It Evens Itself Out Over A Season - The Ref's A ****

[markysimmo]

That's fine, then Adebayor should have been sent off against Chelsea when he made 4 yellow card challenges. Weird that nothing was said about it when he was given the benefit of the doubt every single time bar the yellow.

To be fair it was mentioned on here several times, same with Ramires both shouldve walked in that game

 

[Kingdawson]

To be fair it was mentioned on here several times, same with Ramires both shouldve walked in that game

It was said by me when i made the Howard Webb thread. I think maybe 1 person actually agreed but the point was mainly ignored. The main focus was how Webb screwed us with the handball that "doesn't matter if it wasn't intentional it still resulted in a goal" (Like the VDV Gooner goal right?).


Look the point is it happens and there's no way in hell we've been unfairly treated by the refs (except Stoke). Other seasons i could definately see it but this season? nah not at all.

 

[Spur of the moment]

The annoying thing is, if review technology was in place as it is in cricket and rugby, each of those 'offside' goals could easily have been reviewed instantly with video cameras. The review would not have interfered with the flow of the game as the ball was in the net and therefore dead, and play would not have been held up unduly because the review process usually only takes a minute or so - much less time than it takes currently for the ref to calm the players down and fend off all the protests.

 

[Pandy]

It was said by me when i made the Howard Webb thread. I think maybe 1 person actually agreed but the point was mainly ignored. The main focus was how Webb screwed us with the handball that "doesn't matter if it wasn't intentional it still resulted in a goal" (Like the VDV Gooner goal right?).


Look the point is it happens and there's no way in hell we've been unfairly treated by the refs (except Stoke). Other seasons i could definately see it but this season? nah not at all.

To be fair a few people said Adebayor should have gone, and I agree. The Cole handball was different to the VDV one, VDV took it almost with his shoulder, not giving it is an issue of surety. Not giving the one against Cole is simply an issue of competency. If the handball puts the team in an advantageous position, then play should be brought back, I think the officials were just wrong there, whereas those that allowed the VDV goal to stand didn't think it struck his arm.

I definitely agree that we aren't given special treatment by refs (although Foy certainly seemed to have an agenda, possibly to do with the petty Stoke crowd baying for blood every time we made a tackle). They are always going to be seen as brick in such a high-paced, high-stakes game where they are guaranteed to make mistakes, which is why we need technology.

It is just fudging annoying when you look back and remember all the points we have been mugged of by bad decisions. We will never remember the ones that have given us points though!

 

[Pandy]

The annoying thing is, if review technology was in place as it is in cricket and rugby, each of those 'offside' goals could easily have been reviewed instantly with video cameras. The review would not have interfered with the flow of the game as the ball was in the net and therefore dead, and play would not have been held up unduly because the review process usually only takes a minute or so - much less time than it takes currently for the ref to calm the players down and fend off all the protests.

But it takes the fun out of the game, the human element etc. etc.....

(or Sepp Blatter is a massive clam?)

 

[marcospur2]

In the Stoke and Wolves game we have had poor decisions against us, which may have cost us points. But in both games we had more than enough chances to win them comfortably. We need to be more ruthless when we are so dominant so then these kind of decisions aren't something we look back on later...

 

[markysimmo]

Niko on twitter is having a moan about crucial decisions, Stoke, Chelsea now Wolves

 

[scarborough]

i still dont get what the fourth official does during a match apart from getting a quality view of the game whilst chatting to the managers and occasionaly holding a board up. why doesnt he sit watching the game on tv in between the managers giving immediate feedback via earpiece and microphone to the ref and can explain to people like Wenger when they "dont see it"

 

[1882]

Linnet - totally agree its fudged up. I have a theory that the Linesman are so used to giving Ade offside that they have made up their minds regardless whether he is actually offside or not.

Have to say that occurred to me too yesterday... it's like Joey Barton and Yellow cards... sometimes, just SOMETIMES, it's NOT!

 

[Fuego]

I would add that your/our team gets 90+ mins to beat the other team. For instance today the ref got 2 major decisions wrong which cost us but at the same time we had the ability - almost 70% of play for the game to change that but we wasted it. Whats the point in blaming the ref all the time. He gave a corner that should not have been - could we have not just defended this corner and headed it away??? With that amount of play you cant blame the ref as you must have been below par in the first place not to have won the game.

I see your point. However, 1 major game changing decision (a disallowed goal) and 1 minor decision (a corner they shouldn't have had) is a bit of a handicap.

I will add that there is another team playing against you, if their strategy is to defend well, 1 goal is a huge advantage, let alone 2. If someone gave Spurs 2 goals against Barca and all we had to do was defend in order to do an Inter Milan and get to the CL final, I'd really be disappointed if we let go of that. Inter restricted Barca to scoring 1 goal and they had 10 men. If that hadn't have been a Jose Mourinho team, people would have laughed at Barca for being unable to score against 10 men that just wanted to defend a 2 goal lead from another match.

It's very difficult to score 3 goals against a team that defends the entire time. If they concede 1 goal and attack, then it's much easier to score against them. But you have 11 people that are getting paid to be able to play football vs another 11 people that are getting paid to be able to play football... If one of those teams is more skilled, the other team would be taking a huge risk to try to outplay them.


I also want to add that what you said for the Wolves game is true. Chelsea are a better team, so Webb made more of an impact there and Foy was the worst because he didn't give fouls, so Stoke could kick the hell out of people and we wouldn't get free kicks unless the ball was near our corner flag. Ignoring the huge huge huge game changing decisions he got wrong, even ignoring the couple of corners he got wrong, his inability to give free kicks said to Stoke "kick them up in the air, I don't care"... I know at the start he was kind enough to give a few free kicks against Woodgate, but after the first 30 minutes, he stopped giving us anything when we were anywhere near their box. Although Kaboul obviously was wrong to make a tackle 10% as bad as the fouls we didn't even get free kicks for and he got sent off. *Shrug.*

Webb was departedly bad though. He was sort of fair when it came to not sending off one of their players for three bookable offenses, Ade got the same treatment. Plus he came shortly after Foy at Stoke, so compared to that, he looked like the best ref in the world.

 

[linnet_spur]

In charge for the game on Sunday. Title challenge OVER

 

[GLENROYID]

Great, cant wait for the city game now

 

[Yossarian]

Great, cant wait for the city game now

Either he's incompetent or corrupt (in favour of the rags).

If the former, it could work for us or not.

If the latter, it's good news people!

 

[ArcspacE]

May I ask - if we could be assigned a single ref for the season - who would people want? Because seemingly none are good enough

I still maintain my earlier take of Webb being one of the Top 3 PL refs along with Mariner and Probert

 

[Rock Strongo]

May I ask - if we could be assigned a single ref for the season - who would people want? Because seemingly none are good enough

I still maintain my earlier take of Webb being one of the Top 3 PL refs along with Mariner and Probert

Anal Probert? He's catbrick!



Hardly even a yellow that, Probert? He's constantly brick though, I'll give him that.

I'd take that geezer, what's her name? Dowd. Dowd's the name.

 

[southstand1882]

Another good game today Howard.

Souness and G Nev were full of praise.

 

[marcospur2]

Another good game today Howard.

Souness and G Nev were full of praise.

Those two were spot on after the game. Very frustrating how many decisions have gone against us in the games we have lost this year. But I would not want to be a ref at all, they may not always help themselves, but nor does the game help them.

 

[mudshark]

All evens itself up in the end, though, doesn't it, Howard? In which case, he probably owes us an unbeaten season by now, just on his own.

 

[Park Lane James]

I think he's a good poster to be fair

 

[ArcspacE]

I genuienly believe he didn't see/notice the 2 incidents - both were extremely sneaky.

Besides that - thought he was solid and called it fair