KEITH ANDREWS: A not so helping hand
Mike Dein’s performance at the Emirates last Sunday when Arsenal hosted Manchester City was, in my eyes, near perfect. The game obviously changed drastically in the first few minutes as he awarded a penalty to City and rightly sent Laurent Koscielny off for a professional foul. From then on there was hostility from the home crowd to every decision made by Dein and the game became very niggly. It’s at times like this the referee’s experience comes into play and he has to block everything out that’s going on around him and just referee the game as he sees it.
There has been much debate in the aftermath of Vincent Kompany’s red card, first, as to whether it should have been given and then, obviously, if it should have been rescinded. The art of tackling has faded in recent years with the introduction of new laws and I understand the reasons why — to give players more protection and try and to prevent unnecessary injuries. I was a little torn on this one though as, in the current climate, I can see why the referee felt like he had to give a red card — and I don’t think in this case it was just to even things up, which let’s be frank, does happen.
Referees are constantly judged on the decisions they make and what you and I might perceive to be a good, strong tackle, to them and by the letter of the law, might well be something else again. They are under so much pressure from so many camera angles these days, I’m not really surprised most of them stick rigidly to the rule book and don’t particularly use a common sense approach.
It’s often said that the “big” clubs get all the decisions and favouritism, and this week we have possibly seen two cases of this, with Kompany’s red card being rescinded and two very similar handballs at Old Trafford with two not so similar outcomes.
On Wednesday evening, within the space of a few minutes, Manchester United were awarded a penalty when Jordan Spence was adjudged to have handled the ball and then Rafael Da Silva appeared to control the ball with his arm in his own 18-yard box. But referee Phil Dowd didn’t see it like that and didn’t award a penalty to West Ham.
I’m very much in the Sam Allardyce corner on this one and I’m not surprised how angry he was after the match. It both amused and surprised me a little, however, when he came out with this quote: “There was no doubt whatsoever about the difference between Rafael’s handball and Jordan Spence’s. Jordan Spence plays for West Ham away against Manchester United and Rafael plays at home at Old Trafford.”
Everybody knows what he is saying rings true to a certain degree, but I’m not sure the FA will see it like this and will no doubt investigate.
Just when you thought Luis Suarez was keeping his head down for a while he stupidly comes out and admits he dived against Stoke. I, like the vast majority of footballers, don’t like seeing players dive. The influx of foreign players over the last ten years or more was always made out to be the reason why it came into the game in England but now just as many British players try and “buy fouls” and con the referee. I don’t particularly like it but the more it happens against you and your team the more inclined you are to do it as you seem to be the one losing out when you are whiter than white.
One of my biggest bugbears in the current game is when free-kicks and penalties are awarded when the attacker is running at a defender and the attacker kicks his leg into the defender and goes down. Surely the free-kick or penalty should only be awarded if the defender initiates the contact? I understand when players are moving at speed it can be sometimes hard for the referee to detect whose fault it is, but the advantage always seems to go to the attacker when surely, if there’s any doubt, the referee should err on the side of caution, side with the defender and give a less controversial decision.
I can accept referees making wrong decisions as long as they talk to me on the pitch. I could be going mad at a decision the referee has made if I think it’s categorically wrong, but as soon as he starts talking to me in a respectful manner then it’s very hard not to speak back to him.
Meanwhile, I unfortunately missed our fantastic FA Cup replay win against Sunderland at the Stadium of Light on Tuesday as my achilles has been a little sore again recently. Hopefully, with that little rest it can clear up as, between club and country, we have some big games coming up in the next few weeks and months that I’m looking forward to being involved in.
