Frustrated Dyche vents at handball 'farce'

But to be playing week after week and know every 50/50 is going to go against you must be hard to take.

The frustration from my end is that if the teams were indeed reversed then there is 0% chance it would be given, and that is the problem.

I preferred the old interpretation of the law.

Or would the survey itself be fixed??

With so many Everton players occupying the penalty area so deep, you were always going to get a hand in the way, an unsighted goalkeeper and errors. That is what you did get.

Throughout the game in midfield pass completion rate was poor. At one stage it stood at 77 to 232 in favour of City. You cannot surround the ball at that rate and midfielders defend the 6-yard box.

The solution is to get the play further up the pitch and keep it there.

Yes! It was a penalty. The Premier League is an entertainment business. Makes the title race more interesting now.

If it didn't hit his arm, it would have hit him full in the face, and from a distance of about 2 feet, with no time to react.

So how would you feel if it hit him full in the face, broke his nose, and he's carried off on a stretcher with concussion, and possibly swallowing his tongue?

Maybe you prefer players to have no arms? – it's not like we can take them off before a game.

Rant over.

I think it was a penalty. I'd want a penalty if it was down the other end of the pitch; whether we'd get it or not doesn't mean that it's not a penalty.

The likelihood is Man City would still have won regardless, we were leggy in the second half and the changes didn't really bring much new impetus.

Hopefully they can be fresh and bang at it on Saturday because that will be another tricky game. Let's be honest, we don't do well against Wolves and they've had some good results of late.

Like Tarkowski's great full-blooded tackle on Alvarez, some people hate it, but to me it should always be a very natural part of the game because he was playing to his strengths when he won that ball and football should always be about playing to your strengths.

A couple of bad results and we're back in it, although Dyche and the team are giving us something to be proud of again. Real concerns are lack of depth, Doucouré out, Calvert-Lewin missing chances, Beto is industrious but not clinical.

Gomes looked out of it from the off. Doesn't seem to have the mobility to be the furthest forward behind the striker. Hopefully as he gets fitter again, maybe?

If he's going to rotate, I think he needs to revisit the Beto - Gomes partnership. Keep going Blues.

I think the problem is, we just don't know anymore!
There isn't a consistent standard; or, if there is, it isn't consistently applied.

Going back 5 (or 50) years ago, if there was no "intent", so it isn't given as a penalty. Now? I have no idea!

The world seems to agree that the one given against Newcastle at PSG shouldn't have been.

Agree with Tony as well that the Tarkowski tackle was brilliant but I wouldn't be surprised if, on a different day with a different ref, it would be a free kick and a yellow card. It is the inconsistency.

I am really starting to hate football, I spend £1,000s following my club yet it becomes irrelevant because the results are taken out of the normal flow of the game by faceless bureaucrats who want to completely sanitise the game for the benefit of advertisers.

The Premier League talk about 'stakeholders' yet they fail to recognise that the biggest stakeholders – the ones without whom the game would not exist – don't want the game interfered with to the n-th degree.

Finally, just one question: Amadou Onana… why?

The lad was a yard away and the ball was hit ferociously so he wouldn't have had time to adjust his body in any way and for me it was a natural position as he threw himself at the the impending shot.

It was a turning point in the game because it deflated the crowd and the players.

Let's see if one similar is given against the favoured few anytime soon.

Gerrard convincing the Ref to send Hibbert off springs to mind.

I also didn't want to believe a British Government would try to force vaccine papers on its own citizens, yet they did that for a while. So-called conspiracy theories become facts a lot these days...

Anyway, if the endless, staggeringly bad decisions, not only against Everton but frequently affecting us, really are just down to refereeing ineptitude and the psychology of reffing the big sides, then how on earth do you explain total anomalies like Bournemouth not having had a penalty in 67 games (until their last match) or Everton going 19 Premier league matches and counting without being awarded a single one this season?

Those cannot be mere statistical outliers.

If we win, not a peep gets said; if a City player does the same in his penalty area, it's a stonewall penalty. Slightly ludicrous really.

If we can't vent on here, what's the point of the site?

By the way, the very similar incedent at one of the games last week was looked at and deemed no penalty.

Worse yet, one of our players will have to do a post-match interview and know that he'll get punished if he calls out the blatantly poor refereeing.

If you could bear to watch the replay again, Brooks initially signalled a corner, before he changed his mind, I thought it was before Foden yelled directly in his face, which surely helped him change his mind, despite being told that a linesman roughly 23-25 yards away signalled a penalty, whilst Brooks was about 10'ish yards away with a clear line of sight, and gave a corner.

Last point, why didn't the VAR actually review it? Oh, I forgot, City have one of those badges that means you don't double check anything given for them...

It makes a mockery of the integrity of the sport.

If that was a City player doing what Onana did, and a penalty was given, at the very least it would have been reviewed...

What could be more simple, that if a player moves his hand towards the ball, or has his arms outstretched, preventing the ball getting past him, it is a penalty. Otherwise, it is accidental.

Lastly, leave it to the discretion of the onfield officials, and no super-slo-mo, close up, freeze frame shots from a video.

Quite easy really, and wasn't that how it was reffed for, oh I don't know, 50-60 years?

Possibly one of the most self-righteous comments I've seen on ToffeeWeb. TW is a Fanboard, viewed and written by fans of one particular club. It doesn't aim to present a perfectly-balanced view.

Perhaps Fanboards are not for you?

"Throughout the game in midfield pass completion rate was poor. At one stage it stood at 77 to 232 in favour of City."

That may be true but how many of those 232 were tippy, tappy type passes while the 77 were more effective?

Just saying as in other games Everton were always lower in pass completion but came out victorious due to the fact of more effective passes.

More detail:

Passing Accuracy (%)

Gomes 54.5,
Onana 73.7,
Garner 76.0,
Keane 76.9

You can see who helped their figures.

Surrendering midfield and playing deep particularly in the first quarter of the second half increased the trend.

I don't think I need figures to compare with previous games. Dyche would have had Man City's figures.

However the rule does not allow for intentional or not intentional – nor does it allow the ref to use logic in that, if you remove the arm, the shot was still hit at the player not the goal and the outcome is the same. A deflection off his chest into his face and a corner.

Proximity and reaction time is also disregarded by the current rule. So if a ball hits a hand or arm (no supporting) the player runs the risk of being penalised.

There is leeway; otherwise, any players protecting their groin in a wall with their hand could be penalised…literally) ha, if the free kick strikes their midriff.