Well in that West Brom game he did give a free kick to us in the final minute which we scored from that was deemed contentious but then the foul was by James Mclean....
Good grief. Poor performance, fortunate win, was a corner, debatable offside but neither decisions shocking bad and if I were in the media and came on here I’d put us last on MOTD and pretty much never mention us except on such occasions as “Man City hammered Watford 6-0” just to troll the forum.
We were comfortable in this game because Michael Oliver harshly sent Jeff Hendrick off after about five minutes. Doesn't fit the narrative though, does it?
I mentioned the red card. I said that he's sent off one Watford player and one opponent. (actually it is two players, as I remember he sent off Hogg for two bookable offenses) It's clear he gives us a hard time, giving far more things against us than for us. From what I can see it's 9 decisions against and 3 for. My biggest issue with him is the penalties against. He always seems to be looking for excuses to penalise Watford. This is my observation. In those 15 games, he's made 15 decisions (or non decisions) which have not really been necessary. That's a huge amount. The majority have been against us. Why a few want to fall over themselves in trying to defend him is beyond me.
No one is defending him. They are merely pointing out the inconsistencies in your ‘research’. Failing to believe he has it in for us, isn’t the same as defending him. His errors are known. But most of us fail to blame him for something on Friday night which wasn’t his fault. I get the sense that had the same situation happened against us, you’d be applauding the linesman for having to bail Oliver out.
I've just thought of something- before the game i saw several QPR players taking pot shots at their keeper during the warm up and many went in the net. 7 times i think it happened and Michael Oliver didn't disallow any of them (not that it would have mattered if he had) I also saw one of the ball boys toe poke a ball past Gomes when returning the ball to him. As such i feel the FA should amend the result of the match to.. let me calculate... 1-9 (7 OG's)
The research has been factual. Maybe I forgot to mention the Hogg sending off, but that was an honest oversight. 15 major decisions in 15 of our matches is far too many. Most of those decisions should not have been given, and the majority of those have gone against us. You may like to find one example, or such, which is technically not correct to try and discredit. This is a standard forum tactic, but the overall impression is that he's usually very unfair towards Watford. I don't think there is any denying that. A couple of people on here have tried to find small errors to try and discredit my view and support Michael Oliver, but I find that a bit strange. Why support a guy that never does us any favours?
You shoot yourself in the foot that's why. You're blaming Oliver for the lino putting his flag up. That's akin to being one of those flat earth tw*ts.
Problem is HB is that when you discuss this type of thing you often present your theories as facts.. and that gets up peoples noses. Take this for example.. "Most of those decisions should not have been given" Well that's just your take on it. There isn't an 'Observer book of refereeing decisions' factbook you can look this up in.. well there might be a HB1 version! On another note i'm glad i don't watch football the way you do. I couldn't get much enjoyment from believing that (nearly) all the officials are against us. Isn't that really frustrating for you?
We should be looking for the good in everybody as Gomes would say: If it wasn't for Oliver we would not have had that amazing moment against Leicester. Neither would we have seen Gomes save 2 pens in a game. Lastly, on Friday, 1. it was a corner 2. the whistle blew before Gray put the ball in the net, so it would only ever have counted if VAR was in place and the game was played on until after the ball was in the net. There could have been no goal given if the whistle had blown with or without VAR. 3. It was a borderline but reasonable call by the linesman and no referee in the world can overrule such a flag.
Who is supporting him? Only thing in his support is that he wasn't at fault for the offside goal on Friday, everything else prior to the game is well documented and is common knowledge.
These are not just my opinion. Go back to the matches I've listed. Read the match reports and it's the general view of the majority at the time. You have to go on what is "normality" in these things. Is it normal for a referee to give a penalty for an obvious dive in a massive game like a playoff semi final in the last minute? Is it normal for a referee to give TWO penalties to a team losing 0-1 in the final minutes, for example? He often does this type of thing. Of those 15 key decisions, only 4 have been anyway beneficial to Watford. Of those 4, Hogg's dismissal came when we were losing 0-3 so had very little impact. The penalty against United was the last kick of the game, making a 2-1 score line 3-1. Only the two decisions in different games against Burnley could be seen as very beneficial to Watford. 11 other key decisions have gone against us. It's a strange anomaly that it's not been far more costly. A last minute penalty against Leicester led to that dramatic Deeney goal, those two penalties at West Brom were both saved. The penalty at Bournemouth was saved. The disallowed goal at QPR didn't effect the result. The disallowed Capoue goal against Leeds didn't effect the result. That's more luck than anything else. He's done his best to influence games more often than not, but fortunately for us it's rarely worked.
How on Earth does anybody have so much time to make conspiracy theories a priority in their life? Football takes up only a small part of my life. There’s partners to argue with, kids to discipline, dogs to walk, DIY to do and work to attend. If I had so much time spare the last thing I’d be doing is researching referee bias, negative media reporting or complaining that Javi isn’t picking my favourite player.
The good news is that the definitely statistically valid sample shows beyond any debate that Michael Oliver is twice as likely to send off an opposition player as one of ours. This is a real boost to us going forwards, although I would well understand if opposition fans were slightly worried by his card happy bias in our favour.
You’ve got a book called “HB1’s big book of Referees who hate us” it’s like a school exercise book. You update it in your study every week. You know I’m right
Isn't he "stepping out" with one of them? See - I can manage to keep up with proper/important news: why can't you?
My father in law had a pre meditated view that french cars were plagued with electric problems. Whenever he saw a french car broken down, that was proof of his point of view. Its a fact that there was a french car broken down at the side of the road, but it doesnt make the original point of view valid. Hb1 sees an Oliver decision that "might" be wrong, validates his facts. My FIL now drives a Renault after his vauxhall blew up.
HB1 while I have sympathy for your view of Oliver, the fundamental point is you can’t expect him to over rule the Lino for the Gray goal. It just never happens as the Lino has the best view?
Key point here: VAR is only in use part-time at the moment but next year it will be in use in every game. Will all linesmen be sufficiently trained so that their instinct is no longer to flag in situations like the Gray offside on Friday? If they are not VAR will be useless. I suspect there will quickly be an incident where a flag wrongly stops play and some team/manager/fans are outraged.
They've been doing this in the CL this season and it's worked quite well (other than when brain dead pundits like McManaman don't understand it), you'd imagine the PL would follow suit... Although who knows!
Ah didn't know that, I only saw it happen for the first time in the PSG/Utd game so assumed it had been like that for the whole season!
But French Cars are renowned for electrical problems. An ex-girlfriends father was always telling me that.
Where exactly? The slow motion replays I saw on TV didn't appear to show contact. I'm not saying it's impossible that the commentators and I are wrong from the replays we saw, but I've not seen anything else showing different.
