Compare and contrast:
“So, it was given.
“A nonsense ruining the game of football.”
The first comment came in relation to the ridiculous penalty awarded to Crystal Palace at Old Trafford.
The second came in relation to the ridiculous penalty awarded against Crystal Palace at Selhurst Park (to Everton).
Both phrases were uttered by the same person, Palace boss Roy Hodgson – like all football managers, a man who will call for consistency in refereeing. Go figure.
Sure, it doesn’t help that English referees are being forced to apply the latest daft interpretation of the handball rule.
But at least they are applying it consistently.
Proof of that is the fact that dodgy, dubious, downright diabolical decisions are no longer only awarded to home teams any more.
Indeed you know that things have changed for the better when Manchester United had two goals ruled out for offside and two penalties awarded against them, all in the same game. One of those penalties was overturned, another appeal was rejected – and all of those outcomes were quite correct.
VAR helped get two of those decisions right, ruling out an offside ‘goal’ and reversing a wrong penalty call, when Aaron Connolly had pulled Paul Pogba towards him while deliberately moving away from the path of the ball and into the run of the chasing Manchester United midfielder.
Yes, you read that right: Pogba did chase back.
It was also quite right that Manchester United were awarded a penalty after the final whistle had been blown, for a blatant penalty from a stupid handball by Brighton’s Neil Maupay.
For all the faults that still surround the application of VAR, it has undoubtedly improved the accuracy rate of match officials’ decisions.
It’s not the referees’ fault that the handball law has become even more ludicrous than it was last season.
Managers might help matters if they displayed a little honesty, and at least some of them do.
Newcastle United boss Steve Bruce acknowledged that his side should never have been awarded the late penalty from which they equalised away to Spurs at the weekend.
Home manager Jose Mourinho was understandably annoyed at that call, but he did the game – and match officials – a disservice by implying that Tottenham are treated differently (worse) compared to other clubs.
They aren’t.
Too often, especially with men like Mourinho, managers take listeners/ viewers/ the media for fools. Some are, of course, but most aren’t.
Yet we’ve had Jurgen Klopp claiming Liverpool can’t spend big money – just days before they bought Thiago Alcantara and Diogo Jota for a combined £65m. Admittedly that’s less than the cost of one poor goalkeeper at Chelsea, but still…
Then Chelsea boss Frank Lampard suggesting his side’s 3-3 draw at West Brom was “two points dropped” – having been 3-0 down and only equalised in added time.
That came a week after, with a straight face, saying his team would have drawn 1-1 with Liverpool – if not for the (quite correct) red card, (perfectly predictable) goalkeeping error, and (absolutely legitimate) penalty save. Dear Lord, give me strength…
At least Manchester United manager Ole Gunnar Solskjaer admitted they hadn’t deserved more than a point at Brighton, who had struck the woodwork five times.
Back to the matter in, ahem, hand.
The lawmakers have attempted to make ‘handball’ clearer, more ‘factual’, and they’ve achieved that; the problem is they’ve gone far too far.
Put simply, unless a player’s arms are by his side, as if he were standing waiting for a bus, a penalty will be awarded if the ball strikes the arm below the ‘T-shirt line’.
Got that?
Its only virtue is that it is fairly clear – but it is also clearly nonsense.
The balance has swung back massively in favour of attackers, presumably on the basis that ‘everyone wants to see goals’ – except not everyone wants to see goals from penalties that should never have been awarded.
Talking of balance, defenders are now told, in football law, they ‘take a risk’ by doing absolutely natural, normal things in their own penalty area: putting their arms out to keep their balance as they (or an opponent) changes direction); or raising their arms above their shoulder as they jump in the air.
Attackers can still take the chance of doing those things, confident that the worst that will happen is a free kick being awarded against them - and that mightn’t even happen if the ball comes off their arm/ hand before being put into the net, as long as there’s a couple of passes in between those events.
The game’s lawmakers, the International Football Association Board (IFAB) would be quite right to act against the ‘blocks’ (handballs) on which John Terry based half his career, throwing himself in the path of shots with his arms out and up.
However, it’s patently unfair to expect defending players to pin their arms to their side in order to prove that they aren’t ‘making their body bigger’.
Attackers are now able to jump higher, run faster, handle with virtual impunity – do Fifa want them to have any more advantages?
English exceptionalists like Hodgson and Bruce are, bizarrely, hoping that the Premier League can somehow stop applying this new worldwide interpretation of the law pertaining to handball, presumably by some form of footballing Brexit.
The former certainly won’t happen this season, although a united front of condemnation, rather than only complaining when decisions go against your own team, might hasten a change for the next campaign.
Ironically, the new handball ruling was drawn up by former Harrow schoolmaster David Elleray, who is somehow the technical director or IFAB.
Hands up who thinks that was a good appointment?
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All the complaining about handballs is understandable, but managers and pundits do enjoy moaning for the sake of moaning. Take this example:
Burnley scored an offside goal at the weekend. The only issue was that the linesman put his flag up earlier than he is supposed to. But it was offside.
Everyone admitted and accepted that.
Yet Burnley boss Sean Dyche still moaned about the ‘incident’ in his post-match interview.
And the Match of the Day panel analysed the entire ‘incident’.
If the flag going up early had caused Chris Wood to miss there might have been something to talk about, the argument being that the flag put the attacker off – but he was still offside.
Had a different Burnley player scored, there would certainly have been a debate required – because the defence might have reacted to the early flag and eased off, allowing the opposition to score.
But Wood was offside. He ‘scored’. But he was offside.
Pundits (and managers) moan about a flag not going up when someone is clearly offside.
Now they’re moaning when a flag does go up when someone is clearly offside, and ‘scores’ in that very move.
Ommmm. Ommmm. Ommmm….
