Wednesday, 24 September 2014

Super Sunday You’re Having a Laugh

Like most football fans I normally sit down on a Sunday to watch all things premiership live on TV. We all know that the station push it as Super Sunday, well most weeks it really is poor and we have to watch boring games, not this weekend it has been excellent and to top it all off plenty of controversial decisions. I would like to have a look below at the performances of two referees, Mark Clattenburg and Mike Dean. Mark was in charge at Leicester and Mike took charge of the big game of the weekend between City and Chelsea. Both men left a few questions to be asked about their performances on the day.

Let me have a look at the Leicester v Man United game first. It is amazing how sometimes a refereeing decision can turn a game or cost teams points. Let us be honest, at three one up, United had the game in the bag. They were cruising and all things were happy in Louis Van Gaal,s world. So when referee Mark Clattenburg gave the home side a penalty it was to be the start of a collapse that would cost United dearly. In my opinion it was never a penalty in fact it should have been a free kick from outside the box as I in my opinion Vardy uphended Rafael in the first place to get control under control. But ok, fair enough Mark missed it the phase of play moved on into the penalty area where he blew for what only can be described as a very, very soft penalty. The Leicester player clearly made a move towards Rafael to get himself a penalty and Mark bought it. Awful decision and I am not alone in saying that. It let Leicester back into a game in which they had no right to be still involved in if Manchester United had taken their chances and the referee had been on his game.

So with one game over and a cup of tea made I sat to watch the so called biggie of the weekend at the Ethiad stadium. These games between the top sides decide the destination of the title even at this early stage of the season. A referee who gets these games has to be strong and exude authority. Mike Dean normally would fall into this category in my opinion but on Sunday he was awful. He strangled the game to death and had far too many yellow cards in the first half. Having dished out so many cards in the first half for silly free kicks he was on a hiding to nothing in the second half and was always going to have a reveal the red at some point. I actually don't think there was one bad tackle in the game and in my opinion I thought Mike was afraid to let the game loose or  develop, I repeat he strangled it to death. Zabaletta,s second yellow was correct but his first booking was questionable. I thought Mike,s performance was poor and it ruined what could have been a super game.


It will be interesting to see if both of these guys get a Premier league game this coming weekend. If they do I hope they learn from their mistakes and improve as for I one do not want to be writing about refereeing decisions deciding games every weekend, but if it is to happen I will be all over it. Until the next time enjoy your football guys.  

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