Man Utd should get rid of JJ Gabriel; ‘no d***heads’ policy extends to kids and dads

· Football365

JJ Gabriel and Manchester United dominate the narrative as the ‘no d***heads’ policy really should extend to family.

2) tell him he’s prime Ollie Bierhoff , or failing that, Ollie Watkins. Or at the very least Ollie Macburnie.

He’s clearly paying attention to you.

Johnno Yet more on VAR In my day job I’ve found it’s better to say the magic three words “I don’t know” than to just blag it. This will usually raise a few eyebrows once you start trying to show expertise on something you clearly don’t have because most of the time the people in the room are smarter than you. This is why I feel VAR is an abomination, a walking hulk trudging its dirty power hungry hooves through the beautiful game, because none of the officials feel comfortable saying the magic words “I don’t know”.

Once the VAR train starts rolling, at every step of the process no-one seems to stop and say “this is too hard” whether it’s imposter syndrome or the pressure from their peers. They seem to feel they have to make an informed decision and it needs to be the correct one. Fans are like my colleagues, they’re smart and knowledgeable in football so I don’t know why the officials think they can pull the wool over our eyes with their incompetence. I reckon most fans would actually be ok if they just said “I haven’t a clue what to do with this one, let’s play on”.

There are three ways VAR can go now, scrapped altogether and go back to crappy refs making bad decisions in an uninterrupted game. Keep it, but make it a challenge system like tennis. Put a timer on it, if they haven’t come up with the goods in 60 seconds then it’s not a “clear and obvious error.” Just do something with it, cause the current system is total shit.

Jamie M MUFC …Football is just better without VAR. The game becomes more visceral so when Szoboslai bangs one in from 40 yards like he’s prime Stevie you focus on taking your shirt off and running around the living room whilst hoping not to wake the kids. I’ve genuinely found in the past few years I don’t celebrate or get excited by goals the majority of the time anymore. What’s the point when you know someone is going to rewatch it looking for any reason to disallow?

I found refs infuriating and definitely called for the introduction of VAR but this system is just balls. If they’re desperate to keep it allow both teams one review a half. No actual VAR; ref gets sent to the monitor to rewatch an incident. He can only watch it in live speed but can see multiple angles if available. Mic goes live and he explains what he saw to the crowd in real time and his final decision.

Liked watching Koumas press tonight like he was the boy desperate to not go home alone at 1am at a party. Was all over everyone, everywhere. I am already a big fan of McConnell and Nyoni and neither put a foot wrong.

Finally, Liverpool might be dreadful again this season or we might be good but either way I think Jacquet is looking like a real bit of quality. He’s so elegant whilst also aggressive and strong. What a delightful little bit we have found ourselves.

Minty, LFC …OK, this is prompted by the VAR error at the weekend but I’m not going to add to that debate. VAR clearly has its problems but one area where I feel it has made both big improvements and steps backwards is with regards to offside. Pre VAR, offside was probably one of the most contentious on field decisions as it was not subjective like all the penalty calls and pretty clear to see post game if an injustice occured.

VAR actually improved the offside officiation with a lot more right decisions being made but has still made a couple of howlers (notably one against Utd and one for them not long ago too as mentioned).

I think the issue is actually that since VAR’s introduction the governing bodies keep tweaking laws which add confusion and subjectivity which in turn adds to the chance of human error.

Why does offside allow an attacking player to be onside if they are deemed to not be interfering with play? Why is there not a similar rule whereby a defender who is not interfering with play would not be keeping an attacker onside? I’m being facetious there so please don’t answer that… My real problem with “interfering with play” is that what the hell is someone doing on the pitch, let alone in the penalty box if he is not interfering with play. Just make the offside rule simple and say it applies to all players whether they’re on the ball, off the ball or busy taking a selfie. If they’re on the pitch getting paid 100K plus a week then they damn well better be interfering with play.

That would make the offside rule much easier to officiate, much easier for players and fans to understand and take seconds instead of minutes to decide (it could actually be done real time like goal line tech).

I’m sure you could improve VAR in other areas with this philosophy of simplifying what it can and can’t officiate but we probably won;t see that as this world now runs on controversy so we need the clickbait of contentious decisions to keep the clicks coming in. Heaven forbid all the decisions were right, we’d then have to discuss the actual football.

Jon, Cape Town …Just heard the VAR audio and associated Howard Webb/EMO waffle. The excuse is breathtaking – Webb saying “the VAR got so super focused on Haaland” that they missed Enzo Fernandez. More breathtaking still though is that, unlike everyone else in the world with functioning eyes and more than one brain cell, professional referees with the benefit of multiple replays didn’t even mention him!!!

I would wager that every warm body that frequents this site not only saw it, but also managed to remember the particular episode of the endless offside rule f\kery these last few years that made it off bleedin’ side. It’s f\king woeful. If I, or anyone else here in gainful employment, made such a basic error with such potentially huge consequences, their feet wouldn’t touch the ground as they were drop kicked out of the back door. With the ever increasing number of litigious American owners in the PL, someone soon is going to sue too, and whilst this is the last thing the PL needs, I actually wouldn’t blame them. Even if you factor in the obvious and completely unnecessarily rushed nature of the fool who was the lead video assistant referee here, IT’S FKING OBVIOUS MATE!

Per your recent article , there’s an ever growing list of these so it’s not even a partisan issue either (sit down Mikel, Ballard doing exactly the sly shit you tell your lot to do only better is a different and more complex matter entirely).

Yeah it was hilarious given the context, and Man U are so shite it would probably have made no difference to the outcome, but the fact the buffoons in the VAR bunker are so spectacularly inept is totally unacceptable. Compare and contrast this clusterfuck with the metronomic, calm, repeatable, consistent audio in rugby’s version of VAR. Webb saying they have processes is laughable. This eejit was just panicking and making it up as he went along.

It’s an absolute scandal and yet another nail in the coffin of premier league football in 2026. Fuck the refs, you’re supposed to be competent and professional enablers, invisible enablers preferably. Webb needs to resign and let someone with some ability sort the whole sorry mess out.

RHT/TS x (This is too serious for brackets flippancy) …Quick, quick, quick, quick, go, go, go ,go go……..and it still took 3 minutes!

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