It was a stone bonk penalty. No question about it. Clear as day. And furthermore wee Jimmy 'Scottydog' Robertson wants to watch his lip, accusing Will Hughes of diving. The cheek of it. Of course, Robertson is famously as thick as a punnet of mince in any case, but desperately keen to curry favour on Merseyside. Absolutely sickening really. There was a beautiful illustration of this recently when Robertson noticed a scouse lad who had donated to a food bank. Big-hearted Scotty leapt into action, rewarding the lad with a dictated letter and a signed Firmino shirt. Firstly, what a dismal recognition that your own name has no value amongst fans. An also ran. The forgotten man. Signed Robertson shirt? No Bids on Ebay - Relist? Secondly, what will occur immediately to anyone with half a brain cell. Donate the bloody signed shirt to the food bank! You could meet the donation lad there and present the shirt to them together. He'd be thrilled and so would the food bank. You could shake his hand and give him a pat on the back. Of course it'd take half an hour of your time, but it might be even better publicity favour Scouse currying. Local press even maybe. As it is, the current lame effort only won him a mediocre "looovely gesture" and "waddagreatmanoffdapitch", which is very much Richter Scale 1 on the Scouse emotional scale of wailing and chest beating. Must try harder. Bet he had to look far and wide for a woman who was shorter even than him. And she looks like a little china doll, with a painted fixed smile and the light reflecting off her. A little porcelain princess. Notice also Robinson's unconvincing smile, craftily concealing the traditional Glasgow bottle in his right hand. He'd be slicing your throat with the broken edge of that before you even knew he was coming. And then he'd lie about it afterwards.
But is it not true that Liverpool fans were just as worried about having Moss before the game? There’s even links posted on here about it pre-game. The issue with the penalty is two-fold...Moss was so far behind play (as he regularly is) and was therefore unsighted, as a ref behind play has greater chance of being. And the second being that the better sighted linesman didn’t give it. Moss got himself in such a bad position that he had to rely on his linesman for guidance. I don’t really understand the last comment re. Mark Hughes comments? The smaller clubs get the incompetent officials? By the same token Liverpool got one on Saturday as he reffed their game no? The comment doesn’t hold up to scrutiny. Moss for me isn’t one of the officials who isn’t impartial. He’s regularly been on the wrong side of United fans ire and clearly the same for Liverpool. His issue is that he just isn’t up to standard. I think fans of all clubs would accept this. I do agree there is a natural bias towards the top teams from most officials in the PL - I think it’s awful and should be looked at but it’s simply down to the fact that they are terrified of the fallout in the media by incorrectly adjudging against one of the top teams. When you hear stories of death threats from fans etc, quite frankly I don’t blame them. The ‘Respect’ campaign by the FA and PL was never implemented or taken seriously and that’s a factor in allowing this rot of top club bias to set in. But a conspiracy against Watford is utter nonsense in my opinion.
Given that the standard of UK-based officials is clearly p155 poor, why doesn't the EPL pay top dollar to attract the best referees from around the world to take charge of all matches?
Except that to some, it makes Hughes sound like a cheat. Best to have said that he felt a nudge to his leg and it put him off balance, which would be believed. Don't want to add more ammunition to the referees in making them look out for Hughes diving.
I've been saying this for years. The standard of officiating in Spain and Italy is vastly superior to England. I watch a lot of football in these leagues so can compare like for like. You should never notice a referee. In England there is an insane amount of referees with massive egos, who want the whole thing to be about them. Not sure why that is, but it's a real problem.
Haven’t there regularly been abysmal decisions in favour of Real Madrid. I remember a comical penalty when it was 0-0 and Marcelo fouled the defender at a corner. Admittedly this may be an isolated incident but I’ve seen plenty of outrageous pro Madrid decisions!
It’s probably much to do with the same reasons we always seemed to lag behind in coaching standards - lack of investment at the grass roots level. Go and watch a local game on a Saturday or Sunday and you’ll see how much respect a referee gets. A thankless job that frankly I think anyone would be mad to be passionate about pursuing as a career. Anyone who shows even a hint of ability at the profession is very likely to get put off the job before they get anywhere near the professional ranks, or even the National League I’d bet. So I’m really not surprised the PL overpay for average or worse referees.
Of course there are incidents of mistakes all the time, but the general overall standard is so much better. If the FA employed referees from over Europe you'd be amazed at how much better big decisions are handled. They are just better at it. I do think there is a high level of dishonesty with English officials. By that, I don't mean any of them of throwing matches for financial gain, but there is a lot of fear and pandering to the bigger clubs or the fashionable teams. I've tried to take a non-Watford view this season, and have noted bad decisions in other games that do not involve Watford. It's amazing how many bad decisions Burnley and Cardiff have had this season. It's always the smaller, less fashionable clubs that get a raw deal. Once VAR is in place I expect this favouritism to stop. I predict the top 6 will lose a lot more games because of it. I hope there will be an official stat next season showing all the overturned decisions. I will expect the smaller clubs will take up the top half of this particular table in general.
I think (and can be corrected) but Le Tissier can **** off , when a player doesn’t even bother looking at the ref and walks off the pitch and up the tunnel it’s a cardable offence Mind you would have been funny if he had walked off and gone up the tunnel and then found out the ref hadn’t carded him
Yes Burnley did get a bad decision according to Dyche against us - Hughes could have been sent off for a bad tackle on the touch line . He then went on and scored! TBH I doubt Man City will be too bothered by VAR as they are too good anyway . The others maybe like Arsenal yesterday with the Bournemouth offside goal but that will just mean a one horse race for the league .
Don't think so - just knew he was going off so didn't hang around to complain . Made a re-freshing change to see someone accept a red card when deserved. Guess they were 2-0 up though!
Encore! Btw, I didn’t realise the punnet was the standard measure for mince. Certainly will be after Brexit.
I'm afraid Clive's got this wrong. We will be reverting to the imperial system of Mince measurement; 16 Raabs make a Dorries, 14 Dorries make a Davis. As in 'I'll have half a dorries of Mince, please, butcher'. ''It's just under, 7 raabs do you?"
When we beat Man City this result will be swept under the rug. Architects will be clambering over each other to fesign the Gracia statue to stand next to GT outside.
Gracia will happily sign his contract this week. However after we lose 7-0 to Citeh, the club will never add their signature.
I watch 2 grass roots games every weekend and untold others whilst my own lot are preparing for games. The standard of new referees is bl**dy awful.
Exactly my point. A decent one is a needle in a haystack and is extremely likely to be put off the profession before any meaningful career progression. A lot of that IMO is down to the FA’s utter incompetence in implementing their own ‘Respect’ campaign and thus making the job look unpalatable to near everyone.
Think "assaulted each week" may be a bit of a stretch but I accept the general point. Do continental players give refs less abuse (or assaults) than here? What are the reasons for European refs being so much better than ours?
The level of competence is far higher in other European leagues. It's hard to gauge scientifically as a lot of it is perception. I think once all major leagues start using VAR, it will be far easier to monitor the performances of officials. You'll easily be able to gauge who has the most decisions overturned, thus showing who is the most useless.
Of course foreign referees are bound to be better because they are unable to be biased against Watford...
Would be inclined to drop Mapps back to the bench and bring in Kabasele for Leicester. Whilst he's done well it's always the same pattern of a strong first game, decent 2nd and 3rd and then average after that.
I 'm inclined to agree with this. I noticed a few mistakes creeping into his game against Liverpool. I think Kabasele has been unlucky. He lost his place due to two unfair dismissals in quick succession and hasn't been in the side since. It's probably time to make a couple of changes. I think Gracia will bring in Janmaat and Kabasele for the Leicester match.
They're not. English officials are very highly thought around the world. The most recent line of attack - the lack of an English referee being at the World Cup - can be explained away as mainly down to typically woeful FA succession planning after the top candidate (Clattenberg, who don't forget refereed the 2016 Champions League final and Euro 2016 final) decided to chase the petro $$$ in Saudi Arabia.
I meant at grassroots level really in terms of any refs coming through the system - ofcourse no-one in the professional game would go that far! You do know we are going to be victims of a VAR decision now having discussed why we will benefit from it Or we will let in a vital goal during the injury time needed to cover the time its taken to use the system for a decision!
I agree - I’d definitely play all five of them at CB over Van Dyke. (So long as it was ALL five...) EDIT - yeh- ok so it’s six and I can’t count but hey - I’ll acknowledge it before someone crucifies me!!
Put rather more succinctly - it’s been quite some time since Maps was Premier League standard (if he ever was). I actually think it borders on ludicrous to be starting him over Kabasele if I’m honest. Kabasele has been on an upward trajectory since Walter got sent packing. Maps ... you get the idea. (Sorry it’s a harsh statement etc etc)
Don’t be ridiculous - they would have heard of a number of other teams we could be playing and would be just as biased!
