Monday 3 October 2011

Of bad refereeing and fat Frank: Weekend review.


We all saw Jack Rodwell challenge, if it can be called that, on Luis Saurez. First of all, that buck-toothed cheat needs to be marooned in Accra for a few days so that he can pay for his crimes against Ghana; and Africa as a whole. The referee spoilt what was shaping up to be a good old derby by sending Rodwell off after 20 something minutes, no doubt to the delight of the impish Liverpool no.7.

We need technology now!

As usual, it leaves all football fans asking ourselves if there’s something that can be done about these officiating errors. All our clubs suffer from these injustices routinely, some more than others of course. What makes football so special, in the eyes of FIFA that they refuse to catch up to the times? We have decided as a society to trust machines with the most intimate aspects of our daily lives; yet we refuse to trust them to ensure fairness in the world’s most popular sport?

 I have a simple solution; the officials can make all other decisions but subject the following to replay technology; red cards, penalty shouts, goal line scrambles and disputed offside goals. There’s an argument that introducing replays would stop the flow of the game but let’s be honest; replays are generated within seconds of the incident and the decision would be relayed to the referee in an equally short time. Besides, in the aftermath of most controversial decisions, the flow of the game is still interrupted by players remonstrating with the officials.

Frank Lampard vs. Ryan Giggs.

Frank Lampard is back! He has been vindicated! Chelsea fans are creaming their pants after Frank Lampard’s hat-trick against Bolton yesterday. Apparently he is back to his free scoring best. Some people had some arguments, on Twitter, about who was the better of two of the EPL’s elder statesmen, Giggs and Lampard.
Firstly, I would like to state categorically that Lampard is not back. Yes, he scored a treble but come on, this was Bolton. They are propping up the league table, United put five past them (without reply, I may add), and they were the source of three of Arsenal’s seven points this season! Also, a person saying Lampard has lost it doesn’t mean he won’t score from time to time. It just means he can no longer do on a weekly basis, especially if he is up against quality opposition. He will make a good squad player this season given his wealth of experience but he can not be Chelsea’s go to man if they plan to make some noise.
As for comparisons with Giggs, I am sorry but it is tough to back Lamps. My comparisons have nothing to do with trophies, by the way, because I reckon if they had swapped teams at the very beginning, their trophy counts would be reversed as well. It just that, for me, Lampard has been too one dimension in his career to be compared to the man who started his career as a flying winger to a central midfielder, with almost similar efficiency. Lampard may be third on Chelsea’s all time scorer’s list, but Giggs has scored in every Premiership season and is the Champions League’s oldest scorer. The argument that clinches it for me is; in the prime of both their careers, if England had a chance to swap with Wales, Lamps for Giggsy, would they hesitate to do so? I am afraid they would grab the chance with two hands.

On the lighter side.

Wenger’s logic

Was it just me who noticed the foolishness of Wenger's argument that Van der Vaart should have been sent off yesterday? The Frenchman claims VDV should have seen yellow for using his hand to control the ball before scoring. Then he goes on say that the same player should have gotten a second yellow for celebrating with the fans, after he scored! WOW! So the ref should have carded Van der Vaart for handball, and then allowed the goal to stand so he could card him again for the celebration! WOW!

Drogba’s age.

God did Ivorian look old on Sunday! He genuinely looked older than AVB and Roberto diMatteo. I think it’s about time they gave him a full time job, as Lukaku’s mentor.

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