| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment 08:38 - Nov 5 with 2366 views | Steve_M |
A sense of grievance can definitely help get the players and fans working together, and it's enormously better to have that at PR than the flat, resigned atmosphere of the Everton match, but it's important to keep a sense of perspective. Even despite Tim Robinson, there was plenty we could have done better to manage out the match on Saturday and I'm quite sure McKenna is well aware of that too.
Some fans went all Plymouth very early, complaining last season about how much media coverage we were getting compared to the relegated trio and carried that on after promotion. The Premier League is a hyperbole machine, it always was but has become increasingly more so over the last 20 years - clubs with more fans get more clicks, more views, more TV subscription packages and there's not much point complaining about it. For what it's worth, we've probably had more national media coverage over the last 18 months than at any point since Keane's ill-fated spell in charge - and this is for good reasons.
We were certainly hard done by the refereeing on Saturday, and a little bit at Brentford as Clarke's second yellow seemed to be after he had won the ball. As detailed elsewhere Robinson's choice of what was a foul and what wasn't and what was and wasn't a yellow card was all over the place. It does seem that players with more PL experience, or those at bigger clubs, can get away with slightly more than we can but we have also escaped two second yellow cards for Burns and Morsy this season.
VAR is another matter, it was never really wanted or needed except by TV companies desperate to make themselves part of the story. Using additional technical means to assist decision making works to a large extent in cricket, albeit not conclusively in every case becuase there is pause between each ball being bowled. Rugby is more stop-start than football so there has been more success there and in both sports the decision making is explained (maybe not always perfectly) to fans watching.
That clearly isn't the case in football, where no-one understands the decision-making process used on Saturday three days later. Dermot Gallagher talks about not challenging the referees decision when not necessary which is fair enough except for the Everton penalty and all the other times when a ten minute delay and a load of pedantic reasoning has been used to change onfield decisions.
VAR used in the selective and subjective way it is in the Premier League at the moment is clearly to the detriment of the game. Referees still make mistakes and I would be far happier about Robinson missing the foul on Chaplin were it not for the idea it was reviewed straight afterwards (obviously it was reviewed by Stuart Attwell...). It's not corruption or bias, it's just exceedingly sh1t.
One other thing, Saturday hurts because it's the only time we've really put ourselves in a position to win a match this season, yes Brentford to some extent but we were ahead so early and needed to get to half-time at 2-0 so it wasn't really close. We're growing as a team but whether we stay up or not will depend on how quickly we can turn that into points not any conspiracy against us. |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 08:41 - Nov 5 with 2323 views | Marshalls_Mullet |
Some fans have gone all out tin pot this week. |  |
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| There's no conspiracy on 09:02 - Nov 5 with 2228 views | Dyland |
And corruption isn't the right word is it. However, there will be bias, unconcious or otherwise, and let's face it these refs and officials are hardly the smartest* as evidenced by the doubling down on mistakes and contradictory or nonsensical comments post match.
It's competitive sport so we want a level playing field in as much as that's possible. I know this has largely been absent for donkeys years but constant bad reffing just compounds the frustration.
*If they are being "smart" and willfully lying then suddenly it is cloak and dagger, but I think it's largely self-protection and ineptness. Again though, surely there is corporate protectionism going on as well? |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 09:08 - Nov 5 with 2197 views | Reuser_is_God |
I think had we have already won a couple of games then the noise wouldn’t still be as loud.
Doesn’t change the fact that it was one of the worst refereeing decisions you’ll ever wish to see though. |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 09:10 - Nov 5 with 2174 views | Lamp |
Absolutely spot on.
How Tim Robinson has made it so far as a ref is baffling though. As stated previously it was an absolute coin flip on every decision up until the penalty incident. After that he seemingly gave us nothing, the worst of which was an identical challenge on Leif to the Phillips sending off which he waved away and allowed Leicester to carry the ball into the box. |  | | |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 10:46 - Nov 5 with 2038 views | meekreech |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 09:10 - Nov 5 by Lamp |
Absolutely spot on.
How Tim Robinson has made it so far as a ref is baffling though. As stated previously it was an absolute coin flip on every decision up until the penalty incident. After that he seemingly gave us nothing, the worst of which was an identical challenge on Leif to the Phillips sending off which he waved away and allowed Leicester to carry the ball into the box. |
With the combination of Robinson as the referee and atwell as the var ref it is no surprise that we got nothing from officiating ! Atwell is never without unconscious bias where we are concerned so when Robinson did nothing regarding the awarding a stone cold penalty he was never going to say anything ! |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 10:51 - Nov 5 with 2006 views | farkenhell |
That's a very considered and balanced post. I also agree with pretty much everything you say, apart from that, in my opinion, VAR is needed - to address the plainly wrong decisions that Robinson made on Saturday. However, it needs to be used and it wasn't used.
As you say, let's hope this galvanises us, particularly the supporters, to get behind the team from kick off to the final whistle. Saturday can't come soon enough! | | | |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 10:57 - Nov 5 with 1986 views | jayessess |
Think the fine line is between feeling sorry for ourselves and letting anger energise us. The latter is potentially quite productive.
This was my longer take: https://jacksaunders.substack.com/p/f-em |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 11:09 - Nov 5 with 1939 views | Cafe_Newman |
"It's not corruption or bias, it's just exceedingly sh1t."
Of course there's bias and corruption in the world's biggest sport worth many many many billions of dollars globally.
Football has a rich history of corruption and there's zero chance that the world's biggest league is free from that corruption or bias. To say otherwise is naive in the extreme. |  | | |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 11:16 - Nov 5 with 1910 views | grow_our_own |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 11:09 - Nov 5 by Cafe_Newman |
"It's not corruption or bias, it's just exceedingly sh1t."
Of course there's bias and corruption in the world's biggest sport worth many many many billions of dollars globally.
Football has a rich history of corruption and there's zero chance that the world's biggest league is free from that corruption or bias. To say otherwise is naive in the extreme. |
Be fascinating to see a 24/25 season version of this:
I expect it would show we're among the biggest losers from VAR decisions this season. Disappointing such stats aren't being collected after each game (not that I can find anyway). [Post edited 5 Nov 2024 11:26]
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 12:02 - Nov 5 with 1817 views | Ryorry |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 11:09 - Nov 5 by Cafe_Newman |
"It's not corruption or bias, it's just exceedingly sh1t."
Of course there's bias and corruption in the world's biggest sport worth many many many billions of dollars globally.
Football has a rich history of corruption and there's zero chance that the world's biggest league is free from that corruption or bias. To say otherwise is naive in the extreme. |
For anyone interested in real (proven) match-fixing - have a read of this from Moses Swaibu - "'The cash came up to my torso' - tales of a match-fixer".
https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cd05385k722o |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 12:52 - Nov 5 with 1729 views | ernie |
Really good post | | | |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 12:55 - Nov 5 with 1717 views | Ryorry |
Strange downvote, Ernie. | |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 13:00 - Nov 5 with 1691 views | textbackup |
Post of the season so far. |  |
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| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 13:07 - Nov 5 with 1660 views | itfc_statman |
| There's a fine line on the victimhood narrative for us at the moment on 11:16 - Nov 5 by grow_our_own |
Be fascinating to see a 24/25 season version of this:
I expect it would show we're among the biggest losers from VAR decisions this season. Disappointing such stats aren't being collected after each game (not that I can find anyway). [Post edited 5 Nov 2024 11:26]
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We are on that list | | | |
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