JRC

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Given that last season (or the one before) there was a furious pitch invasion by home fans, and the owners had to be escorted from the Director's box for their own safety, I would say that may well be the case. This theory would also refute the jibes we make about the toxicity, booing etc at Goodison, implying that Everton are inspired by the crowd - because their home form is significantly worse than ours overall, not much better over our terrible recent 7-8 games even.

I genuinely think it extremely unlikely that replacing the current technology with the simple single shot/horizontal line images approach, and an acknowledgement that failure of that to show an attacker clearly offside is to be taken as that they were level, would eventually result in fans, managers etc arguing for the re-introduction of the current model; certainly not at the volume, near-consensus and intensity that there is about VAR now.

Last years RL Grand Final was decided on one of those in the very last minute. Video Ref took one look at the Freeze Frame, no lines drawn, and just called it onside, although it would definitely have been 5-minute line-drawing- and armpit-measuring-fest for Football VAR. Not one single complaint from the losing team, or their fans.

We have managed to twist the Off-Side Law out of shape to accommodate the fact we now have the technology to review it. Even if it were perfect - and I'm far from convinced that is as accurate as the promoters like to claim - it is still producing a ludicrous pretence of application of the principle of the Law. The very fact that they are having to reference vertical and horizontal lines, centres of gravity, protocols for the frame showing the exact point of contact with the ball, shirt sleeve lengths etc. tells us that something has gone horribly wrong. The original law was about a player being nearer the opponents goal line than the ball and penutltimate defender, as observed at full speed by a human, with level being on-side. Simple camera technology (other than maybe a horizontal line as a reference for the goal line parallel) can show when that human has got it wrong, down to pretty small measures - inches. If an off-side cannot be determined without all the shenanigans we are suffering now, then they are level within the spirit, intent and useful application of the Law, and appropriately so for any coachable defensive and offensive strategies players are taught; and so, by default, on-side. If they can't call it with one image - they're on-side. The problem with pre-VAR off-side was the occasional howler by the officials, and these should now be (are) extinct with the correct use of VAR - it was never the problem that too many goals were being scored (or assisted) by players - whose toes were fractionally off-side.

See also Sheffield United and, in reverse, West Ham.

Ha! That remains one of my favourite Torres moments. Don't recall a top defender getting quite so befuddled before - although I seem to recall him doing something similar to Dawson once. As for the new body - those Reading s***houses wouldn't be trying anything on now, would they? TBF, that lighter-weight version of Torres gave as good as he got then - as well as scoring a hat-trick - so this one would cause carnage.

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Love the way he slips from 'Liverpool Fan(s)' to 'We'. Proper cheered me up that little clip.

See also Sheffield United, who clearly benefitted from a defiantly positive atmosphere last year. Not so much this. Man Uniteds home form is also relatively weak.

Apparently his wife is in the later stages of pregnancy as well, so that would probably preclude travelling, whatever quarantine rules apply. An atheist myself, I really hope his obviously strong and publicly avowed faith helps him to come to terms with this. YNWA, big guy.

Klopp's impassioned support of 5 subs this season making even more sense now. All the data and analytic capability they now have means the Sports Science folk had probably predicted a season like this for our players, if not the specifics at CH. Which begs some questions about recruitment/departures.

Merson is a strange one. Has always come over as a bit thick, but I suspect the journey he has (very publicly) made has knocked him out of the usual ex-player (lack of) perspective, and can sometimes be either insightful or, at least, not afraid to voice opinions less mundane (even if he is still a bit thick)

Can't blame him - they're flying atm. Up to 3rd with 6 wins on the bounce, having been down at 15th. Shows how quickly poor form can turn round.... (OK ...after replacing the manager, but not suggesting that as a solution to our current woes, obvs)

I'm more chilled today than after Brighton. They are very good as well as pragmatic. Can even admire Foden, who I wasn't convinced about previously (English hype, flat track etc). Yesterday's Allison calamities don't imply any substantive issue to resolve. He won't have many days like that, best in a game and season like this one - fwiw I think they would have won anyway, and certainly deserved to. There is no-one else around us concerns me any more than any other. We are as likely to finish 2nd as 7th; get Fab and Hendo back in midfield and Jota fit and the former is more likely. Back to back title wins is tough, even more so a third 90+ point season, as City proved last year. Their consistency this year is the perfect example of what we can legitimately aim for next seasonal. Come On You Mighty Reds!

PGMOL will be too busy writing a grovelling letter to OGS apologising for not giving them the penalty that could have made it 10. Meanwhile - have we had a response re the decisions in the Everton game yet?

Always had going to the River Plate/Boca Superclasico on my football bucket list, but now it would have to be San Lorenzo. Fantastic scenes there.

Isn't Wilson a Mackem? I know a few Sunderland fans, and they almost burst pride about Henderson as one of their own - and justifiably so. The run behind Salah for the second is excellent and typical - and you can almost read shock and admiration in his body language as he sees the control and finish.

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I'd say that was an...interesting...take on what I wrote, so let me be clear (hopefully). My main gripe is with the spurious application of inherently flawed technology, and my response is to just use as much technology as is needed to make a human-level decision - benefit of the doubt to onside; if the VAR official needs more than a 'reasonable' length of time to look at it, from a good angle with a horizontal line as a guide, and can't tell if they are offside without applying all the jiggery-pokery - then they are not off-side. Given that view - then whether the system is administered by challenge or by review of every major incident - is immaterial. My main beef about challenge is that if you have a solution that allows (virtually) every decision to be made correctly, and non-intrusively, why create a new in-match process and associated strategy/game theory which could end up with an incorrectly awarded/denied goal being allowed to stand/ruled out because of previous (possibly legitimate) challengeable incidents - even though the VAR official is fully aware it is wrong and could simply advise the Ref, but is not allowed to? We would have lost a challenge if we had used it to see if Pickford/Van Dyck was a penalty; it doesn't make it any less unfair, nor inimical to the integrity of the game, if we were then denied a late winner for an incorrectly called off-side goal because the VAR official - who can easily see it was a goal, and which will be confirmed on every sports channel within seconds - isn't then allowed to tell the Ref.

Really don't see the value of a challenge system. A genuine and obvious howler of a bad decision, which the technology clearly proves, is no less a blight or an injustice, nor less unnecessary, because the challenger - who will often be making that challenge (or lack of challenge) on gut feel - either wont risk wasting one or has already used them. I also suspect the risk/reward ratio doesn't make it equitable, given the number of potential incidents. FWIW, offside law was written to be applied by the human eye - nearer to and behind are sufficiently broad and well understood spatial terms. TV technology allows a very quick check and an enhanced viewing compared with that of the linesman, albeit with it's own inbuilt margins of error. That we are now 'clarifying' those broad, simple spatial terms to effect the (imperfect) technology - teeshirt sleeve length, centres of gravity, vertical lines -, when the problem to be resolved by VAR was never that too many goals were being scored by players whose armpit was offside, is a Swiftian absurdity. I don't think the answer is better technology (faster frame rates) or introducing a new variable in challenges; just start from the recognition that players are normally and by default onside for most of the game unless specific conditions apply, as per the laws. If the basic technology to augment the linesmans best possible view (in line camera angle, fixed at reasonable estimate of point of contact, horizontal line for the position of the ball or last defender ) cannot allow the VAR bloke to almost immediately see that the player is offside, then benefit of the doubt goes to the attacker - they're onside (not on-field decision; I would go with 30 second maximum image review time). I cant recall one hypermarginal VAR offside call in the past season and a half that anyone could have had a serious complaint about if given onside on this basis. The very fact that you need to go to forensic levels of spatial analysis - however consistently applied - to make the decision means you've already gone down the wormhole.

And the teams in 4th and 5th were respectively goal difference and 3 points behind with 2 and 3 games in hand. We were looking at 6th. 82 was even worse - 13th on Boxing Day. I think we won it with about 4 games to go in the end. Never give up.

Even the clarification is nonsense - 'prioritising' the interference with play, my a***. In all the discussion of the similar Lovren-Kane incident a few years back (when Moss, again, didn't know the Law properly), those defending the decision (PGMOL, IFAB, ex-Refs) admitted that IF Kane had moved towards the ball as Lovren tried to clear it - let alone challenged him and took the ball off him - , he would have been offside; that was a defined example of making your offside position active . I doubt very much that since then they have amended the guidance to change it that this interpretation no longer applied (since they have so promptly 'changed it back'.) But then again, these not-fit-for-purpose f***ers are the ones actively undermining the credibility of the game to satisfy some weird, petty, football-phobic egomania, so maybe they did change it BECAUSE THEY COULD.

I think I'm feeling some of it differently. s***e as it was to lose to Burnley the other day, it would have been much worse to have been there and experienced it live. I would not have been able so easily to slip into the detached, 'meh' mode that I have been able to adopt in the circumstances. I can only look back at last season's achievements with complete joy - that we weren't in the ground, or at St George's Hall, to celebrate doesn't really dampen the burstjng pride of seeing that trophy on our wall, shirts, permanent record etc. - for the vast majority of our fans being at the match or the celebration is not an option anyway. (OK, admission - my lad and I went up to Anfield, irresponsibly I know, for the wild celebrations on the night it was confirmed, so we had some of that adrenaline-fuelled, communal joy) Winning 2 years running - even more so, getting nearly 100 points 3 years running - is historically unusual, so in many ways I have always been inured to the potential disappointment of not winning it, or getting 90+ points, this year, whether through getting pipped by a point like 2 years ago, or just not being able to keep up with the pacesetters. If anything, a damp squib of a season shaped massively by injuries and played in a bubble is the least worst version of failing to defend the title. So be it. (Again, personal perspective - I've seen us win it 14 times in my lifetime, most of those times being personally present when we did; and many years in between when we didn't, even when we were historically dominant). BTW - doesn't mean I'm throwing the towel in. Look at 81-82 after the dismal defeat (to City, ironically) on Boxing Day; 85-86 and the (reigning champions) Blues lording it over us, winning at Anfield in February. This season is already more bats*** mental than those, plenty of twists to come yet.