Shit is subjective though.
No referee (unless corrupt) goes into any game trying to manipulate the result or do anything but the best they can do.
Some referees are more swayed by player and fan pressure than others and players and fans try to exploit this.
It’s an impossible thing to quantify though.
Fans always remember the questionable decisions against their team, but forget most of those that go their way.
If referees consistently get under the % of decisions they should get right, they get binned.
I’d like to think that if I were a referee, I’d be 100% objective in every game I took charge of, yet the rules state I couldn’t ref City matches.
Isn‘t questioning where they come from questioning their professional capacity?
Why can’t Taylor ref our games impartially? I’m sure he thinks he does and I’m sure we had little issue with him against Wolves, but because he fucked up against Chelsea and <add whichever match you like>, then he can’t referee us impartially again?
It makes no sense. Sometimes players play well and sometimes they don’t. I’m sure it is probably the same for refs, with the best rising to the top.
You mention the Chelsea game, let’s talk about that. There was a view from behind Taylor that showed him looking at Aguero as he got fouled. Instantly, Taylor started to put his whistle to his lips. And then he stopped.
So his initial reaction was ‘that’s a foul.’ But he stopped himself from blowing up. Any explanation why that might be?
i can think of three Possibilities.
1. Something caused him to think again. Like if it looks like a penalty at first blush but you think ‘has he made a meal of that?’ Problem is, there was nothing that should have caused him to think again. Luiz made a mistake, Aguero was away, Luiz pulled him back. Clear foul.
2. He was bent. Lifelong United fan, Brown envelopes, holidays, promises of FACup finals or whatever, he deliberately decided not to give City that foul because there was something in it for him, whether that was personal satisfaction at not seeing City win or whatever.
3. He bottled it. He could see it was a clear DOGSO and knew he would have to dismiss Luiz. He knew that would basically decide the game and he bottled giving the foul. Even Martin Tyler said in commentary that Luiz was in big trouble. But he got off Scot free.
I can’t think of any reason why he would not have given the foul apart from one of those three. He obviously saw it, hence his initial movement to blow his whistle before he stopped himself.
Now, we will never know what was going through his head because he won’t tell us, just like we’ll never know why Milner didn’t get a second yellow at Anfield last year. But we can look at those three possibilities logically.
1, something on-field caused him to change his mind? I don’t buy it. What? His initial reaction was ‘foul.’ If he thought Aguero had slipped (say) he wouldn’t have made the initial movement to blow for a foul. Clearly he initially thought ‘foul’ so what could have caused him to change his mind? I can’t think of anything.
2. you’d like to think he isn’t bent. But
3. if he bottled it, how has he got to referee at that level? I don’t buy this either. HE doesn’t ruin the game by sending Luiz off, Luiz did that by tugging Aguero back to cover his own mistake. Every referee is drilled on this, that their job is to give what they see. If it’s a red card in the first minute of the World Cup final you can see why they don’t give it even though they should, but for a pretty much run of the mill league game, even between two title challengers, it’s difficult to accept that he crumbled under pressure. He certainly hasn’t frozen In similarly high profile games, so why this one?
so I’m driven back to 2. Once you have excluded the impossible, that which remains, however unlikely, must provide the explanation.
The thing about Taylor is that any referee can make a decision that you don’t agree with, but that particular one was so egregious that we all still remember it all these years later. Some have jumped to the conclusion that it was not an honest mistake, others have been driven there. Either way, if a referee has made one decision because he’s bent, how can football fans trust him with any other decisions?
