The mark of a man

Last Sunday was a proper day of football with, in my opinion, still the biggest fixture in the English league — Liverpool versus Manchester United — and then the champions Man City against Arsenal.

There were big talking points from the game at Anfield, mainly refereeing ones. Mark Halsey, who was officiating the game, is someone I have come across every now and again through the years and I always thought he was a decent referee. I have also seen a lot more of him in recent months as he trains at our training ground at Bolton to keep fit.

It’s been sad to see the reaction in the aftermath of Sunday’s match. I haven’t spoken with him but I believe he was subjected to some terrible abuse on Twitter — another week where we are mentioning Twitter in negative terms.

Mark is a good man who genuinely cares about the game and how he performs. He has shown great fight and bravery to overcome throat cancer in the last few years and I’ve seen at close quarters the hard work he puts in to maintain his fitness to officiate in the Premier League, so it’s not nice to see what’s happened this week.

My stance on referees is very simple. I think they have a very difficult job on their hands and I accept that they will make mistakes. With the speed the game is now played at and certain players constantly looking to deceive referees, it’s certainly a task I wouldn’t envy. I know there is a lot of talk about goal-line technology but I’m a little old fashioned and like to keep certain things the way they have always been and, that being so, I accept there will be mistakes made as a result of natural human error.

The only reason I ever really get frustrated with refs is when they don’t speak to you and are arrogant. But the vast majority are decent men who are willing to communicate with you, more often than not explaining why they gave the decision or in some cases even saying that maybe they got it wrong. I learned quite a few years ago that you don’t get anywhere by ranting and raving at them, but that’s not to say that I still haven’t occasionally lost my temper.

It was the third round of the Capital One Cup this week and, as ever, there is the debate as to whether teams should play their strongest sides. For some, it’s their best chance of silverware and thus qualifying for Europe, but for others it ranks as probably the lowest on their trophy wish list.

Take Man Utd this week as an example — they used the game against Newcastle to get Wayne Rooney and Darren Fletcher some much-needed game time, but also gave a lot of the younger members of the squad a run out. I’m sure United would like to go as far as they can in the competition to give players that don’t play regularly in the Premier league some competitive action.

For Newcastle though, it’s a totally different proposition this week. After a very successful season last year which saw them qualify for the Europa League, this year their squad will be stretched to its limit. I feel for Stoke, Fulham and Newcastle who have qualified for this competition in recent seasons, as the amount of games you have to play to progress far in this cup is ridiculous. Clubs like these haven’t got the biggest of squads and often find it hard to juggle the domestic competitions with their European exploits.

Meanwhile, the Irish squad has been announced this week for the two qualifiers against Germany and the Faroe Islands. It’s felt an eternity since I was last with the lads and I’ve really missed meeting up.

I suppose the big talking point is the absence of Richard Dunne. Everybody knows what an important member of the squad Dunney is and his loss is a big blow.

It’s nice to see Keith Fahey back in the squad after the disappointment of not being fit for the Euros. I thought at the time when Keith pulled out that he showed a lot of courage, as he knew his groin wasn’t right and couldn’t do himself justice. It was good to see him play last week when he came on against us at half-time at St Andrews.

There’s no getting away from the fact that we were very fortunate last month in Kazakhstan and our performance wasn’t good enough. We will all need to play at the top of our games with a real togetherness to produce a performance worthy of a result against a Germany side who seem to qualify for tournaments at a canter.

The Faroe Islands game will be roles reversed and we will be expected to win, but I have no doubts it will be a very tough game. Having said that, if we want to qualify for the World Cup in Brazil then these are the games in which we must pick up maximum points.