Referees’ Performances | 2024/2025

Phil1 said:
The foul itself was a yellow card. Not arsed about the supposed kicking it away. He jumped into the back of Bernardo with force without looking at the ball.
No issue with a yellow and no issue with it leading to a red.
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We should have had a penalty when Rodri got injured. Akanji was "bear hugged" for about 10 yards in the box prior to Rodri going down as the corner was taken, and that was after the same player had been spoken to about 10 seconds before.
 
The issue with Oliver is that he’s generally afraid to make a controversial decision. He will try not to make a mistake by not making the difficult call. The irony being he then faces huge controversy over non decisions.

The first time I remember seeing him is when he bottled a blatant Fulham penalty late on at Old Trafford which would have seen united drop points in the 2011/12 run in. Every time I’ve seen him since it’s the same, the non penalties against united when Smalling was sent off, the array of red cards and penalties missed in the 1-1 at home to Liverpool in Pep’s first season, the numerous handballs away to Liverpool in 19/20, the missed red card against Kovacic away to Arsenal last season. Always decides not to make the hard call.

Yesterday the smart decision would have been to book Havertz early and calm matters down. The smart call would’ve been to call the arsenal free kick back as soon as it was taken. Once Calafiori scored he was never going to make the hard decision and call it back.
 
cleavers said:
We should have had a penalty when Rodri got injured. Akanji was "bear hugged" for about 10 yards in the box prior to Rodri going down as the corner was taken, and that was after the same player had been spoken to about 10 seconds before.
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Indeed. That was a ridiculous decision.

What is even more ridiculous is that Oliver blew for a foul for the exact same routine on Ederson but then allowed it to go unpunished when we conceded. VAR then rule that no offence had been committed. It was either a foul both times or not.
 
Gabriel said:
Indeed. That was a ridiculous decision.

What is even more ridiculous is that Oliver blew for a foul for the exact same routine on Ederson but then allowed it to go unpunished when we conceded. VAR then rule that no offence had been committed. It was either a foul both times or not.
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They were too afraid to (rightly) disallow the goal for Arsenal.
 
That was the poorest display by Oliver that I've ever seen. Even without my blue tinted specs we suffered 2 goals due to his negligence/lack of concentration/bias - choose your word according to taste. He was just poor, imho. In the second half, he didn't so much lose control as abdicate responsibility. VAR were worse, arguably.
But, when you look at what Martinez got away with at Palace, you just have to remember that, if we win anything, it's always because we get barely any help from referees. Once or twice a season we might get away with something: can you imaging how quickly the red card would have come out if a City player had done what Martinez did?
I'd rather do what we do our way - the Pep way - than any other way.
 
The sending off by Oliver of Trossard was exasperation on Olivers part, Artete has these players dancing on the line of what is right and Oliver himself got tired of it you could see it on his face when he waved the card.

Not a fan of Oliver but all this stems from captain black.
 
cleavers said:
We should have had a penalty when Rodri got injured. Akanji was "bear hugged" for about 10 yards in the box prior to Rodri going down as the corner was taken, and that was after the same player had been spoken to about 10 seconds before.
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Absolutely right. Yet no one has bothered to comment on it. I watched MOTD 2 last night who looked at the Rodri injury. Everyone could see the foul on Akanji, it looked like he was being dragged across their box. The Shitehouse completely ignored it. The foul on Ederson was the usual I don't think that was a foul despite the Ars player backing into him and knocking him over. Shitehouses the lot of em.
 
pavelsrnicek said:
The issue with Oliver is that he’s generally afraid to make a controversial decision. He will try not to make a mistake by not making the difficult call. The irony being he then faces huge controversy over non decisions.

The first time I remember seeing him is when he bottled a blatant Fulham penalty late on at Old Trafford which would have seen united drop points in the 2011/12 run in. Every time I’ve seen him since it’s the same, the non penalties against united when Smalling was sent off, the array of red cards and penalties missed in the 1-1 at home to Liverpool in Pep’s first season, the numerous handballs away to Liverpool in 19/20, the missed red card against Kovacic away to Arsenal last season. Always decides not to make the hard call.

Yesterday the smart decision would have been to book Havertz early and calm matters down. The smart call would’ve been to call the arsenal free kick back as soon as it was taken. Once Calafiori scored he was never going to make the hard decision and call it back.
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I have said this about Oliver for a while.
This is also the more subtle way how refs can influence games, by simply not giving decisions.
 
I'm With Stupid said:
Interesting the views on this referees forum.



And this is a forum that actually has Michael Oliver fans. The substitution analogy is an excellent one. If there was a free kick and we substituted a defender just before it was taken, the referee wouldn't then allow a quick free kick before the player had got into their position. Otherwise every time a team substituted a player at a corner, the attacking team would just take it quickly before the new player had reached the box.

Also something I brought up earlier too:
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There is no law as such as to when a game restarts for a free kick or after a sub. Common sense and sporting decency are key factors. On a corner for example, if you "had" to wait for a player to be position then Arteta and Mourniho would have subs do a full lap of the pitch on the way in to the box. Like most issues with the game, it's a problem of their own making, managers like the above 2 test every law to its limits. Walker could have gotten into position a little quicker and Oliver could have given him a second longer, both at fault in my opinion.

I referee and I'll always give players time to get into position. But if they take the piss and stroll over then I'm not waiting for them. The time wasting stuff is harder to pin blame on refs for, they always take the heat but it's Raya and Arteta cheating, what can he do? Personally I'd have played on until Arsenal conceded and let them know that was my intention but he probably can't do that.
 
Still not grew a pair Oliver and he's even worse now he can hide behind VAR. All he had to do was book harvertz for his barge on rodri and he would have been in total control of the game straight away and the players would have knew it. The foul on bernardo just before he kicked the ball away was a stonewall yellow luckily for him he kicked the ball away or its another 1 he could have shit out of.
 
I can't remember the game last season but Ederson got booked the 1st time he even hinted at time wasting yet every goalie comers to our ground and takes 30 to 40 seconds (I was counting) for a goal kick and doesn't even get a word.
Oliver used to be quite high up in my estimations but people are quick to forget. Remember the league cup final versus Liverpool. Extra time, Aguero cut inside and was clearly hacked down (think it was in the box) Oliver bottled making the decision. For me bring in foreign refs who have zero history with the teams involved.
As they do on Champions league nights.
 
Just a reminder that Oliver only added 7 (SEVEN) minutes of injury time in the second half.
 
uwe rosler 28 said:
Still not grew a pair Oliver and he's even worse now he can hide behind VAR. All he had to do was book harvertz for his barge on rodri and he would have been in total control of the game straight away and the players would have knew it. The foul on bernardo just before he kicked the ball away was a stonewall yellow luckily for him he kicked the ball away or its another 1 he could have shit out of.
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I don't think Oliver saw the Havertz/Rodri clash clearly. The shot from behind a goal shows that he turned partially away to make his way towards the Arsenal defence - presumably (and reasonably to me) not expecting there to be anything to watch in the first 2 seconds away from the ball.

I'd also think that the other officials were similar - just not expecting a flashpoint so soon.

I am quite surprised that no close focus footage has appeared of the incident.

There was a league cup final vs Chelsea about 10 years ago when Jorginho (I think) clattered Aguero off the ball in the first 5 seconds - same applied then.
 
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