I remember Ian Wright when he joined Arsenal, saying he wouldn't be good enough when he saw how skillful the player he was watching was.
That player was Ray Parlour.
Things about football that get you unreasonably annoyed…
- Thread starter sugar_kane
- Start date
That player was Ray Parlour.
Statistical obsession, by far.
The way people speak about football on the internet, I wonder if they would be able to go to the local park and identify who has played well and who hasn’t, who is good and who isn’t.
Under the same umbrella, but deserving of its own focus - assists. Absolute load of crap for me, and now players are trying to ‘claim’ an assist. I grew up in a time where brilliant passes were praised. That’s it. Beckham was spoken about weekly from the context of simply being a great crosser. Not the collection of another number. Nobody ever came off the field talking about who simply passed the ball, an ‘assist’ was only ever discussed if it was a great ball. We see one like Bruno’s assist to Mount against Palace where he tapped the free-kick short to Mount who scored from outside the box being used as part of some sort of ‘6 G/A in last 5 games’ narrative.
Let’s stop the overly forensic approach to what is ultimately a game.
The way people speak about football on the internet, I wonder if they would be able to go to the local park and identify who has played well and who hasn’t, who is good and who isn’t.
Under the same umbrella, but deserving of its own focus - assists. Absolute load of crap for me, and now players are trying to ‘claim’ an assist. I grew up in a time where brilliant passes were praised. That’s it. Beckham was spoken about weekly from the context of simply being a great crosser. Not the collection of another number. Nobody ever came off the field talking about who simply passed the ball, an ‘assist’ was only ever discussed if it was a great ball. We see one like Bruno’s assist to Mount against Palace where he tapped the free-kick short to Mount who scored from outside the box being used as part of some sort of ‘6 G/A in last 5 games’ narrative.
Let’s stop the overly forensic approach to what is ultimately a game.
I'd love an option of no commentary altogether. You don't need it when you're at the game, so there should be an option to take it out. Crowd noise is usually mixed and edited to not drown out commentators, so get rid of that too.
Absolutely!
I might be digressing slightly, but Stephen Howson (United fan channel on YouTube, in case you don't know) would insist, even early in to this season, that Onana was a statically good keeper and rolled off some bullshit statistic about how he was the best in the league at saving shots that were hit at a 90° angle, or some other bollocks, I can't remember exactly.
It still beggars belief that some people have their head so far up their own arse that they think that the eye test is "reductive" and that underlying statistics tell the real story.
There is a place for statistical analysis, Big Sam for one was a trailblazer, but the everyman who uses it to show how superior their "ball knowledge" is to their mates just comes off as a pretentious tit.
Indeed.
I just refuse to accept that watching a game/games of football is insufficient in determining a ‘good player’ or ‘good performance’. Like you, I also hate the term ‘eye test’. Like, what else are we supposed to use to watch a game? Calculators?
If anyone who has been watching football their whole life watches a game and determines ‘x had a good game’, that is enough for me.
I must say - but I have largely held Cristiano Ronaldo responsible for the explosion in emphasis on stats. Not to take this conversation into a great Messi vs Ronaldo debate, but by the most traditional metrics of simply watching football and identifying a good player, Messi has always been a lot better than Ronaldo. He has great stats because he’s a great player, as opposed to being a great player because he has great stats. I think Ronaldo could never compete with Messi, but was so determined to be better than him so his biggest achievement was dragging him into a stats race.
Prior to Ronaldo/Messi - stats were never really considered a determining factor in who the best player was. And despite that, we were all largely able to watch football come to a consensus on who the best player was. We all agreed that prior to the two of them, Ronaldinho was the best player. Nobody knew or cared about his stats, he was just obviously better than everyone else, in the same way that if you went to Sunday League or 5-a-side, you can instantly tell if a player is so much better than everyone else. Before Ronaldinho, we had Zidane. The same applied.
Ronaldo had to break his neck, nicking goals off his teammates, scoring 17 penalties in a season etc in order to say ‘see, I’m the best, I have ‘proof’’ - with the proof being numbers if course. The whole debate between the two brought numbers to the forefront. Who scored the most then evolved into ‘I have more assists than you’, and then became more and more micro to where we are assessing every area of performance based upon stats.
When a young player has one good game and gets lauded as the next best thing. Similarly when a young player has a bad game and is attacked vociferously. Just let them develop.
The assist feeding into G/A obsession for me too. You can get an assist for absolutely feck all.
It’s absolutely one the more clueless seem to band about online.
“He’s got 12 G/A” then you look and see the guys an attacker that’s scored 3 goals in nearly half a season.
Corners are weak assists, too.
Cunha’s brace vs Arsenal was Mainoos assist. I refuse to believe someone assisted that goal.
Teams that have drums to create an atmosphere in the UK. I've always considered this a European thing and it winds me up
Brexit means brexit!
The UK is being colonised by drums
Fixed your post.
Bang on. People in here will be hatin, but this is a cymbal of how bad things are these days.
A few years ago, during a MLB game the commentary cut out and all you had was the sound of the crowd and the crack of the bat. It was superb and I wish it was more common in sports
I remember when Fox Sports used to have rights to CL coverage, and that option was available. I very much liked it.
Same with separating penalty goals and non-penalty goals.
You get a goal for tapping the ball into an empty net too.
I lose my mind at foul throws and referees seemingly ignoring them on a regular basis. Think it was drummed into me in youth football and now I can't unsee it.
My favourite is now "goal involvement". See that a lot.
"He had 17 goal involvements over the last season" - I think it means not scratching your bum and looking the right way when someone scores is an "involvement". Football's newest participation award. He touched the ball then two weeks later someone scored - what more do we want?
I love it when that happens. Similar happened watching a Flyers game on NHL.tv last season. It seemed like they didn't have a proper home broadcast, so there was no commentary, no commercials, and no intermission analysis. During commercial breaks and intermissions, it just went to a camera high up in the arena looking down on the ice, so you could hear everything going on between play inside the arena. That feels as close as it gets to being at the game without being there. I wish broadcasting did more to replicate that, or at least make it an option.
Fan reaction videos. Two types. The ones where they're interviewed outside the ground after a poor result and you can see them absolutely desperate to say something that'll make that clip go viral and they couldn't give a toss about the result. The other type are the webcam reactions where they film themselves screaming or throwing a chair and you always catch them immediately look up and check the screen that has their feed on it to see how it looks.
In the old days people used to just swear and have a crap week at work if their team lost. Now they spend the build-up to the match rehearsing lines and practicing how they're going to throw their chair to make sure it stays in shot and looks best on camera.
"Here's me reacting to my team conceding a goal. You can tell I was really angry because I threw something and to be honest on the day it looked better than it did the few times I practiced it in the week. Stayed in shot and everything and made a really good noise I don't even have to enhance in post. Well chuffed. I'm a celebrity now btw"
In the old days people used to just swear and have a crap week at work if their team lost. Now they spend the build-up to the match rehearsing lines and practicing how they're going to throw their chair to make sure it stays in shot and looks best on camera.
"Here's me reacting to my team conceding a goal. You can tell I was really angry because I threw something and to be honest on the day it looked better than it did the few times I practiced it in the week. Stayed in shot and everything and made a really good noise I don't even have to enhance in post. Well chuffed. I'm a celebrity now btw"
Yep, aware of that. The tap ins still talk to a players goal scoring instincts. I feel so many assists are absolute nothing involvements and say little about a players actual creativity.
I think that's an important distinction too.
Yeah, I guess. Still seems like a relatively recent things.
Recently it is all the players who have a corner and they don't put the ball on the line. Also the idiot linesmen who ignores it.
Only part of the ball needs to be over the line, same as when they show a top-down view of a disallowed goal because 1mm of the ball hadn't gone over the goal line.
If you looked at the ball from the top-down before the corner is taken, a small part of it would be over the corner line, meaning it's in a legal position.
I know but this rule annoys because someone players push that 1mm more. Rule should be centre of ball in level with the line. But what do I know. I'm just 40 odd year old United fan.
Players who wear tiny baby sized shin pads
Yeah I think you just need to suck it up and be less annoyed at it, because changing the entire law about how lines work would mean that it would be a goal if the middle of the ball crossed the middle of a line with half of the ball not passing the line.
Unless you would want to specifically change the law about how the corner lines work..
I know what you mean, but this isn't a football specific thing, it's just normalised social media behaviour. Clickbait, faux outrage, and controversy is the low hanging fruit for a generation of idiots to get the attention they crave
Jamie Carragher trying to make absolutely everything sound like a profound piece of wisdom. He wasn't alone in expressing doubts about Casimero a while back. Just say if you think someone can't cut it. The whole "leave the football, before the football leaves you" nonsense I can't stand. He does this so often now. People don't mind you being wrong or even disagreeing with you, but if you're going to verbalise it like Homer Simpson putting on a pair of glasses he found in the toilet and trying to work out the angles of a triangle - you're going to look stupid.
Every time he opens his mouth and speaks now he has the air of someone fully aware they're about to say something profound, or think they are. And I can't stand it. He never used to have that, but now it's as if he feeds lines into ChatGPT to come up with an intellectually-catchy way of saying them and it's incredibly annoying. I know with the Liverpool connection there's some natural animosity with United fans by default, but I thought until the last year or so he was a decent pundit. His need to channel Stephen Fry every time he opens his mouth has ruined that.
Every time he opens his mouth and speaks now he has the air of someone fully aware they're about to say something profound, or think they are. And I can't stand it. He never used to have that, but now it's as if he feeds lines into ChatGPT to come up with an intellectually-catchy way of saying them and it's incredibly annoying. I know with the Liverpool connection there's some natural animosity with United fans by default, but I thought until the last year or so he was a decent pundit. His need to channel Stephen Fry every time he opens his mouth has ruined that.
The whole look of Palace's Will Hughes. I sort of follow them so I see him a lot.
The low socks . . . and his boots look like they're orthopedic . . . and then fur fooks sake, you're an albino. Dude just doesn't seem like he's very self aware.
The low socks . . . and his boots look like they're orthopedic . . . and then fur fooks sake, you're an albino. Dude just doesn't seem like he's very self aware.
The thing with assists (just like goals) is that it's not about this or that specific one. It's the sheer number of them that is impressive. Creative players will consistently rake in high assists. Clinical goals scores will score many goals even if one just hit him on the back of the head and trickled in. They were at least at the right place at the right time. When the numbers are high it does say something about the player. Bruno has by far the most number of assists in the league. And is anyone surprised or will say it's not representative of his creativity?
When fans and pundits try to predict results of games which are being played in a few weeks, like title run ins etc
Form, injuries, suspensions, teams resting players for other competitions, and if teams have anything to even play for towards the end of the season, are never taken into consideration
Form, injuries, suspensions, teams resting players for other competitions, and if teams have anything to even play for towards the end of the season, are never taken into consideration
Mainly in the EFL playoffs when fans stupidly invade the pitch after winning the semi final. Acting like they have just been promoted when that isn’t the case.
I don't fundamentally disagree with any of that. It's kind of hard to qualify my thought process on this into text....
It's when a player has multiple basic involvements classed as assists masking poor performance.
Think back I suppose to Sancho's first few assists at Chelsea I suppose, just nothing balls when the forward did all of the heavy lifting.
A few pretentious phrases that I have seen slither in to football parlance, all put in to one sentence that piss me off no end:
"He's definitely got a high ceiling, he is going to do bits for us, and he'll come up clutch".
A high ceiling? Why not just say "potential".
Do bits? As above.
Come up clutch? feck off.
"He's definitely got a high ceiling, he is going to do bits for us, and he'll come up clutch".
A high ceiling? Why not just say "potential".
Do bits? As above.
Come up clutch? feck off.
Nicolas Jover.
When you win a throw-in just inside your own half and the player that won the throw picks up the ball and looks like he's ready to restart the match, only for someone to come jogging over from 60 yards away for absolutely no reason whatsoever, and they take the most basic-b*tch throw that the player that originally picked up the ball could have taken 30 seconds earlier.
I get it from a perspective of winding the clock down, but half the time it's the team chasing the game or it'll happen in like the 4th minute of the match.
I get it from a perspective of winding the clock down, but half the time it's the team chasing the game or it'll happen in like the 4th minute of the match.
Journalists who use their one or 2 questions at a press conference or interview to ask such stupid questions about transfers, a player not doing well or something else going on in the world when they know fine well the manager/player won't or can't talk about it.
Post match interviews as well.
Interviewing a manager of a team who has just won a game.
"You happy with that result?"
A question that a 5 year old would have asked.