Referees' Performances | 2025/26

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

Typical commentary trick, immediately change the subject and talk about the new topic for a minute. Then pretend it didn't happen

That's exactly what happened today.

I had the City OS commentary on and Ali Mann mentioned it should have been looked at, but listening back to the TV comm's afterwards not even discussed. The media are controlling the narrative and it's giving a false perspective in a way that is influencing decisions. It's incredibly disingenuous at best and at the other end of the spectrum potentially complicit in corruption.

 

[Manc Born & Bred]

Just been watching the game again and looking for various fouls etc that were given.

The Dias supposed second yellow wasn’t even a foul, Jesus caught Ruben’s leg as he leg in front of him, pure accident and not a foul. But no mention of Jesus waving an imaginary card which we have been told is an automatic yellow. Also no yellow for him leading with a forearm on at least two occasions in Josko’s face or for his dive in the last seconds or for his knee high challenge on Foden. The foul the ref gave when their left back shoved his arse into a perplexed looking Savinho and then fell down was never a foul, Nico’s yellow was a foul for us not them. The list goes on and on, an awful performance by the ref, would love to see the assessors report and don’t get me on an offside on Haaland when he was in his own half just and even if he was then the free kick should have been taken about 30 yards further back. Another win for PHMOL though that he gets away with it and as a club we stay silent. Watch Forest get a dodgy decision next game against Neverton

 

[Gesario]

Just been watching the game again and looking for various fouls etc that were given.

The Dias supposed second yellow wasn’t even a foul, Jesus caught Ruben’s leg as he leg in front of him, pure accident and not a foul. But no mention of Jesus waving an imaginary card which we have been told is an automatic yellow. Also no yellow for him leading with a forearm on at least two occasions in Josko’s face or for his dive in the last seconds or for his knee high challenge on Foden. The foul the ref gave when their left back shoved his arse into a perplexed looking Savinho and then fell down was never a foul, Nico’s yellow was a foul for us not them. The list goes on and on, an awful performance by the ref, would love to see the assessors report and don’t get me on an offside on Haaland when he was in his own half just and even if he was then the free kick should have been taken about 30 yards further back. Another win for PHMOL though that he gets away with it and as a club we stay silent. Watch Forest get a dodgy decision next game against Neverton

That Jesus Cnut will get found out soon , odious Cnut

 

[Chak19]

Just been watching the game again and looking for various fouls etc that were given.

The Dias supposed second yellow wasn’t even a foul, Jesus caught Ruben’s leg as he leg in front of him, pure accident and not a foul. But no mention of Jesus waving an imaginary card which we have been told is an automatic yellow. Also no yellow for him leading with a forearm on at least two occasions in Josko’s face or for his dive in the last seconds or for his knee high challenge on Foden. The foul the ref gave when their left back shoved his arse into a perplexed looking Savinho and then fell down was never a foul, Nico’s yellow was a foul for us not them. The list goes on and on, an awful performance by the ref, would love to see the assessors report and don’t get me on an offside on Haaland when he was in his own half just and even if he was then the free kick should have been taken about 30 yards further back. Another win for PHMOL though that he gets away with it and as a club we stay silent. Watch Forest get a dodgy decision next game against Neverton

As if the refs give a fuck about Forest to help them, they'll try to screw us instead.

 

[samuelyeboah]

The only big mistake in this game was not awarding us a penalty for a blatant foul on cherki in the first half! milenkovic absolutely cleaned him out and like against newcastle, no pen was given because he got his shot out.

 

[cheekybids]

The ref was frustrating me today but clearly wasn’t biased otherwise he’d have gone full Taylor & sent off Dias & disallowed Cherkis goal like the TV wanted.

He allowed them to throw themselves at the ground whilst fouling then giving them the free kick. No way should Dias have got booked but then the 2 big decisions he didn’t make shocked Dyche & the pundits cos it wasn’t in line with the way he’d officiated.

How could anyone not see the ref get pushed. Now imagine that was a City player & how many replays Sky would have shown by now.

 

[Trevor Morley's Tache]

The only big mistake in this game was not awarding us a penalty for a blatant foul on cherki in the first half! milenkovic absolutely cleaned him out and like against newcastle, no pen was given because he got his shot out.

He continued to award them fouls for throwing themselves to the floor, which encouraged them to do it even more.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

13:5 in home team’s advantage yeah Dyche thinks there should have been more
He gave them 2 consecutive ones which lead to a corner booked Pep for protesting the first which wasn’t a foul nor was the second

13 fouls to 5 from 13 tackles to 15.

 

[halfcenturyup]

And the teams whose fans aren't deluded?

All fans are deluded. It's a tribal game with neanderthal attitudes. You know that, I know that, every fucker knows that.

However, that doesn't mean that our particular tribe isn't refereed differently week in, week out. I get that you think you are being balanced in your approach. This seems important to you (on a football forum!). You aren't. You are just trying too hard to "see the other side". Sometimes the other side is just too far away to look for it at all.

All imho, of course. So, that either means I am a Neanderthal or I am a sophisticated homo-sapiens who is able to come to a judgement based on what I see every match day. Up to you to judge which, I really don't care. Either way, the point you were trying continually to make is simplistic and naiëve. Imho.

 

[cheekybids]

All fans are deluded. It's a tribal game with neanderthal attitudes. You know that, I know that, every fucker knows that.

However, that doesn't mean that our particular tribe isn't refereed differently week in, week out. I get that you think you are being balanced in your approach. This seems important to you (on a football forum!). You aren't. You are just trying too hard to "see the other side". Sometimes the other side is just too far away to look for it at all.

All imho, of course. So, that either means I am a Neanderthal or I am a sophisticated homo-sapiens who is able to come to a judgement based on what I see every match day. Up to you to judge which, I really don't care. Either way, the point you were trying continually to make is simplistic and naiëve. Imho.

He’s not balanced he’s a complete contrarian probably believes he’s an independent critical thinker. He just happens to share the same beliefs as the popular goons that inhabit every other forum.

 

[cheekybids]

I think we’ll get a red card v Sunderland. After 2 weeks of Dipper debacle over us getting a penalty & them getting a goal disallowed we were well & truely screwed the next game. For some reason my socials are absolutely wall to wall with Dyche moaning.

 

[.db.]

That was a fucking disgrace. The club need to put out a statement or something at this point I would be intrigued to know how many free kicks they had compared to us.

We did give a lot of free kicks away that were blatant fouls though.

Nico was going round like he was daring the ref to book him in the first half. One of them he body checked someone after the ball had gone, with his hip going into the back of the Forest player’s shoulders. Must have given away four fouls and the Forest fans and Dyche were begging for him to get booked, but he wasn’t, then one of the Forest players got booked for his first foul.

Gvardiol was the same. Made a couple of fouls then kicked the ball away and fell over pretending to be hurt to distract from it and he didn’t get booked for kicking the ball away.

They think Dias should have been sent off for a second yellow. In reality Jesus looked at Dias, ran in front of him, purposely slowed down and let Dias run into him then, dived over… but fans are always going to be biased their way.

They also think O’Reilly fouled Gibbs-White in our winning goal. In reality Gibbs-White grabbed hold of O’Reilly’s arm, backed into him then dived over… but fans are always going to be biased their way.

Can see why both sets of fans thought the ref was shite. If all those things^ happened to us, most of our fans would think exactly like the Forest fans do and wouldn’t take notice of the diving to create the situations that happened with the last two. Just like Forest fans probably haven’t noticed any of the things that went their way like the ref falling for their constant diving (thankfully not for the Dias second booking or City winner situtations), Haaland being wrestled and fouled all game, Anderson pushing the ref, Jesus doing the ‘book him’ action, Jesus’ foul on Foden etc. That’s just football fans for you.

 

[East Level 2]

I think we’ll get a red card v Sunderland. After 2 weeks of Dipper debacle over us getting a penalty & them getting a goal disallowed we were well & truely screwed the next game. For some reason my socials are absolutely wall to wall with Dyche moaning.

Dyche is moaning because Forest lost a close game. That is all. He was always going to find some reason to criticise City or the officials if they lost and he did.
Meanwhile Forest are 17th. I'm not sure how low they were when Ange was sacked but I doubt Dyche has improved their position that much (if at all) given how bad Wolves and Burnley have been since August.
As for our winning goal: even Shrek on MOTD said it was the correct decision as he thought the Forest played grabbed Nico's arm and also lock his leg, rather than Nico committing the foul.
The thing that really pissed me off was the Forest players who like to play rough diving every time a City player went near them. - The clowns running the game won't deal with time-wasting, perhaps they'll look at diving instead.
And for the benefit of doubt, Rob Jones is a poor referee.

 

[Coljj]

Pep missed a trick here not shaking the stewards hand...

 

[.db.]

All fans are deluded. It's a tribal game with neanderthal attitudes. You know that, I know that, every fucker knows that.

However, that doesn't mean that our particular tribe isn't refereed differently week in, week out. I get that you think you are being balanced in your approach. This seems important to you (on a football forum!). You aren't. You are just trying too hard to "see the other side". Sometimes the other side is just too far away to look for it at all.

All imho, of course. So, that either means I am a Neanderthal or I am a sophisticated homo-sapiens who is able to come to a judgement based on what I see every match day. Up to you to judge which, I really don't care. Either way, the point you were trying continually to make is simplistic and naiëve. Imho.

Most football fans only concentrate on the things that confirm their biases or only notice the things that are negatives against their team, and ignore things to the contrary and sometimes even wholly disagreeing with things to the contrary when showed them even if they’re wrong in disagreeing with them.

It’s the same with every fanbase up and down the country and probably the world.

Whenever I take a look at the Scottish football threads in the General Forum, it’s the same tit-for-tat stuff between Rangers and Celtic fans every week, both sets of fans thinking the other team are favoured by the refs and their team opposed+hindered by cheating refs. I was chatting to Sunderland fans in the Lower Turk’s Head before we played them a few weeks ago and they were claiming that Newcastle are favoured by refs and the PL more than any club in the country and that the Ncastle owners are paying off the refs and the PL.

Quick looks on X after every match we play, all you see is rival fans moaning about decisions that go our way every week, with slowed down videos and photos of incidents that make out City are this evil empire who get everything go our way, with accusations that we’re paying refs off and paying the PL off. However, look on this thread and it has our fanbase saying the total opposite of that.

A Liverpool fan did a good article showing how Liverpool refereed differently compared to other clubs.

Objective Data: Liverpool Are Refereed VERY VERY Differently To Rival Clubs

Free Read: Detailed Data Analysis of Premier League Refereeing, 2015-2023

tomkinstimes.substack.com

However, we as a fanbase think Liverpool are favoured more than anyone else. So it does make you think, we are just as biased as anyone and everyone else.

 

[cheekybids]

Most football fans only concentrate on the things that confirm their biases or only notice the things that are negatives against their team, and ignore things to the contrary and sometimes even wholly disagreeing with things to the contrary when showed them even if they’re wrong in disagreeing with them.

It’s the same with every fanbase up and down the country and probably the world.

Whenever I take a look at the Scottish football threads in the General Forum, it’s the same tit-for-tat stuff between Rangers and Celtic fans every week, both sets of fans thinking the other team are favoured by the refs and their team opposed+hindered by cheating refs. I was chatting to Sunderland fans in the Lower Turk’s Head before we played them a few weeks ago and they were claiming that Newcastle are favoured by refs and the PL more than any club in the country and that the Ncastle owners are paying off the refs and the PL.

Quick looks on X after every match we play, all you see is rival fans moaning about decisions that go our way every week, with slowed down videos and photos of incidents that make out City are this evil empire who get everything go our way, with accusations that we’re paying refs off and paying the PL off.

A Liverpool fan did a good article showing how Liverpool refereed differently compared to other clubs.

Objective Data: Liverpool Are Refereed VERY VERY Differently To Rival Clubs

Free Read: Detailed Data Analysis of Premier League Refereeing, 2015-2023

tomkinstimes.substack.com

However, we as a fanbase think Liverpool are favoured more than anyone else. So it does make you think, we are just as biased as anyone and everyone else.

I think the issue is the narrative is created by the comms & pundits, it’s then repeated, the rest of the media follow it.

Every game we are being painted as receiving favourable decisions, fortunate to win & cheats.

Contrast when the dippers play & they are portrayed as being hard done to.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

A Liverpool fan did a good article showing how Liverpool refereed differently compared to other clubs.

Objective Data: Liverpool Are Refereed VERY VERY Differently To Rival Clubs

Free Read: Detailed Data Analysis of Premier League Refereeing, 2015-2023

tomkinstimes.substack.com

However, we as a fanbase think Liverpool are favoured more than anyone else. So it does make you think, we are just as biased as anyone and everyone else.

Aww did the Liverpool fan spend way too long pretending to do research to prove that they're the most hard done by in the Premier League? There's a surprise. Probably wrote a little poem about it afterwards too.

 

[.db.]

Aww did the Liverpool fan spend way too long pretending to do research to prove that they're the most hard done by in the Premier League? There's a surprise. Probably wrote a little poem about it afterwards too.

If you actually read it, it does show how City are second in the list behind Liverpool in most of the categories he presents data for.

It’s a good article really, but does show how we moan a lot about Lpool getting everything go their way when that’s not really the case.

 

[I'm With Stupid]

If you actually read it, it does show how City are second in the list behind Liverpool in most of the categories he presents data for.

It’s a good article really, but does show how we moan a lot about Lpool getting everything go their way when that’s not really the case.

I read enough of it to know it's in no way any sort of serious research. He doesn't properly explain his methodology (meaning it's very difficult for anyone else to check his working) and the various labels he gives to things are very wooly. He gives no definition of statistical significance, and is seemingly incapable of even suggesting any reason for differences other than 'refs are biased against Liverpool. It's someone cosplaying academic research. For comparison, look at this paper into the effects of home-team advantage on refereeing decisions, where 43 qualified referees were employed to analyse over 4000 decisions from the 22/23 season.

But then that's not really what he's doing is it? He's not conducting academic research, he's writing an article for Liverpool fans to feel like they're hard done by. And there's nothing wrong with that, but I'm not going to read it and think "Okay, the proof's in. The PL referees en masse are biased against Liverpool."

 

[cheekybids]

We did give a lot of free kicks away that were blatant fouls though.

Nico was going round like he was daring the ref to book him in the first half. One of them he body checked someone after the ball had gone, with his hip going into the back of the Forest player’s shoulders. Must have given away four fouls and the Forest fans and Dyche were begging for him to get booked, but he wasn’t, then one of the Forest players got booked for his first foul.

Gvardiol was the same. Made a couple of fouls then kicked the ball away and fell over pretending to be hurt to distract from it and he didn’t get booked for kicking the ball away.

They think Dias should have been sent off for a second yellow. In reality Jesus looked at Dias, ran in front of him, purposely slowed down and let Dias run into him then, dived over… but fans are always going to be biased their way.

They also think O’Reilly fouled Gibbs-White in our winning goal. In reality Gibbs-White grabbed hold of O’Reilly’s arm, backed into him then dived over… but fans are always going to be biased their way.

Can see why both sets of fans thought the ref was shite. If all those things^ happened to us, most of our fans would think exactly like the Forest fans do and wouldn’t take notice of the diving to create the situations that happened with the last two. Just like Forest fans probably haven’t noticed any of the things that went their way like the ref falling for their constant diving (thankfully not for the Dias second booking or City winner situtations), Haaland being wrestled and fouled all game, Anderson pushing the ref, Jesus doing the ‘book him’ action, Jesus’ foul on Foden etc. That’s just football fans for you.

There one & only booking was in the 43rd minute which was 2 players cynically stopping our break & finished with Anderson booked & pushing the ref whilst complaining.

I haven’t heard much about it, not when you consider the outrage when Sergio put his arm on the lines women.