CardiffGreens

Bah, no surprise but Amazon have cancelled everyone's* preorder through the canadian website. Saves me having to shell out on a record player at least! *Everyone that has since gone onto reddit to bemoan the cancellation at least.

https://www.birminghammail.co.uk/sport/football/football-news/aston-villas-unsung-mother-figure-11422314 - Went as part of the 2016 ::coughs:: restructure after relegation. Slightly O/T, so apologies, Still struck me as a odd decision to let her go; it's one of the more pertinent points from Soccernomics, in that you spend millions on transfer fees and wages and then don't back that investment up with off-field support (in what could be one of the more turbulent times of someone's career). I'd hope we'd have looked into some form of replacement now things are under newer ownership.

If the way handballs were being awarded (or increasingly not as the tournament progressed) during the women's world cup, anyone hoping for "consistency" is going to be disappointed. I happen to have the Newcastle v Wolves pre season friendly on in the background - one of the Newcastle defenders stuck a leg out and intercepted a pass, which hit him full on the hand that he had already stuck out in front of him - Martin Atkinson decided it wasn't an offence.

Glad to help! On the VAR use - from https://www.premierleague.com/news/1235515

From https://www.the-ra.org/news/ifab-law-changes-2019-2020 Dropped ball - Laws 8 & 9 Free Kicks - Law 13 Goal Celebrations - Law 12 Goal Kick - Law 16 Handball - Law 12 Kick-Off - Law 8 Medical Breaks - Law 7 Penalty Kick - Law 14 Players' Equipment - Law 4 Quick free kick and YC/RC - Law 12 Substitutes - Law 3 Team Officials - Laws 5 & 12

Square once again with the hilarious pricing - £77.77 on their store. Though I meant to mention this a couple of days ago, Amazon.ca had it on there for ~40CAD - even with shipping and the usual £13 import and handling tax it still worked out cheaper.

It reminds me of the stupid shorts Macron did for us in 12-13. Overall I'm not a fan of overly-fussy detailing, but it's a claret body and blue sleeves so that's great - hopefully the away kit will be unveiled soon enough as I liked the look of what was rumoured. Do feel it could have done with more kappa logos though - perhaps they could do a hummel and stick them all down the sides as well

I like the idea of this a lot, especially if funds are going to be tight to get in some extra players across CB and DM that we're clamouring for. He might need a little time to think it over though, but come happy hour this could be solid bronze signing and a perfect ten.

Urgh, what a garbage pen.

Wowsers, quite a let off there.

Cracking finish.

I like that idea. I think the whole "if it hits your hand it's a pen" rule (good in terms of being clear cut in application of the rule) a little unbalanced in terms of awarding a pen (~70% chance of a goal) against an infraction that may have been unavoidable by a defender's actions. (I'll try to cut my rambling to a minimum on this, but y'know) But watching the Women's World Cup and seeing VAR reviews taken against any sort of contact within the penalty area (whilst leaving similarly innocuous contact outside the area to the referee's discretion and on field decision), it does feel that something happening to someone facing away 17 yards from goal alongside the byeline is more "important" than something happening 19 yards from goal in the middle of the pitch. Of course the answer to that is "more VAR" (or at least, not restricting the use to just the award of penalties). I'd also prefer if the referee was the sole arbitrator of whether VAR was used - asking someone for some assistance to make a decision is different enough to being told by the VAR that you might want to have another look at something (but I realise that'll add nothing to dissuade cries about a lack of consistency or inherent bias of referees). I find the idea of "introducing technology" into the game, only to have it actually be someone sat in a portacabin looking at some grainy video replays a little disappointing - I wouldn't be adverse to seeing decision like handball being "graded" on the basis of how much time a defender had to react out of the way (from the distance between the defender and the attacker, and from the speed of the ball), using image processing techniques to measure their "silhouette area" over the time of the perceived infraction (did they use their arms to make themselves "bigger"), whether the projected flight of the ball was going on target and their actions was preventing denial of a goal scoring opportunity - and award a free kick/pen/red card as necessary. Edit, apologies for the tl;dr wall of text. Should also say, I'd rather not have VAR in at all (same game as on the parks etc etc), but since it's in, why not dream a little bigger with it?

Woof! Pick that the eff out!

Indeed, though I heard Philippe Auclair quote the current laws on a podcast (though I've not looked into them so can't say whether what he said was true edit - I've found a link here on a referee's association website with next year's laws) and there's provision to not award a penalty if the ball hits a player's arm directly off another body part or even another "close player" - as long as the handball doesn't result in a goal/goal scoring opportunity. I think the following "explanation notes" somewhat make a mockery of what we've seen since the CL final: