Carl Sagan

Watching the Argentina Croatia semifinal. As soon as the penalty was given I said that's not a foul. The keeper plants his feet, and draws the foul basketball style as the forward jumps into him. To my surprise Gary Neville and Roy Keane were in 100% agreement with me at HT. But the studio referee expert couldn't see it and said it's a penalty. The ref pundit kept saying "the goalkeeper's forward motion towards the striker" but manifestly there was none. Referees are idiots.

The incident was remarkably similar to when Frank Fielding was sent off at the start of the 10-man game. For me, a foul on the keeper who made no motion towards the striker and couldn't get out of the way.

Southgate surprised me to an extent, in that he was a little less negative in this tournament. So he's improved from that perspective. The strength is he's built a club mentality, but the flipside of that is he's been too loyal to many of the weaker players.

Now is the time for a change. Of the forwards the weakest link is probably Sterling, though Grealish doesn't do enough - the marauding runs he made at Villa have been coached out of him. In midfield, the emergence of Rice and Bellingham looks to be quite transformational. Finally. I would look at a whole new back 5 (including Pickford, who does well but is ultimately too small, as we saw with the first French goal).

3 hours ago, Caerphilly Ram said:

Sorry, just put it in the first Sibley thread I found, didn’t want to start another. 
I’m with you on wanting to see him back further up the pitch, he’s done well playing out of position and has shown how receptive he is to Warne and the staff’s coaching as a result, so let’s see how that new found discipline and composure translate to an attacking role now that Roberts is back as an option at left back.

Absolutely not you Caerphilly. The die had already been cast. I often think we should simply have a standard player thread for every player, like other forums do, which is just the player's name, rather than these pejorative titles. The classic was Keogh - always got a mistake in him. That one did my head in. Organizing as we do often gives the forum a negative feel towards the players, when just their names would be more neutral. Just a thought, @David. Maybe this way encourages more debate?

I detest the title of this thread, so I wish Louie's achievements had been posted elsewhere. But it is what it is. And this is a great achievement. Very pleased the lad is receiving some recognition for his abilities and work ethic. He's what we're lacking in central midfield, so I hope he can return there soon and we can start turning the draws into victories.

15 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

But the initial contact was outside the box. The initial foul was outside.

By letter of the law, it’s irrelevant that it continued inside the box.

It’s like with shirt grabbing. They always pull it back to where the foul started, not where the player later fell to the floor.

VAR and neutral commentators explained it was outside the box.

We can agree on one thing though. It was 100% a foul. Ridiculous it wasn’t given alongside another foul on Saka which was waved off.

I disagree in that over and over again we see penalties given for shirt-pulling that begins outside of the area, but continues into the box. I don't know what you've been watching, but I've not seen it the other way around. And it should be the same for every type of foul. Plenty of neutral commentators said "penalty".

4 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

Yeah, I’m not disagreeing. Saka and Kane were both clearly fouled and the officials waved it off.

The France goal I don’t see much of a foul on Saka. But other occasions definitely.

But it wasn’t a penalty. VAR couldn’t do anything in this case because it was outside the box.

The ref is letting a lot go. Assuming he stays consistent, we need to get more physical with them.

On a side note. Walker on the ball has been good. Shaw has been rubbish.

4 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

The foul on Kane, which was a foul, happened outside the box. 

I normally like your analysis but here you're like one of those commentators who calls it wrong and then, even when shown the replay, keeps digging. The foul started outside of the box but clearly continued inside, not even just on the line. It was one of many appalling decisions by the referee, but also a quite shocking piece of VAR analysis. Here's a freeze frame with Kane being fouled well inside the penalty area.

Two points dropped.

Presumably Sibley had to come off injured, but that lost us momentum. Switching to a back 5 also lost us momentum. But not finishing off our opponents, with chance after chance going begging, inevitably killed us. 

It's odd that a team which has been coached to keep possession at all costs, nowadays seems incapable of doing so and controlling the game when circumstances dictate this is what we should be doing.

Huge shame, but at least the unbeaten run continues.

We are so wasteful in front of goal. One of the culprits, Conor Hourihane now finally coming off for Knight. But I fear it's too late.

If Knight is fit enough to play, it seems unfathomable he's not yet on to give us more control of the midfield and match. I hope it doesn't mean he's off in January, so Warne is trying to operate without him.

Dobbin is the worst finisher I've seen since Conor Sammon. I know he banged in that volley, but give him more than a nanosecond to think and he always makes a poor choice. Yes he's young, but can we afford to carry a striker who belongs to another club who doesn't score and doesn't often contribute? He would be far down the pecking order for me. Missing key chances at key times as he does so often is really damaging and we have much better players and finishers who could be in his position. 

I hope he scores now, but I don't think it's very likely.

Edit: good he's being taken off and NML coming on instead. We will be much more effective.

Haven't seen Warne's comments on Fozzy posted, so this seemed a decent place to put them:

https://www.derbytelegraph.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/derby-county-craig-forsyth-warne-7905692

Warne says he doesn't watch hours of video footage and for him it's about training. But an interview in which Fozzy was asked about the new manager (and confident he'll end up back in the team) impressed Warney.

On 08/12/2022 at 22:27, Carl Sagan said:

What doesn't make sense is that this is claimed it's being introduced to stop people using cars for short trips, but under the scheme there is no penalty whatsoever for doing that. It's only if you need to go on a longer journey, outside of your local zone, that you get fined. When surely that is a more sensible use of a car? I was there over the weekend and discussing it with friends. Apparently this is being imposed on the city by the Tory county council because they "own" the road network, even though they don't have a singular councillor in the city. Madness! 

Turns out my anti-Tory friends were hopelessly ignorant, and I unwittingly passed this on. Looking into it, the scheme is indeed Oxfordshire County Council but with full support of the City Council. And it transpires the County Council is run by the LibDems in coalition with Labour and the Greens, while the City Council is Labour-controlled. 

1 hour ago, Tombo said:

Despite the certainty of the commentary, I thought it was a soft penalty as well. May not be the popular view but lots and lots of referees would shake their head and signal them to "get up". Completely bought and paid for

1 hour ago, Alpha said:

I thought so too. 

But as you said the commentary was convincing and even the Dutch response wasn't that strong. 

It was very, very Will Hughes in that playoff final, but the bastid ref refused to give it us on the day. 

Croatia a very underrated team. Finallists last time around, as we know to our cost. Amazing to see them being able to run through the Brazilian midfield at will. A shame for them that they don't have a Davor Suker this time around.

13 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

In a roundabout way I think winning the World Cup is more difficult than winning any other trophy for a national team. Holland and Portugal have never won it. England just the once, Spain got their first in 2010 and France in 98 and 2018.

Morocco winning the World Cup would be a massive shock. But then again, they aren’t a bad side. It’s not like they have a bunch of Championship standard players. 

But I understand your point.

I just think ultimately the best teams win the World Cup. The teams with the best players I mean.

It’s different to club football where you train as a team for potentially years, can buy specific players to fit into a particular style of play. At international level, in a simple way, it’s just cobbling 11 players together and doing the best you can.

And generally the best 11 players win.

I think what England are doing it is professionalizing it to some new extent. Southgate is the ultimate pragmatist. England have a group of good players, but we don't have the very best players. We don't even have all the best English players there. But we have made the international side like a club side. Previously, for a world cup there'd be so much debate at who would be picked and it seemed a very different bunch each time. We lacked the continuity. Now we have a set way of playing. You could substitute in any of the players and we would play the same way and be roughly as strong. There's the team spirit of players who have been together for a long time now, and a new seriousness in the camp. We will be feared by everyone because of our very high level of consistency. Someone might beat us with individual brilliance we can't match, but they very well might not.

Have we had a squad fitness update? It feels as if players are coming back, such as Knight, Davies and Roberts. My take:

Wildsmith

Smith     Davies     Cashin     Forsyth

Knight      Sibley      Bird     Barkhuizen

McGoldrick

Collins

Subs: Foulkes  Roberts  Thompson  Hourihane  Mendez-Laing  Dobbin  Osula

1 hour ago, 1of4 said:

The country did vote in a referendum to give up many freedoms, to give a regime carte blanche to further remove many of our human rights from us.

There is talk that this government want to escalate not resolve the present industrial disputes. In the hope it will demonize those striking and the general public will accept the passing of laws to make strikes illegal, thus further reducing all freedoms.

Many/most would argue the opposite. The country voted in a referendum to reclaim democratic accountability rather than be governed from overseas by bureaucratic decree. One of Tony Benn's 5 questions about democracy is "how do we get rid of you?" and now we are in a position where we can vote people out. The difficulty is that all the main parties have near indistinguishable policies, but there is then an option for ordinary people to come forward and stand against them. 

1 hour ago, Stive Pesley said:

Sounds like a good idea to me. Encouraging proper communities where everything you need is within 15 minutes, and people make fewer needless journeys in their cars. Or have I missed something?

What doesn't make sense is that this is claimed it's being introduced to stop people using cars for short trips, but under the scheme there is no penalty whatsoever for doing that. It's only if you need to go on a longer journey, outside of your local zone, that you get fined. When surely that is a more sensible use of a car? I was there over the weekend and discussing it with friends. Apparently this is being imposed on the city by the Tory county council because they "own" the road network, even though they don't have a singular councillor in the city. Madness! 

2 minutes ago, Gaspode said:

I think the argument is that we're not (and won't be in the near future) in a position to replace the use of coal in steel manufacturing, so it's either open a new pit in an area that desperately needs the jobs or else continue to import at a higher price and with even more damage to the environment by bringing it in via big ships....

Seems a daft decision at first sight, but possibly the only answer without shutting down the steel manufaturing plants (which we'd then need to replace with imported steel) and at the cost of many, many thousands of jobs....

Lots of information and counter information swirling around this one, but this is certainly the justification. The coal mined isn't destined for power stations, it's coking coal for the steel industry. Most people who think about these things consider it a strategic necessity for a country such as ours to have some domestic steel manufacturing capacity. To do this, we need coking coal. Do we import that from other countries or manage the mining well ourselves (and create local jobs) and supply our own industry? On these grounds it seems a sensible decision, despite the criticism.

Like most on here I'm very much club before country so, for instance, if the choice is between Derby getting promoted and England winning the World Cup, it's Derby every time.

But like many on here I do like to have my cake and eat it (otherwise, what's the point of cake?) so just on Saturday the key is for England to win, or else we're out. Whereas a defeat for the Rams and there is still chance to rectify the damage.

It makes me sick. I hope lots of very bad things happen to Steve Gibson because he would deserve all of that. Never forget, never forgive. He prevented us having any hope of staying in the Championship and tried to drive us out of existence.

7 hours ago, therealhantsram said:

It's trend over the last few years. The top keepers had become so good at reading the subtle changes in striker body language that they were saving too many penalties.
The idea with the stutter run is to force the keeper to move first so you can hit your shot taking that into account. Shots taken in this way tend to have less power, but that doesn't matter if the keeper goes the other way.

Lewandowski has been one of the architects of this approach. His penalty record using it is astounding. But at this World Cup keepers have been wise to his approach.

I think everyone seems to be underestimating just how fast this new ball travels through the air. So many shots are already past the keeper before he's had chance to react. And because of that, I think blasting the penalty is likely a very good option to choose.

8 hours ago, Bris Vegas said:

This was posted on the BBC regarding penalties at World Cups. Green scored, purple missed.

If you draw an imaginary horizontal line half way up the goal, you can see the ratio of scored to missed is higher when aiming high.

I’ve always wondered why players don’t aim high when taking penalties. Yeah you could hit it over or hit the bar, but they are pretty a guaranteed goal when you hit the target.

Compare that to low shots and look how many are saved.  

Agree it should be blasted high (and into the corner). Into the "unsaveable zone". I've posted this on here before:

9 hours ago, B4ev6is said:

Well I think they could leave our games alone.

Couldn't resist, B4. Sometimes I think in song lyrics.

5 hours ago, kevinhectoring said:

Another bizarre pen via VAR

Feels an odd post when it looked a really good VAR decision, after the ref had missed the clear handball. Embarrassing twice taken penalty by  Lewandowski though.