The B*****

Not a badly written article, but the rant against ref’s falls completely flat on 2 points:
1) The 2 “debatable” red cards against United when Latics went down to 9 men were nailed on – Rodallega flung himself into a challenge 2 footed & deserved to go. Alcaraz got 2 yellows, now I can’t remember the first one if I’m honest but he deserevd the 2nd & it was a stupid, reckless & needless challenge (that said it always looked to me like Fletcher was already on his way down as soon as he saw the challenge coming in & before Alcaraz clattered him)
2) The Heskey goal against Chelsea – it doesn’t matter if a player is off the field of play when deciding offside. A forward would still be judged offside if he was stood off the pitch by the goal waiting for a punt forward & a defender is judged to be playing someone onside if they step off the pitch otherwise the defence would just back off the pitch every time the opposition went forward. I’m sure I can remember a big world cup/euros tournament where this happened & there was uproar but the reffing team got it spot on

Sometimes they get it wrong but mostly they get it right – the people who mostly get it wrong are those who don’t know the laws of the game!! ;)

Me? Touchy? Never!!

To be fair, I was only able to tell that Fletcher was on his way down on the slow motion replay & even then, he was still then caught by Alcaraz & would have been if he’d stayed on his feet. Fletcher’s offence may have come first but as an official you’d have to have some sort of super human vision to pick that up at real time & with everything else going on around you. Also technically you could still class Alcaraz’s challenge as reckless & the challenge came in before Fletcher started to go down – there doesn’t have to be contact, the ref could argue that the making of the challenge in that situation was reckless etc.. & therefore worthy of a 2nd yellow so he got it right

If a player is off the pitch receiving treatment then he has permission from the ref to do so & is no longer considered to be on the field of play & therefore couldn’t be playing anyone onside/offside. Its completely different than someone who deliberately steps off the field of play to try & catch someone offside (technically a caution) or someone whose momentum carries them off the field of play. It doesn’t happen often you’re right but when you talk about consistancy I genuinely can’t recall an official giving someone as offside when a defender was off the pitch

I should point out that I do think some of your other criticisms of decisions were spot on – can’t remember em all but the Valencia sending off at Liverpool was ridiculous. The 2nd was a yellow (not a red as Benitez said it shoudl have been) but the first was an absolute farce. I remember a Liverpool fan I spoke to after that game saying the caution was for the earlier encroachment but you can’t give out a rollicking for trying to close down to early, let the free kick be taken, the defender to close it down after the ball has been touched & then caution them for the thing you just had a word with them about earlier. The ref cautioned Valencia coz Gerrard whinged & the ref assumed he must have moved before it was taken.
I also remember that ref when Latics were 2-1 up & the 2-2 making a point of telling going up to every Latics player being substituted & making a point of telling them to hurry up. When Latics were 3-2 down & Liverpool a Liverpool player was ambling off he was stood 30 yards away saying & doing nowt
Can’t remember who it was but I wasn’t particularly happy with him that day