Never a Hand Ball

The big talking point over the past weekend in the football world was all about the Alan Pardew head butt in the game between Hull City and Newcastle United. Now I will say I thought I had seen everything in football but this was just fall off the chair stuff. Incredible scenes and when the FA deal with it I hope a long ban is on its way to Mr Pardew, because issues like this should not get anywhere near a football pitch. In fact it is like talking about chucking out time at the local boozer on a Saturday night. In a lot of those cases,the judges hand down huge fines and even sometimes lead to prison sentences. So well done Alan for dragging the beautiful game through the mud over the past few days.

Whilst all the nonsense was going on at Hull, one huge decision that could have a direct effect on who is going to win this years premier league was unfolding. As we all know Arsenal always seem to struggle when they visit the Brittania stadium and this game was no different. Whatever the reason the Gunners always seem to struggle playing against an up and at them team like Stoke. But when referee Mike Jones gave a penalty for the home side I could not believe my eyes. He gave the penalty for hand ball and I have to say it was one of the worst decisions I have seen in a long time. The reason I am saying this is that to give a decision either inside or outside the box for hand ball,the player must handle the ball deliberately and in my opinion the Arsenal player did not deliberately handle the ball in fact he was falling backwards when contact was made with the ball on a high bounce. Absolutely awful decision by the official cost Arsenal the points and in turn could have cost them a real shout for this years premier league.

Another incident in this game also saw Charlie Adam stamp on Giroud, the Stoke player should have seen red for this challenge as I feel Adam knew exactly what he was doing. So all in all it was a bad day for Arsenal but and even worse day for referee Mike Jones. Now as you all know I will defend a referee all day long if he gets most things right,but when it comes to big decisions which may cost teams matches and possible championships I have to say my piece.

The incident at Hull overshadowed what happened at Stoke. I feel the FA must take action over the Charlie Adam stamp and I also feel Mr Jones should have next weekend off for his awful display in that match. It is the only way we can get referees up to the highest standard possible and if they do wrong on big game changing calls they should have a week off to understand where they went wrong,so,as it hopefully will not happen again. Until the next time keep enjoying the games.