Refereeing decisions & Watford

Hate to add a slight negative ninny in a wave of euphoria and excitement, but we were again subject to a pretty odd refereeing decision.

I'm not in the camp of conspiracies, but it's really frickin' annoying that we seem to keep getting poor refereeing decisions happening.

I can't say how much it affected our players and you should play to the whistle I guess, but they did seem to stop a little and you do instinctively stop when a lino raises his flag as he did for their first goal, as 99.99% of the time it holds up. And this effectively let them back into the game.

How can these unbelievable balls ups keep happening

:rant::rant::rant:

 

I'm sure it affected our players - lino shouldn't have flagged until their player touched the ball.

In reality, it was not offside as the offside player left it for their other forward to cross it, but the flag going up definitely affected our defenders.

 

Read any other forum...everybody complains about referees. It's not a conspiracy, it's people sometimes making a mistake

 

I know it's annoying - but how would any of us fare as a ref/assistant in a match? I know I'd be rubbish.

90 + mins is a long time to make correct judgements consistently when the game moves as quickly as it does.

The bottom line is that our players should have played to the whistle like Bolton's players did.

 

It was unfortunate, but I cant see how we can complain. Referees often over rule the Assistant, and if we were attacking we would have been fuming if the referee didnt over rule in our favour.

Just one of those things, coupled with our players momentary lack of professionalism.

 

I'm not saying we should complain, and I accept it's a difficult job to get results right 100% of the time, but we do seem get some controversially odd ones.

A prime example of the red card sending off at Bournemouth. 2 days later at Hull, nearly 20 minutes into the game, there was a red card incident that was pretty cut and dry. Wasn't given. Half time analysis (and I quote) "The referees not going to give a red card that early and ruin the game.

As I initially said, I'm not claiming conspiracies. Just, maybe we could do with a higher standard of refereeing sometimes... or at least some of them could go in our favour

 

And Brentford fans are really unhappy about their sending off and just about every other decision that night

 

I agree with this post.

But I think the referee got today's right, not wrong.

 

In fairness to our players, I reckon it's extremely hard NOT to react to seeing the lino's flag go up even if the reaction is only temporary.

 

Didn't appeal it tho'.

 

The ref got it right.

The lino didn't, which is what (most) people are unhappy about. Having said that, professional players really should learn to play to the whistle.

 

Shocking from the lino, but can't play on. The ref and his team must take the hit from this. The goal should be disallowed but the ref must explain why........ My mate has ****ed up

 

Iggy's first against Blackpool the other week was offside. Who on here complained that day? We have good and bad decisions like all the other teams. Apart from Bournemuff, they're just lucky *****.

 

Ok - I perhaps should have titled that "Officials decisions... AGAIN!"

I'm sorry, but I don't think these can be considered the same. Every week, heck every game, an incorrect offside decision is made, whether it results in a goal or not, but once the decision is made it's final. In this respect, you need to learn to play to the whistle EVERY time in case you're wrong.

When an official, in clear line of sight of every player on the pitch, waves his flag to signal an offside, you're generally going to stop, or hesitate as they are in charge of the decisions. The official has had a direct impact on the course of play and therefore, in my opinion, is partially responsible for the goal.

This cannot be right. Roiiight?

 

Yes, but then no. There is a distinct possibility that the ball would have ended up in the back of the net anyway; some of our players did carry on, so I think it is fair to consider the possibility. Looking forward to seeing it again tonight.

PS, playing to the whistle is very nearly rule number one in football. It would have been unforgivable today if the team hadn't been so downright adorable!

 

Don't care, we won.

 

This is true but at the same time it must be very distracting when a lino puts his flag up as the ref would normally blow when this happens. Obviously he should have kept it down until the Bolton player was actually interferring with play. His fault really.

Yes they might have scored anyway. This is also true

 

Assistants don't make decisions, they only advise the referee. You play on until the referee blows his whistle. Having seen it on TV last night it was a bit of a schoolboy error from the assistant, but it was equally a schoolboy error from our defence if they waited for the referee to blow.

 

Anya could have been a bit cuter, hindsight at the max here, and run into the back of Le Fondre just to hammer home the 'interfering' thing. Running round him at speed made it difficult for the officials to notice it.

 

Call me old school, but I'm with Brian Clough on this. If you're on the pitch you're interfering with play.

Clearly we can use some common sense and say that if a midfielder plays it to someone on the right and a left winger was in an outside position, that's inactive.

Le Fondre was within a couple metres of the ball and put his hands up when he realised that he was offside, and in my opinion was interfering with play. It was certainly a distraction to defenders' decision making.

That said, I'm not too fussed. Some days they go for you, some days they go against.

But I am still annoyed about the Bornmuff one, though. I'd been looking forward to that game all week. 30 seconds in the game was ruined.

 

He was interfering with play? The ball ****ing ran past him about 1 meter away.

 

Calm down, fella. (This is why I only lurk and don't usually participate)

I am simply saying that I believe players in such close proximity to a ball cannot help but have an influence on a defender's split second decision making and therefore are intefering with the game. Five year olds and dogs excitedly run after a ball with proverbial blinkers on, the rest of us consider the broader aspects of the game, such as player positioning on the pitch.

I also believe defenders should play to the whistle.

 

I do sometimes wonder if anyone in our defence watches championship football. Being in offside positions then magically not being active is what Le Fondre does. He caught us with that trick several times while with Reading and Cardiff, admittedly usually from free kicks but it's the same principle.

 

My view is that you play to the whistle. Yes the assistant went a bit early with the flag, but if we had played on some one might have got into a better position and we might not have conceded.

First make sure we don't concede then take it up with the ref afterwards.

 

What I see is that there is a lot of errors creeping into performances of officials and they regularly feature games we are involved in.

Just going from the last 4 matches there has been a bundle.

Lee Probert wrote himself into the referee hit list with his dreadful handling of the game. He wrongly sent off Angella after just 26 seconds, and should have sent off Arter after 36 minutes, for a foul very similar to that of Bidwell, who was sent off for Brentford on Tuesday. Probert also awarded a soft penalty and ignored a handball where he could have given Watford a penalty. He also missed a dreadful foul from Pudil in the 92nd minute. Kermorgant could have been booked or even sent off for high studs into the chest of Ighalo, but got nothing. The ref even told Ighalo to get up after that incident. From the Bournemouth match we had five decisions go against us and one for.

Blackburn we had a perfectly good goal disallowed. It can be argued either way (and has been) whether it was a correct call, but I know from watching 1000's of matches in my life, that if a defender heads the ball into his own net, the goal will be given.....unless he was pushed or something like that. So 99 times out of 100 it is given.

Brentford and I know their fans were up in arms over the sending off, but it was a nasty challenge, it was a correct decision and if one of our players had done that, like Pudil at Bournemouth, I would be saying the same thing. At first look of the penalty we were given, I thought it was a poor decision and one that we got in our favour for once, but again it was a correct decision. I've seen a clip from a different angle and the defender clearly sticks out his arm to stop the ball. It was deliberate and a correct penalty decision.

Yesterday, we had another incident where the linesman is incorrectly flagging for offside. Now there is a rule for interfering with play when it comes to offside, and if a linesman waving his flag is not interfering with play, I don't know what is. Technically it can be argued a correct decision, but it's one of those that 99 times out of 100 would have gone the other way.

Also, if you see that great triple save from Gomes, watch out for the foul by Le Fondre on Paredes, just before the third shot. It was a blatant foul but not spotted by the referee. They could have scored another goal from that.

Basically most decisions that go against us are what I would refer to as "grey area" decisions. Decisions which could go either way, but it these type of calls typically go against us.

Clearly we've had some other stinkers too, which are not grey areas, such as the ghost goal, the two balls on the pitch when Bristol City scored against us, the "goal" Forestieri scored at Brighton where there's no doubt a wrong call has been made.

I don't doubt all teams get these things against them as well, but we get far too many, and I can't recall too many the other way around.

 

And why was Ighalo booked when he kicked the ball in celecbration into the crowd, when thier defender was only talked to when he kicked the ball of the pitch to delay a free kick?

 

They changed the laws in 2012. Interference now is limited to playing the ball, playing the man or obstructing the keepers view ... None of this happened, the lino flagged in a fast moving situation which was wrong but most others would have done so too.

Playing to the whistle is the only solution.

 

Something that I don't think has been mentioned (sorry if I'm wrong) is the fact that I think Le Fondre actually only stopped the moment that the flag went up, which made it more confusing for the defenders. Not saying the defence were right to stop before a whistle was blown, but you can understand their reaction. For me it was offside as Le Fondre was in the way of Anya, who had to run around him to follow the ball & run.

 

Nor did any of it happen with the own goal against Blackburn.

 

The goal against Blackburn I think should have stood, but the overall consensus on this forum was that it was a correct decision to disallow it.

The goal for Bolton yesterday, was flagged for offside in the exact same way, but was overruled. Again this seems to have been accepted as a correct call by many.

How can both decisions be correct?

 

It was stupid of the linesman to flag and it was equally a stupid decision for the players to switch off before the whistle.

It was a 50/50 decision whether the ref pulled the game back and we don't get those as TPTB don't want us to.

 

It wasn't overruled. It was effectively not flagged. The lino flagged but then though he had made a mistake and put his flag down - probably explaining to the ref on his headset whilst doing so. It wasn't a flag that the ref chose to overrule, it was an erroneous flag. A very bizarre thigh to happen, something I don't think I've seen before.

 

I've seen similar elsewhere but usually the defenders don't stop defending. I can't believe we're arguing over this, when we played Reading a while back a lino invented a whole fcking goal!

 

You're making an assumption he flagged in error. On the FLS they show it from a different angle and the flag was up for a long time and it only went down as the cross came in. The most likely thing to have happened was the referee said to his linesman I'm playing on, so this is why he put his flag back down.

Had he flagged in error he probably would have put the flag down sooner. He left it raised far too long for it to have been a mistake in his own mind.