EPL and Refs

[mapleleaf]

Today I watched the Chelsea-Sunderland game and it seemed to confirm to me something that I've suspected for a while. It seems to me that the superstar-laden teams get the calls a large majority of the time. In fifty-fifty situations it's nearly always the 'small team' that gets skrood. It was the same yesterday with the Manchester derby, and it is very noticeable with the top clubs in a match. Why is this? It didn't seem to be so in yesterday's Bolton game, also a local derby. The reffing seemed more even handed. (Although I have to say that I'm shocked at how easy it seems, these days, to get a yellow card.)

Am I wrong? I've only watched perhaps a dozen games but nmy theory seems to check out, informally.

Smudge 8) (Stand up if you hate Hugh Dallas!).

[mainstand]

The sending off of Robin this afternoon seems to go against the trend. As for the big teams getting the decisions I thought everything went Man city way yesterday.

[Ronaldo]

I thought that sending off was unfair in logical terms but seems to be part of the rules today. Celebration by those winning is part of the occasion so why stop it. I have a fondness for Sunderland but I thought that sending off is typical of today kill joy culture. It was only the fans at the front who hugged him.

Other decisions in the game seemed to penalise Sunderland particularly the amount of grabbing shirts by the Chelsea back line i.e. Carvalho and Terry.

I enjoyed the game though but Sunderland need a striker of quality for all their decent passing ability.

[chopper]

I have seen the 2nd yellow and - shock horor - the ref was spot on. He has leaped over the advertising hoardings and, as such, has deliberately left the field of play without the referee's permission. As for killjoy attitude - tht's the rule makers rather than rules enforcers.

[208saint]

I have seen the 2nd yellow and - shock horor - the ref was spot on. He has leaped over the advertising hoardings and, as such, has deliberately left the field of play without the referee's permission. As for killjoy attitude - tht's the rule makers rather than rules enforcers.

Making decisions for referees again Chopper

[chopper]

Making decisions for referees again Chopper

That's the one - i really should watch Sunderland-Chelsea as a Saints fan, shouldn't I

[mainstand]

I have seen the 2nd yellow and - shock horor - the ref was spot on. He has leaped over the advertising hoardings and, as such, has deliberately left the field of play without the referee's permission. As for killjoy attitude - tht's the rule makers rather than rules enforcers.

But the rules do not state that leaving the field of play to celebrate is an automatic boking, they had the rule on Sky right after the match and the words which probably confusing most refs is "common sense".

Page 72 of the FIFA handbook "leaving the field of play to celebrate a goal is not a cautionable offence if the player returns to the park as soon as possible, this he did after hewas demobbed.

http://access.fifa.com/documents/fifa/laws/LOTG2005_e.pdf

[Ronaldo]

..... As for killjoy attitude - tht's the rule makers rather than rules enforcers.

I agree, that's what I said.

Referees are just robots and even then are sometimes badly programmed with badly defined rules.

The forces of blandness are suffocating expression.

[chopper]

Page 72 of the FIFA handbook "leaving the field of play to celebrate a goal is not a cautionable offence if the player returns to the park as soon as possible, this he did after hewas demobbed.

http://access.fifa.com/documents/fifa/laws/LOTG2005_e.pdf

But Mr Mainstand, as we have had explained to us at our meetings and coaching conferences, leaving the field of play and returning straight away is where a player has left the field such as Robbie Fowler yesterday. By leaping over the hoardings and into the crowd, he is not going to be able to return immediately and as such, shall be cautioned.

Anyway - i couldn't give 2 shits about that as my Baggie boys are nearly safe thanks to those Wigan scumbags gifting us 3 points - GERRITRIGHTUPEM!!!

[mapleleaf]

Apparently he was sent off for 'crowd incitement', which is a bookable offence.

I may be alone in this, but going into the crowd like that isn't neccessary an offence but I believe that it shows up the other team and, therefore, is offensive and low-class.

Smudge 8) (and definitely low class).

[chopper]

1st booking for Robben was harsh, 2nd one spot on IMO.

[Dev]

I watched the game for obvious reasons. It is my opinion that Robben did not deserve to be sent off but that he deserved his second yellow card. For several seasons now players have been told not to go into the crowd after scoring a goal, yet still they persist in doing so. The rule may or may not be a good one, but it is still a rule so the referee is going to apply it.

Robben's first yellow card was never a booking, however. I can't remember him committing a foul prior to his booking, so it wasn't for persistent fouling. The tackle itself certainly wasn't dangerous either. At the time I thought it was the referee reacting to pressure from the crowd to book him. Robben's foul was from behind and was similar to a foul Jon Stead had been booked for only a few couple of minutes earlier. The Sunderland fans pressurised the referee into getting his cards out in order to equal things up. That's how I saw it anyway. It is my opinion that Robben did not deserve his first booking - he did not require to be cautioned for his play.

Yet again though we've lost a game by the odd goal after playing quite well. Chelsea probably deserved to win the match despite not playing well, but I thought that with a little luck we could have stolen a point. We have had so little luck this season it's not funny. Hopefully we'll get that luck next week - it would be nice to stick a few goals past Chopper's boys, especially since I'll be in attendance. Can't see it happening though!

I'm 37.

[Saintkev]

Can I remember "Sunderland wont go down... FACT". Still stand by that Dev?

[StDuncM]

Chopper, if the first yellow card Robben got was appealed against, and Chelsea were successful in getting it thrown out, but the 2nd yellow still stood afterwards, would he still be suspended? Surely to penalise Chelsea twice (10 men and suspension of Robben) is doubly harsh and unfair.

[chopper]

Chopper, if the first yellow card Robben got was appealed against, and Chelsea were successful in getting it thrown out, but the 2nd yellow still stood afterwards, would he still be suspended? Surely to penalise Chelsea twice (10 men and suspension of Robben) is doubly harsh and unfair.

AFAIK, I don't think the club can appeal a yellow card unless it was for "mistaken identity" and the referee is willing to change the decision to a yellow for that other player. As far as Robben's first challenge is concerned, I haven't seen the Stead challenge beforehand, but the commentators on Radio 5 Live made the same point as Dr Dev about the ref being pressurised by fans in the wake of the Stead yellow and reacting to Robben's challenge (which in my view was a simple case of speaking to the player either on the quiet as the ref went past or deliberately calling Robben over to talk to him but not a yellow).

Whereas the red card is probably unjust for the seriousness of the 2 offences, you could also argue that Robben was undoubtedly stupid in risking the 2nd yellow card and celebrating as he did in the full knowledge that he had earlier been cautioned and Mourinho said as much in his interview shown on MOTD2 on Sunday where he commented that "it will be a lesson for a young player" (or something similar to that).

[chopper]

After a wee bit further looking at The FA website, Chelsea can only appeal a caution for a case of mistaken identity and not for any other reason.

An interesting point to note is that The FA also have on their site a list of players who are either suspended or awaiting suspension to start (bearing in mind a suspension for 5 cautions only comes into effect 7 days after the last caution). This is sent to clubs and registered media outlets but not published on the SFA site for Scottish League players - perhaps an idea to raise with the SFA?

[StDuncM]

Just been there to check on the laws of the game. It is interesting to note how few there are and yet there are so many! If you get my drift.

[Ronaldo]

Under the rules of the today Andy Brannigan would have got booked for that? (The 1983 1st Division championship winning goal at Alloa)

He had a yellow card already.

Today he would have been sent off and Saints would have been down to 10 men with no forward outlet to release pressure.

Alloa score and then again and Saints are on their way to losing the title. The opposite end and main terracing were also full of Saints fans.

This rule is more likely to cause crowd trouble than stop it.

Great day out

[chopper]

Some quality clothing in that photo there Ronaldo

I do see the point in it, but in today's climate and with the fact referees spend at least a day a week with some clubs training with the teams and in return coaching them through laws of the game and changes to them - Robben should have known better.

Memories of Ayr in 89/90 come rushing back though

[Ronaldo]

Some quality clothing in that photo there Ronaldo

Courtedsy of "Bristling With possibilities".

I was at the other end.... and in colour.

[Dev]

Can I remember "Sunderland wont go down... FACT". Still stand by that Dev?

No! Obviously I concede now that we will go down, there is no doubt about it. However, at the time I expected all three promoted sides to stay up and have been quite astonished at how far off the pace we have found ourselves. Having seen them both against Sunderland last season, I knew West Ham and Wigan were good sides and were capable of staying up. I thought we would stay up as well - we beat both of them when I was there and we finished a massive 21 points ahead of West Ham. So how the hell do we find ourselves with only six points thus far? It's a mystery to me.

There is no doubt that luck has played a part, both in terms of injuries and during matches. Injuries to key players like George McCartney, Stephen Elliott, Julio Arca and Stephen Wright were big setbacks to a side hoping to stay up. Elliott's injury was a big blow as he has been the only player that has looked capable of scoring goals for us, yet now he's out long-term with a back injury. McCartney has been out since pre-season and looks like being out for the entire season - this is of particular annoyance to me since I have his name and number on the back of my strip! We can't afford to miss these players - we have only got a handful of Premiership-quality players and to have four of them out injured long term is very unfortunate.

During matches, no-one can deny that we've had less than our fair share of luck. I've lost count of the number of games where teams have undeservedly taken points from us. Everton and West Brom at home are good examples of this, both these teams scored goals deep into injury time despite being convincingly out-played for the previous ninety minutes.

If we had the same amount of luck West Ham get we'd still have a chance of avoiding relegation.

Despite this, for me the biggest reason for our poor position is that we have signed duds. Mick McCarthy was given a very small pot of money in the summer but he appears to have wasted the money he was given. Jon Stead, Andy Gray, Tommy Miller, Alan Stubbs, Nyron Nosworthy, Kelvin Davis, Justin Hoyte and Anthony Le Tallec were all brought in during the summer but have not proved up to the job. Only Hoyte has shown he knows how to play football and only Nosworthy has played with 100% commitment. Le Tallec is a disgrace to football and should simply be shot now - the rest can go to the glue factory. The lack of success of these summer signings has been the main reason why we are heading straight back down.

The blame for this must rest with the manager. After performing miracles to take us to the semi-final of the FA Cup and then to comfortably win the Championship, his tenure as manager could be curtailed if we continue to lose persistently. The buck must stop with Mick McCarthy for his poor signings last summer and the terrible results he has had in the Premiership. The only thing keeping him in a job is that he still has the support of the players and the squad are fighting hard for him. We haven't been hammered by anyone except one nightmare against Portsmouth. The players are still behind him and this is keeping him in a job. Now that we can pretty much accept relegation, I'd keep him in the job and give him another crack at getting us out of the Championship. Sacking him now would achieve nothing.

Still, recent history has proved that when we go down we tend to come back up fairly swiftly. This is something like our eighth relegation in thirty years, which is simply not good enough for a club of Sunderland's size. We should be a comfortable Premiership team instead of poorly supported mickey mouse clubs like Portsmouth, Wigan, Fulham, etc. It is galling to see some Russian billionaire investing in Portsmouth - why them? Why can we not find an investor like that? We'll be back though, and watching Sunderland lose every week has still been infinitely more enjoyable than watching Saints stutter along this season.

I'm going down to West Brom vs. Sunderland on Saturday, I'm in the hospitality and will be sitting in the Director's Box, which should be an experience! I'm looking forward to it, I only hope we can get a result for once.

We'll be back!

I'm 37.