Billy Talbot

Maybe that was Slot giving him one last go.

It makes more sense if you put an offer on the table (from Saudi or wherever) that both he and the club know about and he has been deliberating over it and part of his deliberation has been the recent benching. That accounts for his "throwing him under the bus" and being forced out comments. In this scenario it's a deliberate ploy to convince the fan base that it's him being sold against his will. He couldn't have come out and said these things with as much vigour and impact if we'd have beaten Leeds, or if he'd played vs Inter or vs Brighton, which he may have been more likely to have depending on the score/situation. It also accounts for Slot (given that it's logical to think Slot would like a younger, more defensively active right sided forward) not bringing him on vs Leeds as the last thing he wants (and the club wants) is Salah to get injured right now. Why should Slot in this scenario be in any way conciliatory? He might well just want shut of him.

I think he'd rather go in the summer but feels like he's being pushed.

It wouldn't surprise me if Salah, Slot and Hughes et al are playing a playing a small game of pass the parcel and Salah has been given the option of a transfer out in January and he's been benched whist he makes his mind up/he doesn't get injured. I think that explains everything.

Well yeah, but it's obvious from Salah's response to being dropped that he thinks he should be in the team regardless of how he's been playing this season and that's entirely on Salah. Two ends of the same string.

I think that's very much a two way street.

Mo would have looked a bit of a t!t coming out with this if Konate hadn't have shat himself again and/or that lad hadn't popped up at the back stick unmarked on '95 mins. Neither of which have anything to do with Salah being in the team or on the bench. Results have improved (albeit marginally) since he's been dropped. I think that has more to do with the structure of the team being **** but it doesn't have nothing to do with Salah being way off it for some time and if he hadn't have been, then maybe the structure of the team would be more suited to getting the best out of him. His outburst isn't great news or good for anyone as far as I'm concerned.

Yeah he was a ****. At least 2 or 3 fouls on Salah when he first came on that he gave nothing for. The first one looked like he intentionally looked away as Salah received the ball and then got clattered. It's boring moaning about refs but ffs.

I think it was a good win on Saturday but I'm reluctant to commit to a corner turning. Maybe a little peak around a small corner with a big bend in the road.

I think we got the signings generally right, but pinned our hopes on squad players a bit too strongly. Yeah, Frimpong is a bit weird, but I think the transfer team hoped Bradley would have played most of our games so far. With hindsight it's easy to say we'd have been better off buying a RB. That said if Guehi signed we would have coped a lot better with that. Konate is a lot better with proper defenders either side of him like he had yesterday and Guehi plays RB. Not signing him was a MAJOR **** up. Also I think we hamstrung ourselves with the wide forwards. We can't buy a first team right forward cos of Salah and it really wasn't the time given the Wirtz, Isak, Ekitike signings AND a new LB, to be singing another left sided attacker. Diaz leaving was not good timing. I sorta get how Frimpong comes into that a bit and Rio, but it's clear our forward line is not as strong as it has been. That was clear at the end of the window so that was also a **** up but that's been coming and was seriously compounded by the loss of Jota.

I dunno what's wrong with the yoof these days.

Indeed and the issue of our top scoring legendary forward coming to the end of his career to start spending money on. Which is where most of that 220m went.

Was that actually a double hit for the pen? I must admit I couldn’t see it with a 4k picture on a 43” screen. those VAR labs have got great eyesight. Another one for the clear and obvious column.

I could justify a difference. van Dyke's should have stood because Roberson didn't clearly impact an opponent's ability to play the ball. Whereas there were two Forest players offside on Saturday and one of them was clearly impacting on Allison's ability to see the ball never mind play it.

Fk to Everton and the ref calls 2 Everton players over to talk to them. I mean, it’s funny, but it’s also utterly ridiculous

Who’s the other d****ead invading my earoles?

Who the f*** is this commentator? He’s a f***ing c***.

It’s funny but utterly ridiculous. There’s no way he should he should have been sent off.

How's about we sign people and make them do the winning too? I dunno. If I was him I could think of worse things to do. Like stay at Palace for 100k a week less wages for a start.

Indeed. It's not like there are professionals who do this kind of thing and people who have experience writing protocols decision making with video in other sports. I think part of the reluctance in the sports hierarchy to get help in this regard, apart from the sheer arrogance that allows football refs to suggest with a straight face that they're better off doing it themselves is that anyone coming in from outside football would first say "what the **** is this clear and obvious b****x" and "no, the referee is not always right" which makes it a non-starter as far as refs are concerned and nobody serious would want to be working around that. Refereeing needs a worldwide root and branch overhaul. The Premier League should sack off PGMIOL though and give a chance to a new organisation that's progressive around VAR though as it's here to stay and radically improving it is key to the product ongoing. Everybody hates it and that's entirely the PGMIOLs fault.

yeah, whenever there's a major event in the game where the referee makes a decision he should be saying "my decision is such and such" and then refer to the particular law that he's using to make that decision. Then the VAR should tell him if or not that's correct, or for marginal calls, refer him to the monitor to check and it should be normal for referees to stick with their decision or change them. That's how the process should work and any deviance from that is where the process brakes down. The clear and obvious thing is just nonsense. It just throws everyone into a cesspit of guessing what other people are thinking and what they've seen or not. It needs binning ASAP.

I used chatGPT to do some stats regarding the incidence of decisions that VAR doesn't overrule that are later judged by the Key Match Incident panel to be incorrect decisions. ie, the amount of wrong decisions that aren't corrected by VAR due to the "clear and obvious" nonsense. ie, the ref being a **** and the VAR not reigning him in. Here's what it says. 2023/24 season — 31 KMI errors total; 4 were against Liverpool. Probability of ≥4 errors hitting one club by chance: ≈ 0.067 (6.7%). Interpretation: somewhat unlikely but not extremely rare. 2024/25 season — 18 KMI errors total; 6 were against Liverpool. Probability of ≥6 errors hitting one club by chance: ≈ 0.00017 (0.017%). Interpretation: extremely unlikely by chance. Combined 2023/24 + 2024/25 — 49 errors total; 10 against Liverpool. Probability of ≥10 errors hitting one club by chance: ≈ 0.00013 (0.013%). Interpretation: highly unlikely by chance — this is statistically significant in a simple binomial sense.

Yep, so the lino got it wrong cos couldn't see properly, but still flagged. The ref relied on the lino even though could see what the lino couldn't and three fellas with as much time as they like and high def TV replays whose job it is to spot when the on field refs get stuff wrong all got it wrong again and came to a wrong decision described by their boss as "not unreasonable".

And no laws of the game under which it should have been ruled out and yet "not unreasonable" to disallow it. Webb needs the sack.

Yeah, it has to clearly impact him and it it clearly has no definite impact. "might" has nothing to do with it. So yeah Mr. Webb, it is unreasonable for people who know the law to come to the conclusion he's offside. And precisely so.