Ref Watch

[salfordbluetrue]

I do not think he would have awarded the first penalty , but he believed the City player had received a serious injury, and was scared of the repercussions, VAR would put it right anyway, but VAR could not change the call as there was contact. Was it a penalty? well these calls happen all over the pitch and are nearly always given, most with a yellow card. The wolves manager was just looking for excuses, the media was desperate to make it look like City were getting favourable decisions of the ref/VAR, well they still have been awarded less and conceded more penalties than their competitors.

 

[fierydan]

But PiGMOL, the PL and the FArce do not help themselves. Their system of arbitration is substantially opaque. The payihg public do not see, neither do they hear, what is happening. The fans have seen what they have seen - they might be wrong, of course, I know I have! - and we see such variance in the application of the laws. It's not just the incidents that happen to MCFC. Other clubs have suffered from exceptionally poor application. Would putting the whole decision making process into the public domain - vision and sound - when it comes down to VAR be such a controversial way of making sure that decisions taken reflect more accurately what has happened.

There are several 'incidents' that refs completely ignore - free kicks not taken from the spot the offence occurred, goalkeepers pissing as much time as they can up the stadium wall with just the faintest chance of being cautioned after 80 mins. Alex Greenwood was carded, and utlimately sent off for allegedly timewasting at a free kick and we played about an hour with ten. Does the law state that the application can be varied for goalkeepers? Refs deserve the opprobrium of fans if they are not applying the LotG impartially.

Added time? A minimum of who knows what. What goes up on the board is just another element of how to manipulate a game. My ERO texted me and said last night's ref at the Luton v EFC game played 11 mins and the board stated 6. Was somebody unconscious for five mins after the board went up? I don't know, I haven't checked the BBC rubric. Let's help out refs and have a countdown clock. Why do we not have the simplest thing that would stop all the moaning about 'Fergie' time?

Last week Bayern v Real,foul awarded on the edge of the Real box.From the whistle for the foul to Kane taking the free kick,two minutes eleven seconds.Added time by the ref for the entire first half, ,forty two seconds.
This and many other incidents prove we need an independent time keeper.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Last week Bayern v Real,foul awarded on the edge of the Real box.From the whistle for the foul to Kane taking the free kick,two minutes eleven seconds.Added time by the ref for the entire first half, ,forty two seconds.
This and many other incidents prove we need an independent time keeper.

Or just go to a 40 minute countdown clock that the fourth official operates during matches (with a simple click of a toggle button), making any distraction or abuse of the fourth official an automatic yellow, with a second yellow and sending off for a second offence (never understand having a go at the fourth official, anyway, as it has never changed anything). Would not be difficult at all to coordinate timekeeping with the stadium system—it is already done with numerous other sports around the world.

The referee at lower levels without a fourth official can track time via their watch (not actually a big change from what should be going on in the current system).

That would make it nearly impossible to waste time, apart from what I see is the acceptable way via skill in keeping the ball in play and away from the opposition, or for referees to manipulate added time (as it will be blatantly obvious if they are not properly stopping the clock when the ball is not in play for whatever reason).

It will also add to the drama of the game as everyone can see (or feel) the known time remaining ticking down, with the final whistle when it reaches 00:00, regardless of where the ball is. For instance, one of the few things I like about basketball is the “buzzer beater”, as it adds quite a lot of excitement, with no feeling of “the referee is playing until their favoured team scores”.

Imagine such a change would be very difficult to get past the likes of United or Liverpool, though. And the league would probably have to be forced kicking and screaming in to doing it.

 

[Paladin]

Referees have always had abuse, but social media has ramped up the vitriol against them.

Armchair fans armed with 12 replays from different angles in slow motion have decided that reffing is easy and any wrong decision is either corrupt or means they aren’t competent enough and should be sacked.

I hope your lad sticks at it, if it’s what he wants to do, but would totally understand if he just called it a day.

It’s never going to get better for him or any ref. All decisions against their team are noted for further use.

Do you have any ideas as to how to get fans to respect referees more?

I'd start by getting players to respect referees more, like in rugby. Then coaches and officials.

 

[bluenova]

Or just go to a 40 minute countdown clock that the fourth official operates during matches (with a simple click of a toggle button), making any distraction or abuse of the fourth official an automatic yellow, with a second yellow and sending off for a second offence (never understand having a go at the fourth official, anyway, as it has never changed anything). Would not be difficult at all to coordinate timekeeping with the stadium system—it is already done with numerous other sports around the world.

The referee at lower levels without a fourth official can track time via their watch (not actually a big change from what should be going on in the current system).

That would make it nearly impossible to waste time, apart from what I see is the acceptable way via skill in keeping the ball in play and away from the opposition, or for referees to manipulate added time (as it will be blatantly obvious if they are not properly stopping the clock when the ball is not in play for whatever reason).

It will also add to the drama of the game as everyone can see (or feel) the known time remaining ticking down, with the final whistle when it reaches 00:00, regardless of where the ball is. For instance, one of the few things I like about basketball is the “buzzer beater”, as it adds quite a lot of excitement, with no feeling of “the referee is playing until their favoured team scores”.

Imagine such a change would be very difficult to get past the likes of United or Liverpool, though. And the league would probably have to be forced kicking and screaming in to doing it.

I also wonder if it'll benefit City that much.

I know we worry about time wasting, but then we also have the ball in play more than other teams, so anything that cuts out stoppages could make our matches really long. Teams may change their style and cut our some time wasting, but then part of the "timewasting" is actually to break up City's momentum, move their players up the pitch, reset, and have a breather. They might be quite happy to take a longer match, if it's still bitty as hell - and a set clock might even feel like they have "permission" to waste time.

We've been doing well managing our squad so they can compete till the end of the season, and I'm not sure Rodri would welcome games lasting another 15 minutes :)

 

[SebastianBlue]

I also wonder if it'll benefit City that much.

I know we worry about time wasting, but then we also have the ball in play more than other teams, so anything that cuts out stoppages could make our matches really long. Teams may change their style and cut our some time wasting, but then part of the "timewasting" is actually to break up City's momentum, move their players up the pitch, reset, and have a breather. They might be quite happy to take a longer match, if it's still bitty as hell - and a set clock might even feel like they have "permission" to waste time.

We've been doing well managing our squad so they can compete till the end of the season, and I'm not sure Rodri would welcome games lasting another 15 minutes :)

My post was more for the benefit of the game than for City.

The current system is deeply flawed.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Last week Bayern v Real,foul awarded on the edge of the Real box.From the whistle for the foul to Kane taking the free kick,two minutes eleven seconds.Added time by the ref for the entire first half, ,forty two seconds.
This and many other incidents prove we need an independent time keeper.

Dead right. If the likes of Pawson can't see a blatant tackle from behind on Erling without recourse to VAR and the pitchside monitor then I'm doubtful of his timekeeping qualities.

Variable brandishing of yellow cards and the utter nonsense of 'the fourth official has indicated a minimum of x minutes' are the tools of manipulation. How long can they play as long as the minimum is met is anyone's business bar the fans who've bought a ticket.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

I'd start by getting players to respect referees more, like in rugby. Then coaches and officials.

The attempt to have only the captain approaching the referee lasted as long as half the Rag team thought the first throw in was theirs.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

My post was more for the benefit of the game than for City.

The current system is deeply flawed.

Too bloody right it is - just how many games are played with two equal halves of 45 mins. Fuck knows.

 

[Stephen230]

I’ve long been an advocate for giving a stop clock at least a trial run somewhere and seeing how it goes.

It’s not happening anytime soon though. It was very briefly discussed and emphatically rejected at the IFAB annual meeting last summer.

I’ve read articles dismissing the idea and considered the reasons why. And most of them are easily surmountable.

The one reservation I do have though is the effect on the game at amateur level. Which is after all where 99% + of all football matches take place.

 

[SebastianBlue]

Too bloody right it is - just how many games are played with two equal halves of 45 mins. Fuck knows.

I would say it has likely been many years since anything close to 90 minutes of football (not including extra time) have been played at nearly any level.

Average time the ball is in play in the top five European leagues is now hovering around 60 minutes, give or take a few.

It’s the reason that if a stop clock was introduced it would have to be 40 minute halves, at most, as footballers definitely could not take nearly 90 minutes of the ball being in play with the pace of the game these days.

 

[SebastianBlue]

I’ve long been an advocate for giving a stop clock at least a trial run somewhere and seeing how it goes.

It’s not happening anytime soon though. It was very briefly discussed and emphatically rejected at the IFAB annual meeting last summer.

I’ve read articles dismissing the idea and considered the reasons why. And most of them are easily surmountable.

The one reservation I do have though is the effect on the game at amateur level. Which is after all where 99% + of all football matches take place.

I saw that and was not surprised. It relinquishes quite a lot of control from the referees (control they really shouldn’t have).

And none of the supposed challenges are very difficult to overcome, especially as we already have very cheap technology to do it and many, many instances of successful use cases in leagues around the world (most with far more complicated time keeping rules). It was the same with the reluctance to introduce video replay for officiating. Viable systems had been implemented and tested for decades before IFAB, FIFA, UEFA, and the leagues finally succumb to pressure to adopt VAR; and they still managed to fuck it up.

As far as lower leagues are concerned, the vast majority of time keeping at the amatuer level is done via watch by the referee, so it really wouldn’t be that much of a change. Any coordination with the person managing the scoreboard time could just be hand signal. They already do it with many different sport, again, most with far more complicated time keeping rules.

The big change will be the elapsed length of matches. They may end up being more like 2.5 hours, but I think that extra 30 minutes is a small price to pay to get rid of the deeply flawed system we’ve d persisted with for so long.

 

[Stephen230]

I saw that and was not surprised. It relinquishes quite a lot of control from the referees (control they really shouldn’t have).

And none of the supposed challenges are very difficult to overcome, especially as we already have very cheap technology to do it and many, many instances of successful use cases in leagues around the world (most with far more complicated time keeping rules). It was the same with the reluctance to introduce video replay for officiating. Viable systems had been implemented and tested for decades before IFAB, FIFA, UEFA, and the leagues finally succumb to pressure to adopt VAR; and they still managed to fuck it up.

As far as lower leagues are concerned, the vast majority of time keeping at the amatuer level is done via watch by the referee, so it really wouldn’t be that much of a change. Any coordination with the person managing the scoreboard time could just be hand signal. They already do it with many different sport, again, most with far more complicated time keeping rules.

The big change will be the elapsed length of matches. They may end up being more like 2.5 hours, but I think that extra 30 minutes is a small price to pay to get rid of the deeply flawed system we’ve d persisted with for so long.

My concern for amateur football isn’t so much the managing of the time keeping but the fundamental change to the game at that level if they were required to have the ball in play for the same amount of time as at the very highest level.

It’s been proved that the lower you go down the pyramid, the less time the ball is in play. It’s not primarily down to time wasting. But just the quality of football. Basically the worse the football, the less possession time the teams are capable of and the longer the ball is not in play.

I don’t know how far down the pyramid that tests have been done. But it’s fair to assume that the lower you go, the less minutes in play they’ll be.

So by the time you get down to the Sunday League cloggers, Christ knows how long a game is going to take for them to have the ball in play for the same amount of time as is considered reasonable for the very best teams?

 

[Plain Speaking]

I put the detail of this post in the Fulham pre-match forum but it probably is most relevant here.

In January of this year I looked at the stats for various PL referee's, over all their matches in charge of leading PL clubs, over all seasons, with significant differences between officials.

The 2 referees with the worse stats for us were Anthony Taylor and Chris Kavanagh, the 2 referees appointed for our next 2 matches

"At City Pep has an average win % of 72%, at Liverpool Klopp has 61%, at Utd Ten Hag and Ole Gunnar Solskjær together approximately 55%.

With Anthony Taylor, City have a very low, win % stats of 55%, (33 matches), whereas not surprisingly Utd have the highest win % of the top clubs 58%, (40 matches), Liverpool 56%, (33 matches), Chelsea, 46%, (37 matches), Spurs 56%, (41 matches) and Arsenal 56%, (43 matches).

Anthony Taylor Referee Statistics​

Referee statistics and disciplinary statistics for matches officiated by Anthony Taylor.

www.whoscored.com

With Chris Kavanagh, we have a win percentage of 56%, (9 matches), Liverpool have a remarkable 81%, (16 matches), Chelsea also have a very high 75%, (12 matches), Spurs have 69%, (13 matches), Utd, 54% (12 matches) and Arsenal, 50%, (18 matches).
Considering our considerable success over many seasons this win % seems remarkably low!

Chris Kavanagh Referee Statistics​

Referee statistics and disciplinary statistics for matches officiated by Chris Kavanagh.

www.whoscored.com

For comparison with Michael Oliver, we have figures more like you would expect: City 77%, (44 matches), Liverpool 47%, (53 matches), Chelsea 48%, (42 matches), Utd 41%, (41 matches),

Michael Oliver Referee Statistics​

Referee statistics and disciplinary statistics for matches officiated by Michael Oliver.

www.whoscored.com

I had known about Anthony Taylor's obviously bias. Pep clearly knows it, and Taylor finds it hard not to smile when he gives decisions against us, like sending off Rodri!

However Kavanagh's stats, seem potentially concerning and as distorted as Taylor?!"

IMO we are being set up to drop points with the 2 least favourable/most biased officials possible! very concerning.

 

[Stephen230]

I put the detail of this post in the Fulham pre-match forum but it probably is most relevant here.

In January of this year I looked at the stats for various PL referee's, over all their matches in charge of leading PL clubs, over all seasons, with significant differences between officials.

The 2 referees with the worse stats for us were Anthony Taylor and Chris Kavanagh, the 2 referees appointed for our next 2 matches

"At City Pep has an average win % of 72%, at Liverpool Klopp has 61%, at Utd Ten Hag and Ole Gunnar Solskjær together approximately 55%.

With Anthony Taylor, City have a very low, win % stats of 55%, (33 matches), whereas not surprisingly Utd have the highest win % of the top clubs 58%, (40 matches), Liverpool 56%, (33 matches), Chelsea, 46%, (37 matches), Spurs 56%, (41 matches) and Arsenal 56%, (43 matches).

Anthony Taylor Referee Statistics​

Referee statistics and disciplinary statistics for matches officiated by Anthony Taylor.

www.whoscored.com

With Chris Kavanagh, we have a win percentage of 56%, (9 matches), Liverpool have a remarkable 81%, (16 matches), Chelsea also have a very high 75%, (12 matches), Spurs have 69%, (13 matches), Utd, 54% (12 matches) and Arsenal, 50%, (18 matches).
Considering our considerable success over many seasons this win % seems remarkably low!

Chris Kavanagh Referee Statistics​

Referee statistics and disciplinary statistics for matches officiated by Chris Kavanagh.

www.whoscored.com

For comparison with Michael Oliver, we have figures more like you would expect: City 77%, (44 matches), Liverpool 47%, (53 matches), Chelsea 48%, (42 matches), Utd 41%, (41 matches),

Michael Oliver Referee Statistics​

Referee statistics and disciplinary statistics for matches officiated by Michael Oliver.

www.whoscored.com

I had known about Anthony Taylor's obviously bias. Pep clearly knows it, and Taylor finds it hard not to smile when he gives decisions against us, like sending off Rodri!

However Kavanagh's stats, seem potentially concerning and as distorted as Taylor?!"

IMO we are being set up to drop points with the 2 least favourable/most biased officials possible! very concerning.

Taylor has been considered one if not the best referee’s in the league for some time.

He gets a high percentage of the biggest games between the best teams.

Do your stats. take into account the standard of the opposition?

 

[mancboy]

Taylor has been considered one if not the best referee’s in the league for some time.

He gets a high percentage of the biggest games between the best teams.

Do your stats. take into account the standard of the opposition?

All stats can be skewed in what ever way you want them to be by adding different caveats and perameters, as i put in another thread before the wolves game this exact discussion was being had about pawson and twatwell

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

Does anyone know whether the time betweem the foul on Haaland for the second penalty and the ref indicating a penalty after watching the pitchside monitor was added on, or is it just time pissed up the wall. Also, when a goal is scored and they check for a preceding foul anywhere and find one, is the time from the 'found' foul to disallowing the goal added on? Both of these instances indicate dead time that should be.

 

[salfordbluetrue]

Taylor has been considered one if not the best referee’s in the league for some time.

He gets a high percentage of the biggest games between the best teams.

Do your stats. take into account the standard of the opposition?

With all the teams quoted being the top teams, and the large number of games, the chances of freak results is minimal.

 

[TinFoilHat]

Kavanaugh is a dipper.

He shouldn't be anywhere near our games at this part of the season.

 

[supercity88]

Taylor has been considered one if not the best referee’s in the league for some time.

He gets a high percentage of the biggest games between the best teams.

Do your stats. take into account the standard of the opposition?

They don't take into account the opposition or give enough commentary on the number of games or length of time either. We haven't always had Pep in charge under Taylor for example so the whole data set is coming from a position of searching for an issue that I don't believe is fundamentally there. If these refs were so obviously biased then they wouldn't get certain games. We've won three league titles in a row so they haven't managed to fuck us over yet!

Kavanagh for example has only overseen 9 league games, so it doesn't take much for the numbers under him to suddenly improve back to where you might expect them. Taylor does the big games generally and Pep doesn't have a 72% record in those either. Kavanagh also oversaw Palace's win at Anfield and the Carabao Cup final where Klopp absolutely slated him for his performance! If he is a dipper, which is strongly rumoured, he doesn't let it impact him when he officiates.

I believe they'd like an easy life and for the game to play out without them having to be too involved or make critical decisions that impact the game. But as Pep said they're all humans and make mistakes, regardless of their allegiance.

I've commented on this post a couple of times and don't want to make the OP feel like I'm digging him out, I just get a bit sick of certain posters whingeing about every ref whenever it's announced as if they're all corrupt. If they are then they've not done a very good job of fucking us over so far!