Refereeing decisions

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

Can we list and name the specific refereeing decisions that have gone against United's cause in the league this season:

I will begin with 2:


1. Phatnom penalty given against Rio at OT vs Newcastle.

2. Arsenal denied a cast iron penalty vs Man city when ball held in the box

Anduin

Huth or Shawcross (can't remember) not being sent off about three minutes into the game against Stoke despite Hernandez being clean through on goal... should've been a penalty as well.

Charlie Adam being fat and falling over after minimal contact from Rio, Gerrard scored the following free kick at Anfield.

Can't remember much more ATM.

Robbie Boy

Oh noes, we are ever so hard done by. You get some for and against you every season, what's the big deal?

R_Kelly

Are you going to list the ones that have gone in our favour as well?

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

That will be in a separate thread.

711

A good thread, if you're a spineless whinging cunt.

The only thing that really puts me off football. Leave it to RAWK.

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

I'm out to prove a point some ABU fellow I've been arguing with over the net on a another forum that United has had refs do them over the same way he thinks City has been getting a raw deal because of United favoritism. That's all.

Feeky_Magee

Might find this site useful Chief:

Debatable Decisions | Righting the man in blacks wrongs…..

Robbie Boy

Fair enough

gooDevil

That was Woodgate who fouled Chicharito in the first few minutes against Stoke.

Dempsey taking out Phil Jones.

Valencia denied clear penalty against City.

There has been a penalty denied to us most games.

Donkey's Ears

I think the only ones worth mentioning (from a United perspective) are:

The penalty/red card not given against Stoke (would have likely been a goal and a man up with a lot of the match to play)

The penalty wrongly given to Newcastle at OT (we were one nil up at the time)

Other than most decisions (for or against us) I don't believe can be argued as changing the game or result but those two certainly were.

gaffs

This is so scouse.

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

it is

Red Indian Chief Torn Rubber

Thanks mate

Sarni

If we don't win the title this season it will be only because of referees.

acrebo

The one "moment" that still really irks me is Davies not getting punished for effectively halving Cleverley's season.

Everything else is swings and roundabouts.

Annihilate Now!

Is it wrong that I'm starting to have a lot of sympathy for referee's these days?? Yes they seem to be getting a lot of things wrong at the moment, but ultimately they are just one man... and one man/three men will make errors... it is the way of life. Then you have incidents like Kompany's red-card, and Foy getting lambasted for it, despite the fact that, by the guidelines set out by the F.A on that type of challenge, he was right to send him off. I do believe in the "decisions even themselves out" myth anyway, so I do think people, especially the media, could do with laying off ref's* for a while... Ultimately, if we didn't have them, we wouldn't have a game!

*Apart from Martin Atkinson... that twat deserves everything he gets.

Simon Adebesi

Down with FA Guidelines.

Cling Bak

According to this website (where they have five independent panelists judge decisions):

Premier League
Team P W D L F A GD PTS
Man City 20 15 3 2 56 16 40 48
Man Utd 20 14 3 3 49 20 29 45
Tottenham 19 13 3 3 36 20 16 42
Chelsea 20 11 4 5 39 25 14 37
Arsenal 20 11 3 6 36 28 8 36
Liverpool 20 9 7 4 24 18 6 34

The 'real' table
Team P W D L F A GD PTS
Man Utd 20 17 0 3 51 19 32 51
Man City 20 15 5 0 59 14 45 50
Arsenal 20 12 5 3 41 25 16 41
Tottenham 19 12 5 2 35 20 15 41
Chelsea 20 12 4 4 41 24 17 40
Liverpool 20 9 8 3 26 18 8 35

On the 'real' one incidently, QPR are four clear at the bottom.

Simon Adebesi

Interesting site, that.

Donkey's Ears

Personally I have less sympathy than ever. I think the refereeing this season has been horrific. I have sympathy for the red cards as it is so hard to judge (Atkinson's apart) but not for the ridiculous decisions we've seen elsewhere.

Ray Peterson

The one that really irked me was the Everton one where Osman kicked the floor and won a penalty. Not only did the Ref clearly guess (because there was no contact whatsoever) Osman appealed for a decision, which was blatantly trying to con the ref!

peterstorey

I don't understand why refereeing has got so shit this season - nearly every game there are important bad calls. And then the FA endorses them so as not to call the cunts into question.

MG

Look... you get some going for you and some going against you. It's the same every season. Sometimes, yes, the decisions that go for United are highlighted and analysed more so than any other club whereas the decisions that go against United are, in comparison, somewhat ignored, but that's to be expected from a club that wins a lot: people are going to want to think they get favourable decisions rather than admit that a club they don't like is good. In actual fact, every club gets roughly the same decisions for them as they get against them. There is no big conspiracy.

It's a cliche, but it's totally true that in a season the decisions for and against cancel each other out, which is why, over 38 games, no matter what has happened the best team always wins. The very point of having so many games spread out over so many months is so that human error can be factored in and accounted for because over such a long time the decisions that have gone against you will be roughly equal to those that have gone for you.

peterstorey

It's a cliche but it's not true.

MG

It is, accept it and move on.

peterstorey

It's alright for you, you'll probably get another call in your favour (tho' your luck has been running out). For example, Vidic should have given away a penalty and been sent off in his last 2 games at Arsenal.

MG

Oh ffs, shut up Pete.

It might surprise you to hear this, but United haven't won 4 out of the last 5 league titles because of refeering decisions... they've won because they've been better.

Or are you going to claim you lost 8-2 because of refeering decisions....

kietotheworld

Generally agree, but it's more the case that the decisions we receive get highlighted more because we normally take advantage of them whereas other sides don't. If a mid-table team gets a dodgy penalty and loses 2-1, nobody will care, managers won't speak about it, and it'll have no impact. If a team at the top of the League gets a dodgy penalty, or an opponent is sent off, they are much more likely to win, and it has a much more significant effect. There's a perception in all major Leagues, and now in Europe with Barcelona, that the biggest teams get the majority of the decisions for some reason, but the reality is that these decisions are just more highlighted.

It's not true, 38 games is better than a simple knockout competition, but there's no way you can seriously argue that the best team must always win, the logical outcomes of that are absurd. You say yourself that every side gets 'roughly' the same decisions for them as they get against them, so what happens if the League comes down to one point? Season before last we lost the League against Chelsea by one point, if we'd got a dodgy penalty in our game against Blackburn that we drew 0-0, we very likely would have been Champions, would that somehow have made our team of a higher quality than Chelsea's?

noodlehair

Mike Dean incorrectly gave a foul throw against Patrice Evra in the 90th minute of the Blackburn game.

Simon Adebesi

Also top teams get more crucial decisions (like penalties) awarded in their favour because they spend more time in opposition boxes than defending their own.

It is true that mathematically you wont necessarily always get it evened out over the course of a season, but it will be close to even. The point is there is no systematic bias in favour of one club over another.

MG

You can't say that we would have been champions, football doesn't work that way and you can't predict what might have happened based on what didn't happen. Who's to say that if we'd won that game we would have won all our next games, how can we predict what would have happened when football can go any way on the day. Also, there are so many little decisions throughout games. We all talk about the big ones, but what about throw-ins and goal-kicks that should have been that weren't... it happens all the time and happens to every team. In fact it happens so often you can't argue that it has much effect, it's happening to both teams on the same level.

The fact I'm making is that when we look at what did happen we got roughly the same amount of decisions for us as against us, same as every other team. It's just a cop-out when teams mention decisions as reasons why they didn't win the league, they always forget the ones that have gone for them throughout the season.

I agree with you that the teams at the top have their decisions highlighted more because it matters more and they make more of it though.

But my point about for and against cancelling each other out is backed up by the fact that every year the 'real' table at the end of the season (the one compiled by how decisions should have gone in hindsight) is always pretty much the same as the official table, especially with regards to the winner.

MG

Basically this. I did say 'roughly', I didn't say 'exactly' because that would be simply impossible. The only way to make it exactly right would be for a referee to get every decision - including small decisions - right for every team every game. Never going to happen, they're human after all.

kietotheworld

Alright, yes, it's possible we could have lost it anyway, but it's also possible that we could have won it. According to the view that you are putting forward, that the best team in the League will win regardless of human error on the part of the referees, it must be impossible for a single decision in that game, or indeed any other, to change the outcome of the League. The chances of human error determining the winner are undoubtedly lessened in a 38 game season as opposed to head to head a matches or a cup, but the idea that it can't change it, when the League title can come down to as little as a point, or even a single goal, is ridiculous.

Yes, normally it is a copout, normally the best side wins the League, and sides will get roughly the same amount of decisions for them as against them. The key words here are 'normally' and 'roughly' though, it's not a certainty and I don't know why people characterise it as being one.

Simon Adebesi

I think its a kind of shorthand for what you have conceded there, and the view that there is no bias that favours any one club. If you look around this forum you will see plenty of evidence that people think refs / The FA / UEFA have it in for us. I know Liverpool fans feel the same way and I am sure it is the same with other clubs, big or small. So the "it all evens itself out" argument is just a single sentence rebuttal to that.

It is for me, anyway.

ha_rooney

There have been a few tackles on our players which should have been red cards: Cole on Hernandez, Arshavin on Jones & Davies on Cleverley.

MG

Well, like most things that involve humans making decisions, it's impossible to be a certainty. Unfortunately, we do make mistakes. We're not machines. Of course I said 'roughly'... but that's the best we can hope for when you have a person making about 30 decisions (some of them small) a game, as opposed to a computer doing it. Roughly, I think the decisions do even themselves out over a season. And like I keep saying, you can't make assumptions on what might have happened based on what didn't happen.

VeevaVee

Very RAWK, however the amount I hear from opposition fans about United always getting their way is ridiculous. I'm sure most just say these things brainlessly as a point to make knowing someone else will agree.

Brosstan

It really isnt. Its a daft thing to say.

This thread is even dafter though.

kietotheworld

It's a pretty poor rebuttal considering someone who is saying that one team has it in for another obviously doesn't believe that it all evens itself out. It's just a bullshit cliche that people use to make themselves feel better when a bad decision occurs against them.
Yes, of course, it's the best you can hope for, and generally the decisions are roughly similar for and against, but to say that the best team will always win the League, it's simply false.

For the 'assumptions' I made to be valid with regard to whether it's a certainty that the best team wins, they don't have to be things which definitely would have happened, just things which could feasibly happen, and I think we both accept that we could feasibly have won the League if we'd beat Blackburn with a dodgy penalty.