Once again as we have come to expect we have witnessed another fine performance by the men in black over the weekend. The standard of football and the EPL itself is being touted as the best league in the world but can somebody explain why we seem to have the worst officials.
A ref assistant and the main mad man in the middle somehow award a goal that wasn’t even on target never mind over the line, some other so called referee assistant rules out Gerrards 100th goal for Liverpool for some other unknown reason and then we see Mike Riley making a complete fool out of himself yesterday and had his yellow card out more times than Wayne Rooney’s wallet in a Manchester city centre knocking shop.
It seems to me now that on many occasions it is not the performance of the players on the park that determine where the points are going to go but something that the managers can’t plan for, the performance of the officials. Some people say that this is all part of the game but sorry that’s bull. In todays cut-throat world that is management in the EPL i think they should come to expect their professional players to be appointed professional assistants. The ref who sent off JT got suspended from the EPL by the FA. Where are the guys going that gave this weeks goal that never was – down the salt mines in Siberia?.
It seems to me that the EPL needs a shake up and all the old guard refs that we are all sick of seeing making silly mistakes and ruining games need replaced by some fresh young blood who hopefully understand todays modern game. English refs could become a worldwide joke if they are not already after the so called “top” English ref didn’t know that 2 yellows equals red so gave out three instead.
Once again I will quote Shankly who understood this problem long before now and he said –
“The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game”.
I agree with you 110% Dave. Gerrard’s goal should have stood. It is sad that results can now be determined by a poor refs decision. I remember they had this same problem in rugby and they have introduced the TV ref same to with cricket. So why not do the same in football?
Another idea i have following on from Shank’s quote, maybe ref’s should have played at the highest level before they become refs. I dont think any of these current EPL refs have played top flight football before.
I agree, if there were more retired footballers encouraged to continue the careers as officials there would be a greater amount of “respect” which is what the FA are after. Its hard to get respect whenever we have to witness blatent silly errors costing teams goals week in week out.
Some teams may get relegated by one or two points. This could easily biold down to a refs decision robbing them of a win instead of a draw. It can mean millions of pounds and also managers jobs.
However, I think too many ex-footballers would rather land a nice easy commentary job – i.e. Jamie Redknapp for example rather than have the pressure of becoming an official. There would also be the problem of having ex-players being officials for there old clubs but it wouldn’t be hard to make sure they don’t get appointed for those games. We would like to see Fergie’s post-match comments after Jamie Redknapp giving a last minute penalty in front of The Kop to win the match – that would be worth seeing….
I do not think we lost the game due to the refs. I think we all know that. If we had scored later on or if keane actually made one of his 122323 chances, we would not be talking about this. Sure the refs have been suspect, but refs RARELY cost a team THE GAME. we played like shit mate
Opinions will be devided on the this subject PJ. I know that Liverpool should have scored again but my post was commenting on the EPL officials as a whole and not just at Anfield on Saturday. When teams get games when they are struggling to score and then do but have it disallowed for no apparant reason it does make a hell of a difference. I wonder how Watford will feel if they miss automatic promotion or a play off place by two points. OK you can say that they should have picked them two points up again during the rest of the season but at the end of the day why should they ? They had two points deducted due to the worst decision ever just as Liverpool should now be at the top of the league. The first goal is always important, if it had stood so early in the match Stokes heads could have dropped, our lads could have relaxed a bit more and the result could have been totally different.
This argument is a non-starter for me: how many times this season alone have Stevie G, Alsono, Babel, Keano, Torres, etc given the ball away? How many times have one of our players had a clear chance to score and fluffed it? How many times have our defenders failed to close down the opposition and conceded a goal or a goal scoring opportunity? These are all mistakes by the best that our club have to offer! These players are regarded as superstars and rightly so in my opinion; why do we not clamour for regime change everytime Stevie G plays a missed placed pass or Torres shoots into the grandstand? Probably because we know that overall they will deliver the goods consistently over a period of time! Human beings will all make mistakes, and costly ones at that! A missed placed pass could be the difference between the champions league millions or the UEFA cup pennies… The point is, football is one of the purest professional sports around if not the purest, based on the fact that humans make all the decisions on the pitch in real time! No-one would complain if we had received the good fortune on the day so we must accept the opposite result… Refs will continue to make mistakes and this fact is hardcoded into the laws of football and should be in all footballers brains! This is life – do not rely on referees to do you any favours, simply play the game beyond that – problem solved!
We were robbed against Chelski last season and for me that was a turning point for us, as our confidence dipped tremendously. But it also shows the character of the players if a ref can have such an overwhelming impact on the team. That’s why i’m inclined to believe that luck follows those that attract it and deserve it! If our confidence is so shaky that a poor decision can derail our plans for the match, the week, or the season, then we do not deserve that luck! In Gary Players words, the harder we practice, the luckier we get… enough with the excuses, we should stop feeling sorry for ourselves and get on with scoring goals!
Ps. i think refs getting over involved in games is another issue altogether…
i could kill some of these refs, they dumb and bloody blind.