Master Class by Clatts

This season the Barclays Premier League is the competition that keeps on giving. Every week now we are looking at incidents that are deciding the outcome of games. It has become a battle of wits between clubs and officials. The man holding the whistle has to be right on his game because managers are just waiting to point the finger elsewhere if their teams lose. I have always been of the opinion that the top referees should get the top games and rightly so. High profile games need to be refereed with as little fuss as possible and more importantly, when the game is over a referee has put it to bed with as little fuss as possible. One such game this weekend was Saturday,s match between Chelsea and Liverpool at The Bridge. The outcome of this game had so much riding on it that the last thing we needed was any controversy. So when I got the list of officials for the weekend I knew the appointment of Mark Clattenburg to this game was the correct one. Like many others I tuned in on Saturday lunchtime to watch, if rumours were to be believed Jose's last game in charge at Chelsea if his side suffered another defeat, I was not to be disappointed. What unfolded was a a superb match and a brilliant refereeing performance by Mark Clattenburg. Mind you with an up there is always a down and Anthony Taylor had a few problems at The Hawthorns. Let me below take you through how the day unfolded for both men.

From the moment Mark Clattenburg blew the first whistle on Saturday lunchtime, he was in total control from start to finish. All his big calls were perfect. Of course I am presuming Mark saw everything on the day. He seem to just let Skrtel and Costa have a battle and let them get on with it. This was not a bad thing to do, as he seemed to have control of the pair of them. In the incident were Costa kicked out at the Liverpool player, Mark seemed to react as if he had seen it and was prepared to let it go. This was excellent refereeing in my opinion as both players just seemed to be up for a good old battle. The one main talking point that seemed to annoy Chelsea was when Lucas was not shown a second yellow for a challenge on Ramires. In my opinion I feel the referee got this one correct, because I do not agree that every foul has to be a yellow card. The challenge in no way warranted a yellow and I was glad to see none was given. The reaction of the Chelsea players whilst Mark was making his mind up on the incident in my opinion was disgraceful, they actually surrounded the official and tried to pressurise Mark into producing a card. The usual suspects in the gang were Terry, Costa and Mikel, and if I was to be critical of the referee I feel he should have at least shown one of them a card. Players surrounding referees pleading for their fellow professionals to be sent off is disgusting in my book. Overall the officials on the day had a superb game and I know their bosses at the FA will be happy, but you very rarely get problems when Mark Clattenburg is in charge.

At The Hawthorns, West Bromwich Albion manager Tony Pulis was left fuming with referee Anthony Taylor after his sides game against Leicester. The referee missed two clear penalty calls for the home side according to Tony. In my opinion he actually only called the one wrong. The challenge by Huth into the back of Fletcher was a penalty all day long, how the referee did not give it is beyond me. The claim by the West Brom manager that Johnny Evans should have had a penalty in my opinion was wrong, to me I thought the referee got that one right. Holding shirts in the penalty area is going on now quite a while and it just seems referees are not giving penalties for this type of infringement. It just seems that is the way at the moment, but yes it should be a penalty if the law was applied properly. I did not think Anthony covered himself in glory over the weekend and will need a good game next week to keep his bosses happy.

So there we have it, another weekend of big decisions involving match officials. They got some correct they got some horribly wrong, I just hope if your out and about watching your team this week that you are not going to suffer because of a bad refereeing call. Until next time enjoy your football.

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.

The Controversial BPL is Back

The Barclays Premier League returned over the past few days after a break for international football. It has been hugely controversial this season with a lot of refereeing decisions coming under the microscope. I was hoping that over the short period off, the referees could get together and sort out a few of the issues that have cropped up in the opening games of the season. The boys in the middle needed to take time out and evaluate their season so far. So on Saturday I put my feet up to enjoy a list of games that had potential for problems and needed to be refereed by the top men, after all they are the elite officials in the country. This season every Saturday has had it,s fair share of controversy and as sure as night follows day this one was to be no different. As soon as final whistles were been blown all over the country there was news coming to me of problems at Palace and West Bromwich. Alan Pardew and Sam Allardyce were complaining about decisions in their games that had affected the result. As a referee the last thing you need is your decisions to be affecting results. Let me below explain why I think both Pardew and Big Sam were talking out of their backsides to try and shift blame for their tactical errors on the day.

The man in charge of the Palace v West Ham game was Mark Clattenburg, so when I heard he had supposedly ruined a good game by sending off Dwight Gayle I was astonished. As I have said it on many occasion, in my opinion Mark is the best referee in the country. I made sure I had a look at the incident that got the Palace player his marching orders and yes as I thought Alan Pardew was talking nonsense. The two cards the player received within eleven minutes of each other were 100% correct. As the rule book states you can not dive in like he did and expect to get away without a caution. What I actually thought was total stupidity by the Palace player was to dive in to a tackle after already picking up a yellow card for a similar challenge. The total nonsense Pardew spoke after the game was beyond belief. I do not mind a manager having a go when warranted, but the Crystal Palace manager was totally out of order with his comments. On this occasion the referee was a correct in his carrying out the laws of the game and applied them correctly.

Meanwhile Big Sam is back in football and already complaining about refereeing decisions. The man who puts out fires at clubs in trouble, tried to claim his keeper had been fouled for the winning goal by West Bromwich Albion,s Berahino. To be perfectly honest I feel he was clutching at straws. His keeper could possibly be the biggest one in the league and when he came for the cross, he failed to deal with it correctly. In my opinion as a goalkeeper you need to come and take everything when dealing with a cross, something the Sunderland player failed to do. As regards to a claim that Berahino then handled the ball, please do fe a favour Sam, the ball struck his arm not the other way around. Referee Martin Atkinson had a superb game and I saw nothing wrong with the big decision of the game.

So the referees got it right this weekend and the managers once again complained. I do wish these guys would have a good look at what's around them and if their teams lose don't try to blame referees on your poor management decisions. I will leave you this week with the knowledge that there will be more controversies over the coming months and I will be here each week to try and unravel the issues for the boys at Pitch Talk. Until next week enjoy your football and I do hope your club does fall foul of a bad refereeing decision.

When Will They Learn

As I sit down each weekend to put these blogs together, I often wonder where my material will come from over a weekend. On Friday evening the canvas is always bare and it needs incidents to get the fingers tapping. This season is fast becoming my busiest ever, having to discuss incidents on a more regular basis than an aeroplane landing in Heathrow airport. I just cannot understand how some of the elite referees and assistants are getting it so wrong, week in and week out in this beautiful game we all love. I am wondering how come we have so many talking points this season. Is it a case that the game is getting faster ? Is it a case the referees are poorer ? Is it in fact a case that players do not help situations with all the lack of gamesmanship that goes on nowadays ? 

This week I want to have a look at all the big talking points from the Chelsea v Southampton game and would also like to have a look at the performance of Martin Atkinson in the Merseyside derby. Let us first take a walk down the Old Kent Road and drop in to see how Robbie Madley got on in the game at The Bridge. Getting a Chelsea game these days is like been given a poison chalice. No matter what decision you give it will be scrutinised over and over again by Mr  Mourinho, who this season is blaming his own failures on referees. True to form Robbie had plenty to do in the game. I counted four big calls and in my opinion he got three wrong. A figure that is not acceptable and I feel his bosses may think the same. There is no doubt he should have given a penalty when Ivanovic nearly tore Van Dijk's shirt off his back whilst defending a corner. What the Chelsea player was thinking, I simply do not know and where Robbie got this one wrong was he never looked into the problem area. We are told as referees to look where problems can occur, he clearly did not do this in the situation which developed which led to him missing an easy call. The challenge in the box by Ramires on Mane was a 100% penalty, no question. It was an awful decision by the referee not to give it, as contact was made. I would actually say if the referee thought Mane dived he should have booked him for simulation. Ironically the referee did book Mane a couple of moments later for a dive when indeed he had been clipped by Ivanovic, a player in my opinion who is going down the pan faster than Lewis Hamilton on a qualifying lap. Chelsea themselves had a big shout in the second half when Falcao went down in the box. Went down is exactly what he did, he played for the penalty and was diving long before contact was made with the keeper. The referee made an excellent decision on this call even following through and cautioning Falcao for simulation. When players receive yellow cards it is always advisable to stay on your feet for the rest of the game when challenging for the ball,as if you get it wrong you run the risk of been sent off. In mine and other referees opinions, Falcao should have been shown a second yellow card when he dived in later in the game on a Southampton player,trying to win the ball. The referee got this one wrong and human nature makes you wonder did the Mourinho effect come into play in his mind. Overall Robbie struggled with the big calls and I for one hopes his mentor gets a hold of him and helps him out,as I think he has the making of a top class referee in him.

Now when it comes to top class referees,please step forward Mr Martin Atkinson. His man management of games this season so far have been superb. When I heard he was to do the Merseyside derby I knew we would have no problems. This game over the past couple of seasons has had its fair share of red cards,a fact I am sure the boys in charge had duly noted. Martin overall did very well in his game,he put out little fires going on all around the pitch and didn't let anything develop to a dangerous point,where things could have got out of hand. Calmness was the order of the day and he had it off to a perfect art. He went about his business with no fuss and the players knew who was completely in charge. Well done on an excellent performance.

Although we all thought our weekend,s football had ended after the Arsenal v United game on Sunday,the Liverpool owners had other ideas. Just as I was sitting down to a beautiful meal on Sunday tea time,news was breaking that Brendan Rodgers had been sacked at Anfield. Another one bites the dust and I for one am sorry to see him go. Brendan never moaned or blamed referees on his own failings,like some other managers in the league and hopefully he won't be out of work long. It just goes to show us how desperate owners have become for success,it is less than two years since Brendan nearly won the league with the reds. I am sure he thinks everyday,if only Stevie G had stayed on his feet,how different things could have been.

I will sign off this week with my usual comments for the boys at Pitch Talk. If you are going out to see your team playing,I do hope I am not blogging about it next week. Until then sleep well and do not have refereeing nightmares. See Ya

The Refs Need Help

The weekends are fast turning into a nightmare for a lot of referees around the world. This is the time of the week when the football fan leave there place of work and head off to see the club they support in various cities and towns around this beautiful planet of ours. These days with worldwide coverage on television with more than twenty cameras in the ground, the poor referee must wake up in pools of sweat the night before they have a game. Every decision they make will be scrutinized by most pundits and if the men with the whistle get it wrong the TV, will show it over and over again. Mind you some of those guys who are sitting on the TV panels have not got a clue about the laws of association football. I actually see lately that one of the stations has introduced Howard Webb to their panel to make a call on all the big decisions that the boys with the whistles are making. I have been a longtime admirer of how Mark Clattenburg and Martin Atkinson officiate, so on Saturday it was the centre piece of my day to sit down and watch the guys perform in the Spurs v City game and the Newcastle v Chelsea match. Let me below have a look at what I thought of there performances and ask did they get it right or drastically wrong ?.

I am a great believer that for the top games you should appoint the top referees. I was delighted to see that the powers to be got it totally correct in appointing Mark Clattenburg to the game on Saturday at White Hart Lane between Spurs and Manchester City. What I was not expecting was for his two assistants to let him down so badly. As we know there main job in the game is to assist the referee and help him out at all times. The amount of the mistakes by his two assistants was incredible. I am not talking about small little ones like giving the throw ins the wrong way, but to miss three clear offsides which led to goals is unforgivable. I can possibly allow for the City goal as it was so tight and De Bruynne just hung enough so as to give the official a real problem. Spurs equalizer was disgraceful, Walker was not a foot but a good yard off and more annoyingly directly under the assistants nose, this one should not have been missed. The repercussions of the official not giving this could have led to all sorts of problems. When Mark blew for halftime he was surrounded by the City players as they knew, even if the assistant did not, that Kyle Walker was in an offside position. This led to the City centre half Michelis picking up a yellow card for his dissent. This could have been a lot worse for the City centre half in the second period of the game if the referee had hit him with the full letter of the law and cautioned him for a bad challenge, but the referee in my opinion took a lenient view as I expect he saw the highlights of the first half in his dressing room at the break. To put the thin hat totally on the day in my view was that Harry Kane goal,no matter what season or what instruction they guys are given,this was another horrendous decision. Things need to improve and I have been saying this now for a while. On this occasion the referee was badly let down by his assistants and these two guys should be given a rest next weekend to re focus on their game.I do hope Jake Collin and Simon Beck learn from this as both are suppose to be the tops, but after that performance I would not use them in Hackney Marshes.

My focus for my next game was firmly on Saint James Park for the Newcastle v Chelsea game. As we all know mayhem was in the air at the last Chelsea game and the FA needed to appoint a strong referee to deal with any messing. The last thing the league needs right know is more hassle involving Chelsea. It was important that the game went well for the referee and who other should get the shout from the FA but Martin Atkinson. I have said many times in my blogs for the boys at Pitch Talk that I think Martin is one of the top two referees in the country. On the day he was superb and kept things very tight so as not to give the so called " Special One " anymore reasons to moan. Mind you on that, Mr Mourinho in my opinion should be renamed the " The Moaning One ". Overall in the game he made nearly every call correct which is all you can ask from a referee. One decision which he made was for a tackle by the Chelsea defender Ivanovic, I have seen red cards given in other games for such a challenge, but on Saturday, Martin was totally in control and there was no need to produce a red card. All in all he was excellent and I am sure his bosses at the FA would have been, more than happy.

It is becoming an incredibly bad season for refereeing decisions and I can not see it getting any better unless their is a huge shake up and new blood is introduced. I will sign off this week with my usual message, if you are heading out to see your team in action I do hope the officials get it right in your game and you're not fuming when you leave the ground. Until next week enjoy your football. As a footnote to all this I am now hearing the two assistants involved in the Spurs v City game have been dropped this weekend.Well done their bosses.

The Game is Crazy

The football over the weekend has been superb with plenty of incident and outrage. I always have reported that there are three teams on the pitch when it comes to association football. The home and away teams and of course the referee and his assistants. It is fast becoming this season a case of the referee has now become a ring master looking after the animals, yes animals. It is so disappointing that grown men are now cheating and trying to con the officials. I know they have been doing it for many years but this season it seems to have become even more noticeable in the beautiful game. I would like to this week have a look at two incidents involving two of the best referees in Europe. I want to have a look at Mike Dean in the big Premiership game of the weekend at Stamford Bridge and I feel I can not let this blog finish without talking about the horror challenge on Luke Shaw in the game against PSV which looks likely to have finished his season. The man in charge on the night was none other than World Cup Final referee Nicola Rizzoli, a man who I have praised on many different forums over the past season or two.

I have been saying it now for quite a while that Diego Costa is a disaster to referee. The guy is everything that is bad about professional footballers these days. With this in mind I was very interested to see how Mike Dean would handle him in the game between Chelsea and Arsenal last Saturday. To my disappointment Mr Dean was led a merry dance by the player and instead of the referee being in control, Diego ruined the match for him with his antics. Where the referee failed to stamp his authority all over the game was when Costa was fouled early on in the game and had the audacity to make the imaginary yellow card sign to the referee, Mr Dean should have stamped out any nonsense there and then and in fact should have yellow carded the Chelsea forward. Once he missed this opportunity his game was going to be an uphill struggle and eventually Costa was going to drop him right in the brown stuff. Having failed to see the Chelsea player slap out at Koncielny, matters got worse as again Mr Dean failed to take control of a situation which ended up with Arsenal defender Gabriel been sent off. I will agree the Arsenal defender was stupid to get involved but the referee let the two players walk half the length of the field abusing each other and he should have sorted it long before it needed a red card. In my opinion there was only one way this was going to end. Chelsea manager Jose Mourinho thought after the game that Diego was man of the match, well he certainly caused enough problems so as to cause havoc for the referee and yes he did win Chelsea the match by conning the referee into sending off a fellow professional. In my opinion this is exactly the sort of stuff that is ruining our game. I would like to think the FA will have a look at the whole incident early next week and hopefully slap a ban on the Chelsea player.

During the week Manchester United went away to play PSV in the Champions League. It unfortunately was a bad night all around for the Manchester club, not only did they lose but the game saw Luke Shaw pick up an awful leg break after been involved with a tackle from PSV player Moreno. I actually thought on the night that referee Rizzoli made an awful mistake by not giving a penalty and sending off the home team player. My phone was hopping on the evening with many of my contacts asking how could it not have been a red card. The only answer available to me was the referee made a huge mistake as the tackle ticked every box laid down in the rules to see a player dismissed. One thing I will say in the referee's defence is that nobody claimed the penalty or the red card and this could have swayed his mind. I spoke with two FIFA referee's the following morning and both were in agreement that the referee got it wrong but they could understand why. It just goes to show you that even the best referee in the world is human and can make a mistake.

It was an interesting week and very controversial all around. Maybe next week things will improve and controversy will be thin on the ground, but I would not hold my breath on that one. As I always say if you are out and about watching your team I do hope controversy stays far away from you. Until next week enjoy your football.

The Controversy Continues

Last weekend we returned to all things football after a short break for the international matches. A break in my opinions, which should have given everyone time to have a look at early season form and put the little things right that were going wrong. I include the referees in all of this because there has been to much controversy involved in a very short space of time since the season started. Mistakes happen, but so far this season the referees have been making them on a much regular basis in the Barclay's Premier League.

In fairness it was a breath of fresh air to see the best referees from Europe, perform in various international games around the globe as teams battled it out to qualify for the 2016 European Championships. I decided to take a lot of these games in on TV to see if the European referees were doing anything different from their British counterparts and I was not disappointed by any performance. So as we went into last weekends game I was hoping the men in the middle in the British Isles could get their act together.It was another weekend of controversy and bad decisions and surely things need to improve drastically and quick. Their we're quite a few incidents over the weekend and as per usual I want to have a look at two that jumped out at me immediately. Below I will have a look at an amazing error in the Championship and a tackle that I think, should have seen a player sent off for a tackle on Manchester City's Aguero.

First I want to dip into the Championship and have a look at the incident in the Fulham v Blackburn game where the away side had a clearly good goal not given. Their is no doubt the ball crossed the line and a goal should have been awarded.Blackburn manager Gary Bowyer was fuming after the game and I for one agree with his frustration.In my opinion an assistant referee should never miss such a simple task as seeing that a ball has crossed the line.

It is one of the most important parts of his job. Without going into how we think he missed it, let us have a look at the bigger picture and the bigger picture is Goal Line Technology, or the lack of it in the leagues below the Premier League. The clubs at those levels deserve the same playing field as the so called top clubs. I know it is a matter of finance but we can get around that by introducing the way it is done in the Champions and Europa Leagues, bring the refereeing team on the day up to six and at least it would give some sort of help to solve these problems for teams. Something needs to be done to give everyone a fair chance and I know the feeling on the ground is action must be taken and quick, to stop these sorts of blunders been ruled out so no other team suffers. I just hope Blackburn do not miss out on promotion at the end of the season by one point.

I can not sign off this week without mentioning the performance by referee Mike Jones in the Crystal Palace v Manchester City game. The game will be remembered for City bagging all three points with a excellent gritty performance for the whole ninety minutes. From a refereeing point of view the referee got it horribly wrong when he showed a yellow card to Scott Dann for in my opinion a disgraceful tackle on Sergio Aguero. The Palace defender caught the Argentinian with a tackle high to the knee when the ball was nowhere within playing distance. It was a clear red card for me and the decision to show a yellow was disappointing to me.Mind you, trouble seems to follow Mike Jones around. The tackle by Dann led to Aguero having to limp off after a while and also put him out of the City v Juventus match in midweek.Mike Jones needs to have a look at his decision and make sure he corrects the error of his ways. 

I will finish off this week by wishing everyone involved in our game, has a good upcoming weekend following your side. Let us hope next week I am not blogging for the boys at Pitch Talk about a poor decision against your club. Until then do not have nightmares, enjoy your football.