Indeed.
Could you imagine that charge being allowed against a goalkeeper for instance? Never in a million years.
As I said though SU were diving in all game and by allowing it to go on the ref set the match on a certain path which played into their hands whipping the crowd up even more. There's clearly a lot of paranoia around the favourable treatment of other clubs but I definitely think other teams would've reacted differently to the aggression and gone someway to changing the type of game. Had the Norwood-Jones 50-50 involved someone from City or Liverpool or spurs etc their player would've rolled around screaming in agony for 5mins whether at fault or not. Things like that help set the tone of the match but we played right into their hands
Good post. feck this have class thing, the game is dirty, play it or get left behind. I want Rashford to harass the ref and throw himself to the ground going mental screaming for yellow card and I'll be right beside him screaming at the screen. He doesn't get points from the ref for showing class, being calm etc.. as the majority of refs are dumb as bricks looking to bring a spectacle to the game.
fecking weirdoes the lot of them honestly. The inconsistency is inexcusable at this point. Just a couple of season ago the refs had caused outrage, yet since then the focus has been on VAR as a solution and it gets the criticism but the system is flawed as the refs have no blueprint to follow for consistency and no mutual understanding of the rules. Half the refs makes shit up as they go a long if it fits into the pre game narrative.
Sheffield had their first PL game against United in forever and they were much stronger than us physically, looking to make it hard for us. The ref aware of this never blew his whistle for fouls they made, yet gave them soft fouls when we won a duel going in hard. Two different rules for two different teams. Only way to change the narrative is to break the game up by any means necessary and change the atmosphere. If the ref gets applauded from the whole stadium he feels it is confirmation that he is doing something right, so if our team doesn't challenge the easily swayed refs in this country they will get ran over, unless we can build a pre game narrative that supports us, but our club and fans is always in this negative space. If a negative thing happens, it is confirmation of what the belief is and is perceived as the natural outcome.
Example: If Van Djik got pushed over like Jones did, it would be a foul because he is not perceived as someone who is easy to push off the ball so it becomes clear to the ref it is a foul because he simply assumes Van Djik wouldn't fall over if it weren't a foul. Where as with Jones, he is viewed as a donkey who makes mistakes, so when the ref see him fall over and make a mistake he has no incentive of "giving him a break". Yet, it's the same foul, two different outcomes, it is bias.. I'm maybe simpleminded but I just think a foul is a foul either way, and want to see unbiased decisions made. It is not too much to ask. To get all decisions right is hard and VAR struggles with it, but at least get the fecking basics down before you go analysing marginal offsides and shit.
