Clutching at Straws

Yep. This is the right answer. The rule states that the opponent has to be obstructing a clear line of sight - which he obviously wasn't at the point Styles hit it. Makes no odds if Morris has to duck out of the way after the ball is in flight.

As others have said if the keeper thought his line of sight had been obstructed at the point Styles hit it in sure he'd have been the first to complain.

 

I've just watched the recap and there are numerous angles there, one pretty much behind the keeper and you can see the ball being struck.

I think what actually does for the keeper is that the ball fades away very late. If it had carried on with it's initial trajectory and i think he may have got a hand to it.

 

That journalist has had a misplaced childhood.

 

That’s what I thought. When I saw the goal in real time I was expecting the commentators to say that a flag had gone up. However, the camera from behind the goal which gave the same view as Gunn, shows he had good sight of the ball all the way but simply could do nothing about it.

 

They could have been just Styles & their keeper on the pitch but there is no way the keeper was stopping that.

 

At the time the ball hit the net I was waiting for it to be disallowed, surprisingly it wasn`t, yer win some yer lose some.

But then I do always check ref and lino when we score down to the many different ways they have had of disallowing our goals.over the years.

 

I think this illustrates how little so-called experts understand the off-side rule. The rule states "seeking to gain advantage" , or "involved in active play" or "interfere with an opponent". In this case Morris was doing none of these, he was merely moving directly away from the goal line to get beck into an on-side position. He was not active - made no attempt to play the ball, wasn't seeking any advantage and clearly didn't interfere with an opponent. Contrast that with Tammy Abrahams, when the pass was played out to the on-side player on the right, he was yards off-side and clearly seeking to gain an advantage by being in that position.

 

The ref and linesman have to react immediately, they can't spend ages pontificating over every single piece of play in a match.

 

This is a very important point, any attempt to change that and what do you get? VAR. I rest my case....

 

And on a partially related point which Brian Clough once made 'If you're not interfering with play you shouldn't be on the pitch!'

 

I think the Brian Clough quote was "If my players aren't interfering with play, they're not getting paid"

 

He’s going to get chipped again soon, and I don’t mean by Bill Gates