Fab unhappy with yet another new law

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.”