Hear what your saying and can't disagree with the sentiment, the problem is there are normally bad tackles and potential leg breaking tackles of varying levels of badness(!) every weekend that go unpunished, or don't receive what would appear to be the correct level of punishment. At what point do you draw the line and say that one isn't quite dangerous enough to warrant retrospective action? It becomes subjective and opens the FA up to all kinds of other criticism regarding consistency. I'm not too sure what the rule says but surely everyone would agree that what Thatcher did was a clear assault on the player and without doubt should be dealt differently to a reckless attempt to get the ball.
The crazy thing is had the officials done there job and sent him off this incident would have been nothing but a footnote to the weekends action. We have professional referees now, but they're still being treated like good hearted volunteers. What else do they do for there money? I believe a panel of them should review any controversial incidents from the weekend. I actually think a panel of refs would be more honest than the current FA who seem too concerned not to upset them.
I think the refs performance is monitored on a match by match basis. Not Halseys fault because he didn't see it, though the lino did. Did he go and ask the linesman?
He shouldn't really have to go and ask, that's what they have flags for! I'm not drawing a comparison between McManaman's tackle and Thatcher's elbow, merely the fact that Thatcher was punished retrospectively in spite of the FAs self-imposed rules. Also I think a single panel of referees acting on video evidence would likely be much more consistent than individual referees acting during matches. I don't imagine they would review every incident, perhaps the option could be given to referees to refer an incident to the panel if he is unsure about it.
The only way this incident could have dragged on any longer, were if it was against Arsenal! Just imagine, we'd still be talking about it in October!! I hope the Toon kid is okay, thats the big thing in all this. The challenge was bad, over the top & he should have had some sort of punishment, but the fact that he hasn't will probably cause McMananan a fair bit of future trouble. I would not be surprised if his new found rep finds him an unfair red before the season finishes......not that that makes up for the Lino ducking his duties in the game.
Thatcher should have been banned for life. Ball had gone ages ago, no need to lead with the elbow. Mendes was lucky not to be more seriously harmed than he was.
Just had a read through some of this thread lads, its refreshing to see a range of views. Thanks - you've restored my faith in football supporters I think probably most of us Wigan supporters would rather have seen him getting a three or even five match ban for what was a terrible challenge, rather than this thing just drag on. I don't know if it was malicious - I was at the game and the challenge happened in front of our stand and we pretty much all - going by the reactions - seemed to think it was a straight red. It seemed to come from nowhere too. There had been no "previous" between the two players. Only a few fans picked up that he had in fact touched the ball - but his misjudgement was in going over it, with studs forward. I think he misjudged the bounce, and misjudged the distance between him and the player too. I still think he treated a 70-30 ball like it was a 50-50 - and so his decision making was all wrong. But what do I know? Maybe he was deliberate. Anyway, it was refreshing to read a range of views. And well done on the teams form in the last couple months. the performance in the second half at our place was as good as anything we've seen this season, and didn't get the result it deserved really.
The only person who should apologise is McManaman. And the only person he should apologise to is Haidara.
The short answer is I don't know. I can't find anything. I suspect - and this is no excuse - that because there is concern about getting sued by NUFC there will be an instruction not to do anything which could look like admitting liability. It would be a shame if legal concerns took precedence over simple human decency. I hope McManaman has been in touch with Hiadara to offer his apologies, but who knows? Bobby said after the game that he would be - So - hopefully he has.
Thanks HP Sauce - was at the Wigan v Saints game, and yes we did play well and have quite a few times since as well. This issue is certainly causing some debate ! IMO it looked like your lad was going for the bouncing ball and just got it wrong as the Newcastle player was moving into line with his boot as he was going for it. I would be very surprised if he caught the Newcastle lad intentionally - really surprised. To me it was a bad tackle but never intentional. If the ref had seen it he would have got sent off for sure, but he didnt so he was kind of lucky, although he will get abuse from all corners now which is prob worse for a while. Young people make mistakes and have to be given a chance, even footballers. Of our supporters discussing it on here PTF seems to have summed it up best to me, others are a little hysterical but hey, many of them are only young lads as well. Good luck for your remaining games - you reckon you & us can both stay up ? Hope so, i really enjoyed Wigan away to be honest.
Trouble is if you allowed the refs this option I suspect they would bottle making any really big call during the game as it could be picked up and dealt with retrospectively - I actually think that situation would create a larger degree of frustration for the fans than what we have today (which isn't ideal!).
