Martin Atkinson

[Giggsyking]

This is so telling as in the replay Atkinson does as you'd expect and scans the box but for some reason just ignores de gea down. When he sees him again seconds later he still doesn't blow. To follow it up with not giving fred a pen was just incredible

He is just incompetent. I dont think he has the quality to be a PL ref.

 

[KristianKrystal]

I think what irks me about the first goal is the line that "because he didn't blow his whistle before the ball crossed the line, he must give the goal". If a player commits a foul, say climbing on the back of a defender, while heading the ball in to the goal. The ref will rightly blow the whistle for the foul, after the ball has crossed the line. So where is the difference here? If the ref believes that the game should have been stopped (which 99/100 it will be for an injured goalkeeper), but he hasn't reacted quickly enough, to blow the whistle, why can't he pull the game back after the ball crosses the line?

I'm not saying that's what happened here, maybe the ref didn't want to stop the game in this situation for whatever reason, but this hard line of "the ball crossed the line, so it makes everything that happened before then moot", is what I find frustrating.

I hope De Gea has learned from it though.

Guess the difference is that no foul was committed in this case, and that it’s more sportsmanship/gentleman agreement to stop play. Without VAR maybe he could deem the goal invalid but with it it would be harder as there might not be an actual rule he could refer to?

 

[LawCharltonBest]

How old is he?

Stumbled upon a game from 2011 which he was ref for, and he looked old as shit even then.

 

[Drainy]

How old is he?

Stumbled upon a game from 2011 which he was ref for, and he looked old as shit even then.

Leeds scum look like shit for all their lives. The result of inbreeding.