Very similar to man city too. Won the treble last year because they improved defensively.
We saw it in the Arsenal v Man city match, 2 teams that set up to make it very difficult for the opposition to play through them. Resulting in an arguably more turgid encounter.
Neither whilst Guardiola is still in the prem. (Unless one of them hires him).
The biggest issue is the fans/ media. We create a negative perception of refs based on less than 1% of their decisions, and many of these decisions are still subjective.
You simply can’t have half the fans saying a specific decision was bad but the other half fine with it.
The only way to get consistency with refereeing decisions is to remove any subjectivity. But how do you fully remove opinion on decisions from a sport as dynamic as football?
Ball hits hand in area - penalty, no matter how unfair or ludicrous it is. Remove any nuance.
Studs up foul - red. Remove any nuance.
They appear to moving towards these 2 examples, much like they already do in ucl (mostly). Of course there are many other instances that can not be simplified.
Like Arsenal.
Like Man utd.