Zico wrote:

If I were to bet, I'd just say the game is an outlier. Almost every game you watch, referees make one really bad call (equivalent to not awarding the legit Newcastle goal or not punishing Nolan for assaulting our goalie). This is possibly just one game where the referee managed to make multiple such bad calls.

It was bad enough that he should be considered for the Uriah Rennie treatment
http://www.guardian.co.uk/football/2007/jan/22/newsstory.sport7

Won't happen because Wenger didn't even mention his performances. Other than all Gooners who noticed that, his ineptness will go unnoticed throughout the world

Wenger was probably being strategic in not mentioning the referee's performance.
1) it was obviously bad. Anyone with at least one eye knows the ref was abysmal
2) you look like a really bad 'loser' if after losing 4 goal lead you go off on a rant about the goalie. Plus, fairly or unfairly, he has a reputation as a whiner, and that would cloud the issues.

Ricky1985 wrote:

I'm in exactly the same boat as Klaus, I've watched alot of football down the years, but the last two games have really left me at a loss to explain some of what I've seen.

But there is another explaination Ricky, we must look to ourselves first before attributing fault to others, bad things happen to us every day of our lives that we have no control over- We can only control our reaction to them.

It was 4-0 mate.....We folded similarly against Wigan Spuds (twice) and others- Think about that.

It doesn't matter if they'd scored a goal or two on their own. 1-4 or 2-4 is not the same thing as 4-4. I can't believe that so many struggle to understand that. Not to mention they should have had two men sent off but instead were allowed to not only injure our best players, but also to play with a man more for an entire half.

We conceded four goals in twenty minutes mate and almost lost the game. Referee bias or not and even with a player deficit, that is disgusting.

We were criminally bad but no way in hell would we have dropped any points if it wasn't for Dowd.

the way i see it, he gave them a penner that never was, but took away a goal that was miles onside. the van persie "winner" was marginal but looked like it might've been a shade offside - certainly not a horrible call at all. the card situation was definitely a cause for legitimate grief, but the blame for the draw is purely on us.

Dowd had nothing to do with taking away that offside goal though. It was the linesman who got that one wrong.

The linesman had a mare too but it was a brilliant performance compared to Dowd. How Barton was allowed to stay on the field after that tackle on Diaby is just beyond me. They should have walked off together. He didn't get as much as a yellow card all game.

Biggus wrote:

Ricky1985 wrote:

I'm in exactly the same boat as Klaus, I've watched alot of football down the years, but the last two games have really left me at a loss to explain some of what I've seen.

But there is another explaination Ricky, we must look to ourselves first before attributing fault to others, bad things happen to us every day of our lives that we have no control over- We can only control our reaction to them.

It was 4-0 mate.....We folded similarly against Wigan Spuds (twice) and others- Think about that.

I've said exactly that elsewhere myself mate. We need to take a long, hard look at ourselves, but that doesn't change the fact that the refereeing I've seen in the last two games is the worst I've ever seen. To the point that if I found out tomorrow that Fergie was being investigated for match fixing I would not be shocked. Not at all.

We're not helping ourselves with all the twitter comments and Cesc's supposed outburst at half time in the Everton game. We need to start respecting the refs, as difficult as that is.

Respect has to be earned. If the refs are worth it they should be willing to acknowledge their own mistakes. Having said that, Lee Mason has taken no action at all over the whole thing and I'm sure that's partly because of the gravity of his error for Saha's goal.

Burnwinter wrote:

Respect has to be earned.

That's a mantra that's dragging society into the gutter - I hate hearing that.

For me, a referee should command respect from players simply because he's wearing the black jersey. I wish they were more accountable at a higher level, but players just don't have that right.

asajoseph wrote:

Burnwinter wrote:

Respect has to be earned.

That's a mantra that's dragging society into the gutter - I hate hearing that.

For me, a referee should command respect from players simply because he's wearing the black jersey. I wish they were more accountable at a higher level, but players just don't have that right.

I enjoy our philosophical differences

Respect isn't intrinsic, it's a consequence of transparency and a system in which critique is permissible and, indeed, habitual. It's ironic but refs only get a chance to defend themselves properly when they're open to criticism. We don't need refs to be perfect, we just need to know we have the best personnel available doing the best job they can.

Currently the protections afforded to referees include:

• discretionary power to punish players and coaches for dissent and misrule during matches
• immunity from serious official criticism following matches
• no requirement to acknowledge or correct serious failures
• no admonition by an official, transparent record of match incidents

The result is a system whereby referees are only ever unofficially demoted after sustained pressure through unofficial channels including the press.

The FA could improve the system by:

• publishing the referee assessment record (as I recall most refereeing performances are graded by percentage)
• instituting an open, consistent system of promotion and relegation to and from the top flight for referees
• giving clubs the right to request that any specific decision be reviewed post match by the assessor (not just cards etc.)

I'd also suggest retrospective punishment for reckless tackles and the like based on video evidence - it works fine in most sports. Separate debate though.

As far as society's gutter-leaning tendency is concerned, at least in proportion to the prevailing degree of violence inherent in their bodies of authority, I think the societies of the countries of the developed world are arguably more docilely respectful, or perhaps somnabulantly tolerant, of the powers that be than at any time in their history

Respect is like Morality - it doesn't objectively exist, but society works a lot better when we all pretend that it does

Anyway, generally I agree with you (re: referees) - as I said, I think they should be more accountable at a higher level, but not to individual players on match-day, or indeed on Twitter.

As far as society's gutter-leaning tendency is concerned, at least in proportion to the prevailing degree of violence inherent in their bodies of authority, I think the societies of the countries of the developed world are arguably more docilely respectful, or perhaps somnabulantly tolerant, of the powers that be than at any time in their history

On this (and I know it's an aside, so I'll be brief!), I agree with the generalisation, but in terms of specifics it's easy to see where we as a society in the UK lag behind many of our European counterparts (I almost said rivals - Bismarck would be proud!) in this regard.

I'm gonna throw my hat in to the referees being corrupt ring. I dont think it's a bribe or betting 'scandal' or anything like that, I just think Ferguson has a ridiculous and overbearing amount of influence at all levels of English football. He can literally make or break a career with a few choice words to the right people. I'm convinced that ref's go out of their way to make decisions that will please him.

If it's not corruption then quite frankly I'm at a complete loss to reconcile the differences between the decisions Utd have had this season and the ones we've had.

Generally agree with this guy when he reviews referees performances but actually praising Dowd?!

http://www.football365.com/referee365/0,...66,00.html

So it comes to this - Newcastle v Arsenal, February 5th 2011. A simply amazing game, history-making and title race shaking, full of drama that if written as fiction would be dismissed as corny and far-fetched. I don't even recall Melchester coming back from 4-0 down to draw 4-4. Especially not if they'd sold Blackie Gray for £35m to Portdean earlier that week.

As far as major refereeing calls go, we'll start with the dismissal of Abou Diaby, which was really the turning point of the game. Now I understand Arsene Wenger's point about Diaby having suffered a severe leg injury in the past, which may go some way to explain the midfielder's reaction, but that cannot come into referee Phil Dowd's head. I thought he got the decision spot on.

There was nothing at all wrong with Joey Barton's challenge. He anticipated the situation brilliantly, took the ball very cleanly, and for me wasn't even all that reckless. In fact I don't think it was reckless at all. Sometimes there is bound to be contact between players in a challenge. It doesn't give Diaby the right to shove people in the head if he doesn't like it.

I think his grab on Barton, then a violent push and a subsequent shove to Kevin Nolan got him sent off. If he had done just one of these acts he might have got away with it, but cumulatively, Mr Dowd saw it as worthy of a red. I have to agree.

I'll now leap to the incident which saw the cautions of Wojciech Szczæsny and Kevin Nolan, because it is obviously comparable. This is probably the moment where I will need my tin hat at the ready, because I believe once again Phil Dowd got it RIGHT.

I will say that I understand entirely the argument that people will have saying that what Nolan did to Szczæsny was the same as Diaby on Barton, but I respectfully disagree. I believe a major contributing factor in Mr Dowd deciding to dismiss Diaby was that there were three parts to his offence leading to the sending-off. If Diaby had just have grabbed Barton, or just have pushed Nolan, then he may just received a caution. I even think that the push to the head by Diaby isn't all that bad, and would probably in my book just be a yellow card. I think Nolan reached out and grabbed Szczæsny, but I didn't think he transgressed the laws to the extent that he ought to have been sent off.

The term in the law book is 'Violent Conduct', and it states, as we have discussed in this column recently, that the definition of this is 'excessive force or brutality'. In my eyes, I don't believe that either Diaby's push to the head or Nolan's grab at Szczæsny could be considered to use excessive force or brutality. At this point you could argue that Diaby, then, should not have received a straight red, but instead two consecutive bookings. I'd concede you have a point, but that ultimately it doesn't matter in the context of this one game.

Moving on to Newcastle's two penalties, and for me it's one right and one wrong. I think in the first instance Koscielny was clumsy, leaned in and tripped his opponent. I can't fault that decision. The second was more suspect. I can only imagine it was given for a perceived push by Tomas Rosicky, but contact there seemed minimal, if at all. Simply a mistake, in my eyes, by the assistant referee. An AR, incidentally, who got an offside decision badly wrong when Leon Best thought he'd pulled another goal back at 1-4.

All in all, I thought Mr Dowd did a good job in the major incidents that I have seen. Whoever said that no-one wants to see a red card, or that they ruin games, eh?

That's a crock of shit.

Tim wrote:

I'm gonna throw my hat in to the referees being corrupt ring. I dont think it's a bribe or betting 'scandal' or anything like that, I just think Ferguson has a ridiculous and overbearing amount of influence at all levels of English football. He can literally make or break a career with a few choice words to the right people. I'm convinced that ref's go out of their way to make decisions that will please him.

Pop-psych angle: it needn't really be conscious, need it?

As authority figures - probably individuals who were attracted to refereeing because of its officious nature - referees themselves will often have a highly attuned sensitivity to influence.

As far as the governance of the sport of football is concerned, they're lower middle management. Ferguson, by extension, is on the board, or a silent partner at least. People find ways to rationalise their pre-rational navigation of those sorts of hurdles of power.

There's always a good reason to follow the path of least resistance - that's the nature of innocent fraud. Increasing transparency is basically the only antidote to corruption, whether intentional or implicit.

It'd be fascinating, for example, to measure the FA-recorded average performance of referees with the two clubs playing as the free variables, now wouldn't it?