0% Villa: Liverpool's goal today

[Dave]

Atwell's made a rod for his own back by allowing it.

As soon as he sees that Liverpool are playing on while the Sunderland players laugh at their presumptuousness he has plenty of time to blow his whistle and brought play back - and nobody would have even batted an eyelid, let alone be discussing it on ever forum and phone-in across the land.

Best of luck to him, he's going to need it if he's sticking to professional refereeing as a career.

Dave. He couldnt disallow it. Read my previous posts.
His job as a ref is to apply the Laws of the game, and in this case he did. A goal can only be disallowed for an infringement, and there wasnt one. The Sunderland player kicked the ball, and it moved, therefore it was in play.

I don't disagree.

But in the six seconds between noticing the Sunderland players jumping up and down at Liverpool playing on when they don't think they should be doing so and Torres squaring the ball to Kuyt he can stop play to say "you shouldn't be carrying on".

Technically he's not done anything wrong. But just because he's technically not done anything wrong isn't going to help his career one bit.

[davevillan]

Thats the problem tho Dave. As no infringement has happened, he cant stop play. He spoke with his A/R and then allowed the goal.
HAD he disallowed it, then he would have been in trouble with the assesor and the Premier League for not applying the Laws of the game. That would have done his career more harm.
The arguement is 'its not in the spirit of the game', like the Arsenal goal v Sheff Utd the other year.
That is no reason to disallow a goal.

[hartman_1982]

Thats the problem tho Dave. As no infringement has happened, he cant stop play. He spoke with his A/R and then allowed the goal.
HAD he disallowed it, then he would have been in trouble with the assesor and the Premier League for not applying the Laws of the game. That would have done his career more harm.
The arguement is 'its not in the spirit of the game', like the Arsenal goal v Sheff Utd the other year.
That is no reason to disallow a goal.

When I took my refereeing course about 7 years ago that very same goal came up. One man asked the instructor, one of Staffordshire County's top referees, what he would have done. He responded by telling us that he would have blown for an infringement and stop play before the goal. He said he would have given a foul throw and in this instance probably said the bell was moving when Turner played it. Nobody would care, it would be a minor incident and probably not even of been noted by the assesor.

[hartman_1982]

Thats the problem tho Dave. As no infringement has happened, he cant stop play. He spoke with his A/R and then allowed the goal.
HAD he disallowed it, then he would have been in trouble with the assesor and the Premier League for not applying the Laws of the game. That would have done his career more harm.
The arguement is 'its not in the spirit of the game', like the Arsenal goal v Sheff Utd the other year.
That is no reason to disallow a goal.

When I took my refereeing course about 7 years ago that very same goal came up. One man asked the instructor, one of Staffordshire County's top referees, what he would have done. He responded by telling us that he would have blown for an infringement and stop play before the goal. He said he would have given a foul throw and in this instance probably said the ball was moving when Turner played it. Basically, not put yourself in a situation where there will be chaos. Nobody would care, it would be a minor incident and probably not even of been noted by the assesor.

[PaulTheVillan]

All depends on when the ref had blew his whistle.

[lovejoy]

Thats the problem tho Dave. As no infringement has happened, he cant stop play. He spoke with his A/R and then allowed the goal.
HAD he disallowed it, then he would have been in trouble with the assesor and the Premier League for not applying the Laws of the game. That would have done his career more harm.
The arguement is 'its not in the spirit of the game', like the Arsenal goal v Sheff Utd the other year.
That is no reason to disallow a goal.

I go along with the bad sportsmanship/passing the ball back to the goalie to take the free kick so no goal. But if you are running the literal reading of the rules route you will see that when the defender gets the ball to play the free kick the second time he touched the ball back a couple of feet then plays the backpass to the goalie. Those that are potificating about the rules may want to check but you can't take a free kick to yourself can you?? Also following the logic of the decision if a player wants to adjust the position of the ball when taking a goal kick, freekick pen etc he has to use his hands now otherwise he'll be deemed to have taken the kick as no heed is now seemed to be paid to the intention of the kicker.

Overall extremely bad sportsmanship from Torres, an incompetent referee.

Does Gerrard get told he has a free pass to twat people an Anfield every week?

[wif]

All depends on when the ref had blew his whistle.

But the ref doesn't have to blow his whistle to restart play, and I don't remember him doing so here.

hartman_1982 is right.  The ref should have invented any old excuse to blow up and make it be retaken.  That's what they taught us on my refereeing course...

[Shrek]

Sunderland took a quick free kick, but atwell blew up and brought back play, so it was obvious to the whole ground the goalkeeper was gonna take it.
Absolutly pathetic referring, common bloody sense, the FA have fast tracked this young referee and he truly arwful.

[Andy_Lochhead_in_the_air]

The legal argument.......
Law 13 says "The ball is in play when it is kicked and moves." The referee must be satisfied it has been taken from the right place and no opposition player is within 10 yards.
The referee is correct, as far as this is concerned there is no further debate on the referees actions.
 
The moral/ethical argument......
If the Sunderland players intention is to move the ball back to allow the keeper to take the kick, you may wish to argue that Liverpool have been unsportsmanlike in their subsequent actions.
Morals? Ethics? Sportsmanship? In top flight football in 2010?

The Fans argument.......
I guess Liverpool fans will tend towards the legal argument while Sunderland fans will tend towards the ethical argument.
What about the rest of us looking from the outside?
Well that depends on what more important to you. An ex bluenose whinging potato head falling flat on his face, feeling agrieved yet again that the whole of football has it in for him. Or the sheer pleasure of seeing a bunch of scousers stumble from crisis to crisis as their once proud club hurtles towards mediocrity.

PS. Who believes in karma by the way? Beachballs anyone ? 

[olaftab]

MOTD showed that the ref had turned his back on the restart and didnt have a clue what was happening, you can argue all you like about the technacalities of what happened but there was a deriliction of duty on the part of the ref wanker

He turned his back to get up with play where he expected the play to be once he  had given the direction to  to Sunderland  to play on either by whistle or verbal. Nothing wrong with the fact that as the ball was kicked he  had his back to it. If  the ball had been launched into the penalty area and something had happened everyone would have criticised him for not being up with the play.

[Arsey]

All depends on when the ref had blew his whistle.

But the ref doesn't have to blow his whistle to restart play, and I don't remember him doing so here.

hartman_1982 is right.  The ref should have invented any old excuse to blow up and make it be retaken.  That's what they taught us on my refereeing course...

i disagree, the ref blew to signal the quick free kick had to be retaken.  Play should not then commence until he blows his whistle again.  The replay on MotD showed that the player kicked it for the goalie to take the free kick before he blew his whistle again.  You can argue it was the linesman's mistake but there is no way that goal should stand on technical or ethical reasons. 

Also how the hell didn't Gerrard get sent off for the elbow???

[pablopicasso_10]

the most shocking decision in that game was to give gerrard a yellow for a forearm smash into a sunderland players face....

[Somniloquism]

Although the Sunderland Player had obviously decided to play it further back for the keeper to take, even the keeper wasn't ready for it. He was still in the box, if he was on the way up to take it then it probably would have been more obvious what was going on and I doubt it would have happened.

But I do believe common sense has failed there from the ref and he responded to the Liverpools players actions. As someone mentioned, the ref never gives handball or foul throws when a player throws it to his colleague still on the pitch to take the throw in. In theory the ball has crossed the line into play.

Look when ManU did that cheeky corner two seasons ago. Rooney looked like he was going to take it and then Giggs went over to do it. Rooney rolls towards Giggs a foot or two and walks away to the pen area, Giggs then gets there and plays on as Rooney has put the ball into play. No one expected it as most players know that happens 99 times in a match. Unfortunately for them the Ref and Linesman didn't expect it and disallowed the resultant goal.

[olaftab]

the most shocking decision in that game was to give gerrard a yellow for a forearm smash into a sunderland players face....

Yes for that he  should be admonished. Players  have been sent  off for just intending to smack someone. As a young referee his  task is to be different from  so called "top refs" who are nothing more than celeb player arse lickers.

[UK Redsox]

I disagree with the sportsmanship argument. To me "sportsmanship" doesn't come into it because what happened was not against the laws of the game.

The next thing I want to see stopped is this nonsense of putting the ball out of play for an injury and/or giving the ball back to the opposition.

If circumstances present you with an opportunity to take advantage of the oppositions misfortune, then I think a team should take it