Referees and big calls

The coin doesn't have the power of conscious thought, allowing it to decide if it will be heads or tails, so how can it be biased?

 

What do you expect if you come up with ideas so impractical and you implied that referees are biased towards certain teams. That is complete bollocks.

 

I think there are occasions when a review can be used and it should be down to the referee when to use them, not team captains or managers. A referee (officials) should be in control of the match. As is the case at the moment they give what they see. Most decisions are obvious, penalty, dive sending off etc but some they must think oh ****, what happened there, did the player get the ball or the opponent. For those big decisions where the ref is unsure there is room to stop play and 4th official to review. For example the long/lovren incident yesterday, he could blow up there and then, review, and within a minute a penalty awarded or play resumes with the defensive team in possesion. If he was confident it was never a penalty in the first place, then fine, no review: it won't solve everything but should give more accurate decisions.

 

They are.

I don't believe it's necessarily a conscious thing but refs are under far more pressure from the media and the accessors if they give decisions against the big teams. They are also more likely to give a penalty against or send someone off from Watford than Liverpool for example. Lets face it, there's not going to be endless re-runs of it on MOTD is there? They're not cheating, it's just a natural reaction but the better ones (and there aren't many) can rise above it.

 

If I recall correctly, in that incident the ball was hoofed up front by Mignolet. If Liverpool had been quickly mounting an attack at that point would the ref have stopped the game? What if that kick had set someone off on goal? It would have been grossly unfair to stop play in that situation if the penalty had been turned down. And that's from a penalty shout, a hundred yards away from a goalscoring opportunity. Some incidents aren't so far from the goal and an attack could form in two seconds after a disputed foul. If the rule implied "we'll only review if nothing's happening" then you could guarantee teams changing behaviour after a tackle to ensure something was possible so the ref couldn't review.

The devil is in the detail. It's all well and good in theory but no-one ever seems able to say "These are a set of rules that would work; discuss". What we get are ideas and ideals. I'm yet to see someone come up with detailed ideas for rules.

Vin

 

It is a difficult one and we shouldn't bring in anything detrimental to the game. But there are more and more bizarre decisions and difficult decisions. They have always been there (66 world cup, hand of God world cup) and technology has moved on. I guess each incident needs to be taken in isolation. Going back to long, lovren the next passage of play may well have been a hoof up the field and an attack for Liverpool but I would rather the right decision be made on a situation that actually happened. Power needs to remain with the officials and I am only talking about incidents the ref wants help on because he is behind play or his angle. Generally there are only a couple of these incidents per game.

 

Did you see Shane's resigned smile when he didn't get the pen? Perhaps Saints' players have lost the will to protest. I believe Mane missed his penalty out of the sheer shock of us being given one.

 

This should be called "Referees and big balls" because it's what they need. A certain Saints player could have been sent off in the first minute of the 2003 Cup Final. Henry staying on his feet helped, but you do wonder if the ref would have wanted the Cup Final played 10v11. Last year against Liverpool, there was a strong penalty call in the first minute. Had it been awarded a red card would have followed. It wasn't given and, I believe, the ref "bottled it."

It's a thankless bloody job. It's time that they had some help. I thought Koeman's observations were entirely practical.

 

Completely agree. We will see what proposals come up for the trials. But UEFA have (correctly) said they won't permit any interference with the game, like with goal line technology. I haven't seen a good solution yet.

 

Roger East is a joke, but I think he sat down at half-time and realised he should have given the penalty for the foul against Long (and sent Lovren off - how that would have changed the game). I do think some refs try to "balance the books" sometimes when they realise they've made a bad decision. How many times has Skrtel got away with the tugging, pulling, etc? And why didn't Leicester get a penalty when Huth had his shirt ripped off?
To me, it's pretty obvious that refs are nervous about giving a "big decision" early in the game (understandable) but also are much more likely to give something for one of the "big" clubs than the others. Probably, also understandable because of the crap the media (and managers) give them .............

 

"Jose", "Fonte", "Red cards" - only 1 in his career? Amazing .........

 

I am no great advocate of the use of technology because for every outright mistake (obvious to everyone) there are many that are discussed and analysed ad nauseum from every angle after the game. Why....because many decisions come down to opinions....without brain scans you will never know a players intent. If you accept video evidence (reviewed by a 5th official) you will have to fully accept mistakes, but I suspect arguments will still ensue. Perhaps the game should be played and officiated by robots then there could be no mistake.

 

And he still pulled an innocent face for it.

 

Jose is the master of the innocent look.

 

I stated "I am not suggesting that the referees are cheating, but I think we have all seen enough of the game to realise that some teams/individuals get more decisions for, than against, especially when on their home turf."

My implication is that some referees don't deal so well with the pressures of decision making, under the scrutiny of the bigger crowds, and as a result unconsciously lean towards the "bigger teams."

I also stated that referees could use the records to defend themselves against claims of bias, but you chose to ignore that.

Tell me. Why isn't it practical to record match changing decisions, when every game is covered by countless cameras. Seriously, I am interested in knowing why a referee thinks fellow referees should not be monitored on match changing decisions. If they are as clean as we all hope they are, then where is the harm. But if the odd one or two are found to have a tendency to favour certain teams, even subconsciously, then it can only be good for the game, in general, to have those tendencies pointed out to them.
Seriously, put your case forward, without using foul language.

EDIT
On several occasions I have seen you accuse referees of "bottling" decisions. Isn't that just another way of saying that they are cheating? Or maybe they are being subconsciously biased.

 

Bottling decisions usually just means that a ref doesn't agree with you. Bottled decisions = not blowing your whistle when you aren't certain. If he isn't sure a ref shouldn't give a foul/free kick/penalty...doesn't mean he has lost his nerve. Are we saying that refs should be risk takers, especially when favouring our team.

 

And if it was Chris Smalling that had done the challenge that Jose had done, it wouldn't have been a red either.

 

If it had been Chris Smalling, it wouldn't even have been a yellow, it'd have been a Man Utd free-kick!!

 

I'm not particularly disagreeing with what you say so don't take this the wrong way, but wouldn't it be unfair if it turned out that the ref had made the right decision on the pen and play had still been stopped during an attack? Swap the teams round and see how it feels. We'd be livid. (And I suspect the pundits would immediately switch to bitching about whoever's decision it is to stop play for contentious moments).

What would make an enormous difference would be refs wearing earphones that played white noise so they couldn't hear the crowd. Scientifically proven to make them less biased. If they could do that just for our away games, it'd be nice.

Vin

 

I think most people define bottling it, or losing one's bottle as meaning losing one's nerve, or acting in a cowardly manner, for what it's worth.
No one, as far as I can see, is suggesting that ref's should be taking risks, when they are not certain about decisions, so I don't know why you raise that point.

All I am doing is responding to an earlier post, by Tom, and I have asked him to define what he means, when he accuses ref's of bottling decisions, because he becomes very defensive, and offensive, when others criticise refs.

Below are two quotes made by Tom, during Sunday's game.

"That should have been a pen and red for Lovren."
"He bottled it completely."
These were made in reference to the Long/Lovren incident on Sunday. I just want to know if he thought the ref was cheating, or showing bias, or if the ref was correct in doing nothing.