Carroll clash backs my call for change
I AM sure I am not alone to watch in my impatience re-match. It is the Groves vs Froch Two great fighters going to be some event. battling for going toe to toe, nose to nose, and the title. vs as we await the Liverpool It is a similar feeling a prospect. Man City game. What to be a again and promises Anfield is buzzing City are a are just ahead. But cauldron today. Liverpool big enough players who are certainly big club now with to handle the pressures. a feel-disappoint. But I have These games so often this one. might play to win ing that both clubs e for them that the title is ther Liverpool will know it. City will they will go all out for to win, so I think and need big performances know that big games to deliver one. they will be planning I destination for sure. The armchair is my won’t be missing a minute. is gonna be I have a feeling this hot! ON Tuesday night at Griffin Park I had the pleasure of watching Brentford perform. I have to admit to being jealous of a club that can bring Marcello Trotta off of their bench! But I have to take my hat off to the outstanding quality of football they played. They will unquestionably go up this season; a fantastic reaction to last season’s disap-pointment. double And with the football they are playing, you would have to believe they can follow Bournemouth’s lead in the Cham-pionship. They are scintillating.
How on earth can football continue to ignore technological solutions as support structures to decision making? Last weekend’s error that incorrectly allowed West Ham an equaliser against Liverpool could so easily have decided the Premier League title. That is crass in this day and age.
Just to emphasise and highlight the farce, West Ham were busy playing a replay on a big screen as the Liverpool players correctly protested about Andy Carroll’s challenge on goalkeep Simon Mignolet.
Big moment; big decision; time to consult the fourth official and his video playback. There really isn’t an argument against it. Forget the detail of how it works. The basic principle that avoidable errors of magnitude should be avoided simply must be established and followed through. I am sick to death of hearing refs berated by those armed with the footage the refs need. Enough is enough for me. The game must evolve.
There has been strong opposition to arguments that I have presented in the past abound the introduction of technology. The biggest one is that I am in some way trying to ‘Americanise’ the game or change the sport we all love.
The trouble is that the world has spun.We cannot pretend it hasn’t. We used to send letters, now we just text. Within an hour, we can exchange a month’s worth of letters from one side of the world to the other. The game cannot live in a time warp.
I am not asking to introduce two extra goals on either side of the halfway line! I am suggesting that we help refs and get the big decisions right. I am suggesting we make the game fairer. The only danger is that home advantage might not be as big an advantage any more!
As things stand, we all just sit back and batter refs week after week while UEFA hang them out to dry. It is time for change. Football should not be behind tennis, cricket and rugby in modernising. This is 2014. Not 1914.