Plain Speaking wrote:Yes without doubt for me, last 3 matches we have been shafted, big time, firstly by the appointment of "non-neutral" officials, and then by the implementation of a series of one sided game changing decisions, which I assume VAR would have corrected.
At Anfield we had a German team of officials, even though their manager was German. We had a Stonewall penalty denied, a legitimate goal disallowed incorrectly for offside, and an offside goal allowed against us.
Against the rags, we had a referee who had previous shown unprecedented bias in a derby match against us. We had 2 stonewall penalties and a sending off denied, plus an offside goal allowed against us.
Last night, we had a Spanish referee with history against Pep, even though Pep has been publicly campaign against independence against Spain. Then a legitimate goal disallowed incorrectly for offside and a potential sending off ignored, as well as other strange decisions in the match.
It is the football institutions of UEFA and the FA that are sanctioning these non-independent appointments. I would like to think VAR would help, perhaps why they are so slow to introduce it.
What can we do?
These are fair points, but no amount of soul searching like this is going to do anything about Otto's cock up last night, or the ball perfectly deflecting for the ox in the first game, Salah getting a knock in last night from Ederson's block when he could not keep hold of the ball, or when he actually deflected Salah's goal into the net in the first game ( when it might have hit Kompany and be blocked !).
City's goal last night was a clean and sweet move. Van winkle was complaining about a shove from Sterling , when he was off balance and falling over any way after a bad pass. So we got the break there but the goal was clean ( like the ox's).
As for last saturday, well any other day and we could have had double figures. Could have ,would have, should have.
Nah, i think in hindsight Pep will admit he went against his own logic , that we have seem for the most past this season.
Officials have not been able to stop teams playing good honest football. As is proving in the PL, playing the ball and not the man or the ref, will always win out in the end.