Come on Ref

I like to think that in the big scheme of things I will always give the referee the benefit of the doubt when it comes to the big decisions in the game. I was as you know, once the man with the whistle calling the decisions that would define the outcome of a match. But I feel this week that a couple of decisions over the weekend made by referees in the English Premier League were poor. It wasn't the fact that the referees in question made the wrong calls but in fact it was easier get them right.The two men I am talking about are

Kevin Friend and Mike Jones.The games I am looking at are Sunderland v Chelsea and Southampton v Manchester City.So if you read on below let me try and explain how they got the two big decisions in both games horribly wrong. So let us rewind back to Saturday night and the game that took place at The Stadium of Light. Nearly all the pundits were predicting a Chelsea win and in fairness I thought the same myself. It was going to take a monumental effort by The Black Cats to get anything out of the game. The one way to play against Chelsea is to get in there face and sure enough that was the tactic used.Chelsea,s player of the moment Diego Costa is a liability in this sort of game. 

I thought John O'Shea played the Spaniard brilliantly and got stuck into him and sure enough Diego snapped just before half time when O'Shea fouled him near the touch line.Costa could be clearly seen to kick out at the Irishman and I was astonished that Kevin Friend did not send him off.I have looked at it a couple of times now and the only excuse that I can allow Kevin to put forward is possibly that he did not actually see the kick. But with all the technology available now to the officials, I would have thought the assistant referee would have had a word in his ear. But no that didn't happen so Costa was allowed to stay on the pitch.

Then in the second half matters got worse for Mr.Friend when he had to deal with another incident involving the Chelsea player. He rose to challenge for a ball and was clearly seen to leave his arm out in which Wes Brown crashed into. Now I am not saying it was an elbow into the face, but in my opinion he deliberately left his arm out to cause damage and there was definitely a swinging movement. I actually thought afterwards that maybe he thought it was O'Shea coming in to challenge him and he fancied a chance to put one into O'Shea after the Sunderland,s player challenge in the first half. How Kevin Friend didn't send him off is beyond belief. The referee saw it and in fact produced a yellow card but I have no doubt it should have been red. It wasn't long after he was carded by the referee that Jose Mourinho took him off as he probably thought he wouldn't last the ninety minutes. One astonishing follow on from this was the pundits on Match Of The Day on Saturday evening when the three stooges Lineker,Murphy and Ince thought he was unlucky to be shown yellow.What a joke,these guys have not got a clue, to make matters worse the kids who tune into watch them, listen to there every word and now see it the norm for a player to throw out an arm to cause harm to his opponent. Funnily enough all the other football programmes over the weekend did agree with my views and hey also thought he should have been sent off.Maybe the BBC panel need to read up on

Now let me just briefly touch on the incident in the Southampton v Manchester City game were referee Mike Jones booked Aguero for diving to win a penalty. How Mike came to that conclusion I just do not know. It was a stone wall penalty without a doubt in my opinion and it was harder not to give it. No sooner had he shown the City forward the card that I got about 25 texts quizzing his decision.I genuinely have no answer as to how the referee got it so wrong. What we have to be aware of here is that all players don't go down in the box to win penalties.Sometimes in fact they are fouled and when this happens the referee has to have the balls to blow his whistle and point to the spot.I will be very interested to see if either of the two referees get a game next weekend. I feel they should be rested and hopefully when they return they will be the better for it.Until next time I hope you enjoy your football and the referees do not upset you to much cheers!

On that note i'd just like to say thanks for reading and feel free to share any of your comments! If you'd like to speak with me further you can catch me on Twitter: @meiercy