The Ref Stop

Liv Lei (Love)

GraemeS

RefChat Addict
Level 5 Referee
Really strange offside right at the start of the second half of this one. Ball is cleared towards Liv striker who is in offside position, walking back with his hands up. But the defender doesn't play the ball - it almost comes to a natural stop, before the attacker eventually challenges and the flag goes up.

Felt a bit odd to me - does another player need to be the one that comes in and challenges, or should the offside actually have reset when the defender was clearly able to comfortably play the ball, even if he chose not to?
 
The Ref Stop
Fantastic title

Offside.

Just because the defender could play the ball doesn’t mean they have to.

A player in an offside position at the moment the ball is played or touched* by a team-mate is only penalised on becoming involved in active play by:
• interfering with play by playing or touching a ball passed or touched by a team-mate


Really good concentration from MW who had a really good game.
 
The ball has to be deliberately played by an opponent or played/touched by a teammate before the offside player can become involved in active play again.
 
Yeah as above, may have looked odd, but in reality it's the only way it can be done. Having the ability to play the ball doesn't reset the offside, he has to actually play it.
 
Daft from Nunez that one (not out of character).

Unfortunately I thought the referee looked out of his depth in this one. There were a few water polo fouls and unnecessary cards. Thankfully no major incidents. The low light was an epic double VAR offside check.
 
If the AR gives Nunez offside & not Salah that is an incredible spot, Nunez in front of the ball but not in front of Salah, not sure my brain would have computed that as offside? 👏

Yesterday’s fixtures the tight offsides given by ARs has been exceptional.

 
Daft from Nunez that one (not out of character).

Unfortunately I thought the referee looked out of his depth in this one. There were a few water polo fouls and unnecessary cards. Thankfully no major incidents. The low light was an epic double VAR offside check.
Harsh on Nunez that - it's pretty niche law knowledge to know that the ball coming to rest at an opponents feet and them choosing not to play it wouldn't reset offside. Hence the question - my actual assumption was that there would be another mechanism to reset it that wasn't coming to mind, rather than that being a valid way to kill time.

But speaking of killing time, agree with your assessment of the overall performance. 2 minutes injury time in the first half (following a number of warnings for slow restarts) followed by ending the half at +2.07 despite a goal being scored in IT was poor, then he massively over corrected for the second half. Agree that fouls were consistently given at a softer threshold than we would normally expect in the PL.
 
If the AR gives Nunez offside & not Salah that is an incredible spot, Nunez in front of the ball but not in front of Salah, not sure my brain would have computed that as offside? 👏

Yesterday’s fixtures the tight offsides given by ARs has been exceptional.

Oh it's 100% a wrong flag against Salah - that's the incident VAR cleared first. If the comms had indicated offside against Nunez then they would surely have looked at that first and never got round to clearing Salah?

No real assessment or consideration regarding if Nunez actually did touch the ball? I assume he did, but if not, I'm not sure that attempted flick would quify to make him active?
 
No real assessment or consideration regarding if Nunez actually did touch the ball? I assume he did, but if not, I'm not sure that attempted flick would quify to make him active?
How close was he the ball and did that attempted flick impact an opponents ability to play the ball?

"clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent"

If so then, yes, it would make him involved in active play.
 
But speaking of killing time, agree with your assessment of the overall performance. 2 minutes injury time in the first half (following a number of warnings for slow restarts) followed by ending the half at +2.07 despite a goal being scored in IT was poor, then he massively over corrected for the second half. Agree that fouls were consistently given at a softer threshold than we would normally expect in the PL.

How long did it take from goal scored to restart? 30 seconds is allowed free, so if it took 37 seconds, then only the additional 7 seconds would need to be added theoretically...
 
How close was he the ball and did that attempted flick impact an opponents ability to play the ball?

"clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent"

If so then, yes, it would make him involved in active play.
We've seen offside not given if the player dummies and steps over the ball haven't we? So there's usually a pretty high threshold on these things if there isn't actually a touch.
 
Harsh on Nunez that - it's pretty niche law knowledge to know that the ball coming to rest at an opponents feet and them choosing not to play it wouldn't reset offside. Hence the question - my actual assumption was that there would be another mechanism to reset it that wasn't coming to mind, rather than that being a valid way to kill time.

But speaking of killing time, agree with your assessment of the overall performance. 2 minutes injury time in the first half (following a number of warnings for slow restarts) followed by ending the half at +2.07 despite a goal being scored in IT was poor, then he massively over corrected for the second half. Agree that fouls were consistently given at a softer threshold than we would normally expect in the PL.
Don’t agree with the bit in bold. The decision is brilliant from MW on the basis of concentration. But if you think about what the basics are of offside, it’s fairly basic decision.

You cannot play a ball which was played by a team mate when you are closer to the goal than the second rearmost defending player. That is in essence the very basics of offside. It has gotten fairly confusing over the last few years since we go into interfering, not interfering etc. But none of that implies in this instance

Ps- if anyone should understand this, it’s Nunez. I’ve never known a player to be offside more than he is! If he knew how to finish, we’d have scored a hell of a lot more goals than we have!
 
We've seen offside not given if the player dummies and steps over the ball haven't we? So there's usually a pretty high threshold on these things if there isn't actually a touch.
Well that's different because dummying the ball is not clearly attempting to play it, quite the opposite and would fall under an obvious action which clearly impacts an opponent so the standards between the two scenarios are vastly different
 
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We've seen offside not given if the player dummies and steps over the ball haven't we? So there's usually a pretty high threshold on these things if there isn't actually a touch.
Don’t forget Armstrong’s goal was disallowed, so threshold was set, offside even if you make no touch with the ball behind you.

 
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