The bent referee - complain.

[r.soleofsalford]

Never said ffs more in one game

was it your first live game

 

[u2fme2]

just sent the following

Hi,
I really belive this season so far i have seen some of the best Referees performances for some time and applaud there efforts.
Then comes this saturdays game at manchester city, Stuart Attwell performance or lack of it spoiled what could have been a free flowing game, if he could just learn to hold back on his whistle and allow games to flow. many a time he could have played an advantage, But no blows his bloody whistle, he needs to learn the game not about him but the 22 players on the pitch.
He for me up to now has by far been the worse referee i have seen for some time. When will he ever learn??if ever. 2/10

 

[BringBackSwales]

I think it's a bit much calling him "corrupt" or a "cheat", he was at worst inept and at best inconsistent.

Implying that he or the FA deliberately set out (and for money, if you take it to its logical conclusion) to not give City a few fouls is proper tinfoil hat territory. It makes us sound like scousers.

There was a comment in the Guardian that summed it up best for me, it was like he was deliberately trying to show his authority. He's a relatively young inexperienced guy who will be officiating us for years to come, I would imagine he'll be getting a session with the observer and it might do him good.

I take your point about the guardian comment, in fact I honestly think he wanted to be a pantomime villain to look strong and authoritative, but deep down he just couldnt do it, and on at least 2 occasions when City players said something to him he had to get Kompany to deal with them for him; quite why he bollocked any City player who spoke to him and yet allowed stphen hunt (that's hunt with a C) to be in his ear all afternoon was baffling as well. For me him and Lee Mason are very similar - just want to look contrary to get the home fans going and them they look strong (listen to trevor francis on sky, he fell for it)

 

[mancunial]

Yesterday I saw the wing commander Parker do six straight fouls for spuds without a card, one was bordering on a red, inconsistency is the one item that infuriates fans the most!

 

[Eggsy]

I was at the match against Wolves, I could not believe the decisions Attwell made, I said to the people I was with just after half time he would give pen against us or send someone off. He was so predictable.

He was very poor on Staurday, however for the challenge that Vinnie made he had to be sent off.

I think City should simply make a complilation CD of the Challenges made by Wolves players, especially against Silva, send it to the FA and ask them to explain the referee's decission's on the day.

 

[cibaman]

Just read the match report in the Sunday Mirror. They always have a ref report. Word for word their review of that clown yesterday said

'on top of the job and seemingly destined to be a top official'

The media rarely criticise a ref unless he gets major decisions wrong. You will never read one of them suggest that one side was favoured over the other when it came to free kicks. It would seem like thay were finding fault for the sake of it. Or accusing the ref of being biased, which is a huge charge for them to make.

They might also fall into the same trap that I do when watching a match as a neutral. If the ref is hard on the home team I tend to think "good on you" for not being swayed by the home crowd.

He had a dodgy game, we had a player deservedly sent off. We won. Not the end of the world.

 

[MAXXI]

Just read the match report in the Sunday Mirror. They always have a ref report. Word for word their review of that clown yesterday said

'on top of the job and seemingly destined to be a top official'

And this

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2055388/Edin-Dzeko-perfect-response-substitution-strop.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... strop.html</a>

TEAMS,
Referee: Stuart Attwell 5

 

[blueprint]

Forget about Atwell 'poor refereeing' , guys lets move on

'My attitude is to completely forget it -it never happened' ;)

 

[Sigh]

Just read the match report in the Sunday Mirror. They always have a ref report. Word for word their review of that clown yesterday said

'on top of the job and seemingly destined to be a top official'

And this

<a class="postlink" href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2055388/Edin-Dzeko-perfect-response-substitution-strop.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;">http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/footba ... strop.html</a>

TEAMS,
Referee: Stuart Attwell 5

So we may conclude they are either lying, blind, or mad. In any event, inconsistency and stupidty do undermine the integrity of any competition.

 

[goat boy]

The penalty and sending off were very soft imo. He couldnt wait for the opportunity to do that. Very strange refereeing, but in consolation there was a string of nearly a dozen home games last season when the ref looked like he'd come to turn out for the opposition. It makes one wonder, sadly.

 

[es1]

I was at the match against Wolves, I could not believe the decisions Attwell made, I said to the people I was with just after half time he would give pen against us or send someone off. He was so predictable.

the penalty and sending off were as clear as they come

the worst thing for me was his lack of consitency however, shirt pulls, pushes etc being punished or not punished all over the pitch

as has already been mentioned, the silva and micah dives/fouls - of he thought they were dives why didnt he book them!??

 

[oakiecokie]

I was at the match against Wolves, I could not believe the decisions Attwell made, I said to the people I was with just after half time he would give pen against us or send someone off. He was so predictable.

As much as I agree with you,the penalty and sending off were warranted so we can have no complaints in that department.
Other than that he was and is a useless shit house.

 

[Deleted member 14625]

I was at the match against Wolves, I could not believe the decisions Attwell made, I said to the people I was with just after half time he would give pen against us or send someone off. He was so predictable.

the penalty and sending off were as clear as they come

the worst thing for me was his lack of consitency however, shirt pulls, pushes etc being punished or not punished all over the pitch

as has already been mentioned, the silva and micah dives/fouls - of he thought they were dives why didnt he book them!??

There can be challenges made that aren't fouls and aren't dives therefore giving no decision is the right thing. Also there's a difference between feigning injury and diving. You can be kicked but it might not be worthy of a free kick and the kicked player can then try and make the most of it by staying down - I've never seen anyone booked for that, ever!

As I said earlier in the thread, the ref got a fair few things wrong and was inconsistent. But he was NOWHERE NEAR as bad as many of our fans make out and thousands were going mental at the ref for not giving decisions or givin decisions that he got bang on!

 

[es1]

I was at the match against Wolves, I could not believe the decisions Attwell made, I said to the people I was with just after half time he would give pen against us or send someone off. He was so predictable.

the penalty and sending off were as clear as they come

the worst thing for me was his lack of consitency however, shirt pulls, pushes etc being punished or not punished all over the pitch

as has already been mentioned, the silva and micah dives/fouls - of he thought they were dives why didnt he book them!??

There can be challenges made that aren't fouls and aren't dives therefore giving no decision is the right thing. Also there's a difference between feigning injury and diving. You can be kicked but it might not be worthy of a free kick and the kicked player can then try and make the most of it by staying down - I've never seen anyone booked for that, ever!

As I said earlier in the thread, the ref got a fair few things wrong and was inconsistent. But he was NOWHERE NEAR as bad as many of our fans make out and thousands were going mental at the ref for not giving decisions or givin decisions that he got bang on!

oh i agree with you, he wasn't as bad as is being made out

and i agree that there are challenges that are neither fouls or dives, but imo the tackles on silva and richards do not fall into that category!

oh well, at least neither got booked and we still won

 

[Matty]

I didn't actually have too many complaints about the penalty or the sending off, had it been a Wolves defender doing that we'd have been screaming for the red card.

My issue was that he seemed to be under the impression that City were the only team on the pitch capable of committing a foul. Bearing in mind we had half the possession, twice as many attempts at goal and are undoubtedly the superior team in terms of skill, how likely is it that of the 22 fouls committed City made 17 to Wolves' 5? It clearly isn't. Attwell let Wolves get away with so many fouls it was unbelievable, whereas challenges that were barely worthy of the name saw City given freekicks against them. Attwell was about as inept as I've seen a referee, it's time the FA bit the bullet and admitted they've made an error in fast tracking a referee who isn't up to the task.

 

[LongsightM13]

Atwell was poor, and has been consistently shown to be out of his depth at championship and premier league level.
That said, some of our players don't help themselves by repeatedly giving away silly, silly fouls for needless, pointless little tugs and pushes which achieve nothing except to relieve the pressure on the opposition and can give them the chance to hoist a set piece into our box.
Barry and Dzeko are particular culprits, always leading with their arms.

 

[The Pink Panther]

I didn't actually have too many complaints about the penalty or the sending off, had it been a Wolves defender doing that we'd have been screaming for the red card.

My issue was that he seemed to be under the impression that City were the only team on the pitch capable of committing a foul. Bearing in mind we had half the possession, twice as many attempts at goal and are undoubtedly the superior team in terms of skill, how likely is it that of the 22 fouls committed City made 17 to Wolves' 5? It clearly isn't. Attwell let Wolves get away with so many fouls it was unbelievable, whereas challenges that were barely worthy of the name saw City given freekicks against them. Attwell was about as inept as I've seen a referee, it's time the FA bit the bullet and admitted they've made an error in fast tracking a referee who isn't up to the task.

Pretty much agree with what you've said Matty.
The ref was quick to blow against us, but gave them the benefit of the doubt in the vast majority of incidents. Also he stopped the game when there was no need to. Dzeko commits a foul, the ball is in the keepers hands and he blows for the foul. The game is stopped for the goalkeeper to place the ball on the ground 5 yards outside his penalty area to take the free kick
I was very surprised that he didn't give a foul against Balotelli when he robbed the ball that led to our third goal.

 

[bluelol]

Has anyone had any reply from the FA yet, then again we know what the initials FA can stand for.
Pam are you there?

 

[paulchapo]

He was awful and that is putting it politely!

He allowed Wolves to impede,timewaste and kick lumps out of us with almost impunity,while blowing up for almost evey challenge by us.His inept refeering totaly spoilt the game and played right into Wolves hands.I can't blame Wolves,we would have done the same a few years ago with an inferior team.

The penalty and sending off was correct,nobody can argue with that.

I am also a bit mystified where he got 5 minutes added time from,mind you i thought it would be more when we went down to 10 men,he seemed to be that anti us!Thankfully the third goal meant it didn't matter.

He lost it as far as i am concerned and for every howl of outrage at another ludicrous decision his face seemed to go even more determined and defiant and he gave even worse ones afterwards.

He still wasn't as bad as that Scouse git Walton i think it was a few years ago!

 

[Chris in London]

I didn't actually have too many complaints about the penalty or the sending off, had it been a Wolves defender doing that we'd have been screaming for the red card.

My issue was that he seemed to be under the impression that City were the only team on the pitch capable of committing a foul. Bearing in mind we had half the possession, twice as many attempts at goal and are undoubtedly the superior team in terms of skill, how likely is it that of the 22 fouls committed City made 17 to Wolves' 5? It clearly isn't. Attwell let Wolves get away with so many fouls it was unbelievable, whereas challenges that were barely worthy of the name saw City given freekicks against them. Attwell was about as inept as I've seen a referee, it's time the FA bit the bullet and admitted they've made an error in fast tracking a referee who isn't up to the task.

The problem with a performance like Attwell's is that when you make a string of errors, inconsistent decisions, wrong decisions and so on, each incident in isolation may be pretty insignificant, but when they come one after another throughout the whole game, they have a real impact on the game because they make the whole stadium furious.

A small example. There was a foul on Barry (I think) in the first half, but the ball broke loose to Dzeko, who looked like he was away. Attwell blew (correctly) for the foul, but he had blown too soon and the possibility of an advantage was lost. Wolves regrouped, and so having committed the foul, then got the advantage of a break in play while they reorganised.

But about 5 minutes later the same happened in reverse. There was a foul on (I think) Henry but Attwell played advantage. Then when the advantage didn't come off, he blew for the foul. Probably, with the first foul, when the South Stand went beserk he thought to himself 'I should have let Dzeko play on', and learned from his mistake. But the fact is that with the second foul he gave Wolves an advantage which he hadn't given City. And that gets the crowd's blood boiling because it looks like he is favouring one team above the other.

This is just one example of what is probably just inexperience, but which looks like appalling inconsistency and bias. But even though of itself its fairly minor, in the context of similar tackles leading to a Yellow Card for Barry but not even a foul on Silva, failure to penalise blatant time-wasting from Hennessey, and so on, it just makes a bad situation worse. My father in law watched the game on an Albanian satellite channel (or some such) in the Pub, and he said that the foul count at half time was City 10 fouls, Wolves 1. That is pretty much impossible. (By that standard, since the final foul count waas 17-5 the second half was almost even-handed, but by then the damage had been done).This is why by half time everyone's blood was boiling - error after error after inconsistency after inconsistency just gets everyone livid, especially when it looks like one team who are getting all the decisions.

Anyone reading this thread who hasn't looked at the tunnel cam on the OS from that game really really should do so. When Attwell comes in at half time, he has got the look about him of a man who is under massive, massive pressure. It will be very interesting to see where he is refereeing on Saturday. I wouldn't be surprised if he he is given a game where he is under a lot less pressure - MK Dons v Walsall, for instance, or maybe Crawley Town v Rochdale.