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A truly great midfield player.

As per usual, had he been at any other club he would have received many a red card however he got the protection from the refs as all united players did.

He was a nasty bastard as well. All this shit about “ he’s not really a very good tackler “ or “ he just doesn’t know how to tackle “ - bollocks, he knew exactly what he was doing.

Yorke needed a good kick up the arse TBF

That would come under serious missed incident. I was just talking about clear and obvious error.

Why give him the captaincy in the first place if he was x amount of games away from hitting some target where his money goes up? Not playing isn't going to get Cantwell a transfer that he wants. He ended up here because there wasn't anyone else in for him and he didn't pull up any trees last season. He had started this season well and if he carried that form on then yeah an attractive move may open up for him

On the 1st November, Cantwell posted an Instagram/Facebook story of a photo of him walking on the beach with the caption "The next step is always the most important one". Sounds like he's planning something.

I’m not sure it’s that easy to extrapolate, English football has a pyramid with four figure crowds reported down in the 8th tier, not replicated anywhere in the world. Take away the Old Firm and is that top flight figure any better than that of a Belgium or a Sweden? There are hugely supported football clubs outside the PL in England but clubs like Bournemouth in it. A proper football country, to be sure, then so is England.

As much as I enjoyed the total stunned silence when Denmark equalised a 2nd time, it was difficult not to get wrapped up in that finale. This Scotland side have dug deep a few times. Ive only been to 1 game on Scotland (not old firm and pre VAR) but i found it refreshingly less sterilised than in England and bit more like football 20/30 years ago. Plus 'a view from the terrace' is very decent viewing.

Great out outcome for Scotland, and fully deserved for their fantastic fans. Football is more popular in Scotland than any other country in Europe if you base it on the per capita of population who go to watch it at the top level. Scottish PL 18.5 per 1000 people in 2024, the best in Europe, English PL 6.9 per 1000.

I don't want to be cruel but have you not been paying attention? Of course it's possible he's got a knock and it's gotten worse. It's also incredibly plausible that he's been frozen out or there's been some kind of agreement.

The other issue with VAR is that it makes complaints a lot more magnified - especially if the decision appears to be wrong. Pre-VAR there was always plausible deniability for the officials. It's easy to miss something if your view was obstructed, there was a crowd of players, you didn't have the best view of the incident, and so on. You'd still get comments of "how could a ref, linesman and fourth official miss THAT?" but there is some latitude for explaining decisions which appeared to be or were incorrect. When you've got multiple angles in slow motion and minutes to analyse them then what excuse is there? Mistakes simply cannot happen in that situation, because it's either incompetence from multiple officials or a genuine intent from multiple officials to fail to uphold the laws of the game. There aren't really any other feasible explanations that can be given. It starts to break down into "interpretation" and at that point we aren't really much further from where we started. You loop back to the "it should only be used for clear and obvious errors" argument, and everyone will have their own view of what that constitutes. Most memories I have of people being genuinely incensed by decisions come from two main problems - goals that should have stood but didn't (Lampard's goal against Germany, for example) and clear offsides. Hawkeye has already solved problem one, and I can't believe technology doesn't exist that could effectively eliminate problem two without the need for VAR. I sometimes think VAR is the proverbial sledgehammer being used to crack open a nut. There are some other situations I can think of outside of the above two - Henry's handball goal for France against the Irish, Maradona's "hand of God", some reckless tackles/assaults that should have seen red but were missed - but how often do such egregious situations actually occur? Do they happen enough to justify VAR as a comprehensive solution? Football clubs would probably say so, to be fair. At the highest levels especially the key factor is money and if VAR means that an unjust decision doesn't cost you points and potential relegation then that would probably be considered worth the sacrifice from a financial point of view, spectacle of the game be damned. For fans though, I'm not so sure. Feels like I'm starting to argue against myself now so I'll stop before I develop a split personality, but it's certainly an interesting topic with all sorts of valid arguments for and against.

As long as the commission is good then he's good enough for this club. 💰 💰 💰

That's fair do's, I just don't think they should be able to get multiple replays in slow motion. If you need to watch it in slow motion then it's not obvious.

So if from the refs angle you cant tell what the ball has hit because there is a crowd of people, and from the reverse angle it’s clearly handball, why would you not want to use the better angle?

Thanks for that spot. I must have missed him out on my various lists. He’s in now in the ‘Jim Arnold’ slot. Jim had 0 votes at the time of the edit. If you want to vote for him then vote on ‘Others’

At least it's blue and white, these fucking brain deads can't even get that right.

Totally agree. They're going to miss things, that's just natural but standing round for 10 minutes watching numerous slow motion replays is just bollocks. If it's clear and obvious then it should be apparent from the first viewing at full speed. If a decision can't be made then the original decision stands and the game continues.

There's no denying that he was a great player but he's now being painted as one of the greatest to ever lace up a pair of boots and this is just ridiculous. He was never even United's best midfielder and also wasn't really used in his natural position for England. Funnily enough I don't remember anyone waxing lyrical about him like this until years after he stopped playing, almost as though there's some rose tinted glasses revisionism from some and many others just blindly repeating this. On another note, chaddy calling someone out for embarrassing comments is absolutely laughable.

For me, I think the VAR should get one replay, at full speed, from the nearest angle to which the ref had. If that isn’t enough to show an error then, in my eyes, a clear and obvious one can’t have occurred.

But surely he'd have won it once, right? If he was as good as you remember?

https://www.theifab.com/laws/latest/video-assistant-referee-var-protocol/#principles

For conspiracy theory purposes he'd appear to be on 47 appearances in all Comps according to Wikipedia.

It's difficult to define clear and obvious errors, as everyone will have their own opinion on what is clear and obvious. I think VAR is an all or nothing kind of thing - either it is used to implement the laws of the game down to the most minute detail, or it just isn't used at all. Some kind of vague middle ground is just asking for trouble and discontent. On balance I'd probably be rid of it as I think judging everything on the smallest of details goes against the spirit of the game. Football shouldn't be broken down with mathematical precision, as imo that ruins the spectacle and what makes it such a compelling sport to follow. Some of the greatest moments of lore in the game come from refereeing mistakes, good and bad. It's part of what fuels discussions and debates. Hawkeye is enough for me. If they could implement something else for blatant offsides as well, then I'd be fine with just having those as technological assistance.

Didn't we have that with Mulgrew and him being stuck on 99 appearances for ages? He made his 100th in the end and as I recall looked absolutely shot at, which might have been why!