WestKentRam

5 minutes ago, Rampant said:

And I'd wager that if supporters of all the other clubs did the same for their own teams then they'd suggest they've been shafted by the officials too. 

I'm sure you are right, everyone thinks they are hard done by, but I've only got the evidence that for Derby this is true!

As this is happening on a now almost match by match basis at this key stage of the season, I'll do a copy and paste job below of a comment I made last month.

After several seasons of feeling that key decisions go against us, and this affects our overall position in the league and it doesn't 'even itself out at the end of the season', that in 20/21 I kept a very nerdy spreadsheet of controversial decisions in our games, both for and against. We came out with -8 or -9 points due to these.

It's all very well taking each game one at a time and saying well, ok, that decision went against us and cost us the draw or win, but we didn't deserve the points so it doesn't matter. Football results aren't decided on performance or merit, but the scores on the doors at the end of the match. At present it feels like we need to create ourselves a goal buffer to allow for poor decisions.

Again, as football is a game of fine margins, if our 'goal' today against Ipswich had been allowed to stand the outcome of the game and appearance of the league table tonight might very well be different, and even more so given similar issues with decisions v Plymouth and Peterborough.

I'm not frothing at the mouth insisting that there is an EFL conspiracy behind closed doors that decides on the result of games before they are played, but as with many things in life, many factors come into play. An example is match officials taking selfies at their big day out at the stadium and what this indicates about their approach to the game.

I believe we are all entitled to our own opinions and my view is that we are hard done by with regard to decisions against us and this does materially affect our position in the league table. I would be very interested if anyone has any any evidence that over the course of a season this is not the case.

I have a, ok I admit rather sad, dream that a world class player (or if I'm reall being greedy preferrably several) comes to Derby for free, not wanting to be paid for anything as tawdry as money, but just for the warm glow of doing good works. A bit like one of those pro bono lawyers in a crime thriller defending someone wrongly accused of a crime (or were they wrongly accused... plot twist...).

They've won their globe trotting trophies and earned more money than they and their family needs for the rest of their lives. Now for the real challenge. Play for Derby!

28 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

Good points both. I do think that the rules should apply maximum times to restarts like throw ins/goal kicks/free kicks. I’m not sure what would be reasonable but the broad rule of thumb should be that players should attach the same urgency to restarting the game when their team is 1-0 up as they would when they’re 1-0 down. 

The problem is there already is a clear law on the GK having 6 seconds to release the ball, but refs never apply it.

If similar time limits are brought in for other dead ball situations then there would be no point in doing this unless the time limit was upheld.

It would be too difficult for the ref to do this accurately as it happens so often ie to time each event from when the ball is dead until it comes back into play and award free kicks if the time limit broken. Unless they did so every time they couldn't go back to the start of the event, such as a corner seeming to take a long time to be taken, to see actually how long has been taken. And if they got it slightly wrong then managers, pundits etc would have a pop at the ref if the opposition scored from an incorrectly awarded free kick.

One way might be to have an outside official, who doesn't need to be a referee but have a good pair of eyes and a stopwatch, stop-starting the clock, and telling the ref in their ear piece that the team have taken too long to get the ball back into play.

All this would make the game look and feel very different and I'm not sure I'd be a huge fan of it, initially at least! It might be like the back pass rule that when it first came in GKs got very confused and couldn't decide if they could pick up the ball or not, but it all settled down in the end.

6 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

I don't think anyone (I'm not anyway) would argue about natural breaks in play like throw ins/corners etc being part of the 90 minutes ie that the clock wouldn't stop for them.

I think I would! It does my head in when time wasting players going over to take a corner lose the ability to run, or the team can't quite decide who is actually going to take the corner so the ball is in position by the corner flag but no-one there to take it.

8 minutes ago, ilkleyram said:

Players can change their behaviours - Joe Wildsmith was a master at time wasting at the start of the season but clearly got a reputation with referees and he doesn't do it nearly as much now

He's had three yellow cards this season so far, of which two were for time wasting and the last of these in October so you are right.

If a yellow is given against a goalkeeper for time wasting it's never for a delay in releasing the ball from their hands, that would result in an interesting but controversial indirect free kick, but is for the delay when taking a goal kick. They can't quite decide which side to take it from or whether their studs are 100% clear of mud, they've tapped the goal post enough times to aid this, rehydrated sufficiently from the bottle they keep etc.

7 hours ago, ilkleyram said:

I’ve seen the argument before that you have to reduce the length of matches if you introduce more accurate timekeeping, but why?

Rugby (both codes) is a much more physical game than football and they didn’t reduce matches from 80 minutes when they introduced the ability for referees to stop the clock.  We have more subs than ever before - you can alter half the outfield team if you want - better pitches, medical staff, kit including footballs, training, dietary advice and all the rest of it, why can’t they play a full 90 minutes?  If they want to stop the ref from extending the time they’re on the pitch then they should stop all the play acting and nonsense that goes on in the name of ‘professionalism’. Does my head in.

As a starting point the football authorities and referees have to do something. I thought the world cup might be the start but seemingly no one has the courage to take it further 

There's a certain amount of time the ball will naturally be dead or out of play eg for throw ins, corners, free kicks, injuries, goal kicks, subs under hand control of GK etc.

In the PL the ball is in play an average of 55 mins per match, so assuming that it's similar in the lower leagues 60 mins seems a starting point. Looking it up, this has been argued before...

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/61342349

A 90 minute stop/start game would probably be around 120 mins long.

I remember reading about Tony Pullis at Stoke and his theory was the opposition can't score if the ball is out of play, so his tactics were to keep the ball out of play as much as possible! That seems to be borne out in the stats in the BBC article above that has a special section on him.

9 minutes ago, Brailsford Ram said:

On top of that our crossing from open play is mediocre with too many ending up wastefully beyond the far post or too close to the 'keeper.

On the whole I am a PW fan and like what he and his team have brought to the club.

One thing that concerns me is the emphasis on getting crosses in as our main means of attack. Whenever I hear this I am reminded of various analyses that demonstrate that crossing on the whole isn't a particularly effective means of trying to score.

Of course there are different types of crosses and other tactics linked to them, but when another one leads to nothing I do wonder whether we need to try something different and mix it up a bit more in the game.

29 minutes ago, alram said:

I think there was a burnley match under Dyche where the ball was in play for something daft like 45 minutes of the 90!

i dont think there is an easy answer if there was it would have been introduced by now

Yesterday from 70 mins the ball was in play a lower % of the time than that, that I find extremely frustrating when we are chasing games but I suppose that is the whole idea as it shows on the players too.

60 mins of ball in play time would make sense. Teams under the cosh will still go down with 'injuries' to try and break the momentum of the opposition, and I'm sure other tactics would emerge. Would be interesting to watch a trial game of this though.

17 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

All matters of opinion I guess. The rule of thumb adopted by referees, pundits, commentators and VAR seems to be that if the defender touches the ball first and hasn’t used excessive force then it’s no foul. I’m pretty sure that’s always been the case.

Yep, it would be a pretty boring forum if everyone had the same opinion, unless they were the same as mine of course, just one big echo chamber.

I remember one argument against VAR before it was brought in, that the joy of football was discussing the controversial incidents after the game, and VAR would ruin it as everything would be 100% definitive with this. Ha!

Don't get me started on pundits and commentators, and refereeing inconsistencies... The laws of the game can sometimes seem like a rough guide when it suits them (see the time wasting thread and the 6 second goalkeeper handling of the ball law that is never applied) 🤯

8 minutes ago, Loughborough Ram said:

In my opinion the game is lost if that foul on White is a penalty. We are already heading for a non contact sport, if fans now accept that an honest challenge for the ball should be given as a penalty then let's all knock it on the head and go home.

You have to score when you're playing well, it's always been true and unfortunately it is that, more than anything, that is holding us back at the moment. Get that right and everything else will fall into place.

I hold the opposite opinion!

I prefer to see attacking play and goals, and consistency in refereeing decisions. If an attacker in a good position in the box can be tripped but no foul given then fair enough, put that in the laws of the game and we can all judge if we're still interested in football or not.

What constitutes an 'honest challenge' is a matter of debate. Looking at the clip the Peterborough player in facing towards White and puts his leg out and trips him. Was he thinking he had a good chance of clearing the ball, that he didn't, or was he trying to stop White at all costs?

No point asking the player as a footballer will say black is white and vice versa when it comes to decisions. It was a reckless challenge to make in the box and stopped the attacking player from progressing, as we found out when Plymouth beat us due to a similar scenario.

I don't agree you have to score when you are playing well either. It certainly helps, but you can score when playing badly or indifferently as well, and these goals can then give the team impetus to go on and win the game and deflate the 'better playing' opposition.

6 minutes ago, enachops said:

I was stood near the incident and didn’t think it was a penalty. I may be wrong, but I can see why the referee didn’t give it.

There's a nice clip of it on Twitter where it's possible to be your own VAR and watch it repeatedly.

8 minutes ago, Tamworthram said:

I think it does matter.

The rules say a direct free kick should be awarded if a player is careless, reckless or uses excessive force. If the player makes contact with the ball first (provided he doesn’t completely wipe the other player out by using excessive force) then I guess it can’t be deemed as careless or reckless. If you use your interpretation of the rule then if a player makes a good clean contact with ball and clears it but the other player still trips over him a free kick would have to be awarded.

Live, I thought it was a penalty but haven’t yet watched the highlights.

I would argue it was careless in that White was tripped in the penalty area. The ball wasn't cleared by the Peterborough player and continued on the path White had played it despite their player brushing it. White stood no chance of taking a shot due to being tripped.

As an interesting (to me) experiment I thought I'd time how much the ball was in play at Peterborough from 70 mins, + the 5 mins added time, when we were chasing the game.

Allowing for me not getting the stop/start timing exactly right each time, the ball was in play for around 11 to 12 of the 25 mins at this vital stage of the match.

It confirmed my feeling about how much time wasting goes on at the end of the game, making it difficult to get ourselves back. Players get frustrated leading to more fouls, cards, rushed chances and time slips away with the ball not in play even more!

Putting aside how we played and whether we 'deserved' anything from the game as football match results aren't decided on merit rather on goals scored and conceded, it still gets me how Harvey White being tripped in the box didn't lead to a penalty to us to potentially bring it back to 1-1.

Almost identical to the one given against us at Plymouth that won them the game.

It does not matter whether their player got the minutest of touches on the ball or not, the laws of the game make no mention of this.

If the ref judged it was not a penalty, then White should have been shown a yellow for simulation. I'm sure the yellow he was shown together with the Peterborough player was for the fracas that ensued afterwards.

1 hour ago, Gee SCREAMER !! said:

The time wasting wasn't really an issue yesterday.  Without it we probably lose 4-0.  I could also probably finish a 3 course meal in the time it takes Smith to complete a throw in so all good.

I recall Smith being booked for time wasting when taking a throw in recently as well. However there is no law of the game specifying how long a player has to take the throw in, unlike the GK releasing the ball.

I'm not expecting the ref to penalise a GK with an accuracy of hundredths of a second and VAR analysing every occasion, however if they can't tell the difference between 10 and 6 seconds then it's a worry.

2 hours ago, Foreveram said:

It’s very often way more than ten seconds, often over twenty seconds.

Referees at this level are part time and not as fit as premier referees, I think they use this time to have a breather.

PW alluded to that in one of his interviews recently, with regard to refs taking time to explain their reasons for decisions to players during the game really as a cover for them to catch their breath.

There is no incentive for the ref to give an indirect free kick for a GK holding onto the ball for >6s, despite it being in the laws of the game, especially as they can recover during the extra time the GK hangs onto the ball as well.

It just feels from 70 mins onwards if we are chasing a game then opposition deploy the dark arts that really makes it tedious to watch. I know we would do the same as well, but it's a criticism I have of football in general as a 'sport'.

The number of Fleetwood shoe laces that came undone yesterday was incredible. I don't know about the manager making a penalty taker's list, but it also feels like there is a set order players have to go down for treatment in the last 20 mins just to waste time.

19 minutes ago, The Last Post said:

Their 2nd goal celebration circa 2mins, Ref pulled them up on several occasions in the 1st half...ending in 4mins added time.

Actual playing time is getting less and less by the second ?

...and it feels like it as well.

Allowing the GK to hold onto it for too long just allows them to reset and gives the advantage back to the defending team.

I can't understand why a very clear law of the game is never applied:

An indirect free kick is awarded if a goalkeeper, inside their penalty area, commits any of the following offences:

• controls the ball with the hand/arm for more than six seconds before releasing it

Versus Fleetwood yesterday it was obvious they tried to slow the game down, as all teams do, and when I looked at the stadium clock to time it a couple of times their goalkeeper held onto the ball for 10 seconds on these occasions.

It would keep the game flowing with the potential for the advantage to the attacking team that should be the case, and stop time wasting in this aspect of the game if the law was applied, but I can't recall ever having seen an indirect free kick for this.

With a lot of other laws applied to the absolute letter this really annoys me!

4 hours ago, OssieEnd said:

Did you park in the Car Park behind the goal ? Or was that retail park only ? £6  for a Burger with drink and chips is excellent, especially down south , and I count Oxford as south. The win does help ! I cut my stream when we went one down early on in frustration ! 

I got there early after a unusually straightforward 1.5 hour journey from home via the unpredictable M25, so parked on Grenoble Road just east of the Holiday Inn and roundabout, where there is a long strip of then more or less empty designated car parking along the road. I did stay right to the end to take it all in so was easy to get away with no traffic issues at all.

From what I read on the OUFC website the retail/leisure park by the stadium is amazingly all free parking for football for 2000 cars as well, as it is all part of the Kassam complex.

Definitely one of the better days out. I'm still smarting from Charlton away that was £6.10 for a stadium pint that was a medical necessity in the summer heat wave.

Very enjoyable day out, of course helped by the win that I thought we deserved.

£6 for burger, chips and drink at adjacent centre, easy free parking and journey, friendly Oxford fans, a couple of amusing Mr Angry Derby fans next to me whose choice invective during the game made me laugh, and a decent chat with B4 and his dad pre match. If Carling made away trips...

Hmmm... didn't see McGoldrick get off the team coach. I might have blinked at the wrong time though as they didn't hang around. Pacey.

Milling around the players' entrance with their lot arriving now. Blimey they seem like a friendly bunch with the fans. Very relaxed.

40 minutes ago, i-Ram said:

In 20/21 I kept a very nerdy spreadsheet of controversial decisions in our Club, both for and against. We came out with -21 points due to these. Football is done.

Carrying over the -21 points the refs gave us to the next season was particularly harsh.

1 hour ago, i-Ram said:

Absolutely.

So much drivel on this thread.

1) Football was done in 1992.

2) If Dobbin had gone down in the opposite box with the same contact, and got us a 2-1 win he would have been a hero, and football would be ok again, and this thread would have never existed.

3) All this EFL influenced officialdom is boring. Most refs are crap in this division, and the Championship. Stop bloody moaning.

Ok. I feel better for that. As you were.

I understand it is the default setting of many football supporters to feel that officials are against their team and to moan about it, but 'Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they aren't after you'.

1) Football was done in 1992.

I think the formation of the PL that was purely financially driven has caused many problems in the top football leagues and is creating a different sort of 'product', what with the effects of parachute payments, disparity between the PL and the Championship, and now state ownership of clubs and sportswashing. It doesn't mean that football is done, but that certain aspects of competitiveness if the upper leagues currently is.

2) If Dobbin had gone down in the opposite box with the same contact, and got us a 2-1 win he would have been a hero, and football would be ok again, and this thread would have never existed.

Key phrase missing is 'and the the ref gave us a penalty'. I can't recall us getting too many soft decisions this season.

3) All this EFL influenced officialdom is boring. Most refs are crap in this division, and the Championship. Stop bloody moaning.

I admit to being boring. So much so that after several seasons of feeling that key decisions go against us, and this affects our overall position in the league and it doesn't 'even itself out at the end of the season', that in 20/21 I kept a very nerdy spreadsheet of controversial decisions in our games, both for and against. We came out with -8 or -9 points due to these.

It's all very well taking each game one at a time and saying well, ok, that decision went against us and cost us the draw or win, but we didn't deserve the points so it doesn't matter. Football results aren't decided on performance or merit, but the scores on the doors at the end of the match. At present it feels like we need to create ourselves a goal buffer to allow for poor decisions.

Also, I like moaning.

It's an interesting conundrum we face here.

Football is a game of fine margins, and if decisions like this seemingly go against us more often than not, then we're going to have to try to win games 3 or 4 nil to overcome this, that is nigh on impossible.

It's easy to extrapolate how this will lead on to further problems...

If we don't want to give away 'soft' penalties, then don't touch or attempt to touch any opposition player in the penalty area. But then, it gives them an advantage if we stand off, fearful of over zealous referees, and are too cautious in tackles.

All rather tricky.