Defending - a serious danger to the game

[daveshads]

George Graham writes a good piece in The Mail on Sunday today about this subject. If you have a chance, take a read. George knows a lot about the subject and with players like Peter Storey, his teams certainly weren’t afraid to dish it out. But this is different.
What we now witness goes way beyond that, something akin to unarmed combat and I personally hate it when I see it. The PL is the worst example!
The game needs to take note.

[SheepRanger]

The article is on a paywall for me but I've seen the wrestling headline. But yeah, there is so much grabbing in the box defending corners its very difficult for the forwards. I've even seen defenders grabbing forwards around their waste.

[daveshads]

Yes sheep and of course, Arsenal have been particularly criticised for corner transgressions (rightly so). But really I feel it’s all over the pitch with all (particularly PL) sides. First the defender starts with the arm tug/interlock. If that doesn’t unbalance the forward, then they move on to the waist hold. If all else has failed, then a straightforward push or a trip. For some reason the trip seems much more frowned upon by the referee. God forbid they might tackle a forward fairly.

I cannot fathom why the ruling bodies would not want to see as much attacking forward play as possible which is really what most of the fans have turned up for.

Maybe I have just become a moany old guy, but honestly, it is quite beyond me.

[SheepRanger]

I fully agree.

im suprised there arent more penalties awarded against defenders. But there again, attackers arent afraid to throw themselves to the ground either. Its all very difficult for the referees.

Its the two arms around an attackers waist that gets me! That never used to happen years ago, and definately not in the amatuer game.

[Abseits]

I quite like it - I'd let them get on with it. It deffo looks worse on TV, never looks so bad live at the game. I'm absolutely sick of TV cameras reffing games and influencing how the game is played.

It does do my head in when ref wastes 10 minutes trying to sort it out but achieves eff all. Ref should encourage the swift taking of the corner and book any corner taker who dawdles.

[72bus]

A refs job is so hard he has to ref to the rules , he has 22 personalities to ref at the same time ...he gets moaned at for 90 plus minutes and has insults thrown at him if he's not perfect.

[SheepRanger]

A refs job is so hard he has to ref to the rules , he has 22 personalities to ref at the same time ...he gets moaned at for 90 plus minutes and has insults thrown at him if he's not perfect.

My late father was an amateur ref for over 30yrs and officiate in over 1,000 games. He used to get moaned at a lot by players who didnt actually know the rules of the game to the right level. His favourite used to be when a striker missed a sitter and he'd go up the them snd say "and you think Im rubbish...". After years of being moaned at when he gave up the whistle, ex players used to tell me he was one of the best refs out there and he was part of a great group of refs....unlike the one reffing now!!! Because of that I never gave refs any back chat, and just got on with the game.