Controversy Once Again

This beautiful game of ours at times can be more controversial than a Conservative government making more cuts to an already struggling NHS. Week after week we go through the turnstiles or take an armchair view of all things to do with our beautiful game.Players, officials and the media are responsible for shaping, after all, what is the most followed game in the world. From the very first time a ball was kicked all those many years ago controversy has not been far away. The 1966 World Cup Final.the Maradona hand of god goal, Lampard scoring against Germany or not as the case was, Henry's handball in Paris are the things that pop up every now and again which fill many column inches in the papers and many hours of pundits talking waffle on TV.  A few of the pundits are better wafflers it has to be said,my favourite is Mr Marmite the former Welsh and Birmingham, Leicester, Derby and Blackburn player. So having laid that all out in front of you, let me have a look at a couple of big incidents in this week,s Barclay's Premier League. I want to focus on two refereeing performances involving in my opinion, the two best referee,s in the UK, Martin Atkinson and Mark Clattenburg.

Let me take you first to The Hawthorns in what was to be a real pressure game between West Bromwich Albion and Chelsea. The Champions needed to put on a good performance and take all three points as their start to the season has not set the world on fire. Mr Mourinho is already getting his annual "Everybody hates us Campaign going " so who better than to take charge of the game than Mark Clattenburg. Mark has so much calmness about himself when he is refereeing that you know he will rarely get anything wrong.There were two huge talking points in the game and he handled them so well.The John Terry sending off was a 100% correct decision. The defender is starting to show he is struggling for pace and even in his previous game against Manchester City he was taken off as a result of this.A decision that did not sit very well with JT.But as soon as he pulled back Rondon by the shirt their was only one outcome.A decision that once again the Chelsea manager had the temerity to question the outcome.In my opinion Jose really does need to take a trip to Specsavers sometime soon.The other talking point in the game was the running battle between Diego Costa and West Broms Yacob. Mark kept a close eye on the pairs carry on, but as it did not make the game more difficult for him to handle, he let them get on with it, an excellent man management decision in my opinion. It was in my opinion a superb performance by Mark and he will surely go on now and have an excellent season.

Saturday saw Leicester v Spurs and in the middle for this game was Martin Atkinson.As we know Leicester have had a great start to the season, so Spurs knew it would be tough. On paper it was never going to be a difficult game to referee,as long as the official did not make silly mistakes and overall within the ninety minutes there was really only one talking point. A huge penalty claim by Leicester was turned down by Martin in the first half.Jan Vertonghen and Leicester,s Mahrez clashed in the box.In my opinion Martin decided that if the two players were going to be pulling each others shirt,well play on.It is something that has crept into the game over the past couple of seasons and I think referees have just decided to let them get on with it.Overall Martin did quite well and no one really suffered by any silly mistakes. Something a referee is always happy with when he is leaving a football pitch.

These are just a few of the incidents that I saw over the weekend and as always, I wanted to bring my views to all the guys at Pitch Talk. So if you are out and about this weekend at a game I do hope your team has a result for you and a refereeing mistake has not seen you leaving the ground in disgust.Until next week enjoy your football.