State of the refs in this country

[Anustart89]

Shambles that 3 years later this thread still relevant, looking forward to it being bumped every year for the next 10 years at least.

It'll be bumped every month if we care enough about all the games in the PL. Shocking decisions made week after week for a number of years now.

 

[SirAnderson]

It'll be bumped every month if we care enough about all the games in the PL. Shocking decisions made week after week for a number of years now.

True, its terrible watching how the messing up something that came in to help them as well, hoping the new crop don't learn from these incompetent refs, but that's like asking for hell to freeze over.

 

[Treble]

The PL should import foreign referees, the English ones are seriously incompetent.

 

[redmanc]

Its not even as if we're talking about shit decisions going against just our club, we're openly moaning about refereeing decisions as a whole that are going against all clubs including our sworn enemies (wont call them rivals currently). How this pathetic display of performance does not get more focus and attention from either the FA or Premier League i've no idea, even the papers seem oblivious to it.

 

[Treble]

Its not even as if we're talking about shit decisions going against just our club, we're openly moaning about refereeing decisions as a whole that are going against all clubs including our sworn enemies (wont call them rivals currently). How this pathetic display of performance does not get more focus and attention from either the FA or Premier League i've no idea, even the papers seem oblivious to it.

Can't remember the last time Liverpool suffered from a referee mistake. Kompany against Salah in........January? (But Liverpool fans don't count VVD's foul on Mertens as deserving a red card!)

 

[redmanc]

Can't remember the last time Liverpool suffered from a referee mistake. Kompany against Salah in........January? (But Liverpool fans don't count VVD's foul on Mertens as deserving a red card!)

We're not just talking about a rival suffering though, its as a whole, if one team suffers one team benefits from the same bad decision, its just shit. Some mid/low table teams have had some fecking horror luck with refereeing decisions in recent seasons which has serious financial implications for both the club, players and staff, it needs to be better.

I know it will never be perfect but VAR was brought in to fix this yet all its done is start ruling out goals for ridiculous touches of a hand where the ball grazed it on the way through despite not altering its path in the slightest, whilst completely ignoring fouls in the box which should be penalties.

And yes i think a few dubious penalties were awarded over the Christmas period.

 

[Amarsdd]

I seriously thought it couldn't get any worst than last season, but boy has it been bad! these three matchweeks have produced as many bad decisions as had been in any season before last.

 

[jasT1981]

Sky (I think) made a point toady, that the reason that some decisions don't get overturned (Or looked at again) might be to protect the referee. They don't want to be seen over-ruling too many things that it makes the referee look bad with how much they are getting wrong (I'm almost sure this was a remark during Newcastle/Spurs today during a possible penalty incident that didn't get given)

 

[Treble]

We're not just talking about a rival suffering though, its as a whole, if one team suffers one team benefits from the same bad decision, its just shit. Some mid/low table teams have had some fecking horror luck with refereeing decisions in recent seasons which has serious financial implications for both the club, players and staff, it needs to be better.

I know it will never be perfect but VAR was brought in to fix this yet all its done is start ruling out goals for ridiculous touches of a hand where the ball grazed it on the way through despite not altering its path in the slightest, whilst completely ignoring fouls in the box which should be penalties.

And yes i think a few dubious penalties were awarded over the Christmas period.

Agree. It's getting ridiculous.

 

[Idxomer]

Sky (I think) made a point toady, that the reason that some decisions don't get overturned (Or looked at again) might be to protect the referee. They don't want to be seen over-ruling too many things that it makes the referee look bad with how much they are getting wrong (I'm almost sure this was a remark during Newcastle/Spurs today during a possible penalty incident that didn't get given)

There's no doubt in my mind that's true. The referees wants to maintain their power and to remain part of the spectacle at any cost . I don't think we'll see any change till all clubs come together and decide that's enough.

 

[Beachryan]

The Newcastle incident today was just as baffling. Deano clearly left it up to VAR to decide, and VAR somehow decided Lascelles rugby tackling Kane wasn't a foul. I just don't get it.

 

[Cloud7]

I've heard through the grapevine that the ref had VAR in mind and didn't give a penalty with the understanding that VAR was watching and would tell him if it was. He was afraid of doing something wrong they said, and that the misunderstanding happened when VAR team decided to trust the refs opinion due to the slight interpretative aspect of it. They both knew it was a penalty, but didn't give it.

I mean, to have this happen one time is one thing but twice in the same game? Hysterically bad. At least you'd have thought the refs have been informed enough to learn the system and not become so lazy as they wont blow the whistle "let VAR take care of it". With the standard of refereeing I would be fine with that becoming the norm, but that is clearly not the way things work right now. The fact he didn't know that.... Speechless.

So they both thought the other would sort it out, and both did nothing because they thought the other party was alright with it. Fecking idiots. The referees are so bad in English football I actually have no issue believing this.

 

[Jeppers7]

Weren't they chanting that at Kelly?

No whenever any ref goes against us the Stratford end sing ‘you scouse b@stard’. It’s meaningless.

 

[Fitchett]

Is there one referee left in the league that you could say is a legitimately a good one? Maybe, Anthony Taylor as I can't remember him making a lot of controversial decisions.

In my opinion, Anthony Taylor is the only fair and consistently competent referee in the Premier League.

 

[hungrywing]

There's certainly a blind panel, but i wouldn't count on it being honest. Look at the reporting and narrative from the match. Is the general public aware that we were robbed of at least 2 clear red cards yesterday? No. The concrete rules are subjective apparently...

That's my feeling as well.

 

[OldSchoolManc]

As I suspected, ref watch completely glossed over the United match.
Only incident mentioned was the Martial penalty and was explained away as a referee decision:

INCIDENT: Early in the second half, Anthony Martial drove into the box, and appeared to be pulled down by Martin Kelly, sending a shot flying wide of the far corner. The referee, Paul Tierney, did not signal for a penalty and the incident was not reviewed by VAR.

DERMOT SAYS: VAR must follow the referee.

DERMOT'S VERDICT: "This decision is all about the referee. Because once the play goes into the penalty area, he has to decide whether it is a foul and if he is going to let it go.

"Then he has to decide if he is going to lead VAR on how much he feels it impacted the forward going down. I think the referee is the only one who knows that and he is the only one who can judge it because he's there. He leads and VAR has to follow whichever way he says."

 

[dev1l]

Refs usually cover each other asses well.

Whatever they say, Tierney remains an incompetent cnut

 

[Njord]

If you look at each episode in isolation, both Cahill and Kelly fouled Martial when he was 1v1 with the GK, and so both could have received reds.

Miljahovic's foul on McTominay for the pen would have been a yellow 10 out of 10 times if it happened in the middle of the pitch, and I don't see how it makes sense for it not to be a yellow when it instead happens in the box. It is still sabotage, it just happens in a more dangerous area of the pitch. And so, he could have received his second yellow.

There was also Zaha's foul on Pogba before our goal. I can see that it would be difficult for the ref to give him the second yellow after we scored, but if anything else had happened I think he would have got it. And it doesn't really make sense that us scoring should save him.

So that's four times Palace players could have received the red card. I think the only reason they received none, were because there were circumstances that would require some spine from the ref to give them.
Unfortunately he didn't have one.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

If you look at each episode in isolation, both Cahill and Kelly fouled Martial when he was 1v1 with the GK, and so both could have received reds.

Miljahovic's foul on McTominay for the pen would have been a yellow 10 out of 10 times if it happened in the middle of the pitch, and I don't see how it makes sense for it not to be a yellow when it instead happens in the box. It is still sabotage, it just happens in a more dangerous area of the pitch. And so, he could have received his second yellow.

There was also Zaha's foul on Pogba before our goal. I can see that it would be difficult for the ref to give him the second yellow after we scored, but if anything else had happened I think he would have got it. And it doesn't really make sense that us scoring should save him.

So that's four times Palace players could have received the red card. I think the only reason they received none, were because there were circumstances that would require some spine from the ref to give them.
Unfortunately he didn't have one.

Compounded by even more useless clowns on var.

 

[Amarsdd]

(I posted this on the VAR thread, but would like if someone could answer)
I haven't really followed the post-match stuff since yesterday, so has there been much talk in the media about the awful VAR/ref decisions (2 pens and 1 red card at least) in our game like the upheaval that we had in the media regarding the not-penalty decision in City-Tott game last week? or has it just been about our so-called penalty "disaster", "weak Ole" talks?

 

[Inter Yer Nan]

It's shocking still and VAR won't change much because they've probably got just as incompetent people in the VAR room. How Cahill isn't a red, or the clear pen denied (we'd have probably missed tbf) and the Zaha foul on Pogba I don't know. Imagine getting three big decisions wrong and they all go to the same team? When you combine incompetency with bias then it's a serious problem. I'm not trying to excuse why we lost. We aren't a good team but it's frustrating to not get a fair shake on top of it too.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

(I posted this on the VAR thread, but would like if someone could answer)
I haven't really followed the post-match stuff since yesterday, so has there been much talk in the media about the awful VAR/ref decisions (2 pens and 1 red card at least) in our game like the upheaval that we had in the media regarding the not-penalty decision in City-Tott game last week? or has it just been about our so-called penalty "disaster", "weak Ole" talks?

According to dermot Gallagher no reds, no second penalty but didn’t discuss his mate booking a teenager 3 games into his united career getting wrongly carded.

 

[baskinginthesun]

According to dermot Gallagher no reds, no second penalty but didn’t discuss his mate booking a teenager 3 games into his united career getting wrongly carded.

.....two games in a row. Was yellow carded for "diving" in the Wolves match as well. (I am assuming you're referencing the Dan James cards).

 

[Omahahaha]

It is extra infuriating to see refereeing mistakes on VAR, incredible. It should be pretty easy.

 

[fergiesarmy1]

.....two games in a row. Was yellow carded for "diving" in the Wolves match as well. (I am assuming you're referencing the Dan James cards).

Yeah so he has been booked twice in a row for diving when what I recall of that one against wolves was he got his own feet tangled up and didn’t appeal for a foul (Sorry i said teenager, thunked he was younger than 21 for some reason)

Every away ground he is going to get abused the moment he goes over from now on because of these old useless dipshit referees.

 

[AFC NimbleThumb]

If you look at each episode in isolation, both Cahill and Kelly fouled Martial when he was 1v1 with the GK, and so both could have received reds.

Miljahovic's foul on McTominay for the pen would have been a yellow 10 out of 10 times if it happened in the middle of the pitch, and I don't see how it makes sense for it not to be a yellow when it instead happens in the box. It is still sabotage, it just happens in a more dangerous area of the pitch. And so, he could have received his second yellow.

There was also Zaha's foul on Pogba before our goal. I can see that it would be difficult for the ref to give him the second yellow after we scored, but if anything else had happened I think he would have got it. And it doesn't really make sense that us scoring should save him.

So that's four times Palace players could have received the red card. I think the only reason they received none, were because there were circumstances that would require some spine from the ref to give them.
Unfortunately he didn't have one.

So true it hurts.

During the course of a season games become easier or difficult based on actions that take place.

Palace should have been a walk in the park, we might miss one penalty but I doubt we’d miss three.

 

[Fitchett]

For me, Saturday was a landmark relating to my opinion of Premier League referees. Up to now, I have been unsure as to whether the majority of them were simply incompetent, or corrupt. Now, I know. Paul Tierney was most certainly incompetent and possibly corrupt. Craig Pawson, the VAR, was most definitely corrupt, by his complete failure to overrule the many mistakes made by Tierney, when he had the benefit of watching video replays from different angles.

It really is pointless in having referees as VAR, since they won't want to expose their mates' mistakes during a match. It needs trained analysts to be VARs, who are from a totally different group to Mike Riley's bunch of crooks and cowards (Anthony Taylor excepted).

 

[SweetRightFoot]

The Palace game was shocking. 3 clear pens, only one given, consistent fouling all over the pitch and ridiculous levels of time wasting. The ref was not up to any sort of standard and should be removed from the refereeing pool, amateur performance.

 

[MikeKing]

Any replay of the penalty incident with Greenwood late in the game? It looked like he got to the ball first, then got kicked, that's normally a standard stone wall penalty. I thought VAR was going to spot it, what happened?

 

[Jeppers7]

Any replay of the penalty incident with Greenwood late in the game? It looked like he got to the ball first, then got kicked, that's normally a standard stone wall penalty. I thought VAR was going to spot it, what happened?

Should have been a pen. Rio asked the ex ref in the BT studio....his response 'you would say that, you used to play for Man United'.

I wonder if that's the general opinion if the situation was reversed and the incident happened in our box. Imagine the scrutiny if it's Pogba that swung a leg.

It's pathetic. The refs explanation was that it's something you'd want if your united and wouldn't think was if you're Southampton. He's swung a leg and caught the player. I'm not sure how it's not.

 

[Jeppers7]

As I suspected, ref watch completely glossed over the United match.
Only incident mentioned was the Martial penalty and was explained away as a referee decision:

INCIDENT: Early in the second half, Anthony Martial drove into the box, and appeared to be pulled down by Martin Kelly, sending a shot flying wide of the far corner. The referee, Paul Tierney, did not signal for a penalty and the incident was not reviewed by VAR.

DERMOT SAYS: VAR must follow the referee.

DERMOT'S VERDICT: "This decision is all about the referee. Because once the play goes into the penalty area, he has to decide whether it is a foul and if he is going to let it go.

"Then he has to decide if he is going to lead VAR on how much he feels it impacted the forward going down. I think the referee is the only one who knows that and he is the only one who can judge it because he's there. He leads and VAR has to follow whichever way he says."

What does that even mean ? It's fecking bizarre

 

[OldSchoolManc]

What does that even mean ? It's fecking bizarre

Exactly. At this moment in time, VAR has made referees in this country even worse, and I didn’t think that was possible.
VAR has simply become an extra excuse to do whatever the referee feels like.
An example, is that suspected offsides aren’t supposed to be acted on until the attack’s finished, then it’s referred to Var.
At least twice already this season, United attacks have been flagged offside when they were actually onside.

 

[Fitchett]

It's clear already how biased some referees are, by their inconsistent application of VAR. We will only have a truly fair system when Artificial Intelligence is developed to process the VAR interventions.

 

[KranjskaKlobasa]

How many times was the ref hit by the ball or blocked a player? You dont see that in a sunday league.

 

[MrMarcello]

What happened in the Villa match? Read something about a disallowed goal late on.

 

[Dan_F]

What happened in the Villa match? Read something about a disallowed goal late on.

Grealish got pulled back, ball went through to a Villa player who scored and it got called a dive by Grealish. VAR just agreed with the ref I’m assuming.

 

[BigGiantHead]

What does that even mean ? It's fecking bizarre

The stance in the PL for VAR reviews is that on subjective calls it has to be a clear error by the ref for the VAR to intervene. They will talk after the situation and go through what the ref saw. If the video "evidence" backs the ref's point of view the call stands. So for example if the ref says that there was a pull but it was not enough to warrant a foul the VAR will not intervene. If the ref says there was not a pull and the VAR clearly saw a pull worth a foul it will intervene. The point is that the subjective calls are made by one ref and the non-subjective(offside, ball touching attacking players hand) calls are made by VAR.

For me this is not been made clear enough for the public and is causing a lot of confusion about VAR. They should either make it more clear when VAR will be used, make it more clear how they communicate during VAR reviews or give more power to VAR to prevent all confusion around VAR

 

[Jeppers7]

The stance in the PL for VAR reviews is that on subjective calls it has to be a clear error by the ref for the VAR to intervene. They will talk after the situation and go through what the ref saw. If the video "evidence" backs the ref's point of view the call stands. So for example if the ref says that there was a pull but it was not enough to warrant a foul the VAR will not intervene. If the ref says there was not a pull and the VAR clearly saw a pull worth a foul it will intervene. The point is that the subjective calls are made by one ref and the non-subjective(offside, ball touching attacking players hand) calls are made by VAR.

For me this is not been made clear enough for the public and is causing a lot of confusion about VAR. They should either make it more clear when VAR will be used, make it more clear how they communicate during VAR reviews or give more power to VAR to prevent all confusion around VAR

So you’re saying two people looked at that and decided it wasn’t a penalty. Even more fecking bizarre.

 

[Flying high]

Any replay of the penalty incident with Greenwood late in the game? It looked like he got to the ball first, then got kicked, that's normally a standard stone wall penalty. I thought VAR was going to spot it, what happened?

Actually thought the ref had a good game today and don't blame him for missing that one, it didn't look a foul 1st time on tv.

But it certainly looked a penalty on the replay I saw.

 

[BigGiantHead]

So you’re saying two people looked at that and decided it wasn’t a penalty. Even more fecking bizarre.

No I'm saying that the ref saw that there was some holding but not enough for a foul so the VAR cannot overturn the decision. I know it's stupid, but that's the way the PL uses VAR.

If the red would have said there was not holding/pulling the VAR could have overturned the decision.

 

[freeurmind]

Sack the lot.