Thanks @blue67 for taking the time to post this. It’s a foul end of. I am astonished and quite frankly disappointed by the lack of support to our team and particularly Max by posters on this site (I do not do facebook or any other unsociable media platforms so cannot comment as to what is on them). I was at the game - we suffered an incompetent refereeing decision by a referee who in my opinion (a former referee) had no idea what a foul actually was and chose to ignore rather than give decisions throughout the game under the pretence that he was letting the game flow. Other aspects of his performance led me to the view that he is a referee wanting to make a name for himself - he clearly has after this decision but let’s analyse his performance based on his application of the laws of the game. His performance in this respect on this and other decisions during the game was lacking.
Calling for Max's head on a plate is not really the direction of travel for most posters. I think there is a fair level of anger at Max, and this was compounded by his sloppy play on Saturday. And the anger is more as it wasn't a normal mistake, I could forgive that, it was him trying to cheat and fcuking that up.
It is right for Ravizzoli to start on Saturday. Whether it is right for him to keep the number 1 shirt depends on his showing then.
I would have had much more support for max had he not thrown himself on the floor and knocked the ball out of his own hands.
The fact his gamesmanship has now apparently caused a referee to be suspended for not putting up with it is further embarrassment for our club in my opinion.
Two wrongs don’t make a right and there’s actually case for three wrongs here:
was it a bit of a push by Cosgrove?
was it a bit of a dive by Max?
should the ref blown up for something?
What you can perhaps answer all those with “probably”. But what you can, 100% say is “play stupid games, Win stupid prizes”. We’ve been playing stupid shithousery games for a while, we won a last minute defeat and a suspended ref.
I agree. I was saying during the match that he was letting far too many fouls go unpunished contrary to the laws of the game. Incidentally, not related to Tuesday’s incident of course but the same referee was suspended by the FA a couple of years ago for improper conduct when he confronted an Ipswich player during a game. He later apologised for his actions.
A serious question for you. Gareth Ainsworth tenure was typified by dark arts and shithousery. Cheating. Max’s stupidity was an example of this. We all understand why we played that way and Ainsworth achieved remarkable things, but painful to watch at times.
the question is simple for a chap that has seen as much football as you - do you agree with those tactics that Ainsworth employed. Yes or No.
For the record, the last two games have been disastrous for him, but I'm not calling for Max to be dropped permanently in favour of a keeper who has barely played just yet. His record for us has been pretty good up until now.
Having seen the various videos put up by Barnsley it is obvious to me that there was a foul. Even if Max acted stupid afterwards the foul happened first. So, no goal as a foul had been committed.
However, Max has been below par (or below his standard last season) in the last few matches. Does he need sometime on the bench to get his form back in training? Some of the vitriolic comments on social media about him have been very poor.
Max is a real good keeper but we all know he’s made two or three major errors of late. He seems to have lost concentration during periods of games and I am not sure why his level of concentration as been impacted so much.
Although his mistakes have certainly cost us dearly, I would stick with him for Saturday. Keepers go through tough times but he’s been brilliant for us for a long period and most of us have previously stated that he is our best keeper since the great Martin Taylor.
Keep faith in the lad and that faith will be rewarded I am sure.
The question can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. One man’s shithousery is another man’s game management and this can take many forms. Taking the ball into the corner to protect a narrow lead in the dying stages….nothing wrong with that. Feigning injury…I don’t like it but plenty of teams do it as we saw recently when we played Stevenage. Shirt pulling at corners and free kicks…..goes on all the time even at PL level and I don’t like it. Diving, very subjective but when it’s blatant a competent referee will take the necessary action. Unless all teams agree to play strictly by the laws of the game and eliminate gamesmanship-and that will never happen-I’m afraid we’ve just got to put up with it.
Having seen most, if not all, of the video evidence available, I have concluded that the correct decision would have been a free kick to Wycombe. The attacking player quite clearly shoves Max with both hands whilst Max has control of the ball. What Max does after that, although OTT I agree, is irrelevant. The whole incident is akin to the debate about whether a player should go to ground in the penalty area, it being perceived that a penalty kick is more likely to be given if the player does so. The officials need to make judgements based on the initial 'coming together' without regard to what happens subsequently.
The change in Max's fortunes is because of the change in our style of play.
Under Ainsworth it was extremely difficult to regularly break us down, so shots were quite often from outside the box. Max is a good shot stopper.
When teams did break through our defensive line, they didn't get acres of space and again Max is decent one on one.
I'm sure Max would happily admit his distribution is the part of his game that he would love to improve. The move to possessioned based football and building from the back has significantly increased the chances of him making mistakes.
I do not blame him for Saturdays pass for the first goal. He is being asked to play like this and he is out of his comfort zone. When he was asked to bang it long, he can do that successfully 99 times out of 100. He will not get anywhere near the same success rate being asked to pass the ball out from the back, especially with our static outfield players in front of him. He's had more than a few close escapes with short passes this season.
I'm sure he is also being encouraged to "time waste" - which as we saw on Tuesday he completely screwed up.
Ask Max to do what he does best and I'm sure he will be fine. Ask him to continuously do things he's not the best at and then he will continue to make mistakes.
I'm fully behind him as and when he plays again. Mistakes happen, let's see if he's learnt from it and then we can move on.
I’m not sure about the validity of that internet story saying the referee and assistant will be suspended. When officials receive poor marks for their performance it is rarely announced publicly, they are usually quietly ‘dropped’ for the next game.
Watching it live, I turned away believing it was a straightforward foul. My anger was at the referee. On replays I thought Max was stupid but it was a clear foul under the laws of the game. Not awarding a free kick is one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen regardless of Max’s own decision making.
It's not just the last 2 games for Max - he also threw in two clangers against Bolton.
He was superb last season and I love the bloke, but he isn't playing well and that was still the worst piece of goalkeeping I think I've ever seen - foul or no foul. I also think he was soft for the goal last minute v Portsmouth (even though that one probably was a foul). There's nothing wrong with giving Ravizolli a go - if Max has anything about him, it will be the motivation he needs to get back to last year's form.
Leahy, Low, Forino featured in a lot at the back in September and Potts played every game. So he had decent outlets and a better defence that the last few weeks.
But as others have pointed out, this is the crux of the matter. No one is disputing that Max acted foolishly but if he was fouled then the goal should have been disallowed.
His error at Portsmouth was the atrocious goal kick that led to the last minute goal. Pompey had one man on the left side of the pitch and of course he shanked his kick right to him.
Comments
Even more extraordinary.
Thanks @blue67 for taking the time to post this. It’s a foul end of. I am astonished and quite frankly disappointed by the lack of support to our team and particularly Max by posters on this site (I do not do facebook or any other unsociable media platforms so cannot comment as to what is on them). I was at the game - we suffered an incompetent refereeing decision by a referee who in my opinion (a former referee) had no idea what a foul actually was and chose to ignore rather than give decisions throughout the game under the pretence that he was letting the game flow. Other aspects of his performance led me to the view that he is a referee wanting to make a name for himself - he clearly has after this decision but let’s analyse his performance based on his application of the laws of the game. His performance in this respect on this and other decisions during the game was lacking.
Calling for Max's head on a plate is not really the direction of travel for most posters. I think there is a fair level of anger at Max, and this was compounded by his sloppy play on Saturday. And the anger is more as it wasn't a normal mistake, I could forgive that, it was him trying to cheat and fcuking that up.
It is right for Ravizzoli to start on Saturday. Whether it is right for him to keep the number 1 shirt depends on his showing then.
I would have had much more support for max had he not thrown himself on the floor and knocked the ball out of his own hands.
The fact his gamesmanship has now apparently caused a referee to be suspended for not putting up with it is further embarrassment for our club in my opinion.
Two wrongs don’t make a right and there’s actually case for three wrongs here:
What you can perhaps answer all those with “probably”. But what you can, 100% say is “play stupid games, Win stupid prizes”. We’ve been playing stupid shithousery games for a while, we won a last minute defeat and a suspended ref.
I agree. I was saying during the match that he was letting far too many fouls go unpunished contrary to the laws of the game. Incidentally, not related to Tuesday’s incident of course but the same referee was suspended by the FA a couple of years ago for improper conduct when he confronted an Ipswich player during a game. He later apologised for his actions.
A serious question for you. Gareth Ainsworth tenure was typified by dark arts and shithousery. Cheating. Max’s stupidity was an example of this. We all understand why we played that way and Ainsworth achieved remarkable things, but painful to watch at times.
the question is simple for a chap that has seen as much football as you - do you agree with those tactics that Ainsworth employed. Yes or No.
For the record, the last two games have been disastrous for him, but I'm not calling for Max to be dropped permanently in favour of a keeper who has barely played just yet. His record for us has been pretty good up until now.
Having seen the various videos put up by Barnsley it is obvious to me that there was a foul. Even if Max acted stupid afterwards the foul happened first. So, no goal as a foul had been committed.
However, Max has been below par (or below his standard last season) in the last few matches. Does he need sometime on the bench to get his form back in training? Some of the vitriolic comments on social media about him have been very poor.
Max is a real good keeper but we all know he’s made two or three major errors of late. He seems to have lost concentration during periods of games and I am not sure why his level of concentration as been impacted so much.
Although his mistakes have certainly cost us dearly, I would stick with him for Saturday. Keepers go through tough times but he’s been brilliant for us for a long period and most of us have previously stated that he is our best keeper since the great Martin Taylor.
Keep faith in the lad and that faith will be rewarded I am sure.
The question can’t be answered with a simple yes or no. One man’s shithousery is another man’s game management and this can take many forms. Taking the ball into the corner to protect a narrow lead in the dying stages….nothing wrong with that. Feigning injury…I don’t like it but plenty of teams do it as we saw recently when we played Stevenage. Shirt pulling at corners and free kicks…..goes on all the time even at PL level and I don’t like it. Diving, very subjective but when it’s blatant a competent referee will take the necessary action. Unless all teams agree to play strictly by the laws of the game and eliminate gamesmanship-and that will never happen-I’m afraid we’ve just got to put up with it.
Having seen most, if not all, of the video evidence available, I have concluded that the correct decision would have been a free kick to Wycombe. The attacking player quite clearly shoves Max with both hands whilst Max has control of the ball. What Max does after that, although OTT I agree, is irrelevant. The whole incident is akin to the debate about whether a player should go to ground in the penalty area, it being perceived that a penalty kick is more likely to be given if the player does so. The officials need to make judgements based on the initial 'coming together' without regard to what happens subsequently.
The change in Max's fortunes is because of the change in our style of play.
Under Ainsworth it was extremely difficult to regularly break us down, so shots were quite often from outside the box. Max is a good shot stopper.
When teams did break through our defensive line, they didn't get acres of space and again Max is decent one on one.
I'm sure Max would happily admit his distribution is the part of his game that he would love to improve. The move to possessioned based football and building from the back has significantly increased the chances of him making mistakes.
I do not blame him for Saturdays pass for the first goal. He is being asked to play like this and he is out of his comfort zone. When he was asked to bang it long, he can do that successfully 99 times out of 100. He will not get anywhere near the same success rate being asked to pass the ball out from the back, especially with our static outfield players in front of him. He's had more than a few close escapes with short passes this season.
I'm sure he is also being encouraged to "time waste" - which as we saw on Tuesday he completely screwed up.
Ask Max to do what he does best and I'm sure he will be fine. Ask him to continuously do things he's not the best at and then he will continue to make mistakes.
I'm fully behind him as and when he plays again. Mistakes happen, let's see if he's learnt from it and then we can move on.
We've got at least one more day before we can move on @Commoner
I’m not sure about the validity of that internet story saying the referee and assistant will be suspended. When officials receive poor marks for their performance it is rarely announced publicly, they are usually quietly ‘dropped’ for the next game.
Watching it live, I turned away believing it was a straightforward foul. My anger was at the referee. On replays I thought Max was stupid but it was a clear foul under the laws of the game. Not awarding a free kick is one of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen regardless of Max’s own decision making.
It's not just the last 2 games for Max - he also threw in two clangers against Bolton.
He was superb last season and I love the bloke, but he isn't playing well and that was still the worst piece of goalkeeping I think I've ever seen - foul or no foul. I also think he was soft for the goal last minute v Portsmouth (even though that one probably was a foul). There's nothing wrong with giving Ravizolli a go - if Max has anything about him, it will be the motivation he needs to get back to last year's form.
It may have been a foul ( jury’s out) but please explain why did Max go down as if he’s been shot and compounded it by dropping the ball.
Someone earlier mentioned he was L1 goalkeeper of the month in September, so he’s played well under Bloomfield too.
Not disputing how pathetic it was from Max.
Leahy, Low, Forino featured in a lot at the back in September and Potts played every game. So he had decent outlets and a better defence that the last few weeks.
But as others have pointed out, this is the crux of the matter. No one is disputing that Max acted foolishly but if he was fouled then the goal should have been disallowed.
The ref hasn't been suspended according to this...
https://www.efl.com/news/2023/november/27/referee-appointments--1-3-december/
He's listed as the ref for Northampton V Pompey on Saturday.
The bottom line is Max should not have put himself in that situation in the first place.
Maybe in other games but that wasn’t possession based football from Wycombe on Tuesday night by any definition.
His error at Portsmouth was the atrocious goal kick that led to the last minute goal. Pompey had one man on the left side of the pitch and of course he shanked his kick right to him.
Any info on when Leahy and Potts will be back?
I’d be shocked if we saw Leahy before the new year.
We're still all over the footy bantz pages, I see. Thanks Max!
What in the Lord’s name are ‘footy bantz’ (I feel ill typing that) pages?
And does anyone really care?
@Vital If you read the post correctly, the incident was several seasons ago where he became aggressive in an Ipswich Town game.