So another referee goes down as being unfit for the job he is employed to do. We'll be seeing more of him next year no doubt as we will both be in the championship.
As Bummers has already said, we get the **** end of the decisions on the pitch against the bigger clubs, but they don't get any benefit when it comes to card appeals. It's true to say that if Huddlestone had played for Man United, he probably wouldn't have got a red in the first place, but had he done so, it wouldn't have been rescinded.
I think its fair to say that the decision on the appeal of the red card was made before the appeal was actually put forward!!!!!!
What I was getting at was, they probably knew it was coming on Saturday and decided in advance of the appeal!!!
while i totally agree, this effect is apparent at all levels throughout the leagues. i've watched us up and down and up the leagues. i've seen us get penalised outrageously against teams 23 places higher in the table and i've seen opposition teams 23 places lower outrageoously penalised against us. referees and linesmen are just people, subject to the same conscious and unconscious biases as the rest of us, but i still want to shoot the bloody lot of them.
When I did my refereeing course, which was to be fair about 10 years ago so thing could have changed, we were told it was careless (foul), reckless (yellow) or excessive force (red). Was that foul by Huddlestone really using excessive force?? He hardly touched him to be fair. I agree that it was always unlikely to be overturned as it was a foul and yellow card and therefore it would undermine the referee. But it just shows how useless the FA is that when a clearly wrong decision is made they don't solve it by using some common sense. They are totally unfit for purpose. I do think this runs deeper than just the FA though and players are largely to blame for their constant diving/cheating and overreaction to every foul trying to get opposition sent off. It puts any contentious challenges much more in the spotlight and referees probably feel if they don't deal with a challenge which is slightly mistimed firmly then they'll be criticised in the media and by managers. I also don't think we owe the FA anything for the name change rejection. It was a bloody obvious decision and even then about a third of those that voted still manage to **** it up.
It's not just league position, but the home crowd makes a massive difference. At some grounds the ref gets loads of grief for every decision even when it's blatantly correct. That's a lot of pressure in that moment and it has a big subconscious impact on the ref. If he knows he's going to get stick for giving a free kick against the home side, he'll be hoping not to see one. And if he's hoping not to see it, he won't see it! Have we ever come away from Goodison not being pissed off at the ref?
Saturday's ref hadn't shown a red all season, this had been fairly big news in his local rag and there have been suggestions from some quarters that he was under pressure to give one and just went with the first option he got.
Just watched it again, you can see why some (ours) refs would give it as a red - harsh indeed, but no real surprise. When you're in the **** it generally just gets deeper, the three game ban for Huddlestone is a huge blow a difficult battle just got even harder.
