Oxford United v Torquay United - 9/4/12

[ferrarilover]

Eunan is ONSIDE. The position of the goalkeeper is irrelevant. Law 11 - a player is offside if he is nearer his opponents goal line than both the ball and the second last defender at the time the ball is played. This is the Prima Facie rule, there are riders to this, but none are relevant here.
The salient point is that to be offside, Eunan MUST be nearer the OxforD goal line than the ball when Rene passes it to him. Freeze frame the FLS and see that Eunan is clearly level with Rene when the ball is played. Another piss poor decision costing a team two valuable points.

Oxford's first is A) Hugely lucky (no complaints, just an observation) and B) A very clear foul by Rendell on Bobby.

Bobby at fault for their second, he came then stopped. Having come that far, he needs to fly out with his fists and just do what he can. As we saw, if the striker gets it, it's in.

Morris is VERY unlucky. They both go for the ball, it's not dangerous, and their bloke gets as much of him as he does of their guy. Their bloke then retaliates, so really, if anyone goes off, it's the Oxford guy.

I said it at the time and I stand by it now, Tai's shot is going over when ye keeper palms it in, cheers then.

Matt.

[Dutchgull]

I saw it clearly listening on the radio ...definately onside. We was robbed......

As for Rendells foul....

[HarrowGull]

It's already been worked out that it's because of there being only one player behind the ball. So it is offside.

As a referee myself, you can't be offside if you are behind the ball when it's played, no matter how far ahead of the second-last defender you are.

[cambgull]

Just re-looked at your picture from the FLS earlier, and yes, you are correct.

Either way, there's not really much we can do. The referee won't be punished, neither will the linesman. It's really not worth dwelling on because the FA have it set up perfectly so that none of their staff can ever be wrong about anything, ever.

We are where we are through hard work and determination. The end of the season will boil down to whether hard work and determination will overcome exhaustion, injuries and goal difference. I hope it does.

[HarrowGull]

Eunan is ONSIDE. The position of the goalkeeper is irrelevant. Law 11 - a player is offside if he is nearer his opponents goal line than both the ball and the second last defender at the time the ball is played. This is the Prima Facie rule, there are riders to this, but none are relevant here.
The salient point is that to be offside, Eunan MUST be nearer the OxforD goal line than the ball when Rene passes it to him. Freeze frame the FLS and see that Eunan is clearly level with Rene when the ball is played. Another piss poor decision costing a team two valuable points.

Oxford's first is A) Hugely lucky (no complaints, just an observation) and B) A very clear foul by Rendell on Bobby.

Bobby at fault for their second, he came then stopped. Having come that far, he needs to fly out with his fists and just do what he can. As we saw, if the striker gets it, it's in.

Morris is VERY unlucky. They both go for the ball, it's not dangerous, and their bloke gets as much of him as he does of their guy. Their bloke then retaliates, so really, if anyone goes off, it's the Oxford guy.

I said it at the time and I stand by it now, Tai's shot is going over when ye keeper palms it in, cheers then.

Matt.

As a referee (I keep saying this :P), I think the second yellow for Morris was fair enough. But the player he fouled then shoved him in the face, and the ref bottled the red card that should have followed.

[Gazzableedsgull]

The phrase "it evens it's self out over the season" comes to mind .. well its got 4 games so it better bloody hurry up then!

[bobby93]

An eventful game that others have summed up very well. I think, given the circumstances, we have to accept a point and move on. We would have all been gutted to come out of that experience with nothing. It may yet turn out to be a crucial point.

[Priory Oxford]

Morning, firstly thank you to all the fans who came over to the pub. You were very well behaved and entered into the days events superbly, a credit to your club. How did you find the pub? All feedback is appreciated!

As for the game itself. First half you looked superb. You worked the ball around superbly and we were lucky to go in only 1 down. One of the best we've had up here all season. Impressive noise from the away end as well.

Second half I thought Rendell changed the game for us, everything stuck with him and he brought our wide players into the game.

As for the sending off I thought it was harsh. The tackle itself was a 50/50, honest l2 challenge. The reactions of both was stupid. Would have been better if the ref gave them both a talking too rather than issue a yellow and a second yellow for your man.

Anyhow I wish you all the best for the season for me you, Shrewsbury & them down the road will go up in the autos.

P.S how is the dancer? The chap in the Manchester Unites shirt?! He certainly enjoyed the band!

Regards.

[bobby93]

^ I hope we do go up in the autos, I'm not sure I can take another Playoff lottery. Sounds like a good atmosphere in the pub, shame the coaches got held up really. Would have enjoyed a couple of pre-game beers.

Just a couple of points following the FLS which I've just watched.

Oxford's first goal: Pretty sure Rendell is making it very difficult for Bobby to get to the ball, I think some refs would have called foul and others would have turned a blind eye. No surprises which ours chose to do. The wind has obviously not helped our Bobby either - the lack of a fourth stand as a shield means the wind had a huge part in a lot of the aerial activity.

Morris sending off: They didn't show the first challenge but at the time I remember thinking it was more clumsy than dangerous, the ref's obviously chosen to issue a yellow to calm him down. The second yellow was a 50/50 ball and although they both got yellows, I don't think either were going in particularly dangerously. The reaction made it more than it was.

The offsides: This is tricky. If you freeze frame it, they're undoubtedly level. I think, however, that Rene's pass is a forward one as it is pretty much on target. So therefore, should Eunan have left it? Should Rene have been more precise with his pass to make sure it was backwards/sideways? Either way I sadly think that the linesman has made a brave call and might be right. The first offside wasn't shown and I was just as confused by that. I know we were down the far end, but it did look like the two were level. I'm guessing not, as no noise was made about it really.

Like I said earlier, given the circumstances we have to be happy with a lucky 90th minute goal and a point. Coming home with nothing would have made for a very long coach journey.

[royalgull]

That was comedy genius, especially when it looked all a bit much for him at one point!

As for the game, mixed feelings. Would have taken a point beforehand but I felt we should have been home and hosed before Oxford scored and although you have to look at it as a point gained, with the others winning we are back to relying on them mucking it up again ultimately.

3 of the 4 goals were down to errors, sadly Rene's 2nd was disallowed because that would have been another class goal, Eunan's goal I felt should have stood and watching MOTD last night and seeing Cisse's stand just made me a bit more cross that ours didn't. For me Rene has squared it to Eunan and he's bundled it in. It didn't go forward and that's the key thing. Having said that Rene should have scored the first chance and it would have been game over.

it took a freak goal for them to score, after that it was all Oxford and Bobby made some saves Saah made a tremendous block as well but when they scored I thought we were done for.

I don't have any complaints with Morris' red card on a booking he's lunged in but their bloke did the exact same thing, he's then raised his hands and caused the melee. They both should have gone, Morris for a 2nd booking and their guy for raising his hands. At best he should have got booked for the tackle and then another yellow for raising his hands and at worst a straight red.

Shame because i thought Morris was good yesterday and we need as fewer disruptions as possible. Oxford time wasted over every throw (the ballboys wouldn't chuck us the ball at times) it was clear their keeper was injured he would hobble over pick the ball up, place it down and then call someone else to walk slowly over to take it, it's cheating ultimately. Killing time is part of the game when it's done properly. As frustrating as it is to see a striker hold it up in the corner, win a foul or throw in and kill time there is a skill in that and it's good professional play. Delaying the game when it's out of play however constantly is not in the rules. The gutless terrible referee we had yesterday never stamped it out, and for that alone we deserved a late goal. Dunno if it was going in but their keeper should have saved it but hey ho we take everything we can get at the moment.

The worry is we have 3 or 4 walking wounded, 2 or 3 out of form at the wrong time and the others have much favourable run ins. We can do it but I think we are going to need at least 3 wins out of 4.

[Aussie]

I find it remarkably funny that some folk don`t have a clue about the off-side law, even the officials! 8/

[Scott Brehaut]

Looks offside to me to be honest.

There is only one defender behind the ball (and in actual fact off the field of play, but that's beside the point), and Eunan also appears to be nearer to the goal line than both the ball and the second last defender.
The fact that the freeze frame on here isn't that obvious shows that it was nigh on impossible in the normal passage of time to make a shrewd judgement. The referee (and assistant) will usually always, in cases like this, back the defending team.

[Aussie]

I find it remarkably funny that some folk don`t have a clue about the off-side law, even the officials! 8/

Oh by the way I was generalising, not neccassarily talking about that issue against Oxford!

[Forest gull]

Not offside if he's behind the ball when it's played......

[miltonkeynesgull]

Slightly clearer screenshot.

My understanding in this instance is that Eunan is only offside if he's in front of the ball as it gets played , and he clearly isn't. Pretty much bang in line with it yesterday and it looked onside too.

Still, no point complaining about it now. We got a point and a valuable one it could be.