....is Howard Webb. Would you believe Michael Oliver has been appointed referee for Man Utd v Arsenal on Sunday?
Webb is the world's best. We can pretty well bank on him getting the key decisions right. As for putting Oliver in charge of Man U. v Arsenal....didn't PointyNose admit he blew the Tottenham penalty call. And now he puts him in charge of this one???? Ludicrous.
After Steve Bruce complaining we never get any of the TOP refs, you watch Webb have a stinker now! As for Oliver, that just doesn't make sense. Riley drops him and apologises to SB for the incident, then rewards Oliver with one of the biggest highest profile games of the season! Incredulous!
As always, here are his previous City matches: 2012/13 Hull 2-0 Huddersfield (We all remember what happened here) 2008/09 West Ham 2-0 Hull Hull 1-1 Newcastle Hull 1-2 Stoke 2005/06 Hull 1-0 Plymouth 2002/03 Hull 2-4 Leicester (League Cup) Port Vale 3-1 Hull (FL Trophy) Hull 2-0 Hartlepool 2001/02 Rushden 3-3 Hull 2000/01 Hull 0-2 Cheltenham Rochdale 1-0 Hull Not a great overall record, but he has been around for a while, hasn't he?
Wasn't he the fourth official who overturned that penalty against Villa having used a monitor in the tunnel?
Reminds of of reading Alex Ferguson's autobiography, each time I thought I'd nearly finished it, Howard Webb added another 6 pages.
Webb is injured and is replaced by Phil Dowd. Premier League ‏@premierleague 4m Due to injury, Phil Dowd has replaced Howard Webb as referee of Saturday's #BPL match between @SouthamptonFC and @hullcityteam
Looks like I'll have to add a new ref history. Dowd's Hull matches. 2013/14 Man City 2-0 Hull 2011/12 Watford 1-1 Hull 2009/10 Hull 0-1 Birmingham Bolton 2-2 Hull Hull 2-1 Man City Portsmouth 3-2 Hull Wigan 2-2 Hull 2008/09 Hull 2-2 Man City Newcastle 0-1 Hull (FA Cup) Middlesbrough 3-1 Hull 2007/08 Sheff Wed 1-0 Hull Sheff Utd 2-0 Hull 2005/06 Burnley 1-0 Hull 2002/03 Hull 1-1 Rushden 2001/02 Hull 0-4 Luton 2000/01 Southend 1-1 Hull 1998/99 Hull 0-2 Swansea
Dowd's lost a bit of timber this season. He was a bit of a porker but he's shed a couple of stone, I reckon.
Only won two out of that list but all that says is we were worse or no better than the opposition in the rest of them. Bears no reflection on Dowds performance.
It's not meant to say anything, it's just his previous matches he reffed against us. I post this every week on the relevant referee thread for each ref, well I will unless it is someone we have had already this season (though I don't remember doing Dowd's for the Man City match).
Dowd's been my favourite ref for some time, but I had a feeling he reffed us in one of our games against Arsenal - maybe the Nasri stamp one? But regardless, have always had a lot of time for him.
90 minutes or so should be more than enough. It's an odd one with refs. The FA and their own puppet masters don't seem to do them any favours, farting about with the interpretation of rules and getting all pre-menstrual if a manager comments about them, even if they agree the manager's right and have match assessors with their own agenda scoring their future. They have to put up with thousands of partisans trying to tell them they're useless and two dozen players trying to con them, and then get subject to the trial of a thousand slow mo replays. They're essential to the game, so there's got to be a better way really..hasn't there?
