In most walks of life a good manager advises his staff on how to do things. The main reason that he is in that position is because of his experience and his know how, to run things smoothly. Well the manager of the referees in the English Premier League is Mike Reilly a former referee himself, but what I am finding very hard to work out is exactly what does this guy do. Later on in my column for the boys at Pitch Talk, I will do my usual and have a look at two refereeing incidents that caught my eye last weekend. The point I am trying to make is that I have two more incidents this week having had quite a few leading up to this and we are only four games into the Premier League season. It is obvious to me that the powers to be at the top of refereeing do not know how to coach or can not be bothered. First on Mike Reilly,s list for Monday should have been to have words with Roger East and Lee Mason who took charge of the Hull City v Arsenal and Everton v Middlesborough games over the weekend. Just a few words to try and iron out wrong decisions in my opinion that had happened over the weekend.
Roger East was at the centre of things in Hull when he sent off the home teams Jake Livermore. The referee,s decision to send off the player was just another error in a season that is going fast down the pan. In my opinion Livermore did not deliberately handle the ball and in no way did he stop a goal scoring chance. The ball struck his hand and there was no way he could have got it out of the way, not every handball in the penalty area has to lead to a spot kick. When the referee awarded the penalty I was astonished to see him produce a red card, how did he come up with that one I thought. If you get a chance to see the incident again, look very carefully at the positioning of the Hull City goalkeeper, he is directly behind Livermore and it looked to me that the ball was going straight into his arms. Looking at those facts leads me to believe that it could not have been a sending off for a goal scoring opportunity. I know there are times when a player does handle a ball and stops a goal scoring opportunity which rightly leads to a dismissal, but in this case the referee got it totally wrong in my opinion. Overall I thought Roger was poor on the day and when he had to get help from his assistant to award a penalty to Arsenal later in the game you really had to wonder was his mind totally focussed on his game. The incident happened right in front of the referee and it was hard to see how he needed help to get to the correct decision. Fair play to his assistant for been strong enough to give the decision, but really Roger should not have missed it.
Lee Mason was at the centre of controversy in the game between Everton and Middlesborough played at Goodison Park. His problems happened when he allowed Negredo,s goal to stand although it could be clearly seen that he had headed the Everton goalkeeper,s arm as the cross came in. I can not understand how the match official allowed the goal to stand, it was clearly a foul and it was a very easy decision to award a free kick rather than a goal. The Everton equalizer was also very questionable when Ashley Williams dived in to try and make contact with a cross, he clearly impeded the Middlesborough goalkeeper and it was very dangerous and Lee Mason should have awarded a free kick. It seemed to me that the referee tried to even things up after his first blunder. There is a saying out there that two wrongs do not make a right and in this situation in my opinion that is exactly what happened with the official. It was poor refereeing from a very experienced referee who simply should have known better.
Well another weekend over and more silly mistakes by the so called top officials in the Barclays Premier League. It is becoming very clear to me that the standard of refereeing in the top league in England is at an all time low, week in week out there is controversy. The referees and their mentors really need to get their heads together and try and sort out this mess. As I finish off this article for the boys at Pitch Talk I am sure next week I will have more controversy to discuss. Maybe the answer is to try and bring more new referees in, to try and freshen things up. Every week we are seeing the same match officials and it leaves it wide open for problems to mount one on top of the other. For example if we were only to see the same referee once a month it might help things. This would also act as a double edged sword, it would take the officials out of the limelight if they have caused an issue in their previous weekend,s game. It would also give the lads a break to recharge their batteries and have a look at their previous mistake. I can not see their bosses running with this idea so the controversy will continue and I will surely have more to write about again next weekend. On that note I will leave you alone to enjoy your football and I do hope I am not writing about a controversy involving your team next week. It is a very long season and we are barely underway, so let us all hope things calm down a bit. " Ciao "
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