Cricket-Match-Special ... A forum for discussion

the referee involved (Paul Tierney) has been stood down for this weekend

Liverpool 1-1 Manchester City

What a game!

and yet no sign of Lee Majors

Coventry beat Wolverhampton 3-2 to reach the semi finals of the FA Cup!

All those Wolves fans who after the QF draw thought they had a free pass to the semi's

by, that was a poor game from Newcastle last night. Comfortably beaten, but by flukish goals. I was surprised it ended up staying at 2-0. I thought it could have easily ended up being 4 or 5. Man City didn't seem to work out that in order to get the third goal, all they had to do was give the ball to Silva outside the Newcastle box and get him to boot it as hard as he could towards the halfway line. The ball would have definitely hit a Newcastle player on the @rse and looped into the top corner of the net

Manchester United 4-3 Liverpool!

4 point deduction for forest then, puts them in the drop zone one point behind Luton....i think they still have enough to stay up though...Luton with all their goal scoring just can't defend

andy wrote:4 point deduction for forest then, puts them in the drop zone one point behind Luton....i think they still have enough to stay up though...Luton with all their goal scoring just can't defend

Everton have a second points deduction likely to come very soon, so it depends on what that will be. Forest could be in the relegation zone for a few days, with Everton taking their place....

Luton must be very happy.

turns out that, between moving to Newcastle and being banned for 10 months, Tonali managed to fit in another 50 betting offences. FA are now investigating. Looks like 55 million quid and another 120k a week might be tied up doing nothing for an extra 6 months or something.

I said last year that I enjoyed not having to watch Newcastle from behind my fingers anymore

blimey.... it's getting to be a tough watch again

helluva fight back

Gordon got sent off for passing the ball back to the WH goalie from the edge of the box when a free kick was given. We'll miss him on Tuesday night, he's been our best attacker by far for a while now. He causes havoc and creates so much

A blinding winner from Harvey Barnes

other results have gone Newcastle's way and they remain in 8th place on the shoulder of WH

another week, another Newcastle defender facing surgery and 9 months out.

Manchester City 0-0 Arsenal

All that build up, for a goalless draw.

Durhamfootman wrote:I said last year that I enjoyed not having to watch Newcastle from behind my fingers anymore

blimey.... it's getting to be a tough watch again

helluva fight back

I cant think of anything tougher than watching the referee point to the spot for what I will say with no hyberbole, was an all my lifetime notably bad decision to award Gordon a penalty for that foul where he throws himself literally infront of a defenders leg when hes already drawn his foot back to kick a ball, hoping (and then succeeding) in catching his boot.

I often find myself defending the modern game to older people, but if that is a penalty, the game is literally done. Strikers are going to kamikazee style throw themselves as defenders boots now hoping to get contact, and eventually someone is going to end up with their shin pointing in the opposite direction to their knee (Gordon was lucky, the defender was trying to whack it out into orbit).

Its just such a crap way to win a penalty. What can the defender do? He doesnt even see Gordon and has his leg up to kick it when Gordon is behind him. If anything, its a foul by Gordon.... hes not trying to win the ball.

Just speechless. Refereeing is ruining the game at the moment, its become so unbelievably, and consistently, poor....

I guess the bean counters like the goals per game looking artificially high, and penalties are interesting to watch and exciting... but constantly giving goals for such weak reasons ruins games. Punish cynicism, punish foul play.... what are we punishing here? The West Ham players inability to see behind his ears?

I've had this discussion before. It's the way the rules are written. The victims always claim that it was never a pen, yet they keep getting given. Why? Because it is a pen. It's akin to the nonsense that is the handball rule and the nonsense that is the offside rule. Gordon is very, very good at getting there first and winning a penalty. I've seen him do it 3 or 4 times this season and really it's a testament to his speed of thought and his fleetness of foot. He's a very intelligent footballer

So I'll always say that they are definite pens, because they must be or they wouldn't keep getting checked and keep getting given. Whether they should be pens is a whole different argument and not one I'm sure I'd want to defend.