Thursday 26 November 2015

Ref That's a Card

As we all know the Premier League had a break last week to allow for International football. Going into the break things were going along with the usual amount of refereeing mistakes and calamities of an average Premier League season. What happened on Friday the 13th in Paris puts everything in life into perspective. Forget about offsides, penalties, red or yellow cards as the world took a very sinister turn on the night .The terrorists who carried out the atrocity struck at the heart of the people's leisure time at the concert hall and the attempted bombing at the France v Germany game. The loss of so many young lives is heartbreaking and my thoughts and prayers go out to their families and friends. 

At all Premier league games this weekend the French national anthems was sang and showed support for the French. More importantly it showed the need to go on, in the face of threats from people who in my opinion are cowards. So on its return. what did the games in the Premier league produce this weekend and were was the controversial incidents ? . Their were a few so let me below have a look and shed some light on where things went horribly wrong for the men with the whistle.

Like the majority of fans who are unable to attend live matches. I sat down on Saturday afternoon and tuned into the Chelsea v Norwich match shown on live TV in Dublin. The man in charge for the game was Craig Pawson a referee I have to admit I don't know a lot about. If you look at his game overall you have to be disappointed, as he got the big game changing call totally wrong and failed to back up his decision making by not cautioning two players for simulation, a word that covers up the fact that it is blatant cheating. Clubs like Norwich need to get the rub of the green when they play the so called big clubs. So when Willian blocked Norwich,s Robbie Brady I expected to see the referee point to the spot for a penalty and I was amazed when he waved away the Norwich appeals. It was a clear cut penalty for me and I was quite pleased to hear Pat Nevin say the same on TV. These decisions are game changers in my opinion, the way Chelsea have been playing lately who knows what way the game could have gone if the Canaries had scored from the spot. Their we're two other issues in the game that were a disappointment from a refereeing point of view. On two separate occasions Mr.Pawson waved away two penalty appeals by Chelsea when Costa and Pedro went tumbling in the area. I saw them as dives and having not awarded the penalties I have no doubt he should have cautioned both players. These decisions to me are easy ones, if the referee deemed a player has dived to gain a penalty just caution him, simple as that, nothing else is good enough.

Football can be a great leveller and it was fantastic to see all the players this week stand arm in arm as the French national anthem was belted out all around the country. We can not let these terrorists win and been strong together sends out a great message. 

Until next week enjoy your football and for the fallen people in Paris, may they all rest in peace. Au Revoir.

No comments:

Post a Comment