Our goal v. Citeh. McBurnie offside?

[Chicken with no head]

This will be handy for JLT to know, when he launches oppo players over the hoardings. They get booked for leaving the pitch !

Wouldn’t it be great if they had to ask the ref to come back on and he says ,only if the linesman’s checked their studs.

 

[Silent Blade]

With today's ruling , John Matthews' goal against Oldham in October 1978 will have been disallowed because Alex Sabella had tumbled out of play and when he stood up, he stayed off the pitch. As soon as Matthews goal went in, the Oldham players protested to the ref claiming Sabella was offside. The ref ran over to the linesman to consult, Sabella ran to them and he gestured to them that he was off the pitch when the ball went into the net.

Alan Quinn's goal against Wendy in December 2005 would have been disallowed too.

 

[dsr-burnley]

I agree with that but that’s not what the rule quoted earlier says - the ball is only required to leave the penalty area in the direction of the other half, ie not out towards the wings. So if a defender had cleared it instead of Hamer’s heel on Sunday, Walker wouldn’t have played anybody onside, even though the ball only just cleared the penalty area.

Thanks for that. I misread the bit about the half way line.

It just makes a bigger dog's breakfast, like the rule changes about handball and offside. The rule makers think they can rewrite the rule so to improve on what's been established by custom over the past 150 years, and they just make it worse. (Cricket lawmakers are going the same way. I think they just want to keep themselves in a job by proving that they are "necessary".)

Isn't there a rule that says someone who leaves the pitch for a legitimate reason (eg. to take a throw-in, or simply accidentally falling over the touchline) has to come back straight away?

 

[PokerBlade]

I'll be honest I really thought this was a newish addition to the offside law but apparently it's been in use since 2008! I can even remember an opposition player stepping beyond the goalline last season against us and appealing for offside (might have been Ndiaye's first against Blackburn?), he clearly didn't get the memo.

I think it was (at least in part) to stop fuckery going on around free kicks. I remember Chris Morgan doing it at an away game vs. a good free kick taker. He stood on the line, so an attacker comes to goal hang, then Morgan steps off the pitch right before the kick. He even signalled to the linesman what he was going to do.

If you allowed it you could make all sorts of moves with goalkeepers stepping back behind the goal line in open play, but I'm not sure anyone tried to exploit that. Technically it's always been an offence to deliberately leave the pitch without the ref's permission so you shouldn't be able to gain an advantage from it.