nijinsky's fetlocks said:TheMightyQuinn said:nijinsky's fetlocks said:Ok - a simple,straightforward question.
Do you honestly believe that Slur Alex has a say in who referees City's games?
Just yes or no.
You know what, I can't answer that with a 'yes' or 'no' because it's simply got to the stage where I do not know. That's my answer, 'I don't know'.
However, considering my answer, and everyones answer really, should be 'No, absolutely not, that's insane and very wrong', then it's a little worrying.
I do believe that football is manipulated to a certain degree and referees are the obvious and easiest route to doing this.
My answer to the question 'Does Ferguson pick refs for rag games' would be 'Fucking yes'.
Let me believe what I want to believe. I don't see why you and Pidge feel the need to desecrate these threads when the posters on them have every right to their opinion.
I think it's insane and very naive to believe what you and Pidge do but I don't shout about it, I leave you both to get on with believing that it's simply 'inconsistency'.
I'm all peace, I'm not having a pop at you or anyone, I'm just saying that in my head, it's naive to believe that a billion dollar industry isn't having lots of strings pulled in the shadows and is instead simply run badly by middle aged men who are incredibly consistent in their inconsistent manner of refereeing.
Fair play - we're all entitled to our thoughts.
I guess what i'm after before I jump onto your boat is something tangible that points to corruption/conspiracy/agendas,rather than a few random dodgy calls here and there that look bad,but could also be down to sheer human stupidity.
I am agnostic rather than atheist on the matter,but a bit of proof would be nice,as the scale required for institutionalised corruption would be huge,and you'd think that some intrepid reporter or honest referee would have become whistleblower,if you pardon the pun.
They did mate. Ask PB as to why he was shipped off to the states mid-season. You know PB to be a level headed poster.Pigeonho said:I actually enjoyed reading that. usually its a 'he's a fuckin rag ****', with no explanation but that was insightful to say the least. Obviously i'm in no position to argue against what you have seen with your own eyes but what I would ask is this. If you have seen this and come to the conclusion that Walton is clearly bending games to favour one particular team, why haven't his employers or anyone with any clout seen it and done something about it? If it was as obvious as you seem to think it is, (and I respect that is just your theory), surely someone high up in the FA and/or PL would see it and do something to protect their brand? That brand being the PL by the way, not Manchester United.Chris in London said:Pigeonho said:[I haven't been going for a few seasons now, financially it isn't possible.
What is Walton like to see officiate in the flesh?
Sorry to hear that.
The answer is, truly appalling. Dig out any match day thread of a City game refereed by Peter walton and you will read countless examples of the decisions largely going one way.
Also, on telly you can only see so much of the game on the screen at any one time. If you are sitting up in the gods, you can really see the shape of the game. So you can see when City have a 5 on 3 counter attack for instance, and Walton blows for a cynical Everton foul rather than play advantage, you can see that the real advantage has been given to Everton. You get a greater sense of when time is being wasted and the officials do nothing about it. You see - real time, without the advantage of super slo-mo replays - when defenders barge into attackers jumping for headers at one end of the field and nothing is given.
Now, I haven't seen every City game with Walton in charge, but I've seen a good five or six of them, and in each of those games the refereeing has seemed to me to be consistently slanted against us. We all know that refs get things wrong, and most of the time they are honset mistakes. But game after game with this guy in charge everything seemed to be going against us.
Then I read the statistic that of the last 22 games involving us or United that Walton reffed, we didn't win one and they didn't lose one. And I read on here from a poster who lives near him in Northamptonshire that he was a well known local rag before appontment to the PL panel. I don't attach much weight to that myself, but it may be true and it goes alongside the other pieces of evidence.
I readily acknowledge that I might be putting 2 and 2 together and coming up with five, but IMO FWIW the possibility that Peter Walton was biased against us (gone now, thank god) is one that it is foolish to reject out of hand.
There are a large number of referees who I have no problem with at all - Dowd, Probert, Dean, Oliver -who make calls against us which are sometimes bad calls (eg the penalty at Liverpool in the CC 2nd leg) but whose overall track record does not indicate any sort of bias, and whose performances don't, when I'm watching the game, suggest bias to me. There are some who I don't think are biased but are spectacularly incompetent. Attwell is a good example - he was appallingly one sided when he reffed the Wolves game, but I think they were just thoroughly bad calls from someone who was out of his depth (think 'ghost goal').
But there are some who have a track record of decisions which seem to be slanted against us, who (when you see them in the flesh) seem to view every City tackle as a foul and every non City foul as a tackle. I take Walton as an example because he IMO was the worst - there are others such as Mason who has been discussed at length on here.
And if there are some referees who are biased, then it is possible that Webb is amongst them. I don't understand how sensible people can reject that possibility out of hand.
Tricky Dickys Right Foot Shot said:Didn't Webb let Mario off with the stamp on Parker this season vs Tottenham??? I don't understand why people go on about him being a red, the majority of games he's reffed for City he's been pretty decent which is more to say for the rest of the useless wankers in the league....
My opinion is that Webb and Dean are probably the 2 best refs in this country!
lancs blue said:Tricky Dickys Right Foot Shot said:Didn't Webb let Mario off with the stamp on Parker this season vs Tottenham??? I don't understand why people go on about him being a red, the majority of games he's reffed for City he's been pretty decent which is more to say for the rest of the useless wankers in the league....
My opinion is that Webb and Dean are probably the 2 best refs in this country!
No but he did let Lescott off with the more blatant elbow on Kaboul.
It's not only City fans that think Webb favours United, every fan in the country does and with good reason. He's given more penalties at Old Trafford than any other referee. Remember the two penalties he gave United at Chelsea when they were losing 3-0? Remember the penalty he gave against Agger and Liverpool after just five minutes at United? Remember the rediculous penalty he gave against Spurs at Old Trafford? The list just goes on and on.
He's certainly United's favourite referee and who appoints him? The FA - and have United got a man in the FA - of course they have!
Fair play has gone out the window. Titles aren't won anymore, they're stolen.