Last Friday night I sat down and had a look at the fixtures all around the British Isles and trust me their were games a plenty. My reason for searching the fixture lists was purely to plan out a weekend of football for me to watch on TV. I was also keen to see who was going to officiate in these games, as you know I always like to run the rule over the men in black for the boys at Pitch Talk. Where would mistakes me made ? , Who would mess it up ? , Who would be driving managers bonkers with their decisions ? , Well I need not have worried because this weekend was one of major mistakes and controversies. It is now an ongoing situation, as week in week out errors are been made. So this week let me have a look at two referees who were in charge of the Chelsea and Everton game and the clash between Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United. The men in charge of those two games were non other than our old friends Mike Jones and Anthony Taylor, two referees who have been scrutinised for the boys at PitchTalk by me on more than one occasion this season.
So let me start at Stamford Bridge which was a fabulous game. It was end to end and a real shock was on the cards right up to the dying seconds. In actual fact Mike Jones played a big part in how this game went as overall he let things go which allowed the game to develop. But alas Mike made a huge blunder in injury time which allowed Chelsea to grab a three, three draw. I always feel when Mike is refereeing that controversy will never be to far away and I was not let down in this game. I know that Everton were complaining afterwards about the amount of injury time the referee allowed, but he was spot on. When Everton scored their third goal, the time that was taken to celebrate the goal was at least a minute twenty seconds. So in my opinion Mike was correct, to add it on to his original injury time which the fourth official had put up on the board. But that is where all his good work ended. Their is no doubt John Terry was offside when he put the ball in the net and it was terrible refereeing by the official to allow the goal to stand. The assistant referee was unsighted as to who the ball last came off in my opinion, so I point no blame at him. Mike was right in the thick of the action and he should have seen it was a Chelsea player who had nodded it onto John. It was a very lazy piece of refereeing from Mike Jones, as he did not see the assistant put up the flag he just blew for a goal thinking his colleague was correct. These officials are in touch on the microphones for the whole game and if Mike had just had a quick word, they could have sorted it out between them in a couple of seconds. The whole incident left Everton manager Martinez fuming and he had every reason to be. It was a total lack of communication between the officials and a lesson of lazy refereeing by Mike Jones. Simply not good enough in my opinion.
Secondly this week let me have a look at Anthony Taylor,s performance in the Yorkshire derby between Sheffield Wednesday and Leeds United. Now before I start on his performance let me just let you all know I am and always have been a Leeds United fan. Anthony as we know is a FIFA official and you can not go any higher as a referee. But what was to unfold as a substitution was been made on Saturday was beyond a joke in my opinion. When a substitution is going to be made the referee is in total control of the situation. He should not restart the game until he is totally satisfied the substitution has been carried out to the full instruction of the law. In this situation on Saturday the referee allowed the game to restart without the substitution been complete, leading to Leeds scoring a goal. It again in my opinion was totally lazy refereeing as he was not in tune with the fourth official. If this incident was to happen in a European game, Mr.Taylor would be out of Europe for quite a while and possibly in danger of losing his FIFA badge. These sort of situations are basic refereeing and we do not expect our top guys to get it wrong. Having said all that, I did not feel that disallowing the goal cost Leeds the game as I feel Sheffield Wednesday were the better team on the day. Maybe if Steve Evans was honest with himself, deep down he would feel the same. But with such a mistake it gives managers excuses to point the finger at the referee instead of his own players for missing golden opportunities to put the ball in the back of the net.
So as I leave you this week it is disappointing to say the least that the top referees are still making huge blunders on a weekly basis. This week my team were involved in a refereeing blunder, I just hope next week it is not yours. Until then have a great week and enjoy your football. Ciao.
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