Davey Baby

Yup, I agree, but the penalty and double sending off turned the game, so I think we'll take the handball calls more than they will.

Think about the ones we've got away with. Brighton hit the bar from a corner, on Saturday Ben Foster nearly scored against us at a set piece. Ajax away, they hit the post from a corner. It goes on and on. It's getting beyond a joke.

Disappointing at the end, but ultimately we were extremely lucky to get a point. Ajax were the better side, and gave us a bit of a lesson. We are so poor defensively, and from set pieces. We even looked vulnerable with a 2 man advantage and could easily have conceded. The penalty and double sending off was obviously the turning point. Very harsh penalty to my mind. Ridiculous, but that's the age we live in. We need to go to Valencia and get a result but it's still in our hands and for that we should be very grateful. Alonso, atrocious, yet again. His days must be numbered. Kepa, very poor for me. James looked great when he came on and I think we'll be seeing a lot more of him. Break it all down and we should be extremely happy. No way did we deserve a point.

We concede a lot of goals where he doesn't even move. He's hopeless at crosses. I think he's having a really poor season. Some will say he made a vital save at the end of the game on Saturday. For my money, you expect your keeper to make saves from time to time.

And another thing now that I'm on a roll. We had a stonewall pen against Norwich this season. Not given. VAR looked at it. Not given. A foul on Azpilicueta? Not even debatable. Soon after the media started complaining that VAR wasn't awarding penalties where they were obvious, and they always cited two examples, one for City and the other one I can't remember. Nobody ever mentioned our one. Anything that might have gone against us is totally ignored by the media, by and large, and for my money, referees are influenced by the media, knowing there'll be an outcry if they get one wrong against certain teams and knowing it'll be totally ignored if they get one wrong against other teams. Of course this has an influence, even if it's all subconscious. They're human beings after all.

Also, lest we forget when Liverpool nearly won the title, driven on by the media, they were awarded a dodgy pen every week, or escaped an obvious red, or so on, usually involving Suarez. The media were so desperate for Liverpool to do it they applied as much pressure as they could and it worked. Refs are definitely influenced. Look at Leicester when they won it, it was such an amazing story everybody wanted them to do it. In the run-in how many dodgy decisions went their way? Untold. Referees were bending over backwards to see them win. Lastly, the Battle of the Bridge. We've all seen it. We've got experience with Clattenburg. Remember when he sent Torres off for diving rather then send off Evans who was on a yellow, and in so doing incur Fergie's wrath? Spurs should have probably have ended up with 2 men on the pitch but they finished with 11. Now ask yourself, could that really have happened at Anfield? I doubt it.

We had two incidents that contradicted each other in our last 2 games. Both times VAR went against us. Both decisions can't be right. If contact means foul, Callum should have won a pen against Burnley. If it doesn't, Watford shouldn't have been given a pen. VAR seems to make it up as it goes along, and what's undeniable, is we seem to get the rough end of the stick. Remember Willian against Norwich, when they first introduced VAR? A stonewall penalty. The ref booked him for diving. VAR looked at it and agreed with him. It was as clear a penalty as you'll ever see. There was Tottenham last season in the LC semi, when Kane scored, again we got the rough end of the stick. They used a dodgy angle, for offside, and the linesman waved his flag, and we stopped. Goal given. Look at the angle they used. Everybody. Please stop and look at the angle. It's almost as if they were trying to find an angle that made him look onside. The correct camera angle showed he was clearly offside, but they never used it, for some strange reason. Can anybody explain that? This season I can think of at least 5 occasions where our opponents have scored following fouls on our players and the goals have stood. Two in our first game at Utd. They weren't even analysed by the media, not even looked at. No-one's telling me that's insignificant. The same thing happened to Liverpool against Utd and the media didn't stop talking about it for five days. Of course this plays on referees' minds. They're less likely to make a decision against a team if they know they're going to be ridiculed for five days solid if they get it wrong. Who can genuinely say they're surprised we've had the most VAR decisions go against us? Has there been one subjective decision that's gone in our favour? One? Anyone? Since VAR was introduced? One controversial one in our favour? Please remind me. This season the media are much kinder to us, because everyone loves Lamps and he's mates with all of them, and of course there's a lot of goodwill with our youngsters, so I expect that to make a difference, but it hasn't yet. We're still getting the short straw. Ajax away, they had a goal ruled out by VAR that was contentious. We also got awarded a pen at home against Valencia, thanks to VAR. I think it's telling both decisions happened in the CL, with foreign refs. Edit: Either way, VAR has to go. It's a total joke. We got screwed royally by refs before VAR. Funnily enough I preferred it that way. It's bad enough having Mike Dean referee us on the pitch, now he's officiating our games up in the sky. Remember when he made us retake a penalty three times against West Ham, for encroachment? Has anybody ever seen that before? Nope, I thought not.

Jorginho got a needless yellow yesterday for time wasting. He'll miss Palace. He won't miss City.

You use the word haters a lot, and always inappropriately. Not everybody has to agree with each other on these boards.

Nobody should be getting a red card. Isn't VAR supposed to have a look at red cards? What's happened here? Atkinson has put the yellow back in his pocket and changed it to red, either on the advice of VAR, or with VAR's approval. I mean nobody on the planet would consider that a red card for Son, yet VAR has. You couldn't make it up.

We absolutely have to f**king get rid of VAR. It's sh*t. I knew it would be sh*t but I never imagined it would be this sh*t. If you were trying to troll the whole football community you still couldn't make it as sh*t as this. This is beyond parody.

Okay fair enough, I'll take your word for it, but I couldn't help feeling terribly sorry for him. Considering he's Spurs, that's saying something.

Whoever decided to give a red needs to be sacked. It's that simple. We'll never know, there'll be no accountability, everybody will be officiating next weekend and everything will carry on as normal. The game has completely gone. VAR is a total joke. Spurs should appeal that red. They'll get criticised for it by the moral crusaders but their player was sent off wrongly. There's no debate. I'm dismayed by what's going on. It's absolutely killing the game.

You have no idea if that's true. More importantly, it wasn't a bad foul, never a red, and it's led to a horrendous injury. It's a terrible situation all round, and I have a lot of sympathy for Son, and even more so for the Everton player, obviously.

Obviously horrible to see a player injured like that. Really f**king sad.

Atkinson should be sacked for what I've just seen. He got out his yellow card, just before he was going to brandish it he saw how badly the player was injured. Son was in a lot of distress. I felt sorry for him. Fouls are part and parcel of football. He didn't mean to injure the guy, let alone potentially end his career. Atkinson now knows it's a bad injury, the Everton players are putting pressure on him, the crowd know it's a bad one and they're going to see one of their players stretchered off with a terrible injury, a yellow is going to go down terribly badly, so what does Atkinson do? He gets out a red. Disgrace, in my opinion, and that red is going to harm Son, because it will make him look even more the wrong-doer. Changing cards is indefensible from Atkinson in my opinion. I know it's Spurs but I'm really dismayed by the referee's actions there.

I'm waiting for someone to post a video of all his touches against Watford yesterday, but in the meantime we'll just have to content ourselves with these 2 minutes. An insane performance from a pretty insane player in my opinion, and it's clear from some of these touches that he's just oozing confidence. As I said yesterday on this forum, there's very few midfielders in the world that could have put in a performance like this. Sensational.

Wow. Kante is, in your words 'f**king unbelievable'. He genuinely is one of the best players in the world. He is in my team every week when fit. Well yes, but all Kova can do is grab his chance when Kante is out. I firmly believe that if you're performing you deserve to stay in the team. Luckily it's not my problem.

Can we just agree he's better than Fernando Torres? And also more likely to get a goal?

The trouble is, if he doesn't dive, he knows the ref won't look at it, so he decides to go down, albeit belatedly, knowing he's been touched.

Fair enough. So when Kante is fit is it Jorginho or Mount you'd drop? I'd have Kante on the bench, and Rudiger. This team is clicking. Why change it? I thought Mount was fantastic today too. He's the real deal IMO. As for the pen, I agree with you on that, it's contact. Hazard would have gone down and we'd all have been shouting pen. If I had my way however, contact wouldn't necessarily mean foul, but in the modern game it does, so that's a pen. Callum should have had a pen last weekend on the same basis. I loathe VAR with a passion.

Really? I thought he had a great game today but Watford were poor. You honestly think there are very few midfielders in the world who wouldn't have thrived against a poor Watford team? That's not a dig at him, he can only perform against what is put in front of him but the idea that many quality midfielders wouldn't have shone against Watford today seems odd to me. It's the way he played loz. I'm sure there are many midfielders that would have shone, yes, but it's just the way he did it. It's personal taste I suppose. I just loving watching him play. He's become my favourite player in this team. I wouldn't drop him for anyone.

Come on just, I was critical of him last season too. We're allowed to change our minds.

I gave praise where it was due, but I was very aware of his faults. With Kovacic, you're going to have to wipe your glasses and start again, because I think there's a bit of confirmation bias tainting your view. This boy is the nuts. There is nothing to say about his performance today other than, "Wow".

Then you're easily impressed. If a player is 'f**king unbelievable' then you're gutted if they are missing for a big game. For example in the last 20 years if we were in a major cup final and, in the build up someone like Drogba, Hazard, Terry, Lampard, Makalele etc etc got injured you'd be gutted. If it was Kovacic you'd think 'not ideal but not a disaster' All I'll say is, what we saw today from him, there are very few midfielders in the world that can play like that. He was f**king unbelievable, in my eyes.