Last week I wrote about a highly contested penalty in the Crystal Palace match against Liverpool, which gave Liverpool a 3-1 lead.
There was another debatable goal by Liverpool, their first one of that game. Two of the Sky pundits were adamant that it should have been disallowed for offside, while I’m sure that many people who watched it, will wonder what the fuss is all about. Let me reset the picture.
Liverpool player, Andy Robertson, was running down the left-hand side of the pitch when he crossed the ball into the Palace penalty area, where team mate Roberto Firmino was waiting in an offside position.
Firmino jumped to head the ball but it was too high and went over his head. Had he headed it of course, it would have been a clear offside decision.
Waiting behind him but not in an offside position was another Liverpool player, Alex Oxlade Chamberlain, who after controlling the ball, kicked it past keeper Vincente Guaita, into the Palace goal.
The offside Law has been with us since the first set of Laws was formed back in 1863. Since then it has had many deletions, adjustments and additions but the basics of the Law are I think fairly well understood.
To be offside a player has to be in the opponents half and nearer to their goal line that the second nearest opponent.
But it is only penalised if that player touches the ball or interferes with an opponent, preventing them playing the ball by clearly obstructing their line of vision or by challenging for the ball.
The part of the Law that the pundits were talking about is not so well known, only having been introduced in 2016.
This says the offside player should be penalised if he clearly attempts to play the ball which impacts on an opponent or clearly impacts on an opponent from playing the ball,
What this means in this case, is did Firmino prevent an opponent from tackling Oxlade-Chamberlain or did Guaita get ready to save the ball in case Firmino did head it, and so didn’t have time to adjust for Oxlade-Chamberlain’s kick?
Personally, I don’t think it did either of those things but as I have said. others disagree, In the end there’s only one person who has to make the decision, the referee.
By Dick Sawdon Smith
