I mentioned this in the today's football thread, so sorry if this is just repeating, but I would try and take as many game defining decisions away from the referees as possible. To strain a metaphor, they've created the two people trying to be polite going through the door at the same time situation, where they sort of keep on deferring to each other and one week one takes the lead then the next the other. I think maybe the worst example of this this week was actually the late penalty in the Sheffield Utd vs Wolves game. The referee gave it, but I think most looking at that from a couple of angles would say the player was already on the way down and there was very minimal contact, but that call really is beyond VAR because it's a little bit subjective. Even if they thought with 95% certainty it wasn't a penalty they can't really do anything about it, or feel they have to defer to the referee on the pitch.
Personally I would:
- implement the automatic offside decision.
- change more fouls in the box to be free kicks not penalties. As part of the issue is the oversized reward for these sort of decisions and possibly errors. If it's deemed a handball because it bounces up funny and hits an arm of a defender in the far corner of the box, give a free kick. The reward for these incidents is far too large for the offence it feels like all too often. If it's a clear goalscoring chance then sure, give a penalty as that is then a fair reward.
Statistics: Posted by blueToffee — Mon Nov 06, 2023 6:05 pm
