I thought Dean got a lot wrong last night. Welbeck Shrek and Giggs have been mentioned but there was also an elbow in the face from van Persie on Barry that he missed.
It's not the first time, either. He was the ref when we drew 1-1 at home to Arsenal -I thought he had a poor game then.
Yet we can't expect perfection from referees, they are only human. With mike dean he might not see everything he should and he might not give everything he should but I never get the sense that he is giving one team the benefit of the doubt and not the other, I never get the sense he let's one team get away with what he would pull up the other team for, I never get the sense that he will bottle giving one team decisions he would not hesitate to give the other.
I do get the sense that he calls it as he sees it. Sometimes he sees it wrong like the silva handball, but he gets one look at it real time, and not the many replays and slo-mos we get on the telly. The comparison with the refereeing display at the derby at our place where the referee was noticeably pro-rag (he of coursne has been noticeably pro rag before) could not be clearer.
I also thought the liners did well. Again they didn't get everything right, but they were not intimated by the scum, they gave what they saw.
All in all I thought the officials were not cowed or intimidated by the swamp or by Taggart or by the red scum surrounding them at every turn.
And we won.
Funny, that.