Good Luck, Bad Luck & the Percentages Game

Pravda - That is an impossible question to answer as we don't watch the other 23 teams in the league on a regular basis we don't know what good or bad decisions they have had over the season.

I would say in the last 10 games we suffered some real shocking ones as well so maybe we evened out over the season but nobody is complaining about that what happens in the 46 games is something you have to take on the chin.

What the issue is the play offs are very high pressure games and the best officials are available as the premier league & championship season has finished at the very least they should take charge of these games and as i've said the football league need to learn from this and bring in VAR next season so offsides and dodgy penalties don't go against team.

For corners, free kicks and throw ins that is not something for VAR the ref shoud decide them on the field of play.

As for we didn't deserve our place in the play offs I disagree with that we had a very poor spell after christmas hardly winning a game and the chasing pack didn't get close enough to us we DID deserve to be in them in my opinion.

Just out of interest what more was needed for VAR that wasn't available?

The TV cameras were at all the playoff games already, goal line technology was being used so what else was missing.

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Originally Posted by ReadWarbler

Just out of interest what more was needed for VAR that wasn't available?

The TV cameras were at all the playoff games already, goal line technology was being used so what else was missing.

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Well very good question I can only assume that you have to put this to all the clubs at the start of season and the football league didn't.

Football likes to big itself up in terms of all the money in the game and most viewers etc but in the technology stakes they are miles behind others sports like cricket, rugby & tennis.

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Originally Posted by ReadWarbler

Just out of interest what more was needed for VAR that wasn't available?

The TV cameras were at all the playoff games already, goal line technology was being used so what else was missing.

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So from what I understand, they use Hawkeye on the whole pitch and not just the goal area for VAR. No ideas why they need Hawkeye for it but that is my understanding. Hawkeye put up a weird graphic with squiggly lines for an offside decision in a game so that's where my understanding comes from

The monitor pitchside and a separate feed to the office in London where another official watches and speaks with the referee but I'm not sure to be honest, in the FA Cup they seemed to randomly pick and choose which games they were using it for and which ones they weren't, one of the games at Stamford Bridge wasn't for using it for some reason when other times it was used there. In that aspect I disagree with it, if it's used in that round, all teams in that round should have it available to them or nobody should have the "benefit" of it.

Pravda, you can't "not separate the playoffs from the league season" because those two games don't count towards the league season, it's a one off tournament to get promoted, how we played for the rest of the season doesn't matter once we'd landed in that "tournament" and from then on the question of whether we deserved to beat Coventry is based on what happened during those two games, in those 2 games we did not have a level playing field, we had 3 goals go against us and were beaten by 3 goals, the times in which they happened were also massively pivotal.

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Originally Posted by pravda_plc

As the controversy over the refereeing in the play off semi-final rumbles on, i'm amazed that nobody has considered how luck has a habit of evening itself out over a season.

Yes there were some poor calls by the referees in these 2 games but if we are honest we know full well that NCFC had more than their fair share of ridiculous refereeing decisions that went in our favour and gave us points towards the total needed to reach the play offs, that we would not have had if the referees in question had not made mistakes in our favour.

There are many decisions that have gone our way this season, but the three that stand out the most are the sendings off of opposition players in the first half of the home games against Chesterfield, Lincoln and Newport. All 3 sendings of were at best 'soft' and at worst an absolute travesty. They came when the games were clearly in the balance and in effect they gave Notts the 3 points.

It's time that Nolan stopped bleating about poor refereeing and admit that we have had a lot of game changing decisions given in our favour.

For me the reason we failed in the playoffs was that over the 2 games Coventry were significantly better than us. Our Stone Age hoofball has clearly been rumbled by a lot of opposition clubs in this league.

We were not good enough to get promoted - it's as simple as that.

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Whilst I agree overall we were not good enough to get promoted, one thing those two games highlighted was that three key decisions went against us and ultimately had an impact on the playoff games and cost us dearly.

I can no longer subscribe to the "things even themselves out over a season" stance because football officiating will never get any better if clubs, players, and the fans accept substandard performances from officials or a failure to get basic decisions right, particularly in the lower leagues. It does not matter whether decisions go for us or against us in my view.

As a matter of course all playoff games in the football league should be officiated by those that operate at the highest level. No premier league teams played on the days we played. I was surprised this was not the case already.

It's not an easy job for officials and they do need help. The football league need to do something about it and that will only come when clubs lobby for change and the FA or EFL get their heads out of the sand and move into the 21st Centruy and recognise the jobs these people need to do needs to be a professional one and one in which these people need to study and learn the game in the classroom when they are not out on the field. They need to become full time to start with which would also give them time to improve their fitness, study scenarios and learn more about the game from a players point of view.

We as the oldest league club can be one of those clubs that pushes to move the game forward by promoting the need for improvements in officiating and I have no issues with KN promoting this. If you let mediocrity prevail then things will never change.

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Originally Posted by MAD_MAGPIE

Whilst I agree overall we were not good enough to get promoted, one thing those two games highlighted was that three key decisions went against us and ultimately had an impact on the playoff games and cost us dearly.

I can no longer subscribe to the "things even themselves out over a season" stance because football officiating will never get any better if clubs, players, and the fans accept substandard performances from officials or a failure to get basic decisions right, particularly in the lower leagues. It does not matter whether decisions go for us or against us in my view.

As a matter of course all playoff games in the football league should be officiated by those that operate at the highest level. No premier league teams played on the days we played. I was surprised this was not the case already.

It's not an easy job for officials and they do need help. The football league need to do something about it and that will only come when clubs lobby for change and the FA or EFL get their heads out of the sand and move into the 21st Centruy and recognise the jobs these people need to do needs to be a professional one and one in which these people need to study and learn the game in the classroom when they are not out on the field. They need to become full time to start with which would also give them time to improve their fitness, study scenarios and learn more about the game from a players point of view.

We as the oldest league club can be one of those clubs that pushes to move the game forward by promoting the need for improvements in officiating and I have no issues with KN promoting this. If you let mediocrity prevail then things will never change.

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Great post