Injury curse strikes again before Tosun rescues a point

I think things look very bleak going forward. If we don't win next weekend in the 6 pointer against Southampton then there has to be a change of manager over the next International break. It can't go on, it just can't. I have supported the manager and I still want him to succeed but if we have 12 points or less from the first 12 games then it's impossible to argue against a change.

Best wishes to Gomes in his recovery and hopefully we will see him in a Royal Blue shirt at a Premier League venue next August.

I think we would have lost that match we're it not for the horrific incident, it is sad when only the awful officiating can rouse the crowd

In the last 5 years - serious leg breaks

Brian Oviedo
James McCarthy
Seamus Coleman
Andre Gomes

It might be me being Everton biased, but I don't recall many of these types of injury in the previous 50 years, certainly not to Everton players. There was a huge fuss about a Coventry player a few years ago, then an Arsenal player more recently but we are getting one a year.

Good luck Andre, terrible luck.

The next two games against two of the three teams below us in the table are of huge significance for Silva and the club.

We have no luck. That, plus the officiating against us looks, on the face of it, corrupt, as if the authorities and pundits have it in for Everton.

But we will not be relegated. There is enough talent in the squad to keep us up. It is what happens from survival onwards that matters.

Officiating is another matter. Is there just one person on the VAR? Should be 3 IMO. No sense having it if the "1" is leaning towards a misguided sense of support for the referee.

I'm sure there would be more credibility in many comments if word such as biased, discriminatory, prejudicial and so on could be used rather than corrupt which does harbor a more sinister motivation.

I believe 'corrupt' is an appropriate term to use, given the evidence, the recent history of corruption within FIFA, and the amount of money in the game. The first provides the direct evidence, with the latter two underlining suspicions of skullduggery.

None of this implies that every official is corrupt, only that corruption appears to exist and to be widespread.

Whether the references to curruption are boring to you is neither here nor there. On that basis of repetition being boring, you could just as readily say that any political issue of substance that is repeated is boring, like racism, homophobia, etc. The question of boredom is simply not relevant.

Where is the transparency?, where is the consistency ? there is none.

It opens up all sorts of accusations and conspiracy theories.

Wishing Andre Gomes all the best with his recovery, he will get the best of the best to help him come back strong. Hopefully for pre season in July.

Next weeks game against Southampton is now crucial. Win and we have a bit of breathing space to progress.

VAR as a technical devise to help referees isn't to blame either. As we have seen, it worked in the world cup, and in several other countries. The thing that is failing is the incompetence of the referees. When you have one incompetent referee on the pitch, and yet another incompetent referee behind the screens it can only end in disaster, as we've witnessed this season...

I suppose "corrupt/corrupted" as used in the context of a computer program could be applied to the 'system' - particularly VAR - which does seem corrupted somehow, could be used. But to use corrupt in the context of "Dishonest or fraudulent conduct by those in power, typically involving bribery" (OED), is either inappropriate or just lazy use of English.

Unless one knows or suspects different of course......

It felt the same in Moyes heyday when we had three serious tendon/knee injuries in a year - Jagielka, Yakubu and Arteta 2008-2009.

It is bad luck but with so many, we certainly need to look for any similarities in how each injury was caused with a view to prevention - grass length, stud length etc?

Thomas@16: They were ones off the top of my head. As you say, 4 in the last 5 years is hard to take.

Rick - which one of our senior players is able to do the telling - seemingly none nor the manager - inept leadership on and off the field

There is no way I am trying to gloss over the Gomes horror but we can't keep using the excuses we have been using to keep Silva in the job.

We keep having "must win" games. There has to be a final "must win" game. Recently it has been West Ham at home, then it was Brighton, then it was Watford, Spurs, now we mention Southampton as the next "must win"

Winning the next game should not absolve Silva in the abject failure he has achieved since joining us. Has there been any appreciable change in performances and results ? I would suggest not.

Injuries, VAR and God knows what other excuses have been used are not good enough. We have been abysmal. We were abysmal against Spurs.

The odd five minute patch of good play here and there cannot be seen as some sort of Oxford moment.

He has to go and he has to go now.

Leaving the man to flounder on his own is pretty bad. They should have replacements in mind, if they don't shame on them. The club is nowhere, drifting towards a very bad season.

Southampton are below us and in the bottom three with a goal diff of -17, they're conceding like there's no tomorrow with the worst defence in the league.

If we can't come away with a win from them, this must surely underline to Everton's top brass that all the other poor away performances weren't flukes and the position we find ourselves in is where we deserve to be.

The value of the squad is irrelevant and the odd West Ham "better" performance is not making any difference.

This surely is that final "Must-Win" game?

"The officiating against us looks, on the face of it, corrupt, as if the authorities and pundits have it in for Everton."

Why Stan? What have refs, the authorities or pundits got to gain by 'doing Everton down?'

We haven't been 'relevant' or a 'threat' for 30 years and counting.

I've read previously that statistics support the notion that "big clubs" get the benefit of doubt on calls. I suspect that's more a case of awe-struck refs than an actual plot. I don't see why it would be in anyone's interest to target a campaign against Everton. Based on our attendances, history, and high profile derby's, isn't it financially better for the powers-that-be to keep us around?

More broadly, yes there is a lot of corruption in football with match fixing, warm balls, etc but I think it's driven by crooks seeking personal financial gain rather than a conspiracy specifically against Everton or any other club.

I hope you are correct and the Southampton game is that final must-win game. Though, in my opinion, it should have been a few games ago.

When that day of departure finally arrives and he leaves. I hope the squad of players who, have not helped matters by any stretch of the imagination, have a good talk between themselves and accept partial responsibility for his departure.

I just see the usual excuses rolled out. If we don't get a result at Southampton something will be rolled out as the latest excuse.

But really even if we do beat a totally useless Southampton team should that give Silva yet another period to turn things around? I suggest not. It just prolongs our agony.

Yes, referees are biased against us; yes, last weeks VAR decision at Brighton (I was there) was a disgraceful injustice and yes our luck is never in. But if you start out with a manager who is tactically inept then you are setting yourself up to lose.

I agree with the threat that the Southampton game is crucial. I fear gravely that Soton are about to bounce back after that humiliation against the Foxes at home and those back to back Man City defeats. If we cannot beat Southampton in their current parlous state then that should surely be that for Silva. Anyone who is still defending his leadership at this stage must be disconnected from reality.

Robbie Rensenbrink once said that in the end football is just a simple game. And yet we are doing all the really simple things wrong. Team and tactical selection being the core of those mistakes. I don't know about the rest of you but for me the solutions are obvious on the field and still our manager persists with the same losing regime.

Removing Silva won't be the magic medicine on its own to turn another miserable solution around but at least by getting in a manager who can tailor the team to where it is exactly in the league we stand (in a relegation battle, let's be honest with ourselves and stop this BS that we are too good to go down!), then we will be given a racing chance to survive and kick on next season.

We are now starting to get into the comments, "good job there are poorer teams below us" and, "Everton are to good to go down" – rallying cry of relegated teams.

Everton are in the entertainment business, and as such they are supposed to entertain people who pay to watch them, and if you don't entertain people will not pay to watch, and if the supporters monies start a dramatic decrease then the board may act.

We are a club with a great history, and so did other cubs who were relegated.

I don't like talking about the other team across the park, but the one thing that you have to admire about them, is they have a board who don't bury their head in the sand when the going gets tough. As they say, the tough get going.

The present manager Silva has been given ample time and chances to prove himself to be a successful manager in the Premier League, not only at Everton but 2 other Premier League teams and he is still struggling for consistency.
No one likes to see a manager fired, but there comes a time when the board and owner must take a hard stand and admit, they made a mistake.

This "Wait till we see how he does against the next 2 teams" is a waste of time, as he could lose them both or, win 1 and lose 1, it does not paper over what has happened in the previous league games or against who they were played against.

Teams that you watch in Premier League games are a reflection of their manager and coaches, who are responsible for their style, tactics and game management, and at the present time the present manager and his coaching staff have a failing grade.

It seems very difficult to me to be talking about the manager with what happened to the 2 previous managers, but 2 wrongs don't make a wright, and lack of ambition breeds failure. So if as they say, the board are ambitious, they have to take a hard look at whose hands they have put their ambitions in, and decide if he, or someone else, can fulfill those ambitions.

Silva can't, will not be able to pull us out of this mess we are in. I really don't think he's 100% to blame; Brands must expect flack as well but for him there will be another chance.

Brands, even though at the time his summer dealings looked good, in hindsight, they now look as though his recruitment process was flawed. Short at centre-half, short on another creative centre-midfield and short on proven Premier League centre forward and I suspect Iwobi was a panic last-minute purchase to pacify a baying supporter base. Mosie Kean was in his blue-sky strategy of buying young and selling at big profit later. Losing Gueye and Kouma was the disaster neither Brands or Silva could envisage, nor if truth to be told could replace.

Silva quite frankly hasn't got a clue on how to build a team. We are 11 games in, and 3 League Cups and who can tell me who he favours in key positions:

Coleman or Sidibe,
Mina or Holgate or Keane,
Walcott or Kean,
Delph or Davies or Schenderlein or Iwobi or Bernard,
Sigurdsson or Iwobi,
Calvert-Lewin or Richarlison or Tosun or Kean.

Does he know his best team, does he know his best formation, and with our bloody cursed team he now has lost one of his three build team players – Gomes, with Pickford and Digne being the other two. He said he only wants a small squad, now it's three short for next 6 months at least and he shows no guts in fielding a couple of youngsters who are continually being thrown his way by Unsworth.

All-in-all, a disaster season, one in which we'll be lucky to keep out of the bottom 6 let alone reaching for the top 6.

Before Sunday's game, I told one of my neighbours that the game would contain at least one pivotal decision that would go against Everton and, again, this is exactly what has happened. There was sheer amazement in our house when the penalty decision went against us and when it was in the process of being decided, everyone laughed at me when I said no penalty would be awarded. All this cannot be attributed to bad luck as it is becoming more and more regular.

Jay, I appreciate that it will never be proven that the football authorities have a bias against Everton (or any other team, for that matter) but Sunday's events make it very hard to think otherwise.

The masonic secrecy of professional referees, a perfect oxymoron, means that the great unwashed are left in not so blissful ignorance as to why, for example, inadvertently standing on an opponent's toe is more a foul than wrestling one to the ground in full view, or why the remote referee decides that the clear and obvious error of the referee on the pitch in not seeing a handball that in any other game would have been a penalty is not worth bothering about.

Bias? Yes. Incompetence? Definitely. But it's only Everton and they know it will blow over soon enough. Liverpool has a legal team three times the size of Everton's Riley knows this. Riley worries about this. He knows that if they had been the victims of such Very Arbitrary Refereeing he would feel the full force of some clever people forcing him to watch uncomfortably the video clips that show the abysmal inconsistency of his organisation. Riley worries because these people are not only clever, they are tenacious. Riley worries that his very well paid sinecure as Chief Incompetent might even come under scrutiny if this club with people who won't be mollified start talking to the Premier League administration. But Everton?

So now I read that the Premier League managers are meeting with Riley and his team, to be followed by the CEO of each Premier League team having a showdown with Riley. I'm just so relieved to hear that! A CEO who wouldn't know offside from backside arguing the toss over VAR. This is why it matters that NSNO must apply to every facet of the club if we're ever to see a successful Everton team again.

No VAR penalties for Everton full stop. Nothing will change for Everton this season or the next, then the next. LFC has always had it's own set of rules, and Everton certainly have not. For the sake of our future the club needs a new image, nasty manager and stop being The Peoples Club (whatever that actually is)

With regards to VAR, I think there is a sub-conscious fear amongst many officials about making decisions against the so called big 6. That said, Son clearly didn't help himself when challenged by Mina by doing that sort of extra flick of the leg which many players do to put emphasis on their fall.

Likewise, it must have been in the back of the mind of the VAR officials when Richarlison was brought down in the area that he'd spent half the afternoon falling over at the slightest touch. We can all see he's making a complete idiot of himself by doing it so why doesn't our manager deal with it?

Looking at the bigger picture I am genuinely worried. Southampton must be smiling that after their recent defeats they've got us next. I was at that 4-1 humiliation not that long ago, sitting with some Saints friends of mine, when Unsworth was in charge and they could not believe how bad we were and how good we made them.

Frankly, I worry we're going to see something similar next weekend. Call me negative if you want, but look at our away record under Silva. I look at our squad and I wonder where the fighters and leaders are. Where is that real mental strength?

We can blame VAR, injuries, etc., but once the decline sets in it needs a jolt to deal with it. Silva looks to me like a man who is not sure what to do. He hasn't got his old No 2 either to help him out. Very worrying.

The Bernard situation is very quiet, I hope they haven't discovered his is a seriously long term job as well...

The Bernard situation is very quiet, I hope they haven't discovered his is a seriously long-term job as well...

Link?

Bias from paid officials could be interpreted as corruption, since that bias can mean obtaining personal gain (which may include deliberately avoiding situations that lead to scrutiny by a clever legal team) under false pretences, which seems fraudulent.

So the Lord delivered: we didn't go down. Whether because it was fixed, the Lord's doing, whatever, we didn't go down. And now (and since then) this is payback.

Every slice of bad luck, every bad injury (we have struggled so much with getting decent strikers and when we got one that was content, Yakubu, he gets a game-changing injury). Every element of misfortune (strikers on a barren spell always find their form vs Everton).

Everything can be traced back to that game. We used up 2 generations worth of luck. (And I'm not saying anything about our escape a few years later when we drew 1-1 with Coventry but had drawn a match with Bolton in which the ball was over the line but the ref never gave it... that's used up another couple of generations of luck too).

Sorry but it's the only explanation.

But I can't believe more is not being said about the referee's non-call and the VAR non-call at the end of the game when Sanchez clearly fouls Richarlison as the last man. In the Brighton game, VAR went out of its way to make a penalty call for a football move most people would not have seen as a foul by Keane for the most incidental of contact and would not blame a referee for not seeing in real time.

But VAR turned a blind eye to a foul by Sanchez that, on replay for VAR, is absolutely blindingly clear. As I have heard many people chastise Everton fans about the Brighton call, a foul is a foul is a foul wherever it occurs on the pitch. HOW THE HELL WAS THAT NOT CALLED?

We can all accept that the referee would not necessarily have seen the full extent of Sanchez's challenge. But the VAR referee has no such excuse. Besides the injury, the tepid performance, and the other VAR non-calls in the match, I'm most gutted by the non-call at the very end. It is exactly the kind of call that would be made against Everton.

The combination of VAR and our continued struggle as a club is making me rapidly fall out of love with football. At least with top-level football.

I don't have a definitive list, nor the inclination to make one, but as an example – in the last 10 years or so – Arsenal lost Ramsey, Diaby and Eduardo to bad breaks, as well as Wilshere, Rosicky, Vermaelen, Cazorla, Holding, Welbeck, Walcott, Koscielny, Jenkinson, and Oxlade-Chamberlain to debilitating (and often recurring) injuries.

There seem to have been a lot of comments recently bemoaning our bad luck with injuries and our somewhat suspicious misfortunes with VAR. Tempting as it is to scream at the moon, I find myself more concerned about our bad run of managers, and our inability to build a quality side, despite significant transfer expenditure. The longer we have an underachieving side and a scaredy-cat manager, then all this breast-beating talk of hexes and conspiracies will continue.

Silva should give Tosun a run in the side. We've tried Richarlison and Calvert-Lewin up front. Richarlison is either a winger or attacking midfielder, whose behaviour is embarrassing.

Calvert-Lewin is a hold up forward. Tosun (given the service) has more to offer in the penalty area. Iwobi is a headless chicken, can't fault his effort but he's all over the place.

Moshri must be seeing what we see, a bunch of misfits with no clear direction, especially in the final third. I couldn't understand Sigurdson and Michael Keane on the bench?

Just 4points from the last 21 available to us is relegation form, without a doubt. I've spent the last 24 hours trawling through various posts on the web which refer to Everton and Marco Silva.

Almost unanimously, pundits, ex-players and many, many supporters are urging Moshiri to get rid of Silva before he drags us down to the championship. It's no good saying "There are three worse teams than us in the Premier League so we can't possibly be relegated." Does anyone really want to hang our hopes for the season on such a flimsy premise?

At the start of the season we might have expected Aston Villa and Sheffield United to be parr of the three worst teams in the league, but while we languish one place above the drop zone, Sheffield are riding high in 6th place, (where we aspired to be) and Aston Villa are level on points with us, but more significant is the fact that they have both beaten us.

One correspondent described Moshiri as "sleepwalking Everton into the championship by steadfastly sticking with his man, who is probably the worst of the managers he has so far imposed on a once great club."

Silva is naive, tactically inept and his in-game management is wholly reactive Instead of being proactive in seeking the means to pull a victory out of improbable circumstances, which top managers do, but Silva has no idea what to do to achieve this. His away record is down there with the worst Premier League managers of all time and yet we are allowing him to drag us further into the mire with every passing game, and if Moshiri doesn't act soon, it will be too late for any new manager to inspire us to climb to safety

Don't presume we're too good to go down. I'm sure Leeds Utd, Aston Villa and others before us thought the same and look what happened to them.

For God's sake Moshiri, wake up and act now, or any talk of a grand new stadium will be just that, a load of hot air and no substance

After 60 years supporting this club, this is the most worrying time I've experienced in many a year, and something has to be done, NOW, not later, when it's too late to save us.

I think we are right back to square one. Make no mistakes, it's all on the line for Marco Silva against Southampton.

Lose and he is gone, we will be back in the relegation zone with 4 points from 24 and just beaten by one of our relegation rivals.

There's always a few Billy Big Balls around who say we are too good to go down. Bullshit.

Injuries, poor tactics, poor substitutions, unable to get anything away from home, leak goals from mistakes and set-pieces every week, unable to win after going behind, Mina is an injury-time bomb waiting to go off, no regular goalscorer, record signing in really poor form and on the subs bench, VAR bias and on to of all that no luck. It all adds up to perilous danger whether you like it or not.

The timing of this match, just before the international break is significant. Marco should be in no doubt he will be fired if we lose.

Moshiri's finger is surely on the trigger.

And, amazing as it may seem, if we look at the return from this season's games alongside last season's corresponding fixtures we are actually 6 points up – 11 pts versus 5 in the 9 games!

Those issues are central to our current position since, without the biased officiating, we would very likely be in a better position and there would very likely be much less concern being expressed about Everton's internal issues. And Andre Gomes would not have a broken ankle.

The after match interviews with the managers of Chelsea and Everton are illustrative: Lampard calmly dissembles the current usage of the technology as providing no solutions but simply adding one more subjective opinion to the one expressed on the pitch while Silva talks about the referees needing help.

Needing help? Most of them need to learn that arrogance is not acceptable, football is a contact sport in which “flow” should be encouraged and that impartiality is essential on their part.

I posted earlier that I feel consciously or more possibly subconsciously that referees and the VAR officials favour the big teams. For Riley and co. these teams represent the power in English football. If one of the Manchester clubs or Liverpool gets a horrendous decision, especially in a big match, the comeback and reaction is immense. If Burnley, Brighton, or even Everton get a bad decision it's forgotten by the following Tuesday, except by their fans, and their fans are usually confined by geography to their area. Whereas, for the big teams, fans are ubiquitous.

It's not corruption, it's a working of the selfish gene looking after the officials' own interest. I think it is instinctive rather than deliberate bias, but the effect is exactly the same and Everton have been a victim of this misjudgement far too often.

Some might prefer to call it malpractice, but to me it is corruption.

I completely agree with what you say about decisions that effect the so called big teams. I am pretty sure that, if it was one of the big clubs, that decision against us at Brighton would never have been overturned. I agree that to say some refs are corrupt is taking it to far, but these refs could be influenced by things that have happened in the past which may persuade them to be lenient with some clubs than others.

Taylor who was in charge of VAR for the Spurs game, refereed us a couple of seasons back against West Ham away. I forget which of our players he sent off but we appealed and a few days later the sending off was overturned. So was any of that in his mind while reviewing any of the decisions he made on Sunday?

I was reading the other day that an official operating the VAR in the Italian league took 14 minutes to review a decision, so its not just happening here.

I was listening to an ex ref yesterday questioning why Mike Riley (one of the worst refs I have ever seen) not allow referees to check on the pitchside monitor the incident that the VAR official is looking at.

I would suggest that for VAR to work at all the VAR official if he sees something he says to ref via his headset "You might want to have a look at this on the monitor." Then the on-field ref checks his monitor to see if it requires any further action, also the fans inside the ground must be allowed to see the incident that the ref is checking.

Let's face it, if the on-field ref at the Brighton game had looked at the monitor, he would probably have stuck with his original decision but once VAR get involved he has no say in what judgement is made. So, for me, the VAR ref can notify if he has seen something but the decision must be left to the on-field ref.

I was reading the other day that an official operating the VAR in the Italian league took 14 minutes to review a decision

Any chance you've got a link to this? Seems crazy to me.

Take these similar incidents from the weekend:

Richarlison was clearly tripped in the penalty area, moving towards goal, with the ball at his feet: Premier League - No penalty, "wasn't a clear and obvious error".

Deulofeu was tripped in similar fashion (less clear cut, if anything) – and I quote from the Premier League: "The VAR identified a clear trip that impeded Deulofeu's progress in the penalty area and because no penalty was awarded on the field, the referee overturned his decision."

This sums up the lack of consistency in decision-making and the extent of the arse-covering from the Premier League. VAR is a "clear and obvious" farce.

Home crowd intimidation might be the counter-argument to this suggestion but, if a referee is likely to succumb to this, then he or she shouldn't be in the game.

I'll summarize re: VAR what I've typed 2 dozen times already.

This is supposed to (operative words) be how it's used:

Step 1: The game ref makes a call/non-call.
Step 2: VAR ref rings the game ref up to say “hey we think there might be a ‘clear & obvious' error and we're going to take a look.”
Step 3: VAR ref comes to his conclusion, rings back down to the game ref and shares his recommendation.
——
Step 4: The game ref takes it under advisement, and then uses the sideline monitors for a final review with his own eyes before issuing the final ruling.

Hopefully you can see where things break down in the EPL. Like or dislike technology‘s “intrusion” in the game, 100% of the vitriol should be directed at Mike Riley, and then the entire group of the EPL's old boys club referees.

When the game ref skips step 4, he's giving the decision authority to the VAR ref, and lo and behold, there are problems. I have no idea why EPL refs are hell-bent on relinquishing their authority and giving up whatever credibility they have left, but that's what they're doing.

Oh, and no other league has active league refs in the VAR booth. They use 3rd-party, non-biased refs. What's the sense of allowing a Lee Mason in the booth one week, working with one of his mates, then allowing him on the pitch the next week, working with a different mate? And so the cycle continues.

Sorry I'm not trying to be condescending or know-it-all-esque, I'm just trying to help some understand why it's failing so badly.

I'm still opposed to it because offside is about gaining an advantage and even in the ‘small marginal gains' of professional sport a toe nail is not an advantage.

Any other type of subjective call will have to be bundled back into Pandora's box and chained shut, deposited on Krypton and guarded by some interstellar Kraken for eternity. Leave it alone!

I've long banged on about the laws of the game, ancient and insufficient for both the modern game and to cater for the use of technology. The behaviors and cheating ushered into the game through the premier league era are now not restricted to one or two players but it's accepted practice. The laws are being exposed by technology, loopholes exist because we've not kept up with modern changes to the game. Take the handball law, it's absurd. A law should be homogeneous across the field and to both sets of players. It's now split depending on were you are on the field. Ridiculous.

Sanctions and bans should be heavier, because no financial penalty will even begin to modify behavior. On field sanctions should hurt the team in the moment, give the players cause to police themselves and keep their discipline. That's how you get players to conform, boundaries are required. If you show players that if they comply, you will get better co-operation. They will use the rules to put pressure on teams who don't.

The players, coaches and the game have completely outstripped the officials. They have been left behind and are used by all and sundry to excuse what you see on the field. Unacceptable.

They are operating with one hand tied behind their back. However we are breaking point, people who slate an official and say the fella should be rested etc. think there's a queue of people ready to replace him? 😂 How naive. The next bunch of guys are less experienced, not as good and there are fewer wanting to do the job because of the behavior of fans and players alike from the top to the bottom of the pyramid.

Failure of the sport to recognize what these people do, equip them properly and make them a valued part of the circus will have us sleep walk into a crisis were no one wants to be an official. We might be there already.

Our game Sunday was what's been coming for weeks, the premier league got a game they deserved. That game will not be remembered for two big teams struggling for confidence but for the mishandling of a game by officials who have not been given a leg to stand on. They are set up to fail, it was truly unedifying.

In the last couple of years you have (quite correctly, IMO) frequently taken to task people who posted 'if we had done x, then y would have resulted,' pointing out it was an exercise in futility to speculate so.

It's been quite a noticeable mantra of yours. That's why I find it a tad inconsistent of you in the last 48 hours to repeatedly claim that corrupt and incompetent referring was directly attributable to Gomes broken ankle. That if the officiating had been different, Gomes would not have suffered the break.

Sorry Stan, but based on your own oft repeated stance such presumed cause and consequence simply doesn't follow.

As for your repeated (and defended) claim that there is some kind of conspiracy to do Everton down, it really doesn't stand up to even modest investigation.

I will wager a pound to a penny in every band of supporters similar claims are made about their own teams, even the most successful ones.

We as Evertonians tend to primarily focus on what happens to us, and us only, in isolation.

There is also the law of immediacy, that many tend to recall the most recent events rather than take a more balanced look across for example an entire season, as well as what happens to other clubs other than our own.

Fresh in our minds currently are the perceived injustices in our last two PL games v Brighton and Spurs.

With that in mind, your (and others) claim that VAR and 'the system' favours the elite clubs over others doesn't stand up.

Check out a very recent article on how VAR has impacted on every single PL club this season. Caveat: the data does not appear to include games from last weekend's fixtures.

Link

It shows that only one club - Newcastle - has had no decisive decision overturned in any of their games.

The greatest beneficiaries of overturned VAR decisions in their favour have been Palace and Leicester (+3 each), then S'ton and United (+2).

Four clubs are on +1 - Brighton, Burnley, Watford and Spurs.

Two clubs are evens Stevens on zero, Bournemouth and the 'poo. We are bracketed on -1 with Arsenal, City, WHU, Sheff Utd and Norwich.

Villa and Wolves are -2. The team that has suffered most in overturned VAR calls is Chelsea with -4.

I would politely suggest that sort of spread makes a mockery of ongoing claims that VAR protects the elite clubs whilst punishing the rest as a means to maintain an unspoken 'status quo '.

The issues with VAR and referring in general are of basic competence, application, interpretation and intervention.

It's a considerable leap to allege corruption is primarily at play here as you do Stan, or to suggest as you have that the officiating in the Everton-Spurs game is directly culpable for Gomes' misfortune.

So it only tells a partial story. I look at Everton as -3, and 2nd to worst in the league.

Neither is directed at incompetency, but are very much directed at poor implementation, and a complete on-field decision-making submission by the game refs. Gracias for your thoughts.

We could never predict that any particular outcome will result from any particular prior condition. But what we can say, with 'practical certainty', is that if the officiating had been done properly in relation to the penalty that we should have had (but didn't have), the particular incident that culminated in a broken ankle for Gomes would not have happened.

The reason why this is important is that the improper officiating referred to was part of what appears to be systematic bias against Everton. That bias led, albeit in a way that could never be considered 'reasonably foreseeable', to an ankle break.

Of course, even if the officiating had been consistently proper, with no bias, ankles can still be broken, or other terrible injuries can occur. However, in that case, such occurrences cannot be seen as having any assignable systematic linkage. In contrast, in the case of Gomes' broken ankle, there is an assignable systematic linkage: The fact that biased officiating happened to change the course of the game in that particular way. The latter was not 'reasonably foreseeable', since outcomes are completely unpredictable. But what was reasonably foreseeable is that biased officiating, which is malpractice, increases the risk of injury to players of teams who are not favoured by that bias.

Biased officiating, malpractice (or corruption), increases the chance of injuries like that, because players in favoured teams think they can get away with challenges that they might be deterred from by proper officiating. Biased officiating like we've seen is not consistent with proper management of hazards to players.

I also clearly stated that the report didn't include last weekend's fixtures otherwise the Deli handball would have been listed.

What it does expose is a fallacy that some are trying to propagate that VAR ONLY favours an elite few.

Based on the linked data it clearly doesn't.

And IMO it's a leap too far that some are claiming that any real or perceived failing in VAR is primarily due to corruption and collusion 'twixt officials, the authorities and an elite clique of clubs.

I hold, as already stated, that confusion with VAR and referring in general results from basic incompetence, application, interpretation and intervention. NOT some secretive malevolent illuminati designed solely to keep Everton down as some are suggesting.

I mention that because it kept going to VAR on Sunday long after Prat-kinson blew his whistle. I think the rule might be that we just can't restart, although we did that at one point if I'm not mistaken.

Personally I'm philosophically opposed to technology used to correct a subjective decision taken in the heat of the moment. A referees decisions come with the tenor of the game. For example a fiercely contested game with high levels of contact referees may allow more contact. If you then review a call, you look at contact and the rule of law in the cold light of a tv screen the decision will in all likelihood be incongruent with the game. The laws are a starting point to be applied within a game not a matter of black and white ‘gotcha officiating' when it's nonsensical to do so.

From what I know and my experience involved in officiating there isn't even a set of closed questions to eliminate inconsistencies in the decision making process.
For example if the ball cannot be played by the player fouled then the review would end there. You drill down to the point we're you are left with answer.

“When you take away all things it cannot be then what you are left with the outcome” Apply that to any decision making process and whilst you might not get everything right you ultimately will be more consistent within the context of a subjective call.

The answer I believe lies not in step 4, as you outline, but in making the laws robust enough for the game that it gives the players choices which support skillful play and heavily penalize dangerous acts. In doing so players choose a better path and you will have less contentious decisions to make. As a result when players do become desperate there no surprises and it's clear what action to take. Often in a situation like this a players own colleague will castigate them for hurting the team.

Modern referees simply don't have the scope of tools to apply the right sanction on game.

You can NOT say, with 'practical certainty' (whatever the hell that is), as you claim that "if the officiating had been done properly in relation to the penalty that we should have had...the particular incident that culminated in a broken ankle for Gomes would not have happened."

To continue to speculate (because that is all it is, Stan) that it "appears to be systematic bias against Everton" does not make for a sound argument to uphold your claims.

You evidently have a bee under your bonnet about many aspects of Sunday's game Stan (and beyond). But in my eyes, you're simply not offering a credible, plausible case.

It's a tad out of the norm for you, Stan.

I see that Son's red card has been overturned.

Link

By the way, 'practical certainty' (my term), is meant to mean 'as confident as you would be that the Sun will rise in the East tomorrow'.

As I heard yesterday on Ref Watch, Stephen Warnock said Son may not feel up to play for a couple of weeks anyway, but at least he will be available, unlike Gomes.

"FIFA/UEFA will eventually conclude the scope of VAR is too great."

I'd wager any amount that will never happen.

VAR is generally considered a success in La Liga, Bundesliga, Ligue 1 and Serie A, as well as MLS. No way will it ever be dialed back. Has never happened in any league or sport where it has been deployed.

The EPL system is working like crap and badly needs adjustment, but that's all that will happen.

Keane's penalty award because a Brighton player jumped in the air still rankles. The one that really still pisses me off, Niasse's retrospective ban for the penalty he won. As far as I am aware no other club/player has suffered the same fate. There are loads more we could all add.

I won't go down the 'why us' route but we do get the rough end of the deal on too many occasions.

We may feel like the horrifying consequences are worthy of the red, but the laws of the game say otherwise, and I think this decision was inevitable. The foul itself simply wasn't a red-card offense.

The better consideration might be; is why the laws allow such a tackle to be punished with such leniency?
When a player is more than playing distance away from the ball, it would be easy to conclude any attempt to ‘win the ball' is in-fact an attempt to deliberately foul an opponent. As such the penalty for that should be far greater. Because the laws allow such a tackle, Son felt he could do so without severe sanction. I believe if the penalty was more appropriate, even a clearly pissed off Son would refrain from the tackle because of the consequences to his team.

This is a great example of why I think the laws are so far out of step with the modern game.

Let's just consider your post @ 60.

Sorry (again!) Stan, but I'm calling Occam's Razor.

To paraphrase your words, you claim that poor officiating culminated in a broken ankle for Gomes. More, that the alleged 'improper officiating' was part of a systematic bias against Everton. That this 'malpractice' increases the risk of injury to players of teams who are not favoured by that bias.

Me? Gomes was the unfortunate victim of a football incident that happens in pretty much every game of football that has ever been played. It had nothing - ZERO! - to do with a fanciful conspiracy theory you profer.

Occam's Razor? The simplest alternative of two competing theories is usually the right one.

I'm of the belief (and somewhat opinion) that reds are handed out a) for dangerous tackles from behind (this was), and/or b) tackles or fouls that impede the opposing player who "beat you" and was moving upfield. It doesn't have to be a breakaway for that, or does it?

If there had been no injury, I'm still of the opinion that it should have been a straight red. I'm right approx. 97% of the time, but I'll leave the door open that this may be in the 3% ;-)

Out of 100 of these tackles maybe only a couple get yellow cards for persistent offenders. The Palace centre mid is a master at it. The big difference is that this one has caused a major injury.

By not backing the red card the fa are condoning tackles that can lead to this sort of thing.

Spurs should be embarrassed in appealing but in a game where morals are pretty low priority it doesn't surprise me.
They probably would have had justice for Son t shirts printed if he hadn't had it overturned.

The whole thing sets such a bad example from grass roots upwards.

Guys like Stiles, Pearce, Irwin, Keane, Cattermole etc. would never have been able to play a full game under those rules.

I came out of the game on Sunday so disappointed on so many levels and on top of that there was the actual football being played.

It was like I was watching a slow motion car crash. The game that has given me so much enjoyment over the years is being ruined at almost every level.

What I'm advocating is if players feel they can do whatever they like in a professional environment, the laws aren't in syncs so they must also accept the sanction has a high price.. The laws have allowed players loop-holes to commit cynical challenges without a proper penalty. Is a red card for this too strong for some, yes, I'm sure it is. But I guarantee players would change their tackling methods, if they knew the penalty would hurt the team.

We outlawed the tackle from behind decades ago to stop defenders from clearing a player out when they could not reach the ball. Defenders now stay on their feet in this situation. It can be done and everything should be done to protect player safety and encourage more skillful play. The onus law makers to change the game to reflect modern trends, not leave the referee with one hand tied behind his back.

When it went against us, we ended up with the additional bonus of it killing our momentum.

I was very much in favour of video technology but right now I wish it had never been brought in. It's the implementation rather than the technology but I can't see how they can ever make it work and I think this might be the thin end of the wedge before they turn football into that dreadful game the NFL preside over.

The nonesense at corners has in the main dissapeared as players know pens will be given, the same thing would happen if a red was shown for players blatantly playing the man instead of "taking one for the team" its horse shit as is var.

This will be the birth of all players requiring treatment after any foul, forcing referees to dish out red cards left, right and centre. Games will start being abandoned as teams quickly go down to 7 men.

These new rules will be referred to as Son's law.

A lot of people seem to be advocating completely cleaning the game up to the point where it'll essentially become a non-contact sport. You can't give out cards based on what happens as a result of a tackle - if you do that, then football is over.

A lot of what we're seeing on TW at the moment is massively influenced by emotion, and doesn't have a huge amount of grounding in sensible opinion. No offence.

John Pierce et al would take us to a place where players are too scared to tackle. Tackles would be outlawed, only interceptions allowed. God knows what would happen if someone got injured after an interception!

I fully understand why Atkinson issued a red for Son; in the emotion of the moment - with Gomes clearly suffering a horrendous injury - it seemed appropriate.

With 48 hours passed, and Gomes having been the subject of what appears to be successful operation and a healthy prognosis, I can fully understand the decision to rescind the red card.

IMO Son's foul - in and of itself - is not deserving of a red card. The way people are split on this is ironic at a time when we are also debating VAR; it seems like the black and white world of officiating football matches has never been more grey.

If this is the way it will be, then the so called beautiful game will be tarnished for good.

And the FA are as limp and weak as they've ever been.

There are some very substantial and important issues being discussed, and the assertions about emotion seem a little dismissive.

It's best to stick with the substance of the discussions, rather than try to discern the underlying motivations.

The game will become sterile. Why have refs and linesmen ? The games will be controlled from afar.
Why have crowds ? Lets just have "canned" crowd noise and photoshopped crowd scenes.

At present VAR is an absolute joke, not fit for purpose and should be ditched. If it is decided that VAR is the way ahead then it should not be introduced until most if not all of the glitches are sorted

“Biased officiating, malpractice (or corruption), increases the chance of injuries like that, because players in favoured teams think they can get away with challenges that they might be deterred from by proper officiating. Biased officiating like we've seen is not consistent with proper management of hazards to players.“

It's not the most rational argument I've ever heard. The leaps of comprehension and conjecture are pretty big.

Mike Gaynes is correct, it's here to stay, it may well evolve, but the best we can hope for is that the Law of Averages comes to our rescue (instead of Sod's Law) and we get some dubious decisions come our way.

Many people don't want to see antics, dirty play, and officiating bias, full stop. I know I don't, and if Everton did it habitually and got away with it, I would stop watching.

If there are substantial issues, they need addressing, unless you wish to be an ostrich.

Even if they improve the decision making the spontinuty of the action will be curtailed and the game will still lose many fans.

The arguments will be doubled or trebled each game and more fans will get fed up with that, arguments equal headaches as we have seen with the pro's and cons of the Son incident.

I think the analysis at the end of your post at 60 is quite reactionary, and while it is entirely understandable given recent events - the ongoing farce that is VAR, the Gomes injury, the rescinding of Son's red card, and the general malaise running through our first team - the notion that there is some sort of organised bias against Everton (and for the Top 6) to the point that their players believe they can foul with greater impunity... I just think it sounds like you've filled in the blanks with pure guesswork. And it felt to me like emotional guesswork rather than critical thinking. That's why I made reference to it.

You'll need to do better than that if you want to engage with me in any substantial way.

I can't believe a man would need more than 3 looks to decide it wasn't a penalty, and honestly think a lot of these contentious decisions would change overnight if the man in the VAR studio had to start explaining his decisions to the ref/crowd?

I personally believe that the Rivaldo incident against Turkey in the Japan/Korea WC when he was hit in the shin with the ball and collapsed to the floor holding his face, this was the moment when the OK was given to every professional player in the world to start diving.

Rivaldo was fined � + $680 costs and allowed to carry on to the final? The problem for us (British football) is that unlike Brazil and the continent we don't have a diving culture. These days you can't win matches now with honesty, if the prem used VAR to find the cheats our players would be at a disadvantage because the wouldn't know how to dive properly in the CL and Euros and WC.

Instead of banning Rivaldo Fifa has turned diving into an accepted part of the game with the Rivaldo decision. Don't expect things to change, it's all utterly corrupt.

"The problem for us (British football) is that unlike Brazil and the continent we don't have a diving culture."

That is deliciously naive of you Rob.

Gone are the days of Labone and Kendall.

John, one small solace I take from VAR is that the Milk cup final goal line handball denying us a victory against the dark side won't (shouldn't?) happen again.

Jay, as things are now I can't argue with your observation, please allow me an addendum:

"The problem for us (British football) is that unlike Brazil and the continent we didn't have a diving culture like that of the aforementioned, until the advent of the influx of foreign 'talent'. However there was some diving but not as frequently or professionally done as now".

One thing we have to understand about these refs is that the spirit of the game means little or nothing to them, they are like lawyers looking more at the letter of the law.

I think they're like us at the end of the day basically fucking clueless what's going. They're confusing themselves with legalities.

That Dele Alli handball sums the whole thing up.

And as I've said, all we can do is sit back and hope some of these terrible decisions go our way.

I highlight that players can do what they want on field of play; dive to win your team a pen, fake an injury to get an opponent sent off, scythe the last man down or play the man not the ball.

Do what you need to do it's professional football and your paid plenty. However if you're caught, the penalty should reflect the professional length you've gone to take advantage.

Officials don't have the means to sanction the players that's why they get away with it.

Football is about staying on your feet now. That's what's coached, players are valued in skill not brawn. The games laws should reflect that.

It's old hat to claim that the English/British are somehow morally superior and above cheating on the football field.

Maybe people live in an bubble if they are UK based and have little or no idea how the rest of the world perceives us.

For example, from last year's Russia World Cup the Brazilian press took exception to how the rest of the world was mocking Neymar's antics, particularly the English media.

As a retort, on a Brazilian late night round-up program the day England beat Colombia in the quarter-finals, they showed examples of how the English media were mocking Neymar, including examples of moral high-ground grandstanding commentary pieces.

They then quoted the popular acronym applied to the English football team around Europe when it comes to football: A.B.E - 'Anyone But England' (to win the tournament) to call attention to how despised English football is by some.

From the quarter-final with Colombia - a game in which John Stones post-match declared his disgust at the gamemanship employed by the opposition - they showed very clear examples of England's own cheating in the very same game.

Ironically, this included Stones himself feigning that he had been caught in the face by a flailing arm when it was nowhere near. From memory, there were further examples of Kane, Lingard and Maguire all playing for and claiming pens when there was no or minimal contact.

So - no! Don't deflect and pretend this is a Johnny Foreigner disease, or that it is only a recent phenomenon. It has been evident in the English game and British players for 2-3 decades now.

Thank you.

I certainly went to far fewer matches in the '90s. What has sickened me has been the failure of the Moshiri regime up to now.

I had a season ticket from 1965-80, packing it up in protest at the awful football under Gordon Lee. However, unlike many relapsed season ticket holders, I never gave up going to matches altogether and with tickets harder to obtain, after a gap of 36 years, I became a season ticket holder again as soon as Kenwright sold up.

Rob @87,

The only game to rival last Sunday in wretchedness was the notorious visit of newly promoted Leeds in November 1965. The dirtiest team I've ever seen was aided and abetted by a referee even worse than Martin Atkinson.

I think you're either over a bit off-kilter with emotion, or possibly just not a particularly generous person when it comes to the benefit of the doubt. There are all manner of aspersions you've got flying around at the moment - VAR conspiracy, one player's intent to injure another, the organised bias of EPL referees - and while you consider it to be analysis I'm afraid I consider it to be unhelpful speculation fuelled by emotion. But I don't know you, so maybe I am way off; it's a useful in-the-back pocket deflection card we can all play.

As for counter-arguments - well when someone just makes up an argument based on speculation then the obvious counter-argument would be a request for evidence. Where is your evidence that any of the refereeing we saw on Sunday was biased? Inept, yes. Divisive, yes. Biased... no evidence.

Also, I am not quite sure why you keep putting the word analysis in quotation marks.

All this coverage of Son crying in the changing room. well, call me an cynical old bugger (true) but that smacks to me of guilt. He realises what he's done and he knows he's guilty. I don't believe he intended to injure Gomes as severely as he did but he certainly wanted to “get him back “ for the alleged elbow.
“He's not that kind of lad”. Really?
Maybe not, but I wouldn't trust him alone at Dinner time with a Poodle, nice lad or not.

I will bang on about this or stop watching the game I love soon if there is not more clarity given from the VAR referee, instead of the bad decisions and then the lies the next day, and I'd sooner this happened than some terrible decisions go our way Rob@117.

It all goes back to the cheating culture imo, and surely a sin-bin has got to be the next move for diving? Son might have still been on the sidelines after his little feign the other day, but until everyone accepts that a player hasn't always got the right to go down, then players are going to keep falling, and teams are going to keep losing to the cheats, including referees looking at some of the decisions that have gone against Everton in the last fortnight.

WHY CANT WE START GETTING PROPER EXPLANATIONS RIGHT AWAY, INSTEAD OF GETTING TOLD A LOAD OF ABSOLUTE PONY TOMORROW? I'm honestly convinced football doesn't want to properly clean itself up because if it did then surely an indirect free-kick in the box, would take away loads of diving right away?

So Stan, you admitted emotion getting the better of you with that earlier comment - which makes me wonder why you took issue with my comment about there being a lot of emotion swimming around discussions of the Gomes injury. I am trying to understand your point of view and get to know you, otherwise this marriage will never work...

As you say, in my reply to Mike Gaynes, I admitted I thought I'd gone a bit far in suggesting the possibility that Son was feigning emotion. I didn't apologise for it, just admitted I was pissed off, which is obviously an emotional thing. That said, none of the other posts I've written have been emotionally driven (so far as I am aware), and I've simply tried to fit together observations and interpretations from them in as analytical way that I can. I cannot ignore repeated observations (such as apparent bias), and I do tend to use terms like 'apparent', 'looks like', 'appears to be', 'on the face of it', and 'it strikes me that', rather than asserting something is so. These terms represent uncertainty even with some confidence in interpretation, and I am always ready to accept being wrong, which to me is an essence of discussion.

If you disagree with anything I've written, then feel free to analyse it, break it down, and show me I'm wrong if I am. I'd like to be wrong on much of this subject, since I'd like it if I thought there was no bias against Everton.

These are the 'rules of engagement' in my mind. I don't make personal comments, and I don't accept them, because I don't know other posters personally, and they don't know me. When a poster claims another post to be emotionally driven without evidence of it, I take it as a personal comment, and consider that you should stick to the substance of the debate. As I've already indicated, if you don't stick to the substance, you don't get to debate with me. It's that simple.

This matter of people making personal comments and failing to focus on substance is an ongoing issue on ToffeeWeb that has been discussed in some past threads.

Perhaps you know me a bit better now.

These responses were not from Evertonians, thank god, but neutrals who had watched the game. It gives a pathetic insight into the minds of many who watch football. Even the result was not important never mind the colour of the card.

You say there are all manner of aspersions flying around - VAR conspiracy, one player's intent to injure another, and the organised bias of EPL referees.

My focus has been on the 'organised bias of EPL referees' as you put it. I've not really mentioned VAR, haven't really expressed strong views on it per se, and in fact I see the problem of bias existing with or without VAR. So 'VAR conspiracy' can be struck off your list. But I'll come back to 'organised bias of EPL referees' below.

Regarding 'one player's intent to injure another player', I have never said that Son aimed to injure Gomes, but I have said that in my opinion the tackle from behind was cynical and endangering, and deserving of a red. This opinion has been part of a sensible, unemotional, discussion of the rules and their interpretation, distinguishing between endangering someone and actually injuring them. So, 'one player's intent to injure another player' can also be struck off your list.

Regarding 'organised bias of EPL referees', that can stay on your list. I believe this bias exists, because I've seen it occur so many times, and it seems to have worsened in recent seasons. So the belief is based on observation. It could be an incorrect belief, but as I say it is my belief based on observations.

In my opinion, if bias exists, it is equivalent to corruption, and this has been discussed amongst other posts that consider what people consider corruption is. Again, quite unemotionally so far as I can see.

The rules exist (at least in part) to regulate behaviours and protect players from injury. When such rules don't exist or are not applied properly, in my opinion players are at greater risk of injury. If the rules are not applied properly because the application is biased, in my opinion those players advantaged by the bias will feel more able to commit acts from which they would otherwise be deterred, and those players disadvantaged by the bias will be more at risk.

In this respect, I would say Everton players are less advantaged than players of some other teams, and correspondingly more at risk from inappropriate action by opposing players.

Now, if it could be demonstrated to me, clearly and in the face of the repeated observations I referred to earlier, that there is no bias against Everton, my concerns would disappear, I could drop this subject of bias and corruption, and focus solely on Everton's form.