Portland Bill

I watch a lot of Spanish football, I find it far better to watch than games like tonight’s!.

While I’m having a moan!!! Jack Grealish, £100 million?. No left foot, little pace, constantly loses the ball. Must rank as the most overhyped footballer I’ve ever watched.

I could have mentioned all footballers cheat, but as the topic was two premier league teams, I left it at that. The WC was so refreshing seeing teams go out and play great football, exciting games. Now I spend more time looking at my phone than the tv, that 45 minutes was sending me to sleep!.

That sums up the whole Prem imo. A turgid league of pampered and cheating footballers, soulless grounds, 90% of games boring. Its very rare to actually watch a thrilling game in that league.

I don’t see any of that in General refereeing. It’s only in games with VAR where that potentially does happen. The big change in the current generation of officials is that ‘everything is now filmed, and filmed from every angle possible. The officials ( outside of the PL) only get one angle, the angle they see things from. Every incident is scrutinised on social media, everybody has their own opinion of it. Officials are under scrutiny more than they have ever been. Clive Thomas and the like were allowed to use common sense back in the day, as they were not scrutinised to the extend todays officials are. Nowadays there are NO grey areas, you apply the laws of the game, or face the wrath of the accessors, and the accessors are brutal. This is partly why so many officials are quitting the game, plus the behaviour of the players on the pitch. Cheating and play acting are rife nowadays, every player will cheat at any stage. There are no exceptions. All in all I think the current officials are as good as they have ever been, they are far far fitter than previous generations, and as always… make far far less mistakes than the players on the pitch ever do!.

Genuine question, have you ever refereed a game?.

David Horesman as well.

The sort of response I expected!. I guess people have to know the laws of the game to notice!.

Quick question, I haven’t time to trawl back through this thread, but has anyone mentioned the two great advantages the referee played for England’s third and fourth goals ?.

Robbo, you will find that even players from your local Nailsea and Tickenham football club ( you probably have never watched them though!) try and con referees. It’s a world wide phenomenon nowadays, cheating and trying to con the officials, but of course it’s always the fault of the referee, the Lino’s or the var officials ?

I didn’t realise they were in it, perhaps the bottom half of the Southern league south go in it as well ?.

Western League clubs and below go in the Vase. Clevedon are in the Western League prem, Bridlington and Hallet in Western League 1.

Except it was offside!.

What difference does it make, USA,South Africa and Russia have all recently held World Cups, none of those three had any chance of doing well. Qatar and their neighbours run European football with their money nowadays. The last 8 of the Champions league will probably be all teams with oil cash backing them. FIFA and UEFA don’t care if Qatar lose by 10, but fans of football should question why they hate the World Cup venue, but dote over the champions league!. The cash comes from the same places.

No, when the attacker and keeper attacked the ball, the attacker got the last touch, the Ecuador player who played it next was in an offside position. No conspiracies, just var that most on here wanted… before they all realised it would spoil the game!.

Got Argentina to a WC Final, won the last Copa America. Scored 91 International goals ( so far ) mostly against South American sides which are much stronger than the European cannon fodder teams!. He has carried the Argentinian side for years, getting them through qualifying on his own at times, finally it looks like they have a decent side to back him up now. Still probably the best player on the planet ( after 20 years at the very top), not too bad I would say!.

After 40 years of watching City home and away ( roughly 75 away league grounds) I can 100% say that I now prefer watching non league football. Pay your fiver or tenner, have a drink, no hassle, no jobsworth stewards, no posturing on the terraces, stand where you want, no hassle parking, more entertainment on the pitch, no falling over when touched, and very little diving and cheating. What’s not to like!.

Several ex Taunton Town players got done for this a few months ago!.

A lot of the Samoan squad will have been born and bred in NZ, Auckland alone has about the same amount of Samoan’s as the actual country of Samoa has!. For instance, in the last Rugby Union WC, 18 players in the Samoan squad were born in New Zealand!.

6 of Englands squad play in the nrl. In all seriousness the NRL is streets ahead in quality. The intensity is something else.

Personally I think the Aussies will be too strong, but it will certainly be a fierce one!!.

The NRL league comes out as the big winners. It’s proved ( if it actually needed proving) that it’s a class above the Super League. Samoa have 8 Penrith Panthers players, the NRL winners.

Think we also have to remember that NZ lost the worlds best winger to a head injury due to the red card incident. Woodman is a try scoring machine. So even though England were down to 14, NZ lost probably their best player for 65 minutes!.

More than likely he did. I agree re priorities, as no one really cares about this cup until the very late stages. But it also goes to show that we aren’t good enough to take any team, regardless of what league they play in, lightly.

Lincoln will be absolutely fuming about going out of the cup at Chippenham, they will have been given an absolute roasting over the last 2-3 days by their coaching staff. So if there was ever a time to put out a weak side, tonight clearly wasn’t it.