Mancs Post Match

[Mostar]

The inconsitency is true, but that doesn't mean the Johnson one wasn't a penalty.

We will have to agree to disagree on that one.

[Eric Swindler]

I absolutely despair at the fact it has become accepted in the game and even among fans that "contact" is all that's required for a penalty to be given. What has this game become? Touching someone, putting your hand on someone's back, whatever, is not a foul. It is a contact sport. There was no foul by Johnson, none at all. Valencia dived, he cheated. He splayed his legs outwards in attempt to con the referee into thinking he'd somehow been fouled. And it worked.

It's the biggest misconception promoted by pundits these days.

How often do you hear 'well there was contact so it was a foul'.

Which of course, is 100% bull****. It is misguided, ignorant and in fact encourages simulation/exaggeration etc.

Contact of sufficent force to unreasonably impede an opponent is a foul. Anything else is just part and parcel of a contact sport.

Football, as Rafa said, is a lie. He was referring to the financials when he said that, but it's right on so many levels.

[Fivex]

****in hell

Just read the comments at the bottom of this article

If Suarez didn't exaggerate every fall, maybe...

Did Gerrard not see Suarez sling his head back like he'd been shot?

Tell him to stop exaggerating his falls and maybe he will get more penalties.



+8
Comment number 4. Brasscakes
25 MINUTES AGO
Suarez has a reputation for a reason, he was hugely unpopular in holland because of his diving and its no surprise that he's just as unpopular in England because of this.

Gerrard and Johnson are just trying to influence referees with what their saying, and its most amusing coming from Gerrard who is another serial diver who has somehow managed to avoid the tag simply because he is English.



+6
Comment number 18. SwampPuppet
21 MINUTES AGO
Yay! Another Liverpool HYS!

Suarez has the reputation because he earned it. If you have a dog that bites, you don't take it to a kids park with the muzzle off because all the other dogs can be trusted. You treat it according to its reputation.

Suarez is a rat bag. I don't think anyone outside of LFC will care how he gets treated. LFC need to stop complaining about everything.



+5
Comment number 11. theendisnigh
23 MINUTES AGO
Only two Liverpool stories to comment on this morning? I feel cheated.



+5
Comment number 17. ThunderChuckles
21 MINUTES AGO
Booked for DIVING against Sunderland....erm, maybe that's why he has a reputation? And the Liverpool captain has been known to let a trailing leg 'come into contact' with the odd defender over the years. So the pot is defending the kettle?



+4
Comment number 5. joetheref
25 MINUTES AGO
Maybe if he wasn't a diver in the first place, he wouldn't have a reputation. Of course referees are going to think twice about giving him a penalty, be it deliberately or subconsciously.



+4
Comment number 2. Zoid
27 MINUTES AGO
The man dives and rightly gets punished for it - largely due to a long standing reputation. He's not alone in diving but you get what you deserve I suppose. The writing was on the wall with the handball on the goal-line when playing for his country just before Liverpool signed him.



+2
Comment number 1. Renegade4
28 MINUTES AGO
They are probably right but in my opinion he only has himself to blame. He makes so much of a meal of it when he falls over it looks like a dive most times and ow his reputation goes before him. He's not the only one but you make your own bed.



+2
Comment number 10. Yelsred
23 MINUTES AGO
Defending Suarez on Sunday = defending the indefensible. I agree refs must judge each incident not the reputation of the player involved, but Suarez did not "win" a penalty on Sunday and Gerrard and Johnson's comments are ludicrous. When will players stop moaning days after an incident?

[Yozza]

By watching all angles it's nothing but the dive to me.

Push on the back did or didn't happen but Valencia fell as it was due to leg contact which definitely didn't happen.

Ref showed no consistency whatsoever.

There was one challenge on Agger in the first half and one on Suarez in the second half that were not called and they were as much as penalties as the one Halsey did call.

+1

[Helios Creed]

We were no match for Halsey, he's beaten us convincingly.

we were amazing considering it was 12 against 10 for half the game.

[Helios Creed]

Not a push IMO. Putting your hand on someone's back isn't a push.

Anyway, we were shafted and it's not gonna change now. **** it.

I think he may have caught the back of his heel before he actually tried to tackle, hence Valencia appearing to go over before the hand contact on the back and the non existent foot contact?

[Buzzo]

The bigger picture is pen or no pen the decisions went like this.

Shelvey lunge tackle = red card
Evans identical lunge tackle = **** all
Suarez debatable penalty incident = no penalty
van Persie lunge tackle = yellow card
Valencia debatable penalty incident = penalty

There is a definite pattern forming. The refs may not even be aware of it, but Fergie has them in his drunken bacon faced pocket.

I actually reckon we get more decision going our way than some of the little teams... just not in this game.

[Kenneth]

van persie's wasn't deserving of a red.

The only ones that piss me off are the Evans two footer and the Suarez pen claim. Both poor decisions.

And the comments on Suarez above are sad, but I can't get away from the fact that his reputation is something he can do something about. He makes a meal of genuine fouls and it is counter productive. He just needs to ****ing stop it.

[Neil Young]

I've said it before, at least part of the answer lies in referees assuming they've seen something, seeing what they expect to see, and making decisions based on that. These assumptions are based on what they know about players and teams and clubs, and is possibly influenced by crowds (although I think less so than in previous years). And yeah, we benefit at times and certainly have benefited in the past, like when we were the best team in the country. The best teams have the best players, a great forward is likely to get past a less than great defender so if he goes down, he's more likely to have been fouled than a less than great forward up against a great defender.

It explains why we had so many dubious penalties against us when we were known to have a crap defence (mid- to late-Nineties) and yet got away with blatant penalty shouts when we had the best defence in the Premiership in Hyypia and 'Handball' Henchoz.

And the trouble is, it amplifies those reputations further: bad defences get dubious penalties against them and so they get a reputation for giving away penalties and so refs are more inclined to give them, etc.

What's true at one end is true at the other, so for someone like Suarez, his reputation counts against him.

Ferguson knows this which is why he always justifies his own players and labels opponents. And it's why the ill-informed clichés repeatedly unthinkingly by oafs like Lawrenson need to be countered.

And it's also why Man United's power at the FA and Ferguson's domination of the media are so poisonous to what little remains of the integrity of football.

[Kenneth]

I've said it before, at least part of the answer lies in referees assuming they've seen something, seeing what they expect to see, and making decisions based on that. These assumptions are based on what they know about players and teams and clubs, and is possibly influenced by crowds (although I think less so than in previous years). And yeah, we benefit at times and certainly have benefited in the past, like when we were the best team in the country. The best teams have the best players, a great forward is likely to get past a less than great defender so if he goes down, he's more likely to have been fouled than a less than great forward up against a great defender.

It explains why we had so many dubious penalties against us when we were known to have a crap defence (mid- to late-Nineties) and yet got away with blatant penalty shouts when we had the best defence in the Premiership in Hyypia and 'Handball' Henchoz.

And the trouble is, it amplifies those reputations further: bad defences get dubious penalties against them and so they get a reputation for giving away penalties and so refs are more inclined to give them, etc.

What's true at one end is true at the other, so for someone like Suarez, his reputation counts against him.

Ferguson knows this which is why he always justifies his own players and labels opponents. And it's why the ill-informed clichés repeatedly unthinkingly by oafs like Lawrenson need to be countered.

And it's also why Man United's power at the FA and Ferguson's domination of the media are so poisonous to what little remains of the integrity of football.

Totally agree. Its human nature and its also a reality of human limitations that a ref cannot be expected to always know what has happened from his real time ground level perspective. They can't and they fill in the blanks. People say that the linesman or fourth official is there, but their perspective is even more compromised. While officials have an often impossible job, when they, for example, can't realistically say they have no idea how a player got a broken leg and do nothing, then conscious and subconscious factors will play a part.

[Buzzo]

van persie's wasn't deserving of a red.

The only ones that piss me off are the Evans two footer and the Suarez pen claim. Both poor decisions.

And the comments on Suarez above are sad, but I can't get away from the fact that his reputation is something he can do something about. He makes a meal of genuine fouls and it is counter productive. He just needs to ****ing stop it.

Agree on Van Persie's, but it would have been a red for us, based on how the day went. I'd have been happy if Evans had got sent off and we'd got a pen, I can live with the rest of the decisions. Maybe we can send Suarez to wherever Valencia, Scholes, Young etc. learned how to dive to win pens - cos he's **** at it

[Shaggy]

Don't forget that other cheat Welbeck! They've got loads.

[baitman]

Contact doesn't make it a penalty. There is clearly no foul from Johnson. If a foul is awarded for that anywhere else on the pitch the referee and the diver would be laughing stocks.

there was minimal contact, not enough to make it a peno, or enough to make valencia go down like he'd taken a bullet...

valencia was enhancing/simulating to ensure it didnt go unnoticed by the ref.

basically, he was cheating, simulating that there was more contact then was obvious. the angle the ref had he could easily be suckered in to giving it, though

maybe the ref was also looking for any feeble challenge that might allow him to call a foul/penalty.
maybe he might get to sit next to bacon face at the next piss up dinner

[Neil Young]

10:24 - Resolves to leave thread.

Anyway, we were shafted and it's not gonna change now. **** it.

12:12 - Can't resist any longer.

Don't forget that other cheat Welbeck! They've got loads.

[Buzzo]

Just thinking about it, that comment DBF made about Ronaldo going down more cos he is soooo fast is utter ****e. You only have to watch a Rugby Union game to see what it take to bring down a guy running full speed, and it ain't a gentle pat on the arse. You can get a guy going over with a good swipe on the ankles but other than that it takes a considerable amount of force to dislodge a running human.