Fine, I just disagree with you.

Both.

Penalties have steadily been on the increase over the last few decades.

international bre... oh... nvm carry on

You're right. That's one of two reasons for calling fouls in the box (and of course there is a gray area in between that many fouls fall into).

Two types of foul:

(1)The attacking team was denied their scoring chance by an illegal act. So you award the penalty, and you've made the attacking team (more or less*) whole again. *It isn't entirely perfect justice....the odds on the penalty being scored won't be exactly the same as the odds of the team scoring absent the foul--usually they're much better off with the penalty, but that's your deterrence woven in and we're generally cool with it.

(2) The defending team did something illegal, and it happened to be in the box, but the attacking team wasn't threatening to score or didn't have their odds of scoring reduced in any way. The fullback was careless dribbling and the ball hit his hand. Or the defender bulls into a guy who had just kicked the ball past them both and it was heading out of play.

The question is: do we still want this 2nd category called to the letter of the current law? If so it is clearly a matter of deterrence rather than corrective justice.

My personal opinion is that players are already pretty jumpy about committing fouls in the box. I'm not sure we need to award the opponent 0.8 goals (guessing that's roughly the conversion percentage) for the kinds of fouls I mentioned. I'm not sure it provides any extra deterrence that we don't get already, and it rewards the opposition for doing very little.....which means it also encourages diving. I'd be open to replacing the penalty in the latter situation with a free kick anywhere outside the box that the attackers want to place it.

This is undoubtedly correct.

And it's why I think that no matter what result you want, you can achieve it through writing a logical rule and telling the ref to enforce it. Skrtel WILL stop shirt-pulling if he concedes a couple penalties doing it. One way to make sure we don't have too many penalties is to write a strict rule and then don't actually enforce it when the players violate it. The other way is to write the same strict rule, enforce it by the book, and make the *******s evolve. It's simply a matter of how much shirt-pulling you want in the game.

I mean yeah, the penalty rule in general is bull****. The box is an arbitrary area and it welcomes a ton of diving. But imo if it's gonna stay like this, giving the offense the advantage is fine.

best team UK is Mou

So the refs are already adapting without any need of rule change.

The laws of the game have changed throughout the years.

Vardys a lot better than I gave him credit for.

He seems to score a riddic % of his shots. not really fishonaheater.jpg yet, but does not seem sustainable.

Disclaimer: I didn't see more than 3 leicester games this season

Holy **** Delofeu's dive was awful. He really needs to work on that part of his game.

He's (vardy) rapid as well.

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Every single time I load up twatter it puts me on tilt.

Remi Garde in at Villa

Yes Im aware of that. They had to change the rules so that players like Maradona wouldnt get kicked out of the game. Im not against rules per se. Im not even against rules as a general rule of thumb. I just think that sometimes is better to leave some rules unwritten, thats all. This is a topic that has been discussed in actual law.

I propose a minute of silence before the Spuds-Villa game

Mirror / 5Live reporting that TSO has lost the dressing room

The problem is that the system of yellows and reds was put in place when you could get away with a whole lot more. What constituted a yellow 30 years ago would be a straight red today.


Thinking way outside the box, I'd like to hear thoughts on a ban that means a player cannot be picked in the next starting XI, but is allowed to be on the bench.

Didn't Gallas threaten to score an own goal a few years back?

The fans at the ground still support him.

Will be interesting to see if they start to turn against him in the CL midweek.

Guess throwing your players and staff under the bus when the going gets tough isn't the best way to deal with millionaire footballers...

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Val - I'm not entirely sure what your point is? The refs and the laws have both adapted to suit the needs of the modern game. Why have say they have adapted with no change when it clearly isn't the case? Shirt pulling still goes unpunished.

Mourinho doesn't have Lampard, Drogba, Ferreira, Carvalho and a peak Terry's there to keep everyone in line. They all bought into his BS for so long, this crop have got fed up with it which isn't really all that surprising.

How many Chelsea players have had more than one good game this season? Just Willian? People sometimes get mad when Arsenal players have a bad game and Wenger always shifts the blame (the cup game midweek was as bad as Ive ever seen him for not shifting blame) but this is the alternative. You can't just throw a squad under the bus and survive.

I disagree with Cashy about Joel. He might not be good enough for a fringe role on a t4 team (nearly certain of this) but last game was no indication of this. He played better than Sanchez did.

Obvious made up quotes by the hate cult.

he worked hard but looked completely out of place as he has
no vision and horrible decision making.
that pass to offside özil was one of the worst things i have seen from an arsenal attacker in a long while.

My point is that the sport is better off leaving some rules unwritten. Big emphasis on the some. Some is not the same as all, is not the same as most.