Last week saw PMGOL, the referees association, trialling new technology to assist the Assistant Referees in making correct decisions over contentious incidents in the future. If the trials are successful, the new system will be adopted into use in 2018.
This week saw the return of UEFA Champions League matches, where the leading EPL teams faced the first of their consecutive home and away matches against the same teams in each of their respective groups, with Tuesday seeing Liverpool travelling to play Maribor in Slovenia, and securing a comprehensive 7-nil victory courtesy of two goals each from Roberto Firmino and Mohammed Salah, and others from Philippe Coutinho, Alex Oxade-Chamberlain and a deflected Trent Alexander-Arnold shot; Spurs travelling to Madrid to face Real at the Bernabeu and drawing 1-all with an own goal from Madrid’s Raphael Varane being cancelled out by a penalty from Cristiano Ronaldo, and aided by some crucial saves from goalkeeper Hugo Lloris; and Manchester City hosting Napoli at the Etihad Stadium and claiming a 2-1 victory with early goals from Raheem Sterling and Gabriel Jesus, with Napoli’s reply being scored by a second half penalty from Amadou Diawara, whilst having seen goalkeeper Ederson save an earlier first half penalty from Dries Mertens; whilst Chelsea faced Roma at Stamford Bridge on Wednesday, taking a 2 goal lead through David Luiz and Eden Hazard, before a deflected strike from Alexander Kolarov, and a brace from Edin Szeko, the first a superb left foot volley, gave Roma the lead, but Eden Hazard collecting his brace to give them a share of the points; and Manchester United travelled to Benfica’s Stadium of Light, where United collected their third straight group win, courtesy of Marcus Rashford’s direct free kick from the left wing that the teenage goalkeeper of Benfica unfortunately misjudged and carried over the goalline. SPL Champions suffered a 3-nil defeat at Bayern Munich, after goals from Thomas Mueller, Joshua Kimmich and Mats Hummels.
