Referees/Officials

[Dirty Harry]

Didn't think he was too bad last night, then again, maybe I'm so used to such poor officiating, when we get an average one it seems far better than it actually is.

 

[journolud]

Pretty innocuous performance is best I would say about last night as there were no big calls to get wrong. However in letting a lot of niggly Stoke fouls go unpunished there were at least a couple of occasions he brought play back to give us a free kick when an advantage could have been played. One of those nights though where we only had ourselves to blame and wouldn't have scored if we'd played for a week

 

[willipp]

We've had a lot worse. His worst decision of the night had to be not booking Yaya for that deliberate handball, not sure what the ref was thinking. If that had been a Stoke player i think the whole ground would of combusted.

 

[Scaring Europe to Death]

If anything, I thought he was a tad lenient for both teams last night.
He could easily have booked Yaya for handball, and there was a City breakaway (possibly the one where KDB cocked-up) that started with two robust challenges from City players, than another ref might easily have seen differently.
Similarly, when City start at walking pace, we can hardly blame the ref for allowing Stoke to slow the game down.

 

[Rolee]

Pretty innocuous performance is best I would say about last night as there were no big calls to get wrong. However in letting a lot of niggly Stoke fouls go unpunished there were at least a couple of occasions he brought play back to give us a free kick when an advantage could have been played. One of those nights though where we only had ourselves to blame and wouldn't have scored if we'd played for a week

Yep and played advantage to us on a number of occasions where there was none.

 

[Millwallawayveteran1988]

Pretty innocuous performance is best I would say about last night as there were no big calls to get wrong. However in letting a lot of niggly Stoke fouls go unpunished there were at least a couple of occasions he brought play back to give us a free kick when an advantage could have been played. One of those nights though where we only had ourselves to blame and wouldn't have scored if we'd played for a week

He let a few of our fouls go too and Yaya should have been booked for deliberate handball.

No big decisions to make really so hard to judge.

 

[ali benarbia's studs]

Come on. BBS. Yer know the answer to that, or are yer just being the Devil's advocate?

The interpretation of 'fouls' by refs is one massive area where games are won and lost, or won and not won! Last night there were two fouls on two of our players, KdB was one, I forget the other, within seconds of each other, and the next challenge, nowhere near as robust as the two Swarbrick poo-pooed, draws a free kick for Stoke. There was an instant in the second half where Aguero went on a mazy run and the defender was nibbling for about ten yards, Sergio ends up on his face and play continues. I still cannot come to terms with the 'fact' that we might have 71% of the ball and we end up with the same percentage of the fouls!

That really doesnt make sense, if anything it only suggests a bias from officials. Strange to have that much possession dominance. Credit to stoke for parking the bus well.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

That really doesnt make sense, if anything it only suggests a bias from officials. Strange to have that much possession dominance. Credit to stoke for parking the bus well.

The 71 figure I think came from the Sunderland game, and I think in that game, off the top of my head, was 11 fouls by us and 4 by them. It is a regular statistic that bemuses me, that with all the possession we have we record a higher fouls score. It must be that every attempt to get the ball back results in a foul, according to the Whistling Wanker out on the pitch. From what I've seen this season we are penalised much more easily than the opposition seem to be.

 

[BigOscar]

He pretty much only gave us a freekick if it meant stopping the game when we could have played advantage and did a piss poor job of stopping time wasting. Not a single Stoke player booked for time wasting despite it being their only tactic in the second half and for much of the first half as well. Then to put the standard 4 minutes up, then play a whopping 10 extra seconds despite over a minute of the 4 additional ones were spent waiting for Stoke to put the ball back in play.

Not a specific criticism of him last night, but I've no idea why we even bother playing added time, it doesn't seem to link to anything. They just put up 3 or 4 minutes and then blow the whistle, regardless of what actually happens. If there is a long injury they might put up 6 or 7 instead, but it never actually represents the amount of time the ball isn't in play. Why do they bother with those watches? There is no way in hell the ball is in play for 45 minutes, so why even pretend?

 

[Gordyola]

The 71 figure I think came from the Sunderland game, and I think in that game, off the top of my head, was 11 fouls by us and 4 by them. It is a regular statistic that bemuses me, that with all the possession we have we record a higher fouls score. It must be that every attempt to get the ball back results in a foul, according to the Whistling Wanker out on the pitch. From what I've seen this season we are penalised much more easily than the opposition seem to be.

Yeah our tackles are fouls their fouls are tackles been going on all season Pep has pointed out the disparity between procession and fouls stats