I didn’t groan like I sometimes do when learning the identity of the referee for our next game when I heard Martin Atkinson was going to be taking charge of the Liverpool game. I’ve always considered him to be one of the better referees in the domestic game and it should be said that he was the man in the middle for the one game I can remember this season where nearly all of the major decisions went in favour of City (our win over Brighton in November).
I was critical of Mr Atkinson in my piece on the Liverpool game though when I said that, by my reckoning, it took him seventy five minutes to penalise a Liverpool player for a foul and, in a game that was so important for both sides at this late stage of the season, I find it very hard to imagine that one of the teams involved could play about 85 per cent of the match before they fouled an opposing player.
However, a couple of things need to be said here as well. Firstly, I am not infallible and it’s perfectly possible that I might have missed Mr Atkinson giving a free kick to City after one of their players had been fouled well before the seventy fifth minute. Also, I although I’m going to talk about two specific incidents in the game shortly which didn’t go in our favour, I don’t believe Sunday’s was a match which was, first and foremost, decided by refereeing decisions – although City competed well and threatened to, perhaps, get something from the match for almost an hour, there can be no doubting surely that Liverpool were the better side and deserved their win.
Nevertheless, it was still possible to come out of the game thinking, firstly, that referees at this level seem far more inclined to apply any benefit of the doubt in favour of the “bigger” teams than they are to do so with the smaller fry of the Premier League and, secondly, and more importantly for the purposes of this piece, that the way the game is refereed in this country is not doing England any favours at all on the international stage.
While it’s hardly the case that the sort of illogical thinking we see applied every week in this country, both on the pitch and in edicts coming down from above, that I’m going to talk about doesn’t occur in other places, it does seem less prevalent than here.
I’m going to talk in particular about two incidents involving Sean Morrison at opposite ends of the pitch. I’ll start with the penalty he conceded and say that from my distance of about a hundred yards away, I left the game on Sunday not having much idea of whether it was a foul or not.
Having now seen highlights of the game on Match of the Day 2, on the club website and one or two other online sources, I’ll say that I didn’t realise at the time how culpable our captain was. Sean made three separate errors I’m afraid and I think it’s possible that the first two played a part in contributing to the third one in that he was desperate to put things right.
For me, Neil Warnock was correct when he called it a soft penalty, but I believe the way he talked about it generally indicates that he agreed it was a penalty. If I’m right in interpreting our manager’s comments in that way, then I must say I think he got that right as well – for me it was a penalty, albeit one which need not have been conceded.
I’m also completely with Neil Warnock when he spoke of Mo Salah’s part in the incident. Morrison put him under more physical pressure a few seconds before the Liverpool player went to ground and when Salah did eventually fall, there was not the pressure being put on him to justify him tumbling over in the manner he did – in short, Salah dived.
A couple of things need to be said here. Firstly, it has been claimed that Salah had to go to ground to convince Mr Atkinson that he was being fouled – I’m not sure about that, it seems to me that the referee was going to signal a penalty just as Salah started his dive.
The second point here is that in rugby a referee has the authority to reverse a penalty decision if there is something like retaliation or dissent from a member of the team that had originally had the offence committed against them. Now, I’m not sure that Salah’s dive would have merited a change of decision from Mr Atkinson if such a rule applied in football, but it still seems wrong that Salah gets away scot free with his cheating. The powers that be in terms of refereeing in this country don’t seem to see anything wrong with diving if a foul is thought to have taken place – even if it’s done in circumstances that look ridiculous given the kind of contact which drew the decision.
Before I go on to the second incident, I’d just like to mention something I saw in the Arsenal v Palace game on Match of the Day 2 where home defender Mavropanos was, correctly in my view, penalised and booked for a shirt tugging offence out on the touchline some thirty five yards or so from his team’s goal by referee Jon Moss.
So with that in mind, let’s move on to the other incident from Sunday which occurred in the Liverpool penalty area at a time when I believe the score was 0-0. What happened was that Sean Morrison looped a header on to the roof of the net to end a City attack and, at the time, I barely gave the incident a second thought.
That was why I made little of it in my piece on the game when Neil Warnock claimed afterwards that Liverpool left back Andy Robertson had fouled Morrison.
When I heard our manager’s remarks, I just thought that’s Warnock being Warnock – his team have lost and so there’s always a decision somewhere along the way against them which he uses to divert attention away from the result.
However, having now seen what happened for a second, third, fourth etc. time there is a fairly obvious pull on Morrison’s shirt there from the Scot. It’s hardly a violent tug, but it’s there nevertheless and former referee and long time critic of current refereeing supremo Mike Riley, Keith Hackett considered it be a penalty in this piece on Sunday’s match.
As can be seen, Mr Hackett feels justice was done with the penalty that was awarded and is reluctant to criticise Martin Atkinson for his failure to award one against Robertson, saying “Atkinson, who was some distance from the incident, will have felt he did not have a good enough viewing angle to be able to give a penalty”.
Fair enough, I might think that’s a bit weak, but if the ref wasn’t in a great position, it could be that he missed the offence. Nevertheless, it is not only the ref who can play a part in ensuring that justice is done.
I say this while remembering that it emerged last week that it was the linesman in the City half of the pitch some fifty or sixty yards away from the action who was most adamant it was not a penalty in the incident which saw referee Mike Dean first award City a spot kick up at Burnley ten days ago and then change his mind.
Again, I’ve not got any great problem with that because it all ended up with what I believe was the right decision being made, but if we are saying that the linesman furthest away can have as big a contribution as that towards ensuring correct decisions are made, then it has to follow that he, potentially, had a duty to perform if he clearly saw Robertson grab Morrison’s shirt.
Of course, the linesman who had the best chance to see the incident was the one who was stood very close to where I was sat about twenty yards from where it occurred.
I must admit that it could be said if I missed an incident which took place so close to me. then is it any wonder that the linesman didn’t see it either, but the difference has to be that one of us is a punter looking at things from a, very, one eyed perspective and the other is a so called “elite” official who in situations like that is, basically, looking for two things – offsides and/or fouls.
So, it would appear that none of the three paid officials saw Robertson’s shirt pull – doesn’t that say something about their levels of competence?
Another thing to bear in mind is that, although any sympathy I have for them is pretty limited, referees and linesmen/women are faced with all sorts of individual contests which often involve different degrees of shirt pulling or wrestling at every attacking free kick, corner or long throw in these days. However, the challenge we’re talking about here was in open play after a throw in I believe it was, was half cleared and a cross was put in – therefore, the officials didn’t have all of normal jostling going on to distract them.
Hopefully, the introduction of VAR will see things change for the better, but the fact that it’s needed at all, does say something about the lack of quality of those who officiate at the highest levels in this country.
Yes, blatant offences are missed in other countries, but I’d say there is a better chance of shirt pulling offenders being punished abroad than there is here. You may get the odd penalty being given over here, but, generally speaking, the aforementioned Mike Dean apart, it appears that officials in this country are happy to ignore it all and let them get on with it.
On a scale of severity between one and ten which has something like a viscous leg breaker at ten, what do you reckon Sean Morrison’s foul for the penalty was worth? Two? Three? I don’t think it would be any higher than that. How about the shirt tug he got off Robertson? I’d put it slightly higher because of the degree of cynicism involved and yet you’d be an unlucky player indeed if you cost your side a goal with shirt tug inside your own penalty area these days.
Yet, how does this stand with the decision by Jon Moss in the Arsenal match I mentioned earlier? A shirt pull outside the penalty area and you’re looking at a foul against you and an automatic yellow card, one inside the area and you get away with it probably ninety odd times out of a hundred – the logic is all wrong and the failure by the refereeing authorities to, first, recognise this and then act on it is so revealing.
When you consider what had happened to Sean Morrison a few minutes earlier, plus what has happened to him at so many free kicks, throw ins and corners in the past few seasons and in particular the incident in the Chelsea game when Rudiger virtually pulled him off his feet (an offence worth a six or seven on that scale I mentioned earlier!), then maybe he could be forgiven for thinking he could get away with what he did against Salah? Who knows maybe if he’d grabbed a handful of his shirt at the same time he would have!
I’m not going to be crying foul and saying that our relegation is down to bad officiating if and when it comes and, trying to see the bigger picture, I readily acknowledge that the first of the several woeful decisions we saw in the Chelsea match came when Aron Gunnarsson got away with a shirt pull in his own penalty area so blatant that it was obvious to many in the crowd, but not, apparently, to Craig Pawson and his merry men.
This isn’t just about a Cardiff City fan feeling hard done by. Although I’m not wholly convinced by the best league in the world line we hear constantly, there is, far more importantly, an awful lot of people who are. However, I fail to see how the Premier League can be marketed as “the complete package” when the general standard of officiating is so poor and the structure which oversees them allows so much muddled thinking – it’s little wonder there were no English referees in last year’s World Cup in Russia.
Your article is full of words but no mention of the facts, the defender had hold of Salah for at least 20 seconds, salah had nowhere to go because he was physically prevented from moving, from a football point of view that would have been a free kick anywhere else on the pitch.. I’ve seen salah getting hacked down but carried on stayed on his feet either score or pass the ball, your article doesnt say much other then avoiding the FACTS.
Whoa!!! Ben, what the hell, I think Paul has agreed that it was a penalty. What more can he say, if the idea that unless a player goes to ground he doesn’t get the foul that is hardly the author’s fault, in fact it supports his argument that the referees are not up to the job of officiating in “the best league in the world”. Salah is by no means the only player who does this, but it just happened in a game that the author saw in a game that involved the side he supports, so he is obviously going to use this example.
I don’t know if you visit this blog on a regular basis, if you did you would realise that Paul and his merry band of MAYA supporters are more likely to have a go at a City player rather than someone on the opposing side.
We complain about the perceived bias of referees but I’m fairly sure that the supporters of most clubs do.
Coming back to the criticism of the officials, I have said on here before that I think the job has become too difficult for one referee and two assistants. The offside rule has become so difficult to judge that the assistants are so concentrated on getting those calls right that they are missing out on other infractions of the rules.
Moving on to VAR. Am I right that VAR will only be used when there are very obvious mistakes. On the basis of what happened in the second leg between Manchester City and Tottenham I’m obviously wrong. The decision that Aguero was offside was certainly NOT an OBVIOUS mistake.
A nice post, Paul, with many points of discussion, perhaps we should have neutral referees would the perceived “big team bias” disappear.
Good morning everyone.
Good, thought provoking article Paul.
Over here in Germany the Bundesliga is equiped with VAR. This has had a positive and negative effect on the game. Firstly, the good thing…Aryan Robben of Bayern Munich no longer gets awarded a penalty for falling over like a big fairy in the box and screaming and rolling in extruciating pain before jumping up, miraculously healed, to take the penalty himself . His nickname is “The flying Dutchman” but not because he’s fast though. His diving days are over.
The bad thing is, the bigger clubs here and their players and managers seem to demand that the VAR is consulted for every single minor niggle and tackle. From “throw ins” to “corner kicks” the stars harrang the refereee to consult the VAR which interrupts the game flow enormously, and ruins the momentum the opponents have built up in an attack.
This could also happen in the EPL ..in fact it probably will.
And calm down Ben, this is a level headed blog and no one is going to insult you or your club here.
Good morning Ben and welcome to this blog – as pointed out by Colin and Adrian, this is not the place to come if you’re looking for puerile “banter” or to try to stir up an argument with supporters of another team. I’m not saying you are guilty of wither of these things, but I cannot agree with you about Salah – he’s dived in every single game I’ve seen him play in the flesh even if it is just the single game! As I said in my piece, the way Salah fell just did not look right for what was happening as he and Morrison fought for possession, but I also made it clear that I thought it was a penalty. As for your claim that Morrison had hold of Salah for “at least 20 seconds”, can you really say the other twenty players all standing on looking at them and doing nothing to influence what was happening if that was really the case. I watched a video of the incident again yesterday and can tell you that the whole thing took four, maybe five, seconds – more than enough time for Morrison to commit the foul(s) for which he was, rightly, penalised, but, you’ll never convince me that Salah didn’t dive. He’s a long, long way away from being the only player to do that (there are some in the Cardiff team who have been booked for diving) -he’s a great player, but he does have the reputation he has for a reason.
Colin, your idea about more officials got some support on the messageboard I use as one or two others were suggesting the same thing – certainly, after all of the ridicule the refs behind the goals got when they were first introduced, things seem to have settled down as far as that is concerned now because there seems to be a recognition that they are doing a decent job.
Adrian, if VAR can stop, or at least, significantly reduce diving, then it’s a worthwhile addition as far as I’m concerned, but in essence I suppose it’s true to say that you’re still going to have the same set of people making the decisions and, although I’m sure it will cut down on the type of shocking decisions we saw in the Chelsea match, I do think that you’ll start to see similar incidents being looked at in different ways depending on what teams are involved – if there is bias from the officials towards the bigger clubs in the Premier League, I don’t see VAR completely getting rid of it.