I don't expect the club to PUBLICALLY complain about sh*te refs. But I expect them to post-match formally write to the PL and cite the events that occurred in a game, so there is no misunderstanding that the club is taking this lying down. If this is occurring too often (reds post-match reduced to yellows etc) , and the PL are doing nothing about the standard of officials, then arrange a "leak" of all the letters.
I listened to a journalist speaking on TalkShite, last night, who reviewed the £ity v Spurs game. He supports neither team, so was unbiased. His opinion was that, whilst a couple of the decisions could, on a better day, have gone the other way, that overall the ref didn't have the mare that a lot of Spurs fans are suggesting. My great fear, whenever we get tonked by a team, is that we allow the focus to be placed on the officials, rather than the very clear problems that exist at our club, and that have existed there since the days of Santini.
The site problems appear to have extended to reposted comments from quite some time ago, now. Sorry all!
Hasnt been that bad, much more interesting than this years Bundesliga and La Liga if Barca keep winning.
Entertaining ≠ High Quality The Championship is more entertaining than La Liga but lets not pretend it's of higher quality. Chelsea and City seem to be the only sides capable of stringing 4/5 wins on the bounce, it could be the same as La Liga this season.
That means nothing with regard to quality. A high quality league with sides of a similar stature would result in the same thing, as would an equally balanced low quality one.
Anyone see gary monk, the swansea manager, laying into referees giving his team **** decisions on motd2? I am honestly of the opinion that this is what we should do...being reasonable or doing it behind the scene is doing nothing for us...sowe should kick off every time when get ****e decisions.
I see, so a team gets TWO GOALS they don't deserve by incompetence and/or bias and that doesn't count? But don't let the facts get in the way of your agenda will you.
Do you think it will do Swansea any good? He'll get fined and nothing else will change. Now when Chelsea, City or United complain.... Monk was dead right by the way. Shows it is not just us on the end of it.
What clear problems? We've got the sixth most money and we usually finish higher than that. The only other time that our league position outperformed our wealth was in the sixties.
Who was this unbiased journalist, HIAG? Regardless of team affiliations, the ref was awful. He was inconsistent, got most of the major decisions wrong and also ballsed up lots of the minor ones. Simple things like throw ins were bewildering both sides, as players moved into positions to defend or attack and then had to switch as he gave it the wrong way. His bookings appeared to be given almost totally at random, with Mason receiving one for a nothing foul and Navas clearly doing Rose, yet escaping without a card. The Spaniard then picked up a yellow in the second half for a far less nasty challenge. What constituted a foul seemed to be based upon which side and which player was on the receiving end of the decision. Fat Frank and Boring James Milner are both England regulars, despite the retirement of the former, so they get the benefit of the doubt. Danny Rose has only had limited callups though, so you can kick him all over the place and he'll get nothing.
The refs in Spurs vs BigBoys over the last 3-4 years have been a complete joke, in almost every match we've played. Some, if not all, of the drubbings and (undoubtedly) loss of confidence have been caused by ****ty refereeing. The problem isn't being cost the 3pts against teams like City as we would likely have lost anyway but its been more damaging than that.
There's one way to stop teams getting the shaft by referees like we did on Saturday (or any of the times we got the shaft from Hoy, Clattenberg, Wiley or Webb) and that is for the team who have been punished by the referees' ineptitude and/or bias to refuse to kick off to restart the game, instead they walk off the pitch in protest. You'd have to be Alan Shearer not to pick up on the fact that teams will be protesting at the ineptitude of the refs in games against a small clique of "elite" clubs more often than not, and it's the only way to guarantee that something gets done because the Premier League would hate to see their precious brand besmirched by teams regularly walking off the pitch to protest that the officials the Premier League deem to be sufficient are anything but. Frankly the same should've happened in the World Cup when the refs were letting Brazil practice clogger bonito on their opponents, for the same reason: FIFA are happy to let inept officials into their showpiece tournament.
Other teams may have been treated even more unfairly by the refs. I haven't watched every game, and have no stats that would prove anything. (The only one I had was from two years ago, when Spurs didn't have a single penalty awarded, while their opponents were awarded three; while Chelsea were awarded 12, and had one given to their opponents--in a year they finished a point or two ahead of us.) Nevertheless, my feeling is that this year is the worst ever for decisions slanted against Spurs and for bad decisions in general. 3/4 pens were wrongly awarded in the City game, I thought. The last was the least clear goal scoring opportunity of the four. While it, and the one on Dier, could have been pens, if they were, then the three blatant tugs on Adebayor should have been awarded as well. A fairly clear handball on Sagna also resulted in nothing. Southampton spent a great deal of time rolling around on the ground and swayed the ref to call the game their way. One of their players put his studs through Naughton's ankle bones and didn't even get a foul. Also, just out of interest, what is "denying a clear goal scoring opportunity?" Don't players have a goal scoring opportunity at the halfway line? Players have certainly scored from there. Doesn't that make it an "opportunity?" Isn't it an opportunity to score when you could start a series of a dozen passes which result in a goal? It certainly seems like an opportunity to me, and it's certainly one managers often urge their teams to try to take. It reminds me of an archaeological phrase "a definite possible." It was just a fancy way of saying "maybe." It means absolutely nothing. The rule exists to provide for an extra penalty for a defender who cynically cheats to prevent a certain goal a la Suarez in the World Cup before last. So that's what the words need to say. Or, if you want to make it a bit more encompassing, something like "denies a shot within the penalty box," which seems to be how it is interpreted. So it's not just big-team bias and just plain poor officials, it's also rules that are not written well enough to provide clear guidance. Finally, even given that all these faults were corrected, football's key decisions are uniquely difficult to get right in real time. The only answer to not having far too many games decided by bad calls is technology. Review calls while the game goes on, and wait till the next stoppage to correct, IMO.
I've just read Graham Poll's article about the refs this weekend and I'm struggling to find anything to disagree with. They must've been really **** this week. Edit: Following up on a comment on that article, I came across this quote from Tim Sherwood's punditry, which I missed during the game: "In the game against City last season where we lost 5-1 and Danny Rose was sent off, Jon Moss was the fourth official. He called it, I heard him, 'that’s a penalty and a red card'. I asked how he could possibly see from where he was. He likes to award penalties even when he’s not on the pitch." That's the same Jonathan Moss that was subsequently awarded this game. He was also the ref when we lost 5-0 to Liverpool and had Paulinho sent off. Does he ever get anywhere near one of our games without us going down to 10 men?
What you mean like the explanation as to why Lampard was not offside because''the keeper wasn't saving it anyway'' He said it at half time so he was bang on about liking to give penalties
