“Pretty much” level isn’t level. He was offside; if a part of his body he can play the ball with is in an offside position then he is offside.
The penalty was not in any way a deliberate handball and therefore not a penalty. There are almost no deliberate handballs over the course of a season and there are far, far too many given. The player has to intend to handle the ball.
Two correct calls.
We'll have to agree to disagree on that. The only part of his body which was clearly offside was his arm, which he can't play the ball with (unless he's James Milner apparently). His feet were level.
Even so, he was only offside if the ball came off the Town player. I've watched it over and over and can't come to a firm conclusion. One would hope that if VAR was available, the video referees would have multiple angles at a higher resolution.
On the other issue, if a footballer earning six figures a week can't control a ball and avoid playing it against his own hand, he isn't really justifying that pay cheque.
In reality I'm just bitter. Whether the calls were correct or not is immaterial anyway now. It's frustrating when we've matched the Champions League runners up for large parts of the game and got nothing to show for it. I do hope Herr Wagner will be keeping them all back late into the evenings to practice shooting, heading and general decision-making... because that aside, we're not far off.
At least if we go down we won't be getting patronised every week on MOTD... silver linings eh?
