Observation on their second goal.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Go and look again at that move and tell me how Downing and Anderson could have possibly defended against Meyer from the moment the ball left Milivojevic's boot.

What could they have done differently?

[drfchound]

Go and look again at that move and tell me how Downing and Anderson could have possibly defended against Meyer from the moment the ball left Milivojevic's boot.

What could they have done differently?

We couldn’t have done anything differently BST.
it was a well worked goal and sometimes you have to put your hands up and accept it.

[DonnyNoel]

Can't believe this has run to three pages. Absolutely nothing wrong with the goal or the law.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Hound. Are you telling me that the law is supposed to work like that?

I'm all for sublime moments of skill making it impossible for defenders to stop attacks. Or genius quick wittedness. 

What Meyer did was clever, but in a different way. It was gaming a badly thought out law to work a situation that made it literally impossible to defend against.

There is no way on earth that is in the spirit of the offside law.

[drfchound]

Hound. Are you telling me that the law is supposed to work like that?

I'm all for sublime moments of skill making it impossible for defenders to stop attacks. Or genius quick wittedness. 

What Meyer did was clever, but in a different way. It was gaming a badly thought out work a situation that made it literally impossible to defend against.

There is no way on earth that is in the spirit of the offside law.

BST, I am not telling you anything.
All I said was, well you know what I said.

[dickos1]

If the law was so flawed there would be goals like this every week, teams would use abuse it but it hardly ever happens.
Defenders just need to be wiser

[ravenrover]

Or just to have our usual standard of lino who would probably have given Andros offside, if, that is, he was actually up with play

[BillyStubbsTears]

If the law was so flawed there would be goals like this every week, teams would use abuse it but it hardly ever happens.
Defenders just need to be wiser

Wiser how? What should Anderson and Downing have done differently?

[Lundan Cabbie]

Hound. Are you telling me that the law is supposed to work like that?

I'm all for sublime moments of skill making it impossible for defenders to stop attacks. Or genius quick wittedness. 

What Meyer did was clever, but in a different way. It was gaming a badly thought out law to work a situation that made it literally impossible to defend against.

There is no way on earth that is in the spirit of the offside law.

You speak of "the spirit of the law" but the law was changed for that very reason.  The offside trap had been devised by coaches which is not in the spirit of the offside law so now defenders have to defend properly and follow their men or hope that the man they leave in the offside position, plays the ball.  Meyer was moving away from the direction of Milivojevic's through ball and moved back into an onside position before Townsend headed it back across.

[dickos1]

Realised Meyer was behind them before it was too late

[BillyStubbsTears]

And done what?

[dickos1]

What do you think?

Meyer was left behind them for a long enough time for them to realise and then drop in to mark him

[BillyStubbsTears]

Have you actually looked at the state of play when Milivojevic played the ball up to Townsend?

Are you seriously saying that one of the centre backs should have dropped 5 yards (no exaggeration - go have a look) behind the line to get goal side of a player in a wildly offside position? Leaving the other centre half one on one against Batshuayi and leaving a huge gap for Schlupp or van Aanholt to run into?

You see my point? Meyer being in that position can ONLY be defended against if a defender decides to break every rule of defending and drop out of the well-disposed line that we're holding.

[dickos1]

That defensive line is absolutely shocking, we’ve two centre halves higher up the pitch than coppinger, Andrew is also 5 yards deeper than them.
Why are they on the edge of the box leaving batsuai and Meyer behind them?
If the two centre halves were in line with copps there, they wouldn’t have scored, it’s terrible defending from both centre halves.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Put it another way. Had Downing done what you said he should have done,  dropped 5 yards out of the line, van Aanholt had run into the resulting gap, onto a short pass from Milivojevic and rifled home unmarked from the edge of the box, you wouldn't have been thinking, "What the f**k was Downing doing? Meyer was yards offside. Why didn't he just leave him?"

[BillyStubbsTears]

Right. Youve beaten me Dickos. If you change onto a different topic and don't answer the point we're discussing, there's no point in continuing. Night night.

[dickos1]

The point is they’re not in the line, both centre halves are 5 yards ahead of coppinger and Andrew

[dickos1]

Right. Youve beaten me Dickos. If you change onto a different topic and don't answer the point we're discussing, there's no point in continuing. Night night.

Not changing the topic, you asked me what were they supposed to do? I’m telling you they’d pushed too far up, and left Andrew, coppinger behind them aswell as Meyer and batsuai. If they’d been in line with copps when the ball was played then they would’ve got back in

[dickos1]

If they’d dropped 5 yards they would’ve been in the line, not dropping out of the line.
How can you look at this and say it’s a line, I’ve ansolutely no idea why both centre halves have pushed up so high and left all that behind them, their own players and the Crystal Palace ones

[BillyStubbsTears]

 Go and look at the video and see how that position came about. Then tell me the two centre halves pushed up too far. Then tell me that one of them should have loitered around the edge of the 6 yard box to cover Meyer.

And learn to estimate distances while you're at it.

[dickos1]

It don’t matter how it came about, look where they are, they’re up with whiteman, copps is behind them, Andrew is behind them, Meyer is behind them, batsuai is behind them. The ball was only about ten yards outside the box yet they’ve pushed right up and left that behind them.
If they’d held their ground around in line with copps that goal wouldn’t have happened

[Bristol Red Rover]

One of Whiteman and Andrew should have tracked Townsend - both were ball watching.

Both Downing and Anderson were way too slow. Andrew turned and had gone about 3 yards before either of the centre backs got going. Even he was fractionally slow off the mark.

Poor defending.

[RoversAlias]

Our defence, our team as a unit, did not stay switched on to the danger. Longing for that HT whistle, they didn't keep their shape or concentration and a strong Palace side exposed that ruthlessly. That's the crux of the matter.

[BillyStubbsTears]

I thought we were talking about the spirit of the offside law?

[dickos1]

Aye, but you’re saying there’s nothing the defenders could do.
But there was

[pib]

Looking at that still I'd instinctively say Andrew is the one poorly positioned. If he's roughly in line with the other defenders, Townsend is offside. EDIT - forget what I just said. Was looking at the second still that dickos posted which is well after the ball is played.

I get BST's point completely. You could have a forward standing offside all game like this, and as long as the ball is cut back or played square they can score. It makes it very difficult for defenders, but maybe that's why they've done it, like introducing the backpass rule and 3 points for a win?

[VivaRovers]

I thought we were talking about the spirit of the offside law?

You are. I don't think anyone else is.

There is no such thing as "spirit of the law" when it comes to offside. You're either offside or you're not. And that isn't dictated by how fast your centre-halves are, or how aware they are that the little lad in the opposition midfield is behind them. Sometimes teams score goals that your defenders couldn't have prevented. Doesn't mean the laws of the games are wrong.

The FA's rules make reference to "The spirit of the game" generally, and that's to counter aspects of ungentlemanly conduct that aren't covered within the laws of the game, things like that time Gus Poyet lobbed an extra ball on the pitch from the dugout when he was Leeds manager.

[BillyStubbsTears]

Phew.

It'd help if folk actually looked at the video and saw what led to that position emerging.

When Townsend laid the ball back to Milivojevic, the immediate danger was someone advancing towards the box and letting fly.

Downing and Anderson did Defence101 there. They, together, pressed up to the edge of the box to compress that space.

Textbook defending.

The reason the back line is slightly askew is that Andrew barely moved as they pressed and Coppinger moved very slowly.

Go and look at the video. Look at around 03:20 here.
https://highlightsfootball.com/video/doncaster-rovers-vs-crystal-palace-highlights/

Now, RA and Dickos are saying that the centre halves should have held a line somewhere closer to the penalty spot, because of the position that Meyer had taken up. But that would have left a yawning gap between the defensive line and the midfielders, which is criminal defending. That would have invited Schlupp or van Aanholt to run into that gap, or Milivojevic to step forward and shoot. You simply do not defend like that. No one does. No defenders in professional football would have responded to that emerging situation by prioritising Meyer stood 5-6 yards in front of where the natural defensive line was.

So, I'll say again. Meyer took up an offside position that no one could defend against without breaking fundamental tenets of defending. Which is why he was offside in the spirit of the law.

If you disagree, explain, with reference to that video, what the alternative defending would have been that wouldn't also have led to a very big advantage for Palace.

[Bentley Bullet]

I wish we'd used Marquis like that at Oakwell this season, we'd have scored a dozen!

[BillyStubbsTears]

Viva
I never took you as one who had a legalistic approach to the game.

Of COURSE there is a spirit of the laws.

You commence with the principle of what actions you wish to permit or deny. The SPIRIT. The letter of the law is then an attempt to codify that principle.

I'm not denying that Meyer was offside according to the letter and I teroretation of the law.

I'm not saying the officials should have ruled out the goal because it breached the spirit of the offside law.

I'm saying that if the offside law as currently codified and interpreted allows goals like that, then it is broken. The law as codified does not capture the spirit of what we try to prevent when considering offside. The SPIRIT, the principle that underpins the offside law is that an attacker should not be able to gain an unfair advantage by taking up a position that makes sensible defending impossible. Sunday was a textbook example of that sort of situation.