TARK ARTS?
We can only speculate about what David Moyes would have said in his post-match press conference if it had been his team who had been awarded a penalty in identical circumstances to those leading to Leeds United scoring their winner against Everton last night, but there really isn’t much point. Like pretty much every football manager, Everton’s tends to be pretty consistent in his view that debatable decisions that go in favour of his players are correct and to be commended, while those which go against them are not and should be criticised. Twas ever thus, so it was no surprise that when James Tarkowski was penalised for deliberately leaning to his left to stop a ball that would otherwise have not struck his arm at a febrile Elland Road, Moyes decided his player and team had been extremely hard done by, even if did seem fairly relaxed and wasn’t in full-on Begbie radge-funk mode.
Moyes was far from alone in this view, even if those espoused by former players – the people that some geniuses would have infiltrate Stockley Park’s bunker of squinting windows because they’ve played the game – were wildly divergent. BBC pundit Chris Sutton declared the decision “scandalous”, while his Sky Sports counterparts Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher agreed referee Chris Kavanagh had got it right. “I’m obviously going to say it’s not a penalty and I believe it’s not a penalty,” growled Moyes after the game. “I’ve been to see the referee. [Kavanagh] sort of took nothing to do with it, he thought it was to do with VAR, the decision they’ve made. I don’t know what else I can say.” He went on to say plenty as he criticised the standard of refereeing across the board over the weekend just gone, even though it seemed largely fine to Football Daily apart from one or two minor ricks from officialdom.
While the misguided reaction of various members of the punditocracy to the entirely correct decision to disallow Eberechi Eze’s free-kick for Crystal Palace against Chelsea on Sunday demonstrated that no end of former footballers live in blissful ignorance of the laws of the game they are now tasked with discussing for a living, handball is an entirely different kettle of sea bream. Since the introduction of VAR, constant tinkering has rendered the law so diluted, murky and subjective that the fabled “consistency” players, managers and fans everywhere demand has become impossible to achieve.
Indeed, it is no exaggeration to say that the handball law has become so opaque and open to interpretation, one suspects a good lawyer could argue convincingly that each and every one of Moyes, his opposite number Daniel Farke, Sutton, Carragher, Neville and all the internet crazies who debated long into the night were spot-on in their assessments of how it was applied against Tarkowski and Everton. A mess that shows no sign of being tidied up anytime soon, handball will continue to be a talking point with each passing match. Such was the paucity of quality at Elland Road, it was in fact the only talking point from that particular game.
QUOTE OF THE DAY
“This achievement isn’t just ours – it belongs to every girl in Bangladesh who dares to dream. It’s proof of what faith, hard work, and unity can achieve. But we’re not stopping here. The next few months of preparation will be tough but we are up for the challenge” – Bangladesh’s 18-year-old captain, Afeida Khandaker, talks to Thaslima Begum about her side’s historic Asian Cup qualification in the latest edition of our women’s football newsletter, Moving the Goalposts.
Does Football Daily really want a discussion on new words to be included in dictionaries [yesterday’s Last Line, full email edition]? For a time, I had proposed that the OED include the word ‘fiverish’. Common usages included ‘sort of funny, but not overly so’, and ‘tea-timely, but certainly not on time’. But then your big FD rebrand made the term obsolete. Sigh” – Mike Wilner.
Do we need further clarification of the handball law to specifically rule on the situation where it is arm-fastidiously-stuck-to-his-side-but-still-moved-towards-the-ball to ball?” – Darren Leathley.
If you have any, please send letters to [email protected]. Today’s winner of our prizeless letter o’ the day is … Mike Wilner. Terms and conditions for our competitions, when we run them, can be viewed here.
RECOMMENDED LISTENING
The pod squad are back for another helping of Football Weekly, featuring Leeds’ winning Premier League return and the latest from Europe’s mega-giants.
RECOMMENDED BOOKING
On Thursday 11 September, join Max Rushden, Barry Glendenning and Football Weekly favourites Jonathan Wilson, Nicky Bandini and Jonathan Liew for an evening of unfiltered football punditry at Troxy in London. The pod will also be livestreamed globally. Book now.
