The bent referee - complain.

[oxopop]

A cheat? no.
An incompetent ref? some tune,fucking awful display.

 

[chumpster1]

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.

Very fair assesment but why should MK Dons, Walsall, Crawley,Rochdale or anyone else have to put up with his ineptitude . The bloke just isnt good enough.

 

[Gelsons Dad]

According to a thread not so far from this one, he was fine and we were booing the team!

I fucking despair sometimes.....

 

[bluecitywugger]

Attwell is so far up his own arse. We know the FA have high regards for this young ref but he clearly not up to the job at this high standard. The air of arrogance on his face with VK sending off was there to see. A good ref should be seen not heard unlike this twonk................Well done you Blue Boys with a very professional job in Spain tonight!!!!!!......................FORZA MANCINI the icepack man.

 

[ManCitizens.]

Still dont understand why people are discussing this.

Stuart Steven Attwell (born 6 October 1982) is an English professional football referee from Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Attwell graduated from Staffordshire University in 2004. Refereeing had been a life-long ambition for him, according to his father. Attwell worked his way up from local games to non-League football, then to the West Midlands League and the Football League.

Hmmm i wonder which club people from Warwickshire, West Midlands support.

 

[Chris in London]

For anyone who's interested, Mr Attwell appears not to be refereeing a premier league game this weekend, though he is 4th official at Bolton v Stoke on Sunday afternoon.

Maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere has listened?

 

[Mugatu]

For anyone who's interested, Mr Attwell appears not to be refereeing a premier league game this weekend, though he is 4th official at Bolton v Stoke on Sunday afternoon.

Maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere has listened?

Nope, it's rotation. There are enough officials to rotate through referee and 4th official (they're seen as equally demanding roles as the 4th has to manage dugouts and coaching staff). You get a fair share of both roles, look closely and you'll often see other "top" referees such as Howard Webb as a 4th.

I once sent off a player from Northwood in a game over in Oxfordshire... he was furious of course, it was the worst decision he'd ever seen, he was going to report me to the FA, blah blah blah.
The week later I was appointed to the line at Northwood. The player came up to me and said he felt bad at me being demoted to the line... I told him it was known as rotation and to stop being such a silly fucker.<br /><br />-- Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:21 pm --<br /><br />

Hmmm i wonder which club people from Warwickshire, West Midlands support.

Villa usually. But I see your point.

Referees are interviewed fairly early on in a rising career and asked who they have followed, they're honest enough to state their allegience (it would come out anyway, someone will always know) and that referee will never be appointed to officiate at that club.

 

[Chris in London]

For anyone who's interested, Mr Attwell appears not to be refereeing a premier league game this weekend, though he is 4th official at Bolton v Stoke on Sunday afternoon.

Maybe, just maybe, someone somewhere has listened?

Nope, it's rotation. There are enough officials to rotate through referee and 4th official (they're seen as equally demanding roles as the 4th has to manage dugouts and coaching staff). You get a fair share of both roles, look closely and you'll often see other "top" referees such as Howard Webb as a 4th.

I once sent off a player from Northwood in a game over in Oxfordshire... he was furious of course, it was the worst decision he'd ever seen, he was going to report me to the FA, blah blah blah.
The week later I was appointed to the line at Northwood. The player came up to me and said he felt bad at me being demoted to the line... I told him it was known as rotation and to stop being such a silly fucker.

-- Thu Nov 03, 2011 12:21 pm --

Hmmm i wonder which club people from Warwickshire, West Midlands support.

Villa usually. But I see your point.

Referees are interviewed fairly early on in a rising career and asked who they have followed, they're honest enough to state their allegience (it would come out anyway, someone will always know) and that referee will never be appointed to officiate at that club.

I'm sure you're not stalking me, Mugatu.

A number of ex PL referees are on record as describing the way games at PL level are allocated to referees. Those who are assessed as having had a poor game are often given less demanding fixtures to referee the following week, and that includes being given non PL games. A stream of protest about the last match of itself might carry little weight in that exercise but where an assessor has assessed a referee's performance as below par, complaints about performance are simply more grist to the mill. Putting it bluntly, if you make a horlicks of Newcastle/Sunderland one week, and both the PGMO (or whatever its called) assessors and Sunderland fans let you know that, they are unlikely to give you Tottenham/Arsenal the next week.

You are not wrong that rotation does takes place, and I have no doubt Attwell will be back in the PL after the international break, but the assumption that match allocation is not ever performance-related is simply not backed up. It may however be simple coincidence that after a performance which has attracted little media criticism but was objectively flawed in a number of respects Mr Attwell is 'rotated' out of the Premier League; but maybe it isn't coincidence at all.

As to being a 4th official, doubtless it carries its own pressures, but there is no way that they are equivalent to those of the match referee. Are you saying the 4th official at the world cup was under the same pressure as Howard Webb was? I suppose Nigel De Jong might agree.

If you haven't watched the tunnel cam from the Wolves game, I commend it to you. If you do you will see the 4 officials come in, and you will see who looks under pressure and who does not; and it isn't the 4th official.

 

[DontLookBackInAnger]

Still dont understand why people are discussing this.

Stuart Steven Attwell (born 6 October 1982) is an English professional football referee from Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Attwell graduated from Staffordshire University in 2004. Refereeing had been a life-long ambition for him, according to his father. Attwell worked his way up from local games to non-League football, then to the West Midlands League and the Football League.

Hmmm i wonder which club people from Warwickshire, West Midlands support.

Wolverhampton was actually part of Staffordshire before becoming part of the West Midlands, not Warwickshire....

 

[cibaman]

Interesting article by Neville at the weekend when he wrote how gobsmacked United's players were when Graham Poll told them that referees do actually remember players and managers that slag them off and are less likely to give them favourable decisions in the future. He said that until then they'd all assumed that players started each match with a clean slate, but Poll made it clear that that wasnt true.

Neville even reckoned that he avoided being sent off at Stoke and WBA last season because the refs recognised that he'd stopped giving them stick and rewarded him for that.

To be fair, apart from the one time by Yaya, the players didnt give Atwell much stick on saturday and Mancini didnt bring it up after the match, so hopefully we'll be in his good books next time we get him.

 

[Mugatu]

the players didnt give Atwell much stick on saturday and Mancini didnt bring it up after the match, so hopefully we'll be in his good books next time we get him.

There's some grain of truth in that, and the viewpoint that Neville mentioned. As a semi professional player I was only ever booked once... it's probably no coincidence that I was always polite to officials, never argued a decision (because it's never once resulted in a reversed decision) and always thanked them for their time and trouble, the way I always saw it was that an approach like that would never do me any harm, and conversely a combative, argumentative or manipulative approach would only ever get me in the bad books. Seemed to work out at the time. It's quite hard as a keeper to get booked but still, one yellow seems to tell a story.

As a referee in my early 30s I did used to remember the polite and professional players and I knew I could manage them more easily with a few words rather than a card. I knew the troublemakers and the aggressive dissenters and while you try to treat everyone equally, sometimes those players made it necessary to get a caution in to manage the game effectively.

I guess professional footballers aren't always very bright though and they don't all realise that referees will respond to fair players better... it won't get you much leeway, but it helps.

 

[edgecroft]

Atwell just made a huge cock up in the PSV - Hapoel Tel-Aviv Europa League match that's still ongoing.

Late in the game, PSV losing 3-2, awards a penalty to PSV, completely surrounded by the entire Tel-Aviv team, talks to the 5th official behind the net, and then unawards the penalty! Surrounded by entire PSV team, yellow cards one of them.

Has totally lost control. Doesn't know what he's doing.

 

[cleavers]

Atwell...............Doesn't know what he's doing.

This would have done, how he is representing England at this level is beyond me.

 

[remoh]

Still dont understand why people are discussing this.

Stuart Steven Attwell (born 6 October 1982) is an English professional football referee from Nuneaton, Warwickshire. Attwell graduated from Staffordshire University in 2004. Refereeing had been a life-long ambition for him, according to his father. Attwell worked his way up from local games to non-League football, then to the West Midlands League and the Football League.

Hmmm i wonder which club people from Warwickshire, West Midlands support.

Does it say if he likes a bet?