It was only the third weekend of the season that we witnessed Saturday and Sunday's ago, but my god the officials are making a right mess of things. As we all know, this season there has been an instruction to all referees to clamp down on holding and pushing in the penalty area. The instruction had to be brought in as the way things were going was ridiculous. In some cases players were nearly swapping shirts by force when any set piece was been taken in or around the penalty area. But in my opinion what has unfolded in the opening games of the season has been bordering on the downright idiotic. Let us all not forget that the top referees had been given the new instruction well in advance of the new season but are dealing with it as if had just jumped out of their corn flakes box on the morning of the new season. There is only ten games every week in the Premier League and this week I have picked out issues in three of those games to have a look at. This in my opinion is a very high percentage and should not be happening. The referees who have fallen under the spotlight are Michael Oliver, Robert Madley and unbelievably Mike Dean for a second weekend in a row. Let me below have a look at the incidents and try and put some clarity on what is fast turning into a nightmare for the officials.
I have to start this week at White Hart Lane with Rob Madley. I am looking at an incident when Liverpool had a corner, which was taken by Henderson. The ball was clearly in play when Spurs defender Vertonghen took hold of Matip and brought him to the ground. It was a clear cut penalty, a one hundred percent stonewall penalty. How referee Madley did not give it was incredible. Then to put the tin hat on the whole thing, he decides to stop the play, talks to the players and restarts the game with a retaken corner. I am sorry but did not sit well with me at all, the players have been told about the new directive and the referee in this case bottled it. This in my opinion was the total wrong way to deal with this issue and I am sure Jan Vertonghen has a wry smile still on his face, because he knows he got away with it. The best way to teach the player about this new directive was to give a penalty and I can guarantee you the Spurs defender would not do the same in his next game. Bad refereeing by a guy who should be doing better in my opinion.
Incident number two takes me to Goodison Park and the performance of Michael Oliver. I suppose not so much the performance but the one and only talking point of a poor game. Michael’s overall performance was quite good on the day. The one decision that the official got horribly wrong was when he awarded Everton a penalty, for a foul I am still trying to work out what the referee thought he saw. It was another talking point about the new directive, but I cannot see how he justified awarding a penalty when Phil Bardsley and Ashley Williams tripped over each other on the taking of an Everton corner. In my opinion it was just two players coming together and one falling over, nothing else, nothing cynical, and nothing done to try and gain any advantage over his opponent. It was a game changing decision as Everton scored from the resulting penalty. Every referee knows that his decision making should not decide games and in this case Michael Oliver cost Stoke City any sort of result. Having looked at the incident on a couple of occasions since the weekend I still cannot see how it was given. I do hope as Michael looks back on this performance he will see the big mistake he made and will not even dream about giving a penalty for this sort of challenge or non-challenge as I saw it, for not just this season but the rest of his career.
As I am putting this blog together I am just noticing that the decisions are getting worse. The last incident I want to have a look at this week involves my old pal Mike Dean. Last Saturday in the Crystal Palace v Bournemouth game, this official took the new directive to an all-time low. Let us get this clear, the directive is designed to stop players hanging out of each other in the penalty area. I am not sure Mike has got a grip of this yet, no pun intended, but if he keeps giving penalties for the sort of challenge Charlie Daniels of Bournemouth put in on Christian Benteke then we may as well just pick up the goalposts and go home. This decision was the worst of the weekend by a country mile. As the two players challenged in the air for the ball, the showman that is Mike Dean decided it was a penalty. Ridiculous decision in my opinion, it was if the referee was looking to give a stupid penalty. One factor you have to add in to all this is that Mike had a poor weekend previous to this one and in all fairness he should have been stood down by his bosses. It would have protected Mike from any other major issues and also helped to calm down all the criticism of referees who are getting the big decisions wrong.
So there we have it once again, another weekend of the beautiful game is over but the controversy rumbles on. The introduction of this new directive is causing quite a few problems and in my opinion will not be sorted until referees get consistency in their decision making. The powers to be, need to get them all together and try an find a common interpretation of the new directive so we can move on in the new season and have a lot less controversy. Now that sounds very easy in theory, but do not expect to see it happening anytime soon. In a strange sort of way maybe the international break has come at the right time for all involved. I will leave it there for this week and hopefully next week I am not blogging for the boys at Pitch Talk about an incident involving your club. Enjoy your football till then, Ciao.
