“He must have been watching a different game to me”.

[the other bob wilson]

You've been a bit selective there unless I've completely misread the offside laws. An 'offside' player can also be penalised if he interferes with an opponent by;

a) challenging an opponent for the ball
b) clearly attempting to play a ball which is close to him when this action impacts on an opponent
c) making an obvious action which impacts on an opponent's ability to play the ball

http://www.thefa.com/football-rules-...w-11---offside

I'd say Zohore was offside three times rather than none in this instance, I'm not even sure if the Newcastle player touched the ball so it may be four. Like I say though, there must be a big grey area here. If the defender stays on his feet and underhits a back pass which Zohore intercepts and scores from, how can the ref determine whether Zohore's presence 'impacted on the defender's ability to play the ball'? Very subjective. The defender would say he felt Zohore's presence behind him and had to rush the pass. Surely it would be much easier in this case for the linesman to raise his flag as soon as the attacker moves towards the ball?

Surely the point is that while there is a general acceptance that Zohore was offside at times in the move before the Newcastle player touched the ball, but at none of these times was he deemed to be offside by the official. The linesman was right in front of me and did not wave his flag until Zohore touched the ball, so he didn't believe there had been a foul, he clearly judged our player to be offside, hence I quoted the part of the law that it seems to me he applied to this incident.

You mention "grey areas". Time was when there was no such thing in football, the laws were clear and easy to understand for everyone and, although they may disagree at times with how they were applied by the officials, spectators were at least clear in the knowledge as to why a decision had been made.

There was a time under the old offside law where FIFA stated that any benefit of the doubt with offside decisions should be applied to attacking players rather than defending ones. For me, that was a change for the better and there was never any need for the complicated changes that have prompted around twenty posts in this thread arguing from different points of view without us still really knowing why the linesman raised his flag at the time that he did - more proof that the modern day offside law is an ass.