🚨 Carragher on Manchester City’s goal against United being given after a VAR check:
🗣️ Carragher: “They’ve checked Haaland and decided he’s onside. Brilliant. Nobody was asking about Haaland.
Look at Enzo Fernandez .
He’s standing offside when the ball comes in. Martinez has to deal with him because he’s right there challenging for the ball. He doesn’t have the luxury of saying, ‘Don’t worry, Enzo is offside, I’ll leave this one.’
He tries to deal with the situation, the ball goes beyond him and it falls to Haaland.
Then VAR comes along, draws the line on Haaland and says goal.
Well done. You’ve proved the man who finished the move was onside. Now perhaps check why the ball reached him.
That’s the bit I don’t understand. If Enzo isn’t standing there, Martinez deals with the cross completely differently. So how can we say he hasn’t affected the play simply because he didn’t touch the football?
By that logic, just stand five yards offside in front of every defender. Don’t touch the ball. Make him deal with you, let it run through to somebody who’s onside and apparently you’ve done nothing.
That’s not football.
Sometimes VAR looks so closely at the final frame that they forget there was a football match happening before it.”
🚨 Peter Schmeichel on Senne Lammens:
🗣️ Reporter:
“I think Lammens should’ve done better there.”
🗣️ Schmeichel:
“Football doesn’t work like that. People judged one moment. I looked at everything before it. Senne hadn’t played a single minute in this World Cup. Then all of a sudden he’s facing Spain in a knockout game after Courtois goes off injured.
Goalkeepers also need rhythm. They need confidence. I didn’t see a goalkeeper who wasn’t good enough. I saw one who was asked to replace the best goalkeeper in the world in Belgium’s biggest game of the World Cup after spending the entire tournament on the bench.”