Lukasz Fabianski has hot out at a rule which he claims is causing unnecessary confusion.
Among the welter of new regulations that have come in this season – and which by and large perhaps have done the game no good at all – is one that has slipped under the radar to some extent.
But Fab is unhappy with a rule which says that linesmen should keep their flags down until the passage of play has been completed before signalling any infringement.
He clearly doesn’t understand it and frankly it’s another piece of officialdom introduced whichis really not required.
Fab saw it against Saints when Danny Ings had the ball in the Hammers net before it was ultimately ruled out by the referee assistant’s flag.
Facing a Southampton team which had scored 13 goals in seven previous home matches this season, the Hammers restricted their opponents to just three shots on target
There was little question about the goal’s illegality and therefore a little absurd that we all had to wait for the proper outcome.
Fabiański says the law is causing unnecessary confusion and declared at https://www.whufc.com/news/articles/2020/december/31-december/lukasz-fabianski-late-offside-flags-make-things-very. saying: “I actually spoke about it in the dressing room after the game with Angelo [Ogbonna] .
It’s a funny thing because you more or less felt that the striker was offside but he doesn’t want to interfere with the play because it has to be given offside, but the [assistant] referee has to wait [to flag] and I don’t know why he has to wait until he scores.
“I know everything will still be checked [by VAR], Angelo tells me that if he makes a tackle or something, it puts him in a very strange situation. At one point he stops because he expects the referee to react, but then the linesman holds it [down] and I think he holds it for a little bit too long, because what’s the point in holding it until he scores?
“I understand it when they are tight situations and when the margin is very narrow but, in the case when they scored, I think it was quite obvious even from my perspective, so I don’t know why they had to wait that long.
“It makes things very uncertain and with the obvious ones there is no reason why they have to wait that long. They should just raise the flag and award the offside.”
I can understand his thoughts. There’s so much ruining the game. VAR being the most obvious.
The referee should be making all the on field decisions and when he is not sure, only then should he consult the VAR. After all the A stands for Assistant. They really should look at how rugby uses the TMO with the ref asking the question “Is there any reason I cannot award a penalty/goal”.
The game should be officiated by those on the field of play. Not in some studio.
All the best for 2021 everyone!
Is it the slow Americanisation of our game?
This waiting around of, is it a goal, is it offside? Waiting an age for a VAR decision.
Is it giving the broadcasters time to slip a advert in? It must break their hearts having to wait 45-50 minutes before being able to have a commercial break?
Hopefully not.
Play to the whistle. What is the point of having assistant referees with flags if they are never used? If the linesman no longer alerts the referee to infringements of the law then they do not need to be there. Similarly, if players don’t see and understand when they are doing wrong, they will never learn either.
This is not a computer game. This is football. Keep it as an outdoor game played and overseen by real people in real time.
Fabianski is certainly not alone in his frustration with the expert committee ‘improvements’ of OUR game.
COYI
Totally agree. More time wasting by the officials, and what if the play goes on for another 30 seconds or so, even more time wasted and the chance a player could be injure in that dead time. Load of rubbish.
If they don’t have to give off side anymore, it means they can concentrate on when the ball has gone outside the side lines. Oh. wait……
If the ref had blown and Ings had carried on and put the ball in the net , he would have been booked for time wasting. isn’t that exactly what the officials are doing with this ridiculous rule, not to mention someone can get seriously Injured tackling a player who is offside. Happy New Year to all.
van Dijk, for example?
Agree with him it’s stupid and actually wastes time in some cases, if the player doesn’t feel they are offside and want to play on then let them and review it afterwards, if they know they are and want to stop flag it and give them the option, there are no perfect answers but it also potentially puts players health at risk from bad tackles.
If Ogbonna rushes back and breaks Ings leg, I presume we get the offside decision, right?
None of the recent changes to the game, post goal line technology, have improved the game.
NONE.
The delayed signalling of offside seems a perverse attempt to justify VAR. How long after an offside are the players to continue? End of that passage of play? Ball rolls out of bounds? Discretion of the referee?
Frankly, as any any infraction that follows the uncalled offside isn’t penalized, it presents a great opportunity to give players like Grealish a well deserved noogy.