gotta love harry...

[Gamma]

http://soccernet.espn.go.com/news/st...ngland&cc=3888

[Peter R]

What about Fergie.."... I think Nani felt he had handled the ball..." LOL that's about as a guilty plea as you will ever get from the old dog...

Unfortunately, Gomes should have played the whistle in spite of head and hand signals... the truth is I am convinced history will show where calls have been made by the ref without him going for the whistle...

now wouldn't a fourth official video replay just set everything right?? wouldn't it Sepp and Michel and whoever the head of the FA and the EPL are?

[Gamma]

perhaps but this is a straight case of playing the whistle ..... maybe a player shouldn't stop playing because he thinks there has been a foul...play the whistle. how many fouls and handballs have not been called?!!

[Peter R]

yes, but... there are handballs and there handballs; the key thing in my call for video replay is when a goal results from the call or non-call. If there were a replay that showed there was in fact an infringement that the ref missed and that the player may have had some reason to act the way he did.... just think how a whole nation was robbed by Henry; a simple replay check would have fixed that... maybe I see things a little too black and white? or maybe that should be in colour...

[Gamma]

who determines whether a play should be reviewed?

[Paul Marin]

yes, but... there are handballs and there handballs; the key thing in my call for video replay is when a goal results from the call or non-call. If there were a replay that showed there was in fact an infringement that the ref missed and that the player may have had some reason to act the way he did.... just think how a whole nation was robbed by Henry; a simple replay check would have fixed that... maybe I see things a little too black and white? or maybe that should be in colour...

Pedro, it all depends on how the technology would be applied. If it is done in a manner where the ref on the field can be summarily over-ridden, then Nani's hand ball infraction would have been called and this would have been a non-event. However, if the on field ref has the final say, then I don't think technology would have had any impact in this situation. I say this because the linesman raised his flag. One can reasonably assume that he was telling the ref that there was a hand ball; one can further assume that the ref may have said something like "yes, but I didn't blow the whistle, ball is still in play" and then proceeded to award the goal...not much different than a replay.

The point is that introduction of technology will have to also have guidelines around it that may or may not remove the folly of situations like this one.

[Peter R]

According to Bruce, in ice hockey any goal is reviewed as a matter of course... football doesn't have to reinvent the wheel.

Refs on the field IMO wield TOO MUCH power on the outcome of the game, and when there is so much riding on many of these big games why not give the ref some real assitance that is readily available without even spending a dime?