Sounds like they’re thinking of implementing the “Wenger Rule” i.e instead of the attacker needing to be fully behind the defender to stay onside he can stay onside if he’s all but fully in front of the defender.
The idea is to give more an advantage to the attacker and disallow less goals.
To me it makes absolutely no sense, and I don’t understand how people buy into this kind of rule change not understanding that all it does is move the boundary for offside.
Those people who incessantly complain about “toenail calls” would still be whining with this new rule as an attacker has his heel keeping him onside by a cm.
The other thing I see with it, is it only makes it worse for an attacker to stay onside. Why? Because, with the current rule he can look down the line to time his run perfectly. With the new rule change, you can’t see what’s behind you and where your body is in relation to the defenders, so it’s only going to be more frustrating and luck based at times from the attacker’s perspective.
All in all, I don’t really see the point of this rule change. All it serves to do is move the margin slightly while potentially making things more confusing.
The current rule is perfectly fine. What we really need is automated offsides. We have the same concept when it comes to goal line calls and no one has an issue with the close calls there because they’re called correctly 99.99% of the time, so what’s the issue with having the same for offline calls? Get the technology in now and be done with it.
Alvaro Morata will get the ballon d’or if this rule is implemented.
Jokes aside whatever they do with offsides will have a profound impact on the game. I hope VAR will be more streamlined and automated in the future, watching players celebrating only to get goals disallowed 2-3 times per game is getting a bit ridiculous.
its not offside if they is no ‘daylight’ between the defender and the attacker
It’s probably difficult to implement, but it would be nice if having scored with your left foot, you weren’t given offside because of your shoulder.
Arsene Wenger was an outstanding manager, but most of his rule ideas are absolutely woeful. He wanted to get rid of throw ins too at one point. The new rule will bring even more issues that the current one
Dude is a lunatic in some respects.
aspects*
I’m not in favor of changing the current rule.
Just moves the line to a different place
The purpose of the rule is to score more goals. That’s it.
The knock-on effect will be less high line defending as defenders will find it harder to step up on the offside trap. This in turn will beget more bunker-type defending, which will drive down scoring and make the game more boring as teams pass the ball around the arc over and over and over again.
I fail to see how scoring .0368143 more goals per game is worth it.
Totally agree. My immediate thought was that if this goes through, the style of defending and pressing currently employed will no longer be possible. The game will become much less exciting. No matter where you draw the line, there will still be people moaning about it because it’s a line. I’m a Liverpool supporter and Klopp’s style would be out. Should call it the Allardyce rule.
I think you need to pick an obvious point, such as the leading foot, and use that as the measuring point. Forget is a players arse or nose is fractionally ahead. Measure attackers forward foot vs defenders. Also need a more accurate measure of when the ball has been struck for said offside. Currently VAR cannot get.mm level accuracy so it shouldn’t be called to make mm decisions.
I’ve always been for simplifying offside to feet. Attacker’s front foot vs defender’s back foot. The whole point of offside was to prevent not only goal hanging but also preventing attackers from getting a head start on runs in behind. To me, it’s all about feet, and while leaning over is conceptually offside, it just seems counter to common sense.
I think feet are the worst way to judge because they are the fastest moving part of the body and there are two of them. An attacker could be onside then offside then onside then offside then onside again before finally being offside as both players running alternates who has a foot furthest forward.
Also, feet are smaller and much harder to see for a linesman who could be 50 metres away, and 0kayers could both be wearing the exact same pair of identical yellow Nike boots which would make it almost impossible.
I’d rather instrument the pitch properly and have an AI rule offside in real time using the current rules. If a fingernail or shoelace is offside, you’re offside. It’s the delay, poor camera placement, and human error that is the problem. In interest of more offense, I’d have some kind of audible or visual alert so players know in real time that they’re in an offside position.
fingernail no, because it’s not a body part that can legally play the ball. Shoelace - maybe??? Would a flapping jersey or shorts that was in an offside position be enough, or does it have to be the player’s body. What about hair??!
Hair? Marc Cucurella would be perpetually offside.
poor camera placement
I mean, they already deploy like 30+ cameras per game. They simply cannot have, for example, like 40 cameras just dedicated to making sure they get every possible offisde angle in every game.
I don’t actually think people understand how expensive the cameras they use, and all the things that are needed to facilitate it for VAR actually are, including the staff to run them (many of which will likely be contractors on like £400-600 a day, depending on seniority and skill, in some cases more). I’m not even sure there is enough operators in the industry to keep up with the demand. I certainly get offers on a regular basis to drag me back into live ops.
People keep making these arguments without a single thought going into how it would actually work and how much it costs. It’s feasibility is really stretching the bounds of reality.
If there is one thing the prem is not short of it’s cash. Your argument holds water for the lower leagues. If players can get 100k+ per week then they can afford 50/60/70+ cameras at the rates you are quoting
Nah this rule change is needed
If you support garbage toenail offsides that provide no advantage to the attacker then you’re anti football.
Offsides was meant to stop the cherry picking tactic
I saw some dude make an analysis how teams will be scared to play high lines. That’s not true at all 😂 teams aren’t going to start playing deep. Those toenail offsides weren’t called when VAR wasn’t around and it didn’t change the way teams defended.
no advantage to the attacker then you’re anti football.
Define advantage to the attacker, and then consider why this has never been part of the offside law.
But half the time the defenders would step up making players look miles off to the lino when in reality they could be just on.
And that doesn’t change that play style. If they’re a foot offsides it’s there and if it’s a toenail offsides it’s not
The change would decrease the effectiveness of an offside trap
I’d the tech is there I’d like to see center of mass offsides. As it stands though, the Muppets in VAR are having a tough time as it is determining toenail offsides with the tech we have.
The line will still be in a pin point location and we’ll have the same issue.
There’s no problem with the current system. “You give a retard a calculator and he’s going to try and turn the TV on with it” (or whatever the quote is from whiplash). The tech works fine, it’s just been misused in a few instances.
I totally disagree with you. Yes it moves the lines and there will still be that debate of “oh come on he is an inch off!”. I am ok with that. There has to be that “line” somewhere.
But today goals are called back that 100% never be called back when I played for 40 years. I grew up with “even is on” and it just feels dirty sometimes of goals currently called back.
Win win for me. People still get to argue over the line which has to be somewhere and if a goal is called back then so be it. Probably should be offside.
Klopp and Pep are going to start playing low blocks.
But today goals are called back that 100% never be called back when I played for 40 years
This is not even close to being true. The current offside law is the most lenient it has even been for attackers.
I grew up with “even is on”
No you didn’t. In fact, 40 years ago meant that even was explicitly considered offside. Even was considered offside from 1863 until 1990.
Man I am getting old. Growing up in the US I honestly don’t remember even being called offside.
The biggest problem for me is that if we’re doing VAR for offsides then they need to have like a 5cm rule. As the amount of movement typically possible between frames is 5cm. And so that’s as precise as we can reasonably be. If someone is less than 5cm offsides then we don’t know if they were actually offisides or not. Especially in cases where the player was sprinting into space. Like the Garnacho goal ruled out earlier this season, it’s impossible to know if he was off. It was way too tight, goal was ruled on by on field officials then ruled off by a margin of error that we can’t even accurately measure. This also makes it so that we don’t have to wait as long for tight calls. And if it’s close on that 5cm region, just go with on field decision. It will never be perfect but looking to rule out goals all the time by over analyzing every little thing for 5 minutes is dumb.