Give blue a straight red
Hello my good football people… gonna kick off with the news announced last week about the trialling of ‘Sin Bins’ next season!
FFS, can these plonkers first get VAR right before complicating it all even further?
It’s madness, referees are gonna be brandishing blue cards for offences relating to cynical fouls and dissent.
Can someone explain why the yellow/red card system doesn’t work? The w@nkers behind the scheme reckon it will clean up players behaviour, much like in rugby. But football ain’t rugby, the culture is completely different and efforts to remodel culture is surely a dangerous place to be messing with?
Mind you, they’ve made quite a dent in the stands! Thankfully, for most of us here in South Africa who don’t support sides away from the EPL in England, we won’t be affected as the trials are set for lower divisions, but once they start with this kinda sh!t you know it’s coming right…
There’s been some backlash already including the accusation that players who are “blue-carded” and have to sit out for 10 minutes will get cold and this will lead to an even more injuries, but the push-back has taken rugby into account sighting that there has been no evidence of an increase at all.
We sometimes see rugby players warming up on bicycles on the side-line before they return to the field. Will this become a feature in football? As far as the actual rules go, if a player has already been booked, a blue card will mean they are sent off. Two blue cards will also result in dismissal. Guys… it’s just a further attempt to turn our game into a sanitised, almost non-contact bore-fest. Let’s hope it fails.
Talking about failure and I have to mention Chelsea’s FA Cup fourth round replay at Villa Park last week… what the f**k happened there?
They’ve only lost one in 24 in all competitions at home and have been great this season.
Along come the season’s biggest failures and smash them off the park. The Blues looked more like Real Madrid than a mid-table bunch of struggling kids!
But who knows what comes next. By the time this goes to print Mauricio Pochettino will have taken his team to Palace in what always is a tasty London derby. I usually predict Monday night games and get ’em right, but I aint confident about this one. Anyway, it’s an away win! Couple of games over the weekend caught my eye.
The knockout stage is here 🍿#UCL pic.twitter.com/O6nRBoFTZr
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) February 12, 2024
Burnley created guilt-edged chances at Anfield and on another day could have come away with a 3-3 point. Liverpool are looking decent, but it’s all a bit scatty at the moment, while City have dropped a gear and are moving steadily and professionally towards the title.
It’s strange, people are still saying the Citizens’ have fallen away from the formidable force they were? Let’s look at a fact: they have 52 points after 23 games.
That’s the same amount of points as they accumulated after 24 games last season. So shut up and stop talking ka@k.
Lights, camera, action! ⚽️#UCL pic.twitter.com/b8RhIX0cyn
— UEFA Champions League (@ChampionsLeague) February 13, 2024
Maybe their style of football has changed slightly? A little more practical, but they’re as deadly as ever and have a bench that could compete with Liverpool or Arsenal’s starting XI.
United managed to string another result! Has Erik ten Hag finally found a bit of consistency?
Well, they weren’t great at Villa, but definitely look a better ‘team’ than they have in recent times.
It’s back to Champions League action tonight and on Wednesday, before another weekend of Premier League action, with the stand-out fixture, Man City against Chelsea on Saturday night.
Would I take a point, yes of course I would!
Last word goes to Afcon… and well done to Bafana Bafana, third place is more than we were expecting and although I don’t think we looked particularly strong it’s something to build on.
Congrats to the Ivory Coast, loved seeing Didier Drogba so passionate in the stand!
Go safe people, chat next week, bye byeee…
dailyvoice@inl.co.za