Mark Clattenburg, hiding and letting others take the flak..........[natch] please log in to view this image
What a twat one of the worst refereeing decisions I have ever seen.mind you if the goal would have been allowed no doubt there would have been 15 minutes fergie time added on at the end of the game
Just in case anyone's forgotten, Twattenburg was also the ref for the Nani handball goal. He was banned and then suspended for his dodgy business dealings and was involved in the most obviously rigged game in recent history. Ajax and Lyon were competing for a place in the last 16 of the Champions League, but it was a big ask for the French club. They had to not only beat Dinamo Zagreb, but achieve a seven goal turnaround on goal difference and hope that Ajax lost to Real Madrid. The Dutch team, who included Jan Vertonghen and Christian Eriksen in their ranks, twice thought that they'd taken the lead. Both were ruled out and an obvious penalty was turned down, while the Spanish side took the lead from an offside goal and went on to win 3-0. Over in Zagreb, Mr Clattenburg oversaw a rather odd performance from the Croatian hosts. They held the visiting French side 1-1 at half-time and Ajax's place in the next round looked assured. A second half collapse saw them concede six (6) goals in about half an hour, as several of their defenders appeared to go missing. Various media outlets focused on Domagoj Vida's rather curious wink that followed Lyon's fifth goal: please log in to view this image Ajax called for an investigation into the match. UEFA decided that one wasn't warranted.
And he still doesn't mention the fact the Chav players were barging, elbowing, kicking, gouging and generally needling us from the moment both teams were in the tunnel.
He basically addresses it with his comments about the Manchester derby, though: "He will probably try to manage the game verbally before he goes for the yellow card. But, if a yellow card is needed, he has to show it." He always did the same thing and just tried to talk his way through a game, which inevitably resulted in it descending into chaos. The Chelsea match is a perfect example of him not doing his job and it blowing up.
What particularly annoyed me about this was the total acceptance by the media that the "three red cards" were justified since the implication was that this was pure thuggery by Spurs (the 9 yellows being often referred to). Nobody is absolving our players of responsibility but every single report or discussion I heard on the subject lacked context. There was nil consideration of Chelski's contribution to the mess and thus people who did not see the game or remember it have been left with the impression that the problems were largely of Spurs doing. I may be biased but my overall impression was that all this began by Spurs standing up for themselves in the face of serious intimidation that was ignored by the greatest ref in the world (TM). I also saw no mention of the fact that Chelski were fined £375k and Spurs £225k. Why more for them? Because they had "failed to control their players" on four previous occasions since November 2014 (the match was in May 2016 so it seems to be a fairly regular occurrence). The distribution of 3 yellows to 9 is also mystifying.
vimhawk, no surprises in the yellow card count ( <standard> Clatterf**k) being inconsistent with the FA post-match fines.
