Referees/Officials

[kaz7]

1. Any kind of protest, whether by players, manager, club or supporters, will be laughed at as sour grapes.
2. Blaming refs alone ignores the many things wrong with the team and how they've played.
3. The only realistic way to get better refereeing is to bring in video technology. Allow managers three challenges per match, as in tennis, and accept it will add a few minutes to every game.

1 who cares
2 we all know our weaknesses
3 review the decisions automatically as they did in the Spain game

 

[bobbyowenquiff]

Now I have calmed down I have had time to reflect on yesterday. I have watched City for 50 years and this season has been the worst for refereeing decisions. We have been cheated out of so many matches it is impossible to argue that something sinister is not happening.
I don't believe officials are bent but there is institutional bias against us from the football authorities. This creates subtle pressure on officials which often leads to them making negative decisions against us. Referees know that City are hated and seen as the new money club and they know there will be no comeback on them. You rarely see decisions like yesterday given against the rags or Real Madrid. This is a big problem in football. It doesn't just affect us it affects anyone who is seen as outside the establishment.
We have a weak media so no one will take this issue on. We have to be more aggressive in terms of PR because the softly softly approach has not worked for us.

 

[Neville Kneville]

If it evens itself out over the season expect two or three penalties that weren't, opposition players sent off who shouldn't have been, and our players are allowed to cripple at least one or two of the oppostion without getting punished in each of the next 6 games. It's gonna be awesome.

Or maybe they don't even themselves out at all and Mr Oliver is going to fuck us over against the scum, and the media will tell us Pep is a fraud, the premiership is better than anything in Europe, and that the Scum deserve top 4 because they are the bestest

Or perhaps it will all even itself out in that one game & we will play like dogshit & get a totally undeserved victory thanks to a ref being utterly useless or just biased.

Pigs also might fly, but then again, Utd are also competing for top 4 with Liverpool & Arsenal, so you never know.

And it would be hilarious if our one 'even out' game was v them.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Not done many for the rags in the league in comparison to us as he ?

Us and them home and away in the PL this season.

 

[Champions again in 2012]

so - if I've read the list correctly he's refereed three Manchester derbies and we've lost them all by the odd goal

Like the link btw way Trevor Morley's Tache

 

[inchy14]

Obviously, the bad decisions aren't self inflicted, but they aren't the biggest factor in our bad performance to date this season.

I don't for one minute think 'these things even themselves out over the course of a season'; it's random.

If I'd had access to a keyboard yesterday evening, you'd know how angry I get about these decisions.

There's no doubt in my mind we're getting shafted regularly but the biggest explanation why we're doing so poorly (relatively poorly) is our own bad performances.
The bad decisions haven't helped but the are not the biggest factor.

I'd like to see a video compilation which includes all these incidents, but any 'organized' protest is idiotic.

They're not bad performances though, we score, disallowed, we create a chance, fouled in the box, no pen.
What do people want us do above that? We can't win as when we're on top we just get cheated out of it. The players look fucked yesterday, I wonder how much ofvthats down to them realising like a lot of us do that they just can't win.
My last comment on this as I'm posting the same in numerous threads;
How come in every big game we've played this season, at home & Europe, why have we not had a single big decision go our way? All the controversial ones have gone against.

 

[prestonibbo_mcfc]

It's getting to a point where the refs are making up unwritten rules and the mainstream media are going along with it. This has been driving me mad for ages. I'll give a few examples;

1) I watched the BT Sport programme about refs last month. Michael Oliver was on there saying that depending on the game, the officials will discuss how to ref it before the match. Where is the transparency with that?

Let's say for instance that us and Tottenham are neck and neck for the Premier League title on the penultimate weekend of the season. We have United at home and Tottenham are at home to West Brom. Aguero and Kane both make the same challenge in the opening five minutes. Aguero isn't booked (I know, I know - but let's just pretend they don't favour one team over another) because they recognise it's a derby and, in their own words, let a few challenges go. Kane gets booked though because West Brom isn't a local derby for Spurs so misses the last game of the season whilst Aguero gets to play for us. This is decided purely by the fixture list rather than the rules of the game.

2) Yesterday, the commentators and Howard Webb were banging on about Pawson letting the game flow and not spoiling it by producing yellow cards too early. Arsenal were therefore permitted to run around kicking Silva for 20 odd minutes with no reprisal. Maybe they should let both teams, management teams and sets of supporters know the magical minute when they are going to clamp down so we're all aware. Maybe we could start Silva on the bench and bring him on after 30 minutes to ensure he's safe.

To say that reducing a team to 10 men spoils the game is ludicrous. It's not the referee who has spoilt the game, it's the thug who has decided that the only way he can deal with a player more talented than him is to try to injure him.

3) Diego Costa kicked Vincent Kompany with both feet, slamming his studs into our captain's knee at Stamford Bridge in full view of the referee but it wasn't really deemed serious enough to warrant a red card.

Oumar Niasse made minimal, if any contact with a Watford player on Saturday in a vital relegation game and was sent off because he "intended" to kick him. If Niasse was sent off for intent, what was Costa intending to do when he actually kicked Kompany?

4) Another one yesterday - the Arsenal penalty claim was said to be a stonewaller that balanced out Aguero not getting one. However, earlier in the game, there was identical contact on Yaya Toure. The commentators and Howard Webb laughed off the Yaya incident saying he was far too big to go down so easily. My question, like the time when yellow cards start, is how tall and heavy does a player need to be for him to be deemed "being soft"?



The game is currently unmanageable. The offside rule is open to interpretation and nobody, not even the referees or players, understands it. The officials can't keep up with the pace of the game. There is no appeal system when a clear mistake has cost a team a game. The referees are deciding how to officiate matches week by week - they tell us this. If a manager or player makes a mistake, it affects their club and everyone is welcome to give an opinion. If an official makes a mistake and a player or manager comments on it, they risk having their salary reduced. In the last week, City have been put out of the FA Cup and Bayern Munich the Champions League because of incompetency - and not their own.

I shudder to think of the implications of Hull losing that game on Saturday because if their 10 men had lost while Swansea won, relegation would have been a probability rather than a possibility. People (and I don't mean just players and managers) lose their livelihoods when a team goes down.

All of this doesn't matter though because Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher went for a day out and said that it's tough being a referee so we can all sleep easily.

Bloody good post that. They have pissed around with the laws of the game so much, that now everything can be put down to interpretation.
The bloody big grey areas created are so open to abuse.

 

[mayo31]

They're not bad performances though, we score, disallowed, we create a chance, fouled in the box, no pen.
What do people want us do above that? We can't win as when we're on top we just get cheated out of it. The players look fucked yesterday, I wonder how much ofvthats down to them realising like a lot of us do that they just can't win.
My last comment on this as I'm posting the same in numerous threads;
How come in every big game we've played this season, at home & Europe, why have we not had a single big decision go our way? All the controversial ones have gone against.

I agree. If someone can tell me of a few decisions that have gone our way I might look again.

There was a time yesterday I just sat down and thought what is the point.

 

[cibaman]

It's probably a mixture of us getting some rough decisions and us not being as good as we could/should be, particularly at crucial moments in both boxes. Reality is we can only control the contollables as it were so IMO the main thing we should be focusing on is being much better on the pitch.

I'm beginning to think the bad decisions are part of the reason that we're not playing as well as we can. You can see it in the players body language. They look as if they expect the decisions to go against them. And when they do there's an air of fatalism about the team. A sort of "what can you do?" attitude.

 

[theres only one carlito]

Anyone that can't see there is a clear Agenda towards our Club is fucking as blind as the Referees themselves. The Tone was set from the Second game of the new season. Raheem Sterling judged to have Grappled Ryan shawcross in the area from a set piece defending scenario. This, we were told was a new initiative for this season. I've not seen one single incident similar since! Not one! It's complete horse shit. They are picking opportunities to penalise us and are picking opportunities to wave our protests away. Then fining the club for the protest. Two players have seen it in the dressing room and made it public, again fined. Are we saying these players are lying? It's as clear as day and the players know it. So does Pep and I'm certain the board do. We as the fans must defend our club and act. We know what's going on and we are on to the fuckers. We need to let them know we know.