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For what it's worth, here's my thoughts on the mess that's the current offside law. It was set up to stop attacking players 'gaining an advantage' by goal-hanging. It's always been about stopping players 'gaining an advantage', albeit having gone through a few revisions since.
The first version required at least 3 players to be goal-side of the attacking player, which made it easy for the defending team. After an experiment, it was changed to at least 2 players in 1925. Then we got players having to be 'active' which was clarified by FIFA in 2005.
In 2005, the law was also changed to say that any part of an attacker's body, other than their arm/hand had to be in front of the second-last defender. Finally, in 2017, it was clarified again so that an attacker wasn't offside if a defender 'deliberately' played the ball.
This wasn't really new as, since the law was introduced, a team-mate of the player in an offside position had to be the last one to play the ball whereas previously an accidental touch from a defender after that team-mate had played the ball could render him or her onside.
Up to the introduction of VAR, it depended on the assistant in consultation with the ref. They got most right but also got some wrong. Think Kyle Walker playing for Spurs, when they scored against City from his cross, when clearly well offside st the time the ball was played.
Then came VAR. with its superimposed lines, and we were told offside was now 'binary' and there were no grey areas. Your armpit could be offside with VAR but how was that 'gaining an advantage' (going back to the core purpose of Offside in the 19th Century)?
When City played West Ham, in the opening PL game last season, Raheem's armpit was judged offside and the goal disallowed. Later on, Jesus was stood in an offside position when a goalscoring move was started, yet was just behind the ball when it was played into him so was onside.
Yet he'd clearly 'gained an advantage' by being where he was. The logical outcome is that an attacker can now goal-hang because as long as they are fractionally behind the ball when it's last played, they're deemed to be onside. This leads to the following possibility...
Opposition win a corner. Jesus goes down the field to stand on the opposition penalty spot & Sterling downfield just in his own half. The corner's cleared & Sterling sprints down the other end of the field and lays it back to Jesus, who scores. That's OK nowadays under the law.
Yet Jesus (or whoever) was clearly 'gaining an advantage' by goal-hanging, which completely negates the main objective of the offside law. Whereas a toe or shoulder being offside isn't OK under the current law. Perhaps offside should be a bit more subjective rather than binary?
Was Rodri, who had to come back 20 yards to get the ball, 'gaining an advantage' any more than if he'd been a yard in front of Mings, rather than 20 yards behind him when the ball was played? If Mings had made a backpass to him, that would have been OK. Where's the logic?
The more the brainless idiots at PGMOL mess with their interpretations of these laws like offside and handball, the more inconsistent they make them and the more they take them away from their clear objectives.
Rant over.
Rant over.
