After the Blackburn game, I think its obvious that the Premiership needs this technology.

All the other sports dont seem to have issues with this: tennis, rugby, cricket.

The FA needs to wake up and start using it in football. I dont believe it will stop the flow

of games, paticularly if a goal is disallowed the game is stopped anyway. So much hinges

on these bad decisions by football refs and linesmen that something has just got to be done.

We cant go on relying on inferior officials making stupid decisions which can have such

a major impact on the outcome of the premiership! I cant believe how often these decisions

go against Chelsea.

Mez

blah blah blah blah

mez

and the disallowed goal happend at Stamford Bridge of all places. Totally agree that the goal line technoglogy needs to come into effect and fast. in the begining of the season Manchester City got a penalty against them and the flagman on the side raised his flag when Kasper Schmiechel was about 2 feet off his line, but the ref allowed play to continue. Ref's need help or Mourinho's going to attack them one day with that t.v. screen he was holding at the blackburn game

Trouble is it'll show how bad some linesmen/refs really are.

4 linesmen- only offside if flags on both sides go up.

but they definitely have to do SOMETHING

Trouble is it'll show how bad some linesmen/refs really are.

I don't think thats really fair.

They do a damn better job than any of us would and they get 95% of decisions right. The problem is they simply can't be everywhere and see everything and even with perfect vision, decisions aren't allways clear cut and what is given one time in one situation in one league, isn't necessarily what might be considered the right decision in other circumstances.

Trouble is it'll show how bad some linesmen/refs really are.

I don't think thats really fair.

They do a damn better job than any of us would and they get 95% of decisions right. The problem is they simply can't be everywhere and see everything and even with perfect vision, decisions aren't allways clear cut and what is given one time in one situation in one league, isn't necessarily what might be considered the right decision in other circumstances.

Right you are.

Nowadays some players are really, really, really good at being just a few inches onside when the ball is played to them. And considering how fast the game is played it must be a real nightmare for the linesmen when they have a fast player in line the defence who gets a long pass from somebody. It's impossible to know for sure unless the linesmen have the ability to slow down time which of course they haven't.

And to make a fair call on that situation (player being in line with the defence) then the linesman really have to be in line with the defence too. If he isn't then he is in no position to make a call because he couldn't see for sure. He can guess but that isn't good enough. Especially if it can determine who wins or not.

Sometimes I've seen players who are far, far ahead of the defence and must surely have been several yards offside but when seing the replay he actually was a few yards onside.

And let's not forget that there are even times when several replays can't tell you if it was offside or not.

And with all the rules about a player can be offside if the ball isn't played to him and other rules like that I really down't envy the linesmen. Probably the most difficult job in the world.

Then again they sometimes do huge mistakes. Take our goal against Blackburn. Wasn't the linesman in line when the ball was played? If so then I can't see how he can have judged it being offside.

Saw the penalty when Schmeikel was off the line by 2 feet... another odd decision by a ref that never gets explained.

Since the beginning of this season there has been some pretty odd decisions.

BUT the oddest of all has to be that disallowed goal against Blackburn.

Anyway, I think the premiership isnow a multimillion pound business and everyone expects phenomenal professionalism

from the players and the managers.... the only way to get accurate decisions from refs/linesmen which that level of professionalism merits is thel goal line video technology. I read somewhere that it could be introduced with managers being allowed to query two decisions a game. That would be such a good idea.

Mez

I would welcome changes to improve the accuracy of decisions as long as it doesn't affect the flow of the game. I don't think that there have been any more strange decisions this season than normal. I cen remember controversy every season. It usually has a habit of evening itself out over the course of the season although sometimes it doesn't feel like that. This season we benefited from a bad decision at Anfield but lost out on a good goal against Blackburn. If the referee had got it right both times we might now have 12 points (1 less at Anfield and 2 more at home to Blackburn) and Liverpool would have 13 with a game in hand.

I was more upset over the furore and resulting action that greeted the decision at Anfield followed by the noticeable silence after there were similar poor decisions in games every week since (including the Blackburn game). Still I'm disappointed that Jose had to use that as an excuse. We should have created more chances and taken more of those we did create and then perhaps this decision would have been less relevant.

Saying that it would not be football anymore if we started it is just idiotic. I can't see anybody saying that.

The only reason we haven't had this technology from the start is because we did not have technology at all.

Now that we do, and now that we're able to - of course we should introduce it.

What damage could it possibly do, but make matches fair and make mistakes disappear?

Remember that champs league semi, where Sky proved with their technology after that it wasn't a goal?

Holding back on adding this sort of technology, makes me wonder if there's many back-handers within the game.. (You with me on this Liam ).

4 linesmen- only offside if flags on both sides go up.

but they definitely have to do SOMETHING

I was thinking this, but there would be more wrong calls, perhaps...

never! We would final see some actuality given to this theoretic: "advantage to the attacking side" rule.

bah- stupid rules that are never actually enforced.

every year there is a new "initiative" that referees will "clamp down" on xyz... after two months and 17 red cards it is forgotten.

Holding back on adding this sort of technology, makes me wonder if there's many back-handers within the game.. (You with me on this Liam ).

You've probably hit the nail on the head there, Mod. If new technology is brought in, it's gonna make it much harder for the cheats to prosper.

We've had numerous dodgy decisions go against us in the last few years, far too many for it to be simply 'unlucky'. Obviously we're not alone in this, just as there are clubs who get everything going their way. You've only got to look at the Champions League a couple of years back - Scousers get to the final with a disgraceful decision against us in the semi, and then in the final their keeper cheated at every penalty and got away with it.

It's got to the stage now where I'm on the verge of giving up on watching football, what with the cheating and diving on the pitch, and the corruption off it. There's probably been cheating and corruption in football since some geezer in the middle ages decided it would ba a good idea to kick a pig's bladder about for a bit - but it's reached appalling levels now.

I think that there is a strong case for, and I think we will soon see, goal line technology. At least then the ball is dead, so the techno can't be used to slow down the game by managers challenging every contentious decision. But a goal line/offside decision should be easy because the ball is dead anyway

4 linesmen- only offside if flags on both sides go up.

but they definitely have to do SOMETHING

I was thinking this, but there would be more wrong calls, perhaps...

Fifa wouldn't do it because it would be embarrassing for one linesman to put their flag up while the other keeps his down.

In the end, they would look just to copy each other to avoid embarassment and they'd spend more time looking at each other than the play on the field.

I agree with what Mod and Bluebeard say about how it would limit corruption, though I am not as pessismistic about the state of the game as Bluebeard appears to be.

One thing that needs to be kept in mind however is that there will allways be controversial decisions in this game no matter what. You put two opposing managers in a room to discuss their opinions of a controversial penalty decision during the game, give them both perfect view of the action, and 5 hours later they will still not agree on whether it was a penalty or not.

Holding back on adding this sort of technology, makes me wonder if there's many back-handers within the game.. (You with me on this Liam ).

You've probably hit the nail on the head there, Mod. If new technology is brought in, it's gonna make it much harder for the cheats to prosper.

It's true, its all back-handers going on.

Refs, players, managers nicking players, Goalkeepers..

How about the alleged Bruce Grobbelaar bung? That's only just one that they found out about.

I mean how easy must it be for a keeper to 'accidently let silly goals in' and earn from it?

Maybe they want to look at some of Dave Beasant's later Chelsea games?

I agree some limited, narrow in scope use of technology is desperately needed. There are any number of ways to do it, and here I'm discussing simply "was the ball over the line?"

Camera mounted within goal frame, one in each inner "elbow" of post and crossbar: This would require a person (two, one for each goal if you want to be fussy about it), perhaps in the touchline, maybe up in the stand doing nothing but consulting a live-linked video monitor when the ball is near the goal. Maybe he has to have access to slow-motion replay--and I'm talking the hyper-accurate 900 fps kind, not the standard blurry one. Downside? Play could be continuing while he reviews the replay, where do you stop the game, etc.

I think some variant of the airplane metal detector kind of thing would be sweet. I know this will sound geeky and Star Trek-ish, but bear with me. You have sensors projecting something or continuously scanning across the face of goal. The ball is coated with some substance that will "trip" the plane and cause the sensors to light up the referee's watch or buzz him or whatever. The kicker though, is that you cannot project this "force field" or what have you across the goal line. It must be within the goal the precise distance behind the goal line that matches the width of the ball, so that you can't have false positives from the ball being halfway over the line. If the sensor goes off then we can with certainty state that the entire ball has crossed the line (the ball is the only thing coated or made of this substance that will generate a positive reading in the constantly-scanning sensors).

That's my two cents.

Didn't they use cameras in goal during a U21 tournament? I think they did and I think they concluded that it worked really well (don't know if they used it much though).

It's not a difficult think to implement. Buy a few cameras, put them up and, if necessary, watch what they record to aid the ref.