Man United's issue with referees is reported differently to other clubs - it influences decisions against us

Wumminator

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Refereeing decisions matter. Massively.

As of now, we have had three decisions made on field against us that have been deemed incorrect this year.

Brentford not having a player sent off against us
Wolves not conceding a penalty against us
Martinez's goal disallowed v Burnley.

Two of those are game changing decisions. We are the club with the most decisions against us in the league.

You have to remember, for the majority of the journalists and commentators - we are everything wrong with football. Despite Man City, Chelsea and Newcastle being morally corrupt clubs - you still here 'We only hate Man United' when you go to away grounds. Teams like Stoke City and Bolton consider us proper rivals. As a result, every single person related to football wants us to fail and it costs us.

Look at the BBC match report for games:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c8rv00xpk03t

"There are complaints over whether Collins should have been sent off for his grab at Mbeumo - the Premier League backed up referee Craig Pawson as it felt the former Mbeumo did not have control of the ball - and the huge delay between the award of the penalty and it being taken hardly helped Fernandes."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/cpv7zy412v3t

"Lisandro Martinez had a goal disallowed for a debatable push on ex-Manchester City defender Kyle Walker"

Both buried in the article. No articles. Nothing.

Dalot had a tackle (in which he won the ball) against Dorgu in the Manchester derby.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cn5616rve3eo - Article how it would be a red card in Europe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp3741nlep5o - Referee literally saying it was the right call.

It was literally mentioned within 2 minutes of the final whistle - despite it happening in the first ten minutes of the game.


Arsenal's game against Forest at the weekend:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c3r1pevr38pt

First paragraph in the match report. A half hearted penalty appeal.

Because we are hated, our controversial decisions are swept away and ignored. Fans/Referees/Pundits realise fans want to hate United. They will face the path of least resistance by giving us nothing.

We should be calling this out.
 
The 1958 or one of those other fan groups needs to bring it up face to face with our owners next time there is a forum
 
Reminds me of the reporting around onana not giving a penalty away v wolves first game of the season when he came out at the end and bundled a player over. Previous season the wolves keeper had done the same, no penalty. No fuss.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
Not the right time given the furore around Dalot on the weekend.
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Which in itself felt overblown to me. He could have been sent off in that he gave the ref a decision to make, but it's not a particularly clear cut call. By the letter of the law it was the correct decision, and he even got the ball. But presumably because man united 'got away with one' it's all anybody non-united has spoken about
 
There have been multiple instances of us having 1) Much lower stoppage time when we’re chasing the game (especially relative to Liverpool and Arsenal 2) Blatant time wasting in stoppage time by opponents and whistle blown on the exact second when the minimum stoppage time gets over. Contrast that to our win against Newcastle with almost every game where we’re chasing.

It sounds too small time for us to focus on and the light would always be on the poor performance in the prior 90 mins. But these instances really annoy me and there is no real explanation why this pattern is forming.
 
2 man midfield said:
Which in itself felt overblown to me. He could have been sent off in that he gave the ref a decision to make, but it's not a particularly clear cut call. By the letter of the law it was the correct decision, and he even got the ball. But presumably because man united 'got away with one' it's all anybody non-united has spoken about
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I don’t think it was ever a red. But the no. of people who’ve said it was is quite significant, inc ex referees.

They are all wrong, and thankfully PGMOL agree.

What we need is an independent analysis of decisions. Clearly United fans watch mostly United games.

Not denying we have had some bad decisions go against us, but so have other teams, and oppo fans will have many examples of decision that haven’t been reported.

Of course there’s more focus on us that other teams, but United remain the biggest club
 
Nickelodeon said:
There have been multiple instances of us having 1) Much lower stoppage time when we’re chasing the game (especially relative to Liverpool and Arsenal 2) Blatant time wasting in stoppage time by opponents and whistle blown on the exact second when the minimum stoppage time gets over. Contrast that to our win against Newcastle with almost every game where we’re chasing.

It sounds too small time for us to focus on and the light would always be on the poor performance in the prior 90 mins. But these instances really annoy me and there is no real explanation why this pattern is forming.
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This has been ridiculous all season. Back in November I worked it out based on the games played up to that point - When chasing a game, Liverpool were being given, on average, 3 fecking minutes more than us in the same situation.

I don't know if it's much different now, but at that point they were actually averaging over 10 minutes added time played in games they weren't winning at 90' :lol:
 
V.O. said:
This has been ridiculous all season. Back in November I worked it out based on the games played up to that point - When chasing a game, Liverpool were being given, on average, 3 fecking minutes more than us in the same situation.

I don't know if it's much different now, but at that point they were actually averaging over 10 minutes added time played in games they weren't winning at 90' :lol:
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And in the one game they had a narrow 1-0 lead to cling on to in the Merseyside derby, they added on 3 minutes. Which hasn't been seen at the end of a PL game since before that world cup about 5 years ago when they started going mad with it.
 
Wumminator said:
Refereeing decisions matter. Massively.

As of now, we have had three decisions made on field against us that have been deemed incorrect this year.

Brentford not having a player sent off against us
Wolves not conceding a penalty against us
Martinez's goal disallowed v Burnley.

Two of those are game changing decisions. We are the club with the most decisions against us in the league.

You have to remember, for the majority of the journalists and commentators - we are everything wrong with football. Despite Man City, Chelsea and Newcastle being morally corrupt clubs - you still here 'We only hate Man United' when you go to away grounds. Teams like Stoke City and Bolton consider us proper rivals. As a result, every single person related to football wants us to fail and it costs us.

Look at the BBC match report for games:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c8rv00xpk03t

"There are complaints over whether Collins should have been sent off for his grab at Mbeumo - the Premier League backed up referee Craig Pawson as it felt the former Mbeumo did not have control of the ball - and the huge delay between the award of the penalty and it being taken hardly helped Fernandes."

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/cpv7zy412v3t

"Lisandro Martinez had a goal disallowed for a debatable push on ex-Manchester City defender Kyle Walker"

Both buried in the article. No articles. Nothing.

Dalot had a tackle (in which he won the ball) against Dorgu in the Manchester derby.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cn5616rve3eo - Article how it would be a red card in Europe

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/articles/cp3741nlep5o - Referee literally saying it was the right call.

It was literally mentioned within 2 minutes of the final whistle - despite it happening in the first ten minutes of the game.


Arsenal's game against Forest at the weekend:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/football/live/c3r1pevr38pt

First paragraph in the match report. A half hearted penalty appeal.

Because we are hated, our controversial decisions are swept away and ignored. Fans/Referees/Pundits realise fans want to hate United. They will face the path of least resistance by giving us nothing.

We should be calling this out.
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To the surprise of absolutely fecking no one.
 
Balances out in a season. There’ll be plenty of teams who feel like they didn’t get a major decision against us.

Yes, refereeing in this country is poor but it’s generally consistently poor enough to balance out. There’s only a couple of examples I can think of clubs being overly disadvantaged- Wolves being one a couple of years ago
 
ItDoesntEvenMata said:
Balances out in a season. There’ll be plenty of teams who feel like they didn’t get a major decision against us.

Yes, refereeing in this country is poor but it’s generally consistently poor enough to balance out. There’s only a couple of examples I can think of clubs being overly disadvantaged- Wolves being one a couple of years ago
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We have had three major decisions that referees have admitted are wrong this season. More than every other club.
 
ItDoesntEvenMata said:
Balances out in a season. There’ll be plenty of teams who feel like they didn’t get a major decision against us.

Yes, refereeing in this country is poor but it’s generally consistently poor enough to balance out. There’s only a couple of examples I can think of clubs being overly disadvantaged- Wolves being one a couple of years ago
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It doesn’t balance out. There will always be net benefactors and net losers. But that doesn’t mean there’s a conspiracy.
 
I feel like we get more decisions against us than other teams, and then I look at every other football club and hear their supporters say the same thing. In fact, I see the majority of other clubs (in the 92) say that big clubs like United get more favour from referees.

I try to be objective enough to realise when I'm being subjective, and this thread could be copy pasted into any fan forum in any sport. That said... I still feel we're hard done by :lol:
 
Dubai said:
I feel like we get more decisions against us than other teams, and then I look at every other football club and hear their supporters say the same thing. In fact, I see the majority of other clubs (in the 92) say that big clubs like United get more favour from referees.

I try to be objective enough to realise when I'm being subjective, and this thread could be copy pasted into any fan forum in any sport. That said... I still feel we're hard done by :lol:
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If the majority of fans think that United get everything - can you see how that would result in a referee giving United absolutely nothing to not anger the majority?
 
This is why I was delighted with Fletcher post match both times. He was fantastic in this sense (and just remarkable in the way he spoke and fronted the club really).
 
Wumminator said:
If the majority of fans think that United get everything - can you see how that would result in a referee giving United absolutely nothing to not anger the majority?
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Correlation doesn't imply causation, and it's not that binary. Let's say fans of 86 out of 92 clubs think that the top 6 get unfair treatment. The combined fanbase of United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Newcastle isn't a 6:86 ratio, even before you look at factors like commercial revenue, media coverage...etc.

Your suggestion is that officials are swayed by a referendum of the general public, rather than tangible factors like will they get selected for a 'elite tier' United game again, the amount of online abuse they'll get after making a call against United rather than say...Burnley, and the amount of criticism of their integrity they'll face being seen to succumb to pressure by a big club.

It's like the Wenger quote, everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife...some with a little more justification than others. The tinfoil hat brigade of every fanbase enjoy portraying their team as uniquely maligned. I think that's part of being a fan, you have to recognise we view decisions through tinted lenses.
 
The fact that the Dalot/Doku yellow, a nothing debate, is going on and on when other much more clear cut "contested" decisions are barely talked about tells you all you need to know.
 
Dubai said:
Correlation doesn't imply causation, and it's not that binary. Let's say fans of 86 out of 92 clubs think that the top 6 get unfair treatment. The combined fanbase of United, Liverpool, Arsenal, Chelsea, City and Newcastle isn't a 6:86 ratio, even before you look at factors like commercial revenue, media coverage...etc.

Your suggestion is that officials are swayed by a referendum of the general public, rather than tangible factors like will they get selected for a 'elite tier' United game again, the amount of online abuse they'll get after making a call against United rather than say...Burnley, and the amount of criticism of their integrity they'll face being seen to succumb to pressure by a big club.

It's like the Wenger quote, everyone thinks they have the prettiest wife...some with a little more justification than others. The tinfoil hat brigade of every fanbase enjoy portraying their team as uniquely maligned. I think that's part of being a fan, you have to recognise we view decisions through tinted lenses.
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The entire fanbase of every club in England hate Man United. No one cares about City
 
There’s the Arsenal goal as well in the first game of the season. The amount of soft free kicks given to keepers since then is incredible.
 
They're expanding VaR's remit to intervene if a corner has been awarded incorrectly. Var has been in the game now about 5 or 6 years and I'm sure in that time, countless corners have been awarded incorrectly and goals scored from it, so you might wonder why are they only doing this now?

The only reason this is being done now is because United scored a goal from a corner that shouldn't have been awarded against Nottingham Forest (which wasn't a blatant error, to the naked eye it looked like the ball might have been out), and there was such a furore from it that I thought there was going to be a parliamentary inquiry.

The authorities literally change the rules of the game if United benefit from a decision.
 
Oscar Bonavena said:
They're expanding VaR's remit to intervene if a corner has been awarded incorrectly. Var has been in the game now about 5 or 6 years and I'm sure in that time, countless corners have been awarded incorrectly and goals scored from it, so you might wonder why are they only doing this now?

The only reason this is being done now is because United scored a goal from a corner that shouldn't have been awarded against Nottingham Forest (which wasn't a blatant error, to the naked eye it looked like the ball might have been out), and there was such a furore from it that I thought there was going to be a parliamentary inquiry.

The authorities literally change the rules of the game if United benefit from a decision.
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Conspiracy 101. Codswallop.
 
It is up to club. I really don't understand why INEOS is quiet about this. They are ruthless in many other areas but they are quiet about this thing which is literally the difference between CL football and non CL football.
 
Yeah, it is something I feel should be called out more often. Whenever a big decision goes for us it kicks up a hornets nest (Onana V Wolves, Rashford "offside V City come to mind) however we seem to get one decision then have 5 more go against us, which costs us more points in the longer run.

I don't think its a conspiracy by any means, but I think the club not making more of a stink in comparison to Pool and Arse who argue about EVERY bad thing that happens to them deserved or not doesnt help get parity
 
There is a lot of inconsistency on reffing on display each week across the league.

But there is no evidence of a conspiracy. Just incompetence.

If we need a ref decision to go our way to beat teams in the bottom half of the league, we need to seriously look at how we are performing.
 
Oscar Bonavena said:
So the furore over United scoring from a corner that shouldn't have been had nothing to do with this rule change? After 6 years of VAR they just decided to introduce checking corners out of nowhere?

Come on, now.
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You really think that’s the driver? Not various conferences where such things have been discussed including reviewing both yellows when someone gets sent off for two yellows.

Come on now.
 
ItDoesntEvenMata said:
Balances out in a season. There’ll be plenty of teams who feel like they didn’t get a major decision against us.

Yes, refereeing in this country is poor but it’s generally consistently poor enough to balance out. There’s only a couple of examples I can think of clubs being overly disadvantaged- Wolves being one a couple of years ago
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The total dominance we had during the SAF years resulted in referees, media, opposing fans, FA, etc etc hating us even more.
This to the extent that referees subtly don't ever give 50/50 decisions our way and much more.

It's not a conspiracy against us but a devious way of making us lose a large number of games.

The difference is that under SAF we had teams and players who were way above the rest of the league and could easily balance referees out by dominating matches and opposition and the referees couldn't do much to stop us.

Now it's quite different.
 
I haven't thought about this for quite a long time, but there used to be a "real PL table" somewhere online that took into account the impact of obviously wrong referee decisions and how those decisions impacted the final score.

It would need to be handled carefully in order to protect referees from abuse and harm, but obviously wrong calls need to be called out somehow, some way. Some are judgment calls and we should allow the benefit of the doubt on those judgment called but some calls are obviously wrong. One that comes immediately to mind, though it didn't affect the outcome of the game, was the offside call on Cunha that resulted in Mount's goal being disallowed. I hope that at least behind closed doors that the governing authorities have had a discussion about to prevent that obvious erroneous offside call from happening again. In fact, there's supposed to be a foolproof method to prevent that, but why wasn't it used on that play after it was used on the previous two correctly decided offside decisions?
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
You really think that’s the driver? Not various conferences where such things have been discussed including reviewing both yellows when someone gets sent off for two yellows.

Come on now.
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There may have been discussions about bringing in checks for corners, but there's absolutely no doubt in my mind that the absolute meltdown over the "injustice" of United benefiting from one of those corners greatly expedited the decision to introduce it.
 
ClaytonBlackmoorLeftPeg said:
You really think that’s the driver? Not various conferences where such things have been discussed including reviewing both yellows when someone gets sent off for two yellows.

Come on now.
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This thread gives away a few RAWK'y impressions. Guess we kind of know now how some them felt during the days when we went from victory to victory.
 
lex talionis said:
I haven't thought about this for quite a long time, but there used to be a "real PL table" somewhere online that took into account the impact of obviously wrong referee decisions and how those decisions impacted the final score.

It would need to be handled carefully in order to protect referees from abuse and harm, but obviously wrong calls need to be called out somehow, some way. Some are judgment calls and we should allow the benefit of the doubt on those judgment called but some calls are obviously wrong. One that comes immediately to mind, though it didn't affect the outcome of the game, was the offside call on Cunha that resulted in Mount's goal being disallowed. I hope that at least behind closed doors that the governing authorities have had a discussion about to prevent that obvious erroneous offside call from happening again. In fact, there's supposed to be a foolproof method to prevent that, but why wasn't it used on that play after it was used on the previous two correctly decided offside decisions?
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Yeah, thats where I am at about this matter as well. It is fine to get something wrong here and there but please, try to make sure, that the likelyhood of something very similar happening again gets reduced.
 
I don't think referees have an agenda against us. But I do think they are human beings (most of them anyway), and they must have noticed by now how much of an easier ride they get from the media when they give decisions against us vs. when they give decisions for us.
 
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