Do you really think that anyone at everton would want or be happy with appointing such a dyed in the wool Koppite as Paul Cook?

I’d be very dubious about Tim Vickery’s claims as to what the VAR official he interviewed said.
For a start it wouldn’t have just been that one person making the decision in the VAR room – there was a team of them so even if the bloke he interviewed said that, it wouldn’t have been down purely to him
Secondly having worked in teams of officials, very rarely will one of them openly say how the referee (or assistants) got it wrong and amongst officials at that level I would imagine that sort of throwing the lamb to the lions is non-existent – what FA is going to promote an official who chucks his colleagues under the bus like that. At best you’ll get a “the ref had a different angle to me & has seen something we haven’t”

As for the decisions in that game, they looked penalties to me then & still do now and I understand VAR was for clear & obvious errors so should have been used. Ultimately though it is not for the VAR to tell the ref they are wrong, it’s too advise the referee that he may want the decision reviewed – the ref can then ask the VAR to make the decision or to look at it themselves.
In the early days of the World Cup though it wasn’t clear what the VAR was deeming a clear & obvious error & what they were deeming wasn’t, although it did seem to improve as the tournament went on – until the Final anyway.

In terms of undermining the referee it was (& still is) one of the big concerns about VAR for me. The hardest part of refereeing a game is match control and its bad enough having players & the crowd questioning everything you do but if the other officials do it, your authority is completely undermined and you lose respect of the players & control of the game & it just ends up a disaster
Every referee will tell his assistants that unless they look at them for assistance they are not to come in with flags – I’d give every assistant an area (touchline to the penalty area & an imaginery line all the way up to 10 yards in to the other half) where they could lead on decisions unless I came in first with a shout of no foul/handball etc.. & then 10 yards either side of them for throw ins. Other than that stay out of things unless there’s an off the ball incident or I look to them for a lead (including penalty appeals). if you go with a “feel free to come in with anything” attitude the game will be chaotic
That sort of instruction can seem odd to a supporter who may disagree with a ref and think the assistant should come in with a decision but its the only way you can effectively control a game as a ref – some referees, particularly higher up the league system, will tell you not to come in on anything other than throw ins & offsides. I’d imagine the ref can give instructions to his VAR team & may say something similar in what he wants their input on
So I can see how what Vickery is alleging was said might effect VAR input but they are all mic’d up & talking to each other – could be that the VAR assistants mentioned some grappling & the ref said he’d seen what they were on about & wasn’t giving it. Once he’s said that once they are not going to come in again with it – different ref’s will tolerate different levels of (technical) fouls before pulling players up for them.

So basically, as clear as mustard

As an out of towner I’d agree about this red button coverage (kind of). It allowed me to go watching my local non league side, avoid the score & then watch it in full when I got back.
However, having watched this & the Stoke game it’s not the best to watch – the Stoke game had one camera that spent a lot of time focusing on say Walton stood there doing nowt, when there was some sort of kick off or injury or something 60 yards away. Last night’s commentator seemed to be someone who must work for Radio Hull coz he was full of little tit bits about them & little about Latics & he seemed to get our players names mixed up on numerous occasions.
Figured out last night though about the lack of replays that I have a rewind button on my sky remote!!

You’re also right about the atmosphere. It seemed absolutely dead although that wasn’t helped by what was a times a turgid game to watch.
However, i think there’s a big reason for the sub 9000 attendance – it was on Sky. Hull fans had the choice of struggling through the M62 through rush hour traffic to watch a poor side or sitting in & watching it for nowt (other than a subscription fee they already pay). With Latics fans,with a lot of kids watching us, midweek attendances have always been poor at the DW – chuck in the fact you could watch it for nowt in the warmth of your home or the pub when it was apparently lashing it down in Wigan & the attendance was always going to be poorer

Late on the season before, his agent released the info to the press about a release clause – Jewell was livid
Also his form wasn’t too hot & he also got dropped for Brett Ormerod towards the end of the season. There was also an issue around him suddenly getting married without telling the club & unofficial mutterinngs about his fasting effecting his game during Ramadan

Latics offered him improved terms during the summer but (as were all the deals that summer) it was linked in to appearances & performance bonuses & Ellington wanted a bigger lump sum but Latics wouldn’t budge.

His agent hawked him round & let clubs know the release clause. West Brom put the bid in & offered a salary he was happy with – I think I remember him stating however that the potential salary he could have got at Latics was bigger (although clearly not the basic). So he left

Don’t let him try and re-write history now coz it all backfired on him. His agent & himself engineered the move and not the club – does anyone seriously think the club wanted to lose one half of its best ever strike partnership on the eve of the season???

He was blue no doubt he even got a place in the French squad after his performances for us. Mr Whelan even improved his contract mid season. Remember the very late winner he got against Fulham?. Everything was pointing to him being a Latics great and the find of the season. Then he totally dis respected the club and Mr Whelan who took a chance on him when nobody knew who he was. His behaviour to get his Spurs move was disgraceful. Typical French arrogance.[/quote]

Other players have acted far worse in attempts to get moves away and don’t get an ounce of the stick Chimbonda still gets.

Yes it was awful timing on his part but that was it. Poor timing & to be honest it sounds pathetic when I’ve heard people say they wouldn’t have minded if he’d handed it in later that day or the day after. Getting their knickers in a twist for the sake of a few hours[/quote]
McCulloch engineered his move to Rangers – but they are the club he supported from being a child, and where his family were.

And if you listen to McCulloch’s account of it, he was promised the move by Whelan when he first learnt of the interest, but Whelan then performed a U-turn and blocked it.

Chimbonda on the other hand had been plucked from obscurity, and asked to move purely for the money.[/quote]

I’m sure Lee McCulloch does say that but pascal Chimbonda also gave excuses for handing in the transfer request when he did & everyone told him to sod off. It also clashes with what Jewell said at the time. Besides which, McCulloch also admitted in his autobiography that he behaved disgracefully at the time & I remember him giving an interview in the WEP when the transfer window closed where he admitted that his effort & application had dropped but now he’d get back to giving his all.

Personally, I couldn’t give a stuff that Rangers were McCulloch’s boyhood club – he was contracted to Latics & we were in the depths of a relegation battle, yet he tried not only to jump ship but also tried to force Latics to sell him for way below his market value just because it was what he wanted.

If I remember rightly, either Jewell or Whelan came out & said that they didn’t want to sell him a) coz he was vital to the team & b) coz of the situation that Latics were in, but that everybody had a value where the club would listen to offers although Ranger’s bids were insultingly low & there wasn’t a cat in hells chance he was goign to be sold for that amount. Yet McCulloch & Rangers both tried to take advantage of the situation & leave our club short changed. I’m sure that there may have been some informal discussion about if Rangers ever came in for him but there’s no reason why that should mean that Latics should allow themselves to be ripped off
Everyone also knew that Latics were more than prepared to sell him in the summer if he just helped see us through the relegation battle but he didn’t give a stuff for our club or the manager who’d somehow transformed him in to a Premier League left winger.
It was disgusting behaviour from McCulloch & far worse than handing in a transfer request after a game, before you’re even out of your kit. In fairness to McCulloch he knows how out of order he was & apologised when the window shut, when he did leave & acknowledges his behaviour in his book

And virtually every player that ever asks to leave Latics does so because they want more money elsewhere – the vast majority of them don’t get any stick so i don’t see why Chimbonda would get more stick for the same reasons. I get the timing of it was very, very poor & i get that Jewell & the players were hacked off at him for it & so was I. I just never understood why it got turned into so much of an issue over the timing of it. had he handed it in a week later no-one would have batted an eyelid so was still being in his kit worse than a month or more of the way McCulloch behaved? Not in my opinion

The usual allocation is 3000ish but clubs can be given the whole stand like you say, which ups the allocation to 6,000.
Whilst your post is no doubt a little dig at Latics with a “look how many we took” comment, every man & his dog knows that Latics will not take 6,000 to an away league game & never have done

Latics have said its an “initial allocation” so I’m sure there’s room for a few more if the demand is there
In comparison, Bolton (who never get any stick for their support or away followings) got 3800 tickets & didn’t sell them before the deadline so pay on the gate was allowed
It’s no wonder other clubs give us stick about our following when some of our own supporters are just as ready to do it – even 3 weeks ahead of a game

Its Prescot Cables & they play in the EvoStik Div 1 North. Prestwich Heys play in the North West Counties

I know exactly what you mean though as few cared when the clubs you mentioned went to the wall – although Maidstone especially were horribly mismanaged & spent way above their means, had to sell their ground to survive, ground shared 40+ miles away, saw crowds nose dive & then spent 500k on land & solicitors for a new ground when they didn’t even have planning permission

Bolton haven’t cheated as such – they haven’t broken any restrictions put on them by the EFL. They’ve spent money they didn’t have (most clubs do that) & they don’t seem to have paid other creditors as agreed (a lot of companies renegotiate their payment terms), but again neither are cheating.

They’ve been really badly mismanaged & whilst I’ve no sympathy for the guy who owns them I have for their employees & supporters.

It also highlights yet again that whilst there are some who slated Whelan for not splashing the cash about willy nilly in a bid for success that what has done has (so far) guaranteed the long term survival of the club.

Newport, Aldershot & Maidstone all folded in the days before the Football League had penalties for entering administration etc.. When Newport folded, they weren’t even in the football league
They also all folded as they were declared bankrupt and could not continue to operate (I think Maidstone only had 2 registered players at the start of the season they folded & never played a game in). If Bolton are ever declared banrkrupt they will also cease to exist

Not quite sure why what’s happening to Bolton is of relevance to fans of those 3 clubs[/quote]

Correct tl but their situation is very similar to what happened to Luton[/quote]

Not really – at least not at this stage.
Luton were docked 10 points because they broke rules regarding paying agents via a third party
They were then docked a further 20 points because they could not reach a CVA with their creditors in order to exit administration & it was the third time in 10 years that they’d been in administration

As much of a mess as Bolton seem to be in, they’ve never been in administration (yet at least!!) nor have they broke rules regarding agent paymemnts.

If they get put in administration, then they’ll get docked points as per the league rules

Sorry to be pedantic