Liverpool FC Forum

[Judge]

Lee Mason 
Mark Clattenburg 
Mike Dean
Mike Riley 
Howard Webb 
Rob Styles 
Phil Dowd 
Alan Wiley 
Martin Atkinson 
Keith Stroud 
Peter Walton
Chris Foy 
Steve Bennett 
Andre Marriner
Steve Tanner 
Mark Halsey 
Lee Probert
Uriah Rennie


a thread inspired by st mike

rate the ref


all ref talk in here please

[Bad Bob]

Sadly, rubbish officiating really is becoming the norm rather than the exception in the league.  You don't have to cast your mind back very far for examples either.  Marriner's insistence that Arbeloa fouled Hunt on Saturday was incorrect and it led to their goal.  In the Arsenal game, Mark Halsey was right there to see the ball come off Boateng and ricochet to an otherwise offside Adebayor.  The resulting goal should have stood but he followed his linesman's lead and blew for offside.  At the other end, how Alliadiare wasn't judged to have been "interfering with play" after scoring from a run that started in an offside position is beyond me.  And then there was Mike Reilly last night.  Chelsea's second came off after a clearly offside Drogba plowed into the Spurs defender who was marking Essien, allowing the Ghanian to chip the keeper.  Again, how is that not interfering with play?  And, of course, the Cole challenge on Hutton was horrific and deserving of a straight red.  But, even if it was going to be just a yellow, surely Cole should have picked up a second yellow for his petulance in receiving the card...especially since Reilly had booked Joe Cole for abusing the linesman earlier in the half and had no qualms about booking Robbie Keane for minimal dissent not long after.  Terrible stuff.

[JC_81]

Sadly, rubbish officiating really is becoming the norm rather than the exception in the league.  You don't have to cast your mind back very far for examples either.  Marriner's insistence that Arbeloa fouled Hunt on Saturday was incorrect and it led to their goal.  In the Arsenal game, Mark Halsey was right there to see the ball come off Boateng and ricochet to an otherwise offside Adebayor.  The resulting goal should have stood but he followed his linesman's lead and blew for offside.  At the other end, how Alliadiare wasn't judged to have been "interfering with play" after scoring from a run that started in an offside position is beyond me.  And then there was Mike Reilly last night.  Chelsea's second came off after a clearly offside Drogba plowed into the Spurs defender who was marking Essien, allowing the Ghanian to chip the keeper.  Again, how is that not interfering with play?  And, of course, the Cole challenge on Hutton was horrific and deserving of a straight red.  But, even if it was going to be just a yellow, surely Cole should have picked up a second yellow for his petulance in receiving the card...especially since Reilly had booked Joe Cole for abusing the linesman earlier in the half and had no qualms about booking Robbie Keane for minimal dissent not long after.  Terrible stuff.

Cole's challenge on Hutton was an absolute disgrace, easily worse than Taylor's on Eduardo.

[NANNY RED]

Sadly, rubbish officiating really is becoming the norm rather than the exception in the league.  You don't have to cast your mind back very far for examples either.  Marriner's insistence that Arbeloa fouled Hunt on Saturday was incorrect and it led to their goal.  In the Arsenal game, Mark Halsey was right there to see the ball come off Boateng and ricochet to an otherwise offside Adebayor.  The resulting goal should have stood but he followed his linesman's lead and blew for offside.  At the other end, how Alliadiare wasn't judged to have been "interfering with play" after scoring from a run that started in an offside position is beyond me.  And then there was Mike Reilly last night.  Chelsea's second came off after a clearly offside Drogba plowed into the Spurs defender who was marking Essien, allowing the Ghanian to chip the keeper.  Again, how is that not interfering with play?  And, of course, the Cole challenge on Hutton was horrific and deserving of a straight red.  But, even if it was going to be just a yellow, surely Cole should have picked up a second yellow for his petulance in receiving the card...especially since Reilly had booked Joe Cole for abusing the linesman earlier in the half and had no qualms about booking Robbie Keane for minimal dissent not long after.  Terrible stuff.

Cole's challenge on Hutton was an absolute disgrace, easily worse than Taylor's on Eduardo.

Totaly agree John i was at there last night and i really thought he was gonna break his leg it was not a clumsy challenge but very malicious and should of been a straight red he then had the cheek to go to the ref and say he went for the ball . Iwas at the spurs end and even i seen he never touched the ball and yet the ref was there unbeilievable decision by Riley who should be brought to task over it

[red37]

Good thread.

Ive got nicknames for em all...(when i remember who's face it is to match the name with!) I'll reveal my 'hitlist'

Years back there were some classics (variety of reasons). Nowadays there are PLENTY that should be... relics.

The standard/consistency is questionable to say the least.

Btw...Riley handled the London derby the other night (reasonably) well. Aside from the obvious clanger of not dismissing Cashley Hole. He didn't do as bad as usual. Just a bit of a word in his favour...thats all. Normally, he is s.*i*e. But, he along with Bennett are perhaps the 'experienced' heads (albeit bald ones) amongst the current crop....Clattenbergs on the road to the same infamy however!

[destro]

Anyone know who the Reff is for Sunday ?

[NANNY RED]

Anyone know who the Reff is for Sunday ?

The manc Steve Bennett

[destro]

  Wonderful, thanks Nanny I was hoping for Rob Piles, he owes us one

[PhiLFC]

Lee Mason 
Mark Clattenburg 
Mike Dean
Mike Riley 
Howard Webb 
Rob Styles 
Phil Dowd 
Alan Wiley 
Martin Atkinson 
Keith Stroud 
Peter Walton
Chris Foy 
Steve Bennett 
Andre Marriner
Steve Tanner 
Mark Halsey 
Lee Probert
Uriah Rennie


a thread inspired by st mike

rate the ref


all ref talk in here please

Do you know where you've got Uriah Rennie at the bottom of the list?  Yeh well that's just about right mate.

But I think its time to give refs a helping hand and bring in video refs, or the square in the air or whatever its gonna be called.  Players are fitter, faster, more prone to cheating (apart from Lee One Pen the famous oriental that played for Man City), the ball's are technologically advanced in comparison to an old lace up caser (or casey as we called it) - modern balls move faster and swerve more through the air.  Time to move on a little bit more methinks.

[PhiLFC]

Lee Mason 
Mark Clattenburg 
Mike Dean
Mike Riley 
Howard Webb 
Rob Styles 
Phil Dowd 
Alan Wiley 
Martin Atkinson 
Keith Stroud 
Peter Walton
Chris Foy 
Steve Bennett 
Andre Marriner
Steve Tanner 
Mark Halsey 
Lee Probert
Uriah Rennie


a thread inspired by st mike

rate the ref


all ref talk in here please

Do you know where you've got Uriah Rennie at the bottom of the list?  Yeh well that's just about right mate.

Actually I meant Steve Bennett... he's a cnunt

[stmichael]

I genuinely don't believe that any referees are paid off in this country, however, they are regularly influenced by and biased towards certain teams so it is absolutely fair and accurate to call them "corrupt".

[Sabre]

The english league is getting stronger, we all admit that.  Lots of quality is being imported (Ronaldo, Torres), lots of foreign players aswell, and alongside the quality, you also bring their tricks.

Tricks that you are not used to in England, and that bring controversy. The controversy brings Media stick, and the media stick press the refs.

As much as the english refs are getting more European in their mistakes, they're still the best lot of refs in Europe, and I say this in a day that I'm very angry with the ref.

[Bad Bob]

I've been hard on Mascherano about yesterday's sending off because it was very much preventable.  When a teammate gets booked for dissent simply for a quiet word, you don't run over to get in the trigger-happy ref's face when you're on a yellow.  It's lunacy!  That said, Steve Bennett was appalling as usual and I've just read this interesting piece in Football 365 that sheds more light on his recent 'body of work' and the piece contains a link to Keith Hackett's recent article in the Telegraph, in which he explicitly says that Bennett should have helped Riley send Ashley Cole off.  What a fecking farce officiating has become in the Premiership.


A Consistent Rule Unto Himself
Posted 24/03/08 11:09
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Had Javier Mascherano been dismissed for any of the sweary tirades he directed at Steve Bennett during Liverpool's ill-fated encounter with Manchester United then not even the most delusional of Liverpool fans could have argued against his dismissal. The problem - if you are so inclined to regard a player being sent off for what is still an instance of dissent as a 'problem' - is that he was dismissed for enquiring as to why Fernando Torres had been booked (although given that Torres was cautioned for another instance of soft-language dissent, it can hardly be argued that Mascherano wasn't warned).

At the very least, Mascherano was stupid, apparently the only person in Old Trafford not to realise the risk he was running by running over to confront Bennett. Given that he was explicitly instructed earlier in the match to go mute by a referee who had clearly taken a dislike to him, his actions were reckless, extraordinary and unforgivable.

The counter argument that Mascherano has been harshly treated because it is so uncommon for footballers to 'suffer' such treatment has some merit. It collapses, however, when Bennett's reputation and record is considered. The Kent-based official has always been a law unto himself, consistent in his inconsistency compared to the rest of the Premiership's whistle-blowers. In any case, just because refs tend to turn a deaf ear to haranguement doesn't make such behaviour right.

Much has been made of the immediate context in which Mascherano was dismissed, four days after the outrageous show of disrespect made by Ashley Cole in the backwards direction of Mike Riley and on the day that Keith Hackett published a newspaper article criticising Bennett, who was the fourth official at White Hart Lane, for not advising Riley to dismiss the Chelski full-back (LINK to Hackett's Article). The article makes for interesting reading, particularly the segment in which Hackett attempts to justify his decision not to put Howard Webb in charge of the Old Trafford match (ludicrously, he claims to have given Webb, the best referee in the country, "time off" even though he had to work at Villa Park on Saturday instead).

Yet the criticism Hackett makes of Bennett is in relation to Cole's horrendous tackle rather than his horrendous behaviour. The complaint that Hackett's article was ill-advised and ill-timed is not in dispute. But the claim - as made by Richard Keys, among others - that Hackett explicitly "pressurised" Bennett to the extent that the article was a factor in Mascherano's dismissal is a red herring. Bennett has never required any encouragement to adopt a hard-line approach.

Consider, for instance, the events at Villa Park just two weeks ago when he officiated the Aston Villa-Middlesbrough fixture and caused another rumpus by awarding the home side a penalty when the ball struck Luke Young on the back. When, after the final whistle, Young attempted to talk to the referee - subsequently claiming to have asked him "will you look at it on the video?" - Bennett replied only in semaphore. "He didn't say anything and just booked me," reflected an incredulous Young.

Seen in that context, Mascherano's yellow card was far from being a product of this week's climate change but an act of consistency made independently of the indignation - and demand for change - provoked by Cole and the Chelski lynch mob.

Yet Bennett's actions on March 11 also raise a couple of issues in relation to what occurred this Sunday.

The penalty award was a dreadful decision to the extent that it should have immediately ruled Bennett out of the running to referee a Grand Slam match this weekend. Whether or not his style of refereeing should be approved of is irrelevant. In terms of decision-making, Bennett is a poor referee. Hackett's bewildering non-explanatory explanation for overlooking Webb thus takes on a new dimension. So, too, does Sir Alex Ferguson's tirade against the referees' chief two weeks ago when he expressly complained that Bennett never officiated matches at Old Trafford. As Tuesday's edition of Mediawatch observed, Hackett has so far failed to respond to the rant but, in his actions, did exactly what Ferguson asked him to do. Curious, to say the least.

The second point is that, even if they were somehow previously unaware of Bennett's reputation, the yellow card issued to Young should have served as a stark warning to Liverpool and their manager. Instead, with both Mascherano and Torres cautioned for dissent, they seemed oblivious to the danger. Benitez claimed to have been "surprised" at the cautions, suggesting that Bennett may have been "influenced by the crowd". In doing so, the Spaniard revealed a surprising ignorance of something he really should have known about. Put another way, his apparent failure to warn his team as to what they should expect from Bennett was a critical failure of management.

The penalty for that failure is likely to be made even more severe in the coming days with the FA bound to charge Mascherano with improper conduct on account of his failure to leave the pitch promptly. It is rare a player is actually punished in such circumstances but, again, not so rare where Steve Bennett is concerned. To the best of my memory, the last player to be charged with 'failing to leave the field of play following his sending-off' was Patrick Vieira in the late summer of 2003 when he protested against his dismissal - comprised of two yellow cards, the first for a clean tackle, the second a kick at Ruud van Nistelrooy which struck thin air - at Old Trafford. By consistent coincidence, the referee that day also happened to be Steve Bennett.

No wonder Ferguson was so keen to invite him back.

Pete Gill

365 Article

[Sabre]

Interesting article Bob, but it rises a question in my mind.

If the reputation of that ref was so well known, what the fúck was he doing refereeing one of the most difficult matches in the premiership?

In Spain there was a lot of controversy about which ref got which match, at the end a Salomonic decission was taken, it would be picked randomly by a computer -- the controversy didn't stop, people said the program that picked the refs was not fair nor random.

If the refs are chosen by the FA, and the reputation of the ref is well known, I don't know how they pick a ref like that for that match. In finals of international competitions, the best are chosen. So it should be in a Manchester United - Liverpool.

[stmichael]

The root of this problem is the intolerable pressure under which referees have been placed by the all-seeing eye of the (twenty) television camera(s) and the unrelenting scrutiny of 24 hour a day sports-onsessed media. By continuing to expect referees to operate in the same traditional manner under these highly changed circumstances, the FIFA, UEFA and the FA have got their heads in the sand. They need to do the following in order to restore the credibility and authority of referees in football:

1. Accept that the professional game is a different beast to the amateur one.

2. Introduce technology-assisted decision making into the game wherever it can be done without disrupting the flow of a match (ie, goal-line technology).

3. Introduce rugby-style laws about communication with the referee. No-one can speak to the ref bar the captains, and even they must do so with scrupulos respect and good manners. Infringements of this new law should be utterly hammered with red cards, bans and fines. Initially there would be mayhem, but it would quickle settle down.

4. Adopt gridiron strategies such as refereeing teams who work together all season long, after-match interviews with the referee to allow him to explain his decisions and a full, in-depth video review of the match - by the match officials - allowing any mistakes (be they wrong or missed decisions) to be corrected.

Within one season, I'm convinced that the above would transform the game for the better, whilst still allowing for the fact that referees are humans and that humn error is prt of the game. Not only that, however: I also agree with Steve Coppell who believes tht zero-tolerance of dissent on the pitch would have a knock-on benefit for society as a whole.

I actually don't expect any of the above to happen as it's too radical. That said, some of the best law changes in the game have been even more radical and have changed it for the better. The game basically needs beter leadership. Unfortunately, I don't see it being forthcoming if the new independent chairman of the FA fails the imminent test of dealing severely with Fergie and Quieroz for calling a ref a cheat.