Purposely missed a penalty in China after he felt it wasn't one in this first place. How would it make you feel had he done that when playing for us?
Think I'd be furious. We only got play offs due to a very tight goal difference. Forest last season stayed up due to a very tight goal difference.
This reminds me of the classic question in cricket. Should you walk if you know you're out? It's a difficult one. Over a long time, a football team will get some penalties they don't deserve, and they will be denied some that they do deserve. They will probably average out so that overall, each team gets the number of penalties they deserve. If however the players start missing them on purpose, they will distort the average so that over time the team scores few goals from penalties that they otherwise would have. So for me, they should just respect the decision, right or wrong, and play on. Same answer in cricket. If you walk, you will be out every time, including some times when you were not out. If you don't walk, on average you will be out as many times as you deserve to be out. Or summat.
Make it legal for the head coach to challenge the referee's call. If the head coach thinks it was undeserved penalty for the opposition, have the referee or one of the other officials to watch a video replay of the incident.
Hmm, with all the betting going on in football, think he has to be VERY careful. From a philosophical point of view, its a bit like wearing another teams tie - loyalties will be questioned.
Or rather, like in other sports such as cricket. You get 1 or 2 challenges. If you're out you can't challenge anymore. But if the decision goes your way, you get it back. That way you don't get lots of frivolous challenges.
I think he did the right thing and I'd hope that our players would do it too. I'm a massive stickler for honesty though so to me I couldn't imagine anything else.
