Fulham 3-2 Wolves: Verdict Thread

[jdrodrigues]

I'm more irritated about us playing Matt Doherty (out of position, at that) in the Premier League in November 2023. Or not having a clue how to use our 6'7'' striker. Or taking off all our flair in Bellegarde and Cunha for no reason.

Bad decisions are priced in because we have bad officials.

I understand. But even with all our bad calls we didn't deserve to lose that, and the fact is we did lose because of a set shit decisions by both ref and VAR.

No one will get all the decisions right. That's fair and okay. It is what it is. And that's why you add VAR to the mix, a second pair of eyes with cameras and all the tools to judge something right.

With all of these tools available, we have been thoroughly screwed, they've been dropping the ball on our feet, very quite hard. This is rank.

 

[sycophantia]

I'd get that if we weren't getting penalties Jota, Neto, Podence and Trincao have all had their moments, some on multiple occasions. Don Goodman had to be decapitated to get one because of his reputation. I don't see how you unconsciously give them against us based on that though.

I'm thinking more of the last few seasons where we've been seen as whiny and petulant, we seem to be trying to address that this season but so far it hasn't had any impact if that's the case.

 

[Wilf Wolf]

In every one of those examples you've given except for the boxing one which I'm not familiar with, it's suspicious betting patterns which have given the red flag. The PL is the second biggest sports league in the world if that was going on it would be picked up, they'll be people employed just to look at it.

A good point but presumably the criminals are wising up to that and covering their tracks better. I’ve no idea how much is bet on games world wide but would guess its millions so quite difficult to detect. I’m not saying it is happening and certainly not saying Wolves are the victims of it but I would be very surprised if there isn’t some illegality around football including the PL.

 

[Alan]

These motherfuckers are leagues too incompetent to be part of a conspiracy. The beans would have been spilled ages ago through sheer stupidity.

They just fucking suck at what they do, end of.

 

[Johnny75]

I watch rugby and the officials talk through decisions and generally everyone understands the final decision and the process taken to reach it. Football needs to do the same then there’s no bollocks like Salisbury saying he should have watched the first penalty- he tells Atwell he’s going to rather than letting Atwell make the decision.

They should be in teams and all replays/ VAR checks on the big screen. Selective viewing is rubbish.

Stop having referees (and particularly PL refs) on VAR, train an actual official specifically to look at VAR replays, it's a completely different skill, more akin to a replay operator or vision mixer who watches live sport for a living. Easier to teach them the laws of the game than the other way round.

However, both officials could've gone up with the same decisions last night regardless of who viewed what. We don't know.

Blaming VAR for our own poor performance is just being a victim.

 

[Johnny75]

I understand. But even with all our bad calls we didn't deserve to lose that, and the fact is we did lose because of a set shit decisions by both ref and VAR.

No one will get all the decisions right. That's fair and okay. It is what it is. And that's why you add VAR to the mix, a second pair of eyes with cameras and all the tools to judge something right.

With all of these tools available, we have been thoroughly screwed, they've been dropping the ball on our feet, very quite hard. This is rank.

We didn't deserve to win, we were crap. Fulham had plenty of chances to score in open play.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

It's not the £100, eight hour, 380 mile round trip to see us lose in injury time issue that's annoying me most this morning (because it was my decision to go) nor the four hours sleep before work. It's not the referee or VAR decisions either (because they've been done to death and are clearly killing the game, especially for the fan in the ground) or even the fact that this wasn't the five goal 'thriller' that some would have you believe [it was really flat on and off the pitch and we were the unluckiest/most robbed of two poor sides on the night].

It was a professional set of coaches and manager that thought it a good idea to play Matt Doherty as a left midfielder. Compounded by the decision not to change or substitute him after his first embarrassing fifteen minutes. I've never (and I've seen us 1000 'ish' times) seen a player allow a ball to roll out of play twice rather than attempt to play it with his wrong foot.
I'm really not sure what the thought process was tonight. Apparently Sarabia deserved his cameo against Spurs because of how he'd trained in the week. Doc must have been peak Messi at Compton to allow him 70 mins last night and Sarabia couldn't have bothered turning up Tuesday to Saturday. I'm baffled by our set up and tactics. Their only threat is out wide and because of how we lined up, we could have conceded two if not three inside ten minutes. To then think playing the most one footed player in the top 11 tiers out of position is the answer is firmly on O'Neil. He interviews fantastically but the point at which Doc trapped a ball, like a seven year old in thermal leggings whose feet were cold, with both shins should have been enough. Somehow Jorge got him three years at goodness knows how much of this gig.

Oh, and we definitely need a striker in January. Sasa is not the answer to any question that is football related in the slightest.

 

[jdrodrigues]

We didn't deserve to win, we were crap. Fulham had plenty of chances to score in open play.

Didn't say we deserved to win. Just not deserved to lose.

 

[sycophantia]

GON and some of the players were poor last night, don't think anyone is saying otherwise but VAR had a big impact which is why everyone is pissed off with it, well the application of it anyway.

 

[Johnny75]

Didn't say we deserved to win. Just not deserved to lose.

Meh, we were garbage 2nd half and pretty much deserved nothing.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'm really not sure what the thought process was tonight. Apparently Sarabia deserved his cameo against Spurs because of how he'd trained in the week. Doc must have been peak Messi at Compton to allow him 70 mins last night and Sarabia couldn't have bothered turning up Tuesday to Saturday.

The worst of it is he wasn't even here, he was with Ireland! And was rubbish for them in their games by all accounts.

It was a performance every bit as bad as Hunt vs Watford under Saunders or Nunes at Brighton last season. At least the drink-driving liar took Hunt off.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

Last night we had two different criteria applied to us. First VAR doesn't overturn a bad penalty call because it was not obvious, only to then revert another not-so-obvious call when the ref judged it wasn't a penalty. Both times in our prejudice. It's hard not to feel irritated by this.

Absolutely this!
You can almost see a post it note on the monitor, "If Wolves are involved tweak it, only use the most damning camera angle so it's a penalty'.

 

[Jinky]

On the performance, I questioned why Hugo wasn’t the more obvious choice to replace RAN on the matchday thread last night and I think the response was “probably not fit”. If that’s the case he shouldn’t be on the bench.

To be honest, Semedo had an absolute shocker last night. So if GON wanted to leave Doc on, he should have switched him to the right and hooked Nels. This 100% should have happened from around the 60 min mark because he could have bought Hugo on then. And as I say, if he can’t play 30 minutes, why’s he even on the bench?

Sasa was appalling, but we’re not playing to his strengths at all. He’s already shown that he’s a tidy finisher in and around the box, but we didn’t give him anything to work with. If GON has thrown him on and asked him to press - more fool him.

Gary didn’t have a great night. His substitutions were weird. He left Sarabia on the bench after his cameo the other day (when we were chasing a goal too), stuck Doc where he did, left Semedo on, left Joao on too long, hooked our two most creative players. It was odd. But ALL that said, we should still have taken something from the match, were the better side, and unfortunately, that’s why we’re all talking about the officials again.

 

[slink]

First thing to say is that we were very poor last night, tactically Fulham were much better and GON didn't know how to change that. If they had a half decent striker on the pitch they would have been 3 or 4 up but they weren't and despite being very poor we've still managed to score twice and only lost to 2 contentious penalties.

Regarding VAR it's without doubt the worst experience for a match going fan and especially for us right now as not only do we have no idea what is going on but we're getting some awful decisions against us. There's so much they have to change regarding the decisions and who makes them, the thresholds, who actually makes the decision etc... but they have to make sure the match going fan knows what's going on ASAP, we were all there last night relying on messages and calls from people watching at home as to what was going on.

I don't think there's a conspiracy against us, its tin hat stuff but i do agree with Lycan that some officials may have a negative opinion about us and that can unconsciously influence decisions or make them just 1% more likely to not give things in our favour.

 

[sycophantia]

So far this season Gary has reacted quite well after having a 'mare,' last night he regressed unfortunately, felt similar to the Palace game with odd tactics and bizarre subs, Doc being the worst. I suppose the feeling among fans is GON will at least try and address his mistakes, VAR however is a law unto itself and I think everyone is just losing any faith in it improving, even pro VAR people.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

The worst of it is he wasn't even here, he was with Ireland! And was rubbish for them in their games by all accounts.

It was a performance every bit as bad as Hunt vs Watford under Saunders or Nunes at Brighton last season. At least the drink-driving liar took Hunt off.

I'd forgotten he way away on international duty! The Rosa effect then. Doc's reputation and ability growing all the time he's not there.

 

[Deutsch Wolf]

I'd forgotten he way away on international duty! The Rosa effect then. Doc's reputation and ability growing all the time he's not there.

Or people convincing themselves that Jake Cassidy was the Welsh Steve Bull because he knocked in a few on loan for Tranmere.

Actually Cassidy vs Blackburn in Saunders' first game was on the same kind of level as Doc last night, like where you can tell inside five minutes that this guy is laughably out of his depth.

 

[SSB]

Regarding VAR it's without doubt the worst experience for a match going fan and especially for us right now as not only do we have no idea what is going on but we're getting some awful decisions against us.

Last night the lad next to us had a decent phone signal so was able to stream most decisions to allow us to see how shit they were.

 

[North Shropshire Lad]

I feel guilty slaughtering Doc as there are several others whose performances were very 'bang average' last night. But it was genuinely one of the worst professional performances I've ever seen. Mark Williams debut first touch bad, Stancliffe versus Barnsley bad, Mike Small bad but with Halford levels of effort and O'Hara levels of application.

 

[Wolf Hunting]

I've mentioned this bit in the VAR thread, but I was delighted that Gary referred to these decisions (Being acknowledged as wrong afterwards) have cost us around 6 or 7 points this season.
It's kind of wrong that this whole sport, the very essence of the game is based around accumulating points. As many as possible, blah blah, so this whole badly run VAR exercise kind of rubbishes that whole concept.
They train every day, they practice, they try things out, at massive expense, MASSIVE, to then have VAR wipe it all away, is a kind of theft.
If we weren't as good as we are, we'd be in the bottom three, muttering and hand wringing over these lost 6 or 7 points which might be sending us down and into who knows what sort of financial oblivion.
The point I'm getting at is it's all about POINTS and that we can glibly throw away the phrase and not be able to do something about it is ludicrous.
The MASSIVE amount of money that's involved in Football, and at it's very core is a poxy little bolt on system that's in the process of fucking up the whole thing is almost too much to get your head around.
It's like a big fat juicy apple and inside the very middle is a tiny worm that's getting bigger and it will get bigger until the apple is fucked.