Spurs vs City - the aftermath

I take quite a philosophical view about football matches - the way I see it you win some, and you lose some, and if you can win more than you lose you're generally doing ok.  

Of course there are always talking points but more often than not these days, and unfortunately I must say, those talking point seem to revolve around the decisions of the referee rather than the football itself.

Take yesterday's match between table-topping Manchester City and third placed Spurs.  A Spurs win would have put them ahead of Manchester United, albeit only until United's later match against Arsenal.  

As a Spurs fan I considered that as much as a win for us would have been a great thing, this was a game where we could actually go out and play, and believe it or not, not be under pressure.  City had demolished us 5-1 at White Hart Lane on the opening day of the season and whilst Spurs have improved considerably since then, City have hardly stood still, setting new benchmarks for both themselves and the Premier League.

Talk of Spurs winning the title was, I always believed, premature, and whilst it is an admirable ambition to strive to reach the highest you can, we should in no way be disappointed with a 2nd or even 3rd place finish which in itself would be beyond our expectations at the start of the season.  The danger is that having tasted the wonderful free-flowing football and the success it has, up until this point, brought us, fans will lose sight of where we started and start to somehow view not winning the title and losing ground to the Manchester clubs as some kind of failure.

As it happened, Spurs narrowly missed out.  After a wonderful fightback from 2-0 down a 95th minute penalty gave City the points - final score 3-2.  

The talk, however, has been all about Balotelli, the scorer of that penalty, being allowed to remain on the pitch following an apparent stamp on Tottenham's Scott Parker's head.

To be honest, I don't want to go there.  I don't like what he did to Parker and don't condone it in the slightest.  But neither am I a Tottenham fan looking for an excuse, or a reason to complain.  We can always look for "what if's" in matches but the fact remains that King brought Balotelli down, conceded a penalty, and Balotelli still had to score it.  It could have been a foul on another striker, and someone else could have scored it, and so on.

And Spurs had a great chance to win it themselves only minutes earlier, with another storming run and low cross by Bale, met by the outstretched foot of Defoe who toe-poked the ball literally inches wide.  Lots more what ifs, of course.  What if Bale had played the pass a fraction slower, or a foot further behind?  What if Defoe hadn't ever so slightly adjusted his run towards the centre of goal but had continued dead straight, so he could connect fully with the ball?

These things can be debated to death but one thing, for me, was beyond argument.  Spurs showed some steel to go with their style and their resilience in not only keeping their heads up and coming back from 2-0 down but then not being afraid to take the game to City and press for the winner was a delight to watch.

I, for one, would much rather be focusing on that, than to become embroiled in the whole row about Balotelli's antics.  The authorities may or may not deal with him but nothing's going to bring the points back from yesterday and I would always rather to look forwards than back.

City took the points but to win a game with a bundled second goal and a penalty doesn't scream "we're the better team".  Spurs fans, myself included, have absolutely nothing to worry about and maybe, just maybe, yesterday's disappointment will serve only to fuel a run of form in the second half of the season as good as, if not better, than the first.

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It's a Sin...

The idea of a "sin-bin" is not a new one and from time to time the idea of bringing it into football is floated, especially given that it is used in other sports.  It's one of those ideas that periodically pops up at the back of my mind, and after sports journalist Henry Winter of The Telegraph asked the question on Twitter today, it prompted me to again take another look. 

This does tie in with Luis Suarez's eight game ban, and the question of whether a punishment fit the crime. As they say, justice must not only be done but be seen to be done, so we need to look at whether the current system does adequately legislate for on the field offences, and whether it does so fairly.  If a sin-bin system can improve upon what we already have and fill a few gaps, then there is no reason not to seriously consider it.

If you're still wondering what a sin-bin is, then essentially we're talking about taking a player out of the game for a defined period of time, during which they sit on the bench/stands (the "sin-bin") and after which they rejoin the game.

Without going into the detail of the Laws of the Game, broadly speaking the yellow/red card system operates as a scale, such that minor offences (eg. timewasting, persistent fouling) receive a yellow card (a "booking") whereas major offences (eg. violent conduct) receive a red, and a sending off.  

It also operates on a "warning" basis, such that any player who has received a booking who subsequently receives another, also receives a red card and is sent off at that point.

Up to a point the system works well, and for the most part the "dual penalty" system has stood the test of time.  But there are two problems which remain:-

1)   A player can be sent off at any time in a game.  At the extremes this could be in the first few seconds, or in the final minute of injury time.  The offence may be the same, the punishment the same, but the practical effect is vastly different.  A team who has a player sent off in the first minute plays the whole match with 10 men, whereas the team who has a player sent off right at the end of the game might barely be affected.

2)   Where a player commits a foul there is already some grey area as to whether a yellow card should be given in the first place.  According to Law 12, *persistently* infringing the laws of the game is a yellow card offence, so what happens if it's your first foul?  Admittedly FIFA's guidance for referees on interpretation does distinguish between "careless" tackling and "reckless" tackling, the former warranting only a free kick, the latter requiring a yellow card, but in practice can the difference between carelessness and recklessness be easily recognised?  A player may make a careless tackle that the referee doesn't like, receive a yellow card, and then seconds later after protesting his innocence receive a second yellow card and be sent off. Because of the finality of a sending off, he and the whole team are excessively punished for a few moments of what is essentially innocent exchange.

In my view we need to ask how the sin-bin would solve, or at least mitigate these problems, for it to be a genuine contender.  

First of all, I think it would eliminate the huge difference between first minute/last minute sendings off. Let's say that we agree on a period of 15 minutes.  This will apply equally at any point during the game right up to the 75th minute, after which it becomes progressively less of a punishment as there are less than 15 minutes remaining anyway (not counting injury time).

So, it's not a perfect system, because there is still a difference between being "binned" in the 10th minute and in the 80th minute, but it's not so much of a huge difference between playing 1 minute or 89 minutes.

Secondly, without the finality of a red card, it allows a "cooling off period", during which a player who is perhaps getting a little hot-headed can be taken off, reflect for a while, then come back in and make a fresh start before emotions get the better of him.

Thirdly, it takes away some pressure from the ref.  Where a player has already received a yellow card, perhaps for a "technical" offence such as timewasting, then the ref has a dilemma because any subsequent bookable offence will result in a red card.  The ref has basically two choices - give the second yellow, and perhaps unduly punish the player and his team, or let it go unpunished and incur the wrath of the opposing team, manager and fans.  Neither option is particularly attractive or conducive to maintaining on the field relations or respect for the referee.  By allowing the ref to take a player out of the game for a short time, everybody "wins" as it were, and at least the player knows he can come back in and redeem himself. 

I'm not saying do away with red cards, but I think these have to be for "malicious" offences  such as violent conduct or spitting, or complete recklessness in challenges.  In my view a red card isn't just a technical sanction, it also carries a stigma.  The "walk of shame" is more than just an procedural event, it speaks, on some level at least, as to that player's professionalism and reputation.  For that reason I don't particularly like the idea of a player being sent off for what might be two rather innocent events, as explained earlier.

Of course, if a player has been sin-binned and offends again, perhaps for the third time overall, then you might argue fair's fair and it's time to go.  Two cautions might be bad luck, three starts to demonstrate a pattern.

Or one might consider progressive time periods, say 10 minutes for the first offence, 20 for the second, 30 for the third.  Over 90 minutes if a player keeps offending he'll most likely miss most of it anyway, so we achieve a similar result to the red card whilst still balancing things up.

Bottom line, I like the idea and it needs to be considered seriously.  The real sin is refusing to consider change at all.

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