't overdo the claim that the result would or should have been different) I haven't seen any criticism of his attitude to Refs. MOTD zooming in to show that Konate caught Beto - no-one said it wasn't a foul, just not a yellow. Would like to see the ref arguments, but I don't think it was a decision that would have merited any debate if Young hadn't already (legitimately) gone. I was more surprised that Pawson didn't take the option to even things up when he could have done

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Objectively that could be Salah's worst game in a red shirt. Just the 2 goals. Jota's Law transferred to him for the day, though I felt Diogo was still under it's effect as he had a pretty good game without scoring. Would have said Szoboszlai myself, albeit a close call vs VvD, except Elliot came close to nicking it with that cameo. Jurgen doing a lot to prove his nemesis Chris Wilder correct, using the extended subs laws to transform games on a regular basis these days. All 4 made a big difference today.

Not to get all corporatist on this, but where the f*** are the Pl or FA on this? PGMOL are contracted to them to provide officiating services, but must have obligations in place re assuring integrity and quality standards, and the client (PL) should be rigorously monitoring performance and compliance etc. Quality should be core to their 'mission'. Yet despite bringing in a bloke from RL, who do this stuff really well, that audio overall, and the outcome, proved them to be an organisation with absolutely no concept or culture of quality, the kind of procedural stuff that can seem tedious but restricts and prevents human error being impactful. But don't worry, they've had an internal review by those who should never have let it get so sioppy in the first place, and it's all sorted. They must worry about who is going to get the Pl Refereeing contract next time round though, with all the competition from, like, erm, you know, thingybob. (As to the UAE stuff - they are Caesar's wife, and shouldn't have touched it with a barge pole)

Jota's Law: The worse he plays, the higher the probability he scores. Was inevitable yesterday. Best thing was a bunch of lads got a poor game - or shocking miss - out of their system. Gravenberch looks like he could be a real player. Glides over the ground, but has the stride of a sprinter: Opened his legs and showed his class, as David Coleman once said.

The adherence to the VAR protocol is doing my nut in. Apart from not being true, apparently, in the case of serious error, how on earth do you conclude that breaching that protocol is the more egregious problem than allowing a recognised valid goal to be mistakenly denied? Or - Spurs taking the free kick is not really a restart because the officials have decided it was a goal, so it's not the appropriate action, whatever Comms snafu there has been. We've all seen players take a cheeky quick throw in when they touched it last, linesman flags furiously and the ref says... Sorry, you've restarted now, it's too late, carry on? Finally, getting too legalistic - they can't review off side decisions once the game has restarted is the protocol, I believe; but they didn't need to, because they already had reviewed it (hence check complete) - they just need to tell the ref someone had misunderstood the message. For me, failure to correct the error - or tell the ref until half time as they are now saying - is the bigger failure.

Couple of points not really strongly made in all the hubbub. The club seem to be the only agents in this who have pointed out that it is outrageous for PGMOL to announce a review, to be scoped and undertaken by.. PGMOL, for which the substantive outcome has already been announced... by PGMOL. It's just appalling governance by any standard. Secondly, considering the timeline - the match officials knew they had made a mistake within seconds, Webb et al surely within minutes. Notwithstanding their failure to raise or try to address the failing during the match - just call the mistake and give the goal, screw the 'can't take it back when it's restarted', that they didn't suggests they either lack the courage to act ethically or are not bothered about the accountability they will face, neither good looks - does anyone believe they were in the correct frame of mind to effectively officiate the rest of the match? Whether leaning to us to overcompensate or the opposite (a big Spurs win would minimise the impact of the error), the delay in confirming or adressing what they knew was, again, unacceptable and poor incident management, and should be called out.

Liew appears to be covering the Ryder Cup, so was probably at a loose end last night, nothing going on and all quiet. Worth noting, any corrupt operation will usually court tame journalists to drive a defensive narrative. Some - Lieuw, Glendenning - just have history as t***s, but the number coming out to just handwave and dismiss - or ridicule - any response other than 'its just a c**k-up, nothing can be done about it' is depressing. Really disappointed with Vickery who usually, in my experience, talks sense and knows his stuff, but chose to be like a whiny teenager on this matter.

Did I see on here or on X that Webb approved a partial replay of a game (from the 67th minute when the error happened) in the US because of a similarly significant human error? Question. What would have happened to the Ref if he had stopped the game when told about the mistake, awarded the goal and told Spurs to Kick Off? Lifetime ban? Because I know which course of action would be most damaging for 'sporting integrity' and it isnt making the right decision a few seconds after the game has restarted, even if the rules say you can't. The rules also said it was a goal.

Move over Jan Molby and Gary Bailey, this one was captured on live TV and filmed from every angle.

And recognising - and exploiting - those weaknesses is all grist to the tactical mill. Someone else posted that Klopp highlighted the Newcastle left side defensive channel at half time, lo and behold.

I can't stand watching on telly, but turned it on as VDV got sent off. Watched the next five or so minutes, and Joelinton committed 3 fouls in just that time alone, left one on Endo that wasn't penalised and kicked the ball away while abusing the ref for having the temerity to have a quiet word with him. Absolutely bizarre refereeing not to yellow card him.