Explosive Football Weekend

The season is well and truly underway a few weeks now but this past couple of days have been explosive. We have had refereeing issues not only in the Barclays Premier League but also in the championship. It is amazing how much is going on and I often wonder who would be a ref. Featuring this week in my regular blog for the boys at Pitch Talk are the referees and assistants who took charge of games at Ewood Park and Upton Park. The two men who took charge of these games were Keith Stroud and Jon Moss. Both of these men are small of stature but huge in confidence. Both men have also been performing well this season and have obviously been impressing their bosses as the pair got huge games at the weekend, in fact both were Derby games. Keith got the game at Ewood and Jon Moss was handed the London Derby between West Ham and Chelsea. The amount of incidents in both games need to be looked at in great detail so let me below give my opinion on the big calls for referees and assistants involved.

In the North West Derby at Ewood Park, Keith Stroud had to deal with a bit of a dog fight with both sides challenging for everything, especially around the middle of the park. One man who was involved in the big two decisions of the game was a certain Joey Barton. This guy is a bit of a Robbie Savage character and you either love him or hate him. For my part I am not to bothered either way, but referee Stroud had to keep a close eye on Joey on Saturday. In my opinion Blackburn defender Grant Hanley was lucky that the referee did not see the challenge on Barton in the penalty area as a penalty. At the time I called penalty, as I felt Hanley had caught him. What annoyed me was the fact that Hanley had another nip at Barton when the ball had cleared the penalty area, which also should have led to a penalty. With a player like Barton you need to be watching everything and on this occasion the referee failed to have a look back as he was to interested in following the ball. Funnily enough the second big call in the game also involved the busy Barton, he was involved in a challenge that saw Blackburn player Tom Lawrence go down in the Burnley penalty area claiming a spot kick but the referee was only yards away and said no, great refereeing. In these Derby games the matches are won by fine margins and the last thing a referee needs is to put in a poor performance. We are only talking here about two incidents during the ninety minutes and overall Mr Stroud had a good game. I wonder if his performance will put him in the shop window for a game in the Premier League.

Let me next take you to the Boleyn Ground, the home of the Happy Hammers. Jon Moss was given the task to look after this game, with the Chelsea circus in town. The game itself did not let us down or did the incidents. Jon and his team of officials had six big big calls to make during the afternoon and they called everyone correct. That is an amazing hit rate and for this I am awarding them performance of the season so far. The incidents I am talking about involved, Zouma, Matic, Mourinho, Fabregas and the member of the Chelsea coaching staff called Louro. Now as we all know, football is about opinions and the referee in my and a few more pundits eyes got all the big calls correct. Let us have a look, Zoumas header did not cross the line, both cards given to Matic were 100% correct, Fabregas was marginally offside for his goal, Louro been sent to the stand was correct as no coach is allowed to enter the field of play and throw abuse around like a mad man. This leads me on now to an incident at half time when manager Jose Mourinho was also sent to the stands for abusing the referee and his colleagues in their dressing room at half time. Over the ninety minutes Chelsea picked up five yellow cards and one red, discipline is at an time low at that club but is it any wonder when they have a manager who carries on like a two year old child as he throws his toys out of his pram on a regular basis. I really feel the the owners of Chelsea need to get a grip of him and explain that there is no conspiracy going on against his club. As I said earlier Jon Moss was superb on the day and got all his big calls correct.

I am sure as we go on this season, there will be loads to blog about, and for the boys at Pitch Talk to chat about. I just hope when you are out and about supporting your team that the talk on the tube on the way home is not all about the referee. Until next week enjoy your football, see Ya.