I can think of 2 Chelsea-Man Utd games from years gone by which could be used in any defence against the claim that Martin Atkinson is biased against Chelsea. You could do the same for any referee with any club.
I dunno about biased, but Atkinson was pretty shite from what I've seen on MOTD. Barnes should certainly have been sent off, although I do wonder if he might get a ban retroactively since he wasn't booked. Ivanovic should really have been booked for his reaction to the challenge on him earlier in the game too, so Chelsea were probably lucky not to be down to 9 men.
Shite today yes, as pretty conclusively shown on MOTD with incidents at the approximate minutes Mourinho specified and undoubtably Chelsea had the very thin end of the wedge.
But hardly any rational person would think biased, let alone some of the OTT stuff on here.
The most worrying thing for me about this thread is that it gives us all a glimpse of what we'll have to put up with from Chelsea fans all summer if they don't win the title.
Nothing about Man City coming through to take it, nothing about their side faltering and losing it, just the rhetoric that they were cheated out of it by referees colluding to act against them.
And it's that constant "poor us" attitude which causes other fans to regard Chelsea fans' complaints - some of which are perfectly legitimate - as the whinging that has been referred to earlier in this thread.
Look, no fan likes it when a referee makes a mistake and an obvious decision for their side goes against them.
As was also mentioned earlier, the widely held notion of decisions evening themselves out has not necessarily been proven and may be a fallacy.
However, I for one think that football is subject to moments of karma where clubs and players essentially reap what they sow.
And, contrary to what the Chelsea fans who have posted in this thread would have you believe, their club is not as pure as the driven snow.
Far from it, in fact, if you cast your minds back to various instances of diving and gamesmanship displayed by their players in other games this season and various instances of dubious and controversial conduct shown by their manager.
It's this, combined with the constant blather being shoved down everybody's throats that Chelsea are a innocent little club being persecuted by referees and the FA - as illustrated by a thread like this - which makes me think their supporters don't have a leg to stand on, frankly.
At the end of the day, if Chelsea fans think there is an agenda against their team, then they can rest assured in the knowledge that their team will be doing all they can to subvert that by winning the title.
If that doesn't happen, then all that'll be proven is there was one team better than Chelsea in the 2014/15 Premier League season.
This is just the sort of post I was expecting, and why it is a total waste of time trying to discuss the deterioration in refereeing we appear to be experiencing.
A typical tribal reaction, forget looking at any ways of making the game better, just rub your hands together with glee because it's a rival team who are on the receiving end of some dreadful decisions...this time.
I didn't suggest legal action, some of my colleagues are going over the top there in my opinion. I also don't believe it was bias, despite the thread title. I do think it was dreadful incompetence, and we're seeing it more and more often.
When does not giving one team anything, and the other team everything change from poor to bias?
How many incorrect decisions in one game does it need?
Didn't Abidal get sent off for Barcelona in that game? I seem to remember Anelka going to ground very easily to get him sent off.
Oh, and we've all been the victims of incompetent officials on many occasions recently. Chelsea aren't as special as they think. Last season we had City fans crying about us getting penalties while they got offside decision after offside decision in their favour.
It isn't bias, it's generally just incompetence or weak officiating..
All refs have the odd bad game, they're only human, but they're are a handful that are just not very good.
Even if they get suspended for being rubbish in the Premier League they just get dropped into the Football League and are allowed to carry on inflicting their incompetence on other teams.
Last weekend we had Andy D'urso officiating our League One game. He made a lot of bad decisions for both sides but the ones against us included missing the opposition striker fouling out defender when he was heading in their goal and waving away a blatant pull back on our striker when about to shoot inside the box. We lost 1-0 but those 2 decisions could have easily had us winning or at least drawing. He was another one of these refs that tries to "let the game flow" by just ignoring fouls early on and then getting all surprised as the game gets dirtier late on because the earlier foulers have just carried on as they weren't cracked down on.
D'urso was the ref that was chased down by Man U players trying to influence his decisions. He also got suspended from the Premier League after showing a yellow to a player twice... but not sending him off. Last season he caused controversy by giving a penalty in the Exeter vs Morecambe game by awarding a penalty then when a meter ensued between the teams changing his mind after consultation with his linesman and booking the striker for diving.
The most worrying thing for me about this thread is that it gives us all a glimpse of what we'll have to put up with from Chelsea fans all summer if they don't win the title.
Nothing about Man City coming through to take it, nothing about their side faltering and losing it, just the rhetoric that they were cheated out of it by referees colluding to act against them.
It's absolutely relevant to a thread where people have suggested that referees are making decisions against Chelsea out of bias - which would only exist if it was to act against them winning the title and, if it did, it would in all likelihood let Man City through to take it.
But hey, don't let that stop you posting more things which can be disproven instantly.
One thing I do tend to observe is that our referees seem more lax in domestic cup games. If it's a lower league side against a Premier League side, the lower league side can often get away with employing a very rough style of play. Of course, that's often what they have to do to unsettle the big boys and level the playing field, but referees seem to let a lot more go in those games.
This is just the sort of post I was expecting, and why it is a total waste of time trying to discuss the deterioration in refereeing we appear to be experiencing.
A typical tribal reaction, forget looking at any ways of making the game better, just rub your hands together with glee because it's a rival team who are on the receiving end of some dreadful decisions...this time.
I didn't suggest legal action, some of my colleagues are going over the top there in my opinion. I also don't believe it was bias, despite the thread title. I do think it was dreadful incompetence, and we're seeing it more and more often.
It's difficult to believe some referees don't come into a game with some kind of agenda, but I suppose we have to accept it was just blatant incompetence.
At the very least it sounds like you're only accepting that begrudgingly and at the very worst it sounds like you're not accepting that at all.
The fact of the matter is that your club's manager has alluded to the fact that he believes that there's some kind of agenda against the club and you expect me to believe that that hasn't filtered down to the bulk of Chelsea's fans?
I agree with you that refereeing standards need to be looked at as a whole but that discussion can't start until some people firstly recognise that it's not driven by malice towards the club they support - and stop being so precious about any kind of criticism of their club that they can't consider the issue in a level-headed manner in the first place.
Having now seen the incidents in question yes CFC were hard done by today - probably on all the 4 incidents highlighted by Jose but I totally reject the idea that Atkinson was biased against them. He just had a poor game - the handball I think a player unsighted him a bit and it could only be seen how bad the Barnes tackle was from certain angles. The push on Costa was probably the worst decision as I can see no reason why it was denied. The first half jump by Barnes on Ivanovic was a yellow but again only easily visible from some angles - and I did not like the way Ivanovic rolled and then jumped up so quickly.
That highlights one of the issues which makes the job of being a ref hard - the way players are continually trying to con referees - and I should know cos as many of you will know I am one. My game today was a competitive 0-0 and it went well - hand shakes from at least 6 of each team at the end but even so I am sure I got some decisions wrong. What you hope for - as I often say at the toss - is that at the end of the game nothing we do effects the result and that you do not go away talking too much about what the ref did and the best team ends up winning. I was lucky today that the corner which I probably got wrong was not headed in or the attack which was probably offside which I got wrong did not result in a goal and so people forget them and were pretty happy with me. That's how close the margins can be. The thing is that a ref can make many great decisions in a game (as I did today ) and if he makes a mistake which effects the result then it is that and that alone sadly which is remembered. Also as Jim has rightly said the game is so much faster these days that reffing has never been harder - it has been good to read the posts in this thread which seem to recognise this, sadly some do not seem that sympathetic - I would suggest they have a try at it and then maybe their attitude would change.
Players look for any opportunity to get a decision.
The referees are human. There's no bias, and the 'incompetence' that you cite is inevitable. It's an impossible job, frankly.
There's no decline. We're just in a position to see everything slowed down by a hundred times, and from a hundred different angles, now.
I've always respected your opinions Jim, and I accept your knowledge of refereeing is far greater than mine. I actually agree with all the points you make, particularly when you say the pace etc of the modern game, together with the scrutiny from dozens of cameras, makes an apparent decline (even if it's not a "real" one) inevitable.
But doesn't that mean the game should embrace modern technology even more to help referees ? The very technology that exposes their apparent incompetence within a few seconds of any event should be used to help them.
I'm struggling to think of any other sport that doesn't use technology to aid their officials, what makes football so different ? The fact that it wasn't until 2014 that they finally started using simple goal line technology to show if the ball had crossed the line tells us a lot about those who run the game. But next big "advance" was to have the ref spraying the ground to deter players in the wall advancing or moving the ball at free kicks..you couldn't make it up.
It's absolutely relevant to a thread where people have suggested that referees are making decisions against Chelsea out of bias - which would only exist if it was to act against them winning the title and, if it did, it would in all likelihood let Man City through to take it.
But hey, don't let that stop you posting more things which can be disproven instantly.
It's not relevant as it's not happened. City could win it by 10 points, who knows.
But hey, carry on young man.
At the very least it sounds like you're only accepting that begrudgingly and at the very worst it sounds like you're not accepting that at all.
Agreed. But I was just trying to emphasise how incredibly blatant some of the decisions today appeared to be, with the referee apparently well sighted and close to the play. Common sense tells me that referees are extremely unlikely to be biased, though they are human (as everyone is eager to point out) and a couple probably don't like us very much. But that would be the same for every team.
Having now seen the incidents in question yes CFC were hard done by today - probably on all the 4 incidents highlighted by Jose but I totally reject the idea that Atkinson was biased against them. He just had a poor game - the handball I think a player unsighted him a bit and it could only be seen how bad the Barnes tackle was from certain angles. The push on Costa was probably the worst decision as I can see no reason why it was denied. The first half jump by Barnes on Ivanovic was a yellow but again only easily visible from some angles - and I did not like the way Ivanovic rolled and then jumped up so quickly.
That highlights one of the issues which makes the job of being a ref hard - the way players are continually trying to con referees - and I should know cos as many of you will know I am one. My game today was a competitive 0-0 and it went well - hand shakes from at least 6 of each team at the end but even so I am sure I got some decisions wrong. What you hope for - as I often say at the toss - is that at the end of the game nothing we do effects the result and that you do not go away talking too much about what the ref did and the best team ends up winning. I was lucky today that the corner which I probably got wrong was not headed in or the attack which was probably offside which I got wrong did not result in a goal and so people forget them and were pretty happy with me. That's how close the margins can be. The thing is that a ref can make many great decisions in a game (as I did today ) and if he makes a mistake which effects the result then it is that and that alone sadly which is remembered. Also as Jim has rightly said the game is so much faster these days that reffing has never been harder - it has been good to read the posts in this thread which seem to recognise this, sadly some do not seem that sympathetic - I would suggest they have a try at it and then maybe their attitude would change.
Refs aren't biased, they just have bad days.
I guess today disproved the theory that the top teams always get the decisions.
Agreed. But I was just trying to emphasise how incredibly blatant some of the decisions today appeared to be, with the referee apparently well sighted and close to the play.
Indeed, and the fact that Martin Atkinson did get so many seemingly obvious decisions wrong could just be interpreted as him having a really bad day at the office - but the fact that they were all against Chelsea lends itself to other accusations.
With the Costa push specifically, though, there's the other consideration of whether Atkinson was more disinclined to give a penalty for the foul on him than he would've been for the same foul on another player because he's been unwittingly influenced by Costa's reputation for going down too easily - and I suppose there's a bit more to that suggestion of semi-bias than blatant accusations of referees blatantly disfavouring particular teams.
...a couple probably don't like us very much.
Now this is the bit I'm really interested in.
What has it been about particular referees which has given you cause to think this?
In theory could a club veto a referee, say by letting the Premier League know if a certain referee was selected he would not be allowed into the ground? I know it would probably be against the rules but could it be done informally?
In theory could a club veto a referee, say by letting the Premier League know if a certain referee was selected he would not be allowed into the ground? I know it would probably be against the rules but could it be done informally?
Not letting a referee into a ground, ha ha.
I am sure they could be informally told of the the possible sanctions like say points deductions that would ensue from such an action.
[QUOTE=Jason C What has it been about particular referees which has given you cause to think this?[/QUOTE]
I just think it would be human and perfectly normal to dislike a few of the clubs you have to officiate. Some players and managers must get under their skin. I'm not saying it would be a permanent prejudice or effect their judgement. I'm pretty sure Graham Poll admitted as much with regards to Chelsea after he retired. Mark Clattenburg is another who appeared to make it almost "personal" in a certain game against United.
It does sound like I'm whinging now, and I was trying not to do that. I'm just trying to say that referees would have to be super-human not to let personal feelings come in to it sometimes.
Take legal action against referres who make poor decisions?
What have you been smoking?
Should players that miss an open goal or slip in a crucial position letting in the opposing forward to score, face legal action???!!
Referee was poor yesterday (although he did get onemajor decision right when denying Burnley a penalty - see you haven;t mentioned that Chelsea fans).
Ashley Barnes challenge was one of the worst you will ever see. Should get a retrospective ban for it. But Ramires committed a similarly premditated challenge last season and didn't even get booked for it either. Have you forgotten that, Chelsea fans?
If Man City are seen to be having less bad decisions go against them than Chelsea in theese last few weeks of the season, then maybe Mourinho should be looking at himself to find the reasons for this. His pitiful reactions when decisions go against his team on a consistent basis mean it is les slikely that his team will get the benefit of the doubt. Referees (even if only subconsciously) are going o assume the worst from his team because of his pathetic attitude.
Chelseas should have beaten Burnley yesterday on relative abilities of the players. Why didn;t they? It wasn not solely down to the refeer at all.
Take legal action against referres who make poor decisions?
What have you been smoking?
Should players that miss an open goal or slip in a crucial position letting in the opposing forward to score, face legal action???!!
Referee was poor yesterday (although he did get onemajor decision right when denying Burnley a penalty - see you haven;t mentioned that Chelsea fans).
Ashley Barnes challenge was one of the worst you will ever see. Should get a retrospective ban for it. But Ramires committed a similarly premditated challenge last season and didn't even get booked for it either. Have you forgotten that, Chelsea fans?
If Man City are seen to be having less bad decisions go against them than Chelsea in theese last few weeks of the season, then maybe Mourinho should be looking at himself to find the reasons for this. His pitiful reactions when decisions go against his team on a consistent basis mean it is les slikely that his team will get the benefit of the doubt. Referees (even if only subconsciously) are going o assume the worst from his team because of his pathetic attitude.
Chelseas should have beaten Burnley yesterday on relative abilities of the players. Why didn;t they? It wasn not solely down to the refeer at all.
You often reap what you sow.
Mourinho would be wise to focus on that, rather than being a smart-arse and pointing out the four minutes in the match that mattered, repeatedly and then saying that he doesn;t like to criticise referees.
The man is unbearable and it sometimes seems to rub off onto the Chelsea fans.
You often reap what you sow.
Mourinho would be wise to focus on that, rather than being a smart-arse and pointing out the four minutes in the match that mattered, repeatedly and then saying that he doesn;t like to criticise referees.
The man is unbearable and it sometimes seems to rub off onto the Chelsea fans.
Comments
I guess it's far easier to dismiss somebody's view as a 'rant' rather than actually try and address the individual points they've made.
Oh, and if I've supposedly made so many of these 'rants', you won't have any problem providing proof of them, will you?
Shite today yes, as pretty conclusively shown on MOTD with incidents at the approximate minutes Mourinho specified and undoubtably Chelsea had the very thin end of the wedge.
But hardly any rational person would think biased, let alone some of the OTT stuff on here.
You were going on about when City win the league. It's hardly relevant to discussing referees is it.
This is just the sort of post I was expecting, and why it is a total waste of time trying to discuss the deterioration in refereeing we appear to be experiencing.
A typical tribal reaction, forget looking at any ways of making the game better, just rub your hands together with glee because it's a rival team who are on the receiving end of some dreadful decisions...this time.
I didn't suggest legal action, some of my colleagues are going over the top there in my opinion. I also don't believe it was bias, despite the thread title. I do think it was dreadful incompetence, and we're seeing it more and more often.
Didn't Abidal get sent off for Barcelona in that game? I seem to remember Anelka going to ground very easily to get him sent off.
Oh, and we've all been the victims of incompetent officials on many occasions recently. Chelsea aren't as special as they think. Last season we had City fans crying about us getting penalties while they got offside decision after offside decision in their favour.
All refs have the odd bad game, they're only human, but they're are a handful that are just not very good.
Even if they get suspended for being rubbish in the Premier League they just get dropped into the Football League and are allowed to carry on inflicting their incompetence on other teams.
Last weekend we had Andy D'urso officiating our League One game. He made a lot of bad decisions for both sides but the ones against us included missing the opposition striker fouling out defender when he was heading in their goal and waving away a blatant pull back on our striker when about to shoot inside the box. We lost 1-0 but those 2 decisions could have easily had us winning or at least drawing. He was another one of these refs that tries to "let the game flow" by just ignoring fouls early on and then getting all surprised as the game gets dirtier late on because the earlier foulers have just carried on as they weren't cracked down on.
D'urso was the ref that was chased down by Man U players trying to influence his decisions. He also got suspended from the Premier League after showing a yellow to a player twice... but not sending him off. Last season he caused controversy by giving a penalty in the Exeter vs Morecambe game by awarding a penalty then when a meter ensued between the teams changing his mind after consultation with his linesman and booking the striker for diving.
Let's have a look, shall we?
It's absolutely relevant to a thread where people have suggested that referees are making decisions against Chelsea out of bias - which would only exist if it was to act against them winning the title and, if it did, it would in all likelihood let Man City through to take it.
But hey, don't let that stop you posting more things which can be disproven instantly.
This coming from someone who said earlier:
At the very least it sounds like you're only accepting that begrudgingly and at the very worst it sounds like you're not accepting that at all.
The fact of the matter is that your club's manager has alluded to the fact that he believes that there's some kind of agenda against the club and you expect me to believe that that hasn't filtered down to the bulk of Chelsea's fans?
I agree with you that refereeing standards need to be looked at as a whole but that discussion can't start until some people firstly recognise that it's not driven by malice towards the club they support - and stop being so precious about any kind of criticism of their club that they can't consider the issue in a level-headed manner in the first place.
That highlights one of the issues which makes the job of being a ref hard - the way players are continually trying to con referees - and I should know cos as many of you will know I am one. My game today was a competitive 0-0 and it went well - hand shakes from at least 6 of each team at the end but even so I am sure I got some decisions wrong. What you hope for - as I often say at the toss - is that at the end of the game nothing we do effects the result and that you do not go away talking too much about what the ref did and the best team ends up winning. I was lucky today that the corner which I probably got wrong was not headed in or the attack which was probably offside which I got wrong did not result in a goal and so people forget them and were pretty happy with me. That's how close the margins can be. The thing is that a ref can make many great decisions in a game (as I did today
Small steps James.;-)
I've always respected your opinions Jim, and I accept your knowledge of refereeing is far greater than mine. I actually agree with all the points you make, particularly when you say the pace etc of the modern game, together with the scrutiny from dozens of cameras, makes an apparent decline (even if it's not a "real" one) inevitable.
But doesn't that mean the game should embrace modern technology even more to help referees ? The very technology that exposes their apparent incompetence within a few seconds of any event should be used to help them.
I'm struggling to think of any other sport that doesn't use technology to aid their officials, what makes football so different ? The fact that it wasn't until 2014 that they finally started using simple goal line technology to show if the ball had crossed the line tells us a lot about those who run the game. But next big "advance" was to have the ref spraying the ground to deter players in the wall advancing or moving the ball at free kicks..you couldn't make it up.
It's not relevant as it's not happened. City could win it by 10 points, who knows.
But hey, carry on young man.
Agreed. But I was just trying to emphasise how incredibly blatant some of the decisions today appeared to be, with the referee apparently well sighted and close to the play. Common sense tells me that referees are extremely unlikely to be biased, though they are human (as everyone is eager to point out) and a couple probably don't like us very much. But that would be the same for every team.
Refs aren't biased, they just have bad days.
I guess today disproved the theory that the top teams always get the decisions.
Indeed, and the fact that Martin Atkinson did get so many seemingly obvious decisions wrong could just be interpreted as him having a really bad day at the office - but the fact that they were all against Chelsea lends itself to other accusations.
With the Costa push specifically, though, there's the other consideration of whether Atkinson was more disinclined to give a penalty for the foul on him than he would've been for the same foul on another player because he's been unwittingly influenced by Costa's reputation for going down too easily - and I suppose there's a bit more to that suggestion of semi-bias than blatant accusations of referees blatantly disfavouring particular teams.
Now this is the bit I'm really interested in.
What has it been about particular referees which has given you cause to think this?
Not letting a referee into a ground, ha ha.
I am sure they could be informally told of the the possible sanctions like say points deductions that would ensue from such an action.
I just think it would be human and perfectly normal to dislike a few of the clubs you have to officiate. Some players and managers must get under their skin. I'm not saying it would be a permanent prejudice or effect their judgement. I'm pretty sure Graham Poll admitted as much with regards to Chelsea after he retired. Mark Clattenburg is another who appeared to make it almost "personal" in a certain game against United.
It does sound like I'm whinging now, and I was trying not to do that. I'm just trying to say that referees would have to be super-human not to let personal feelings come in to it sometimes.
How do you know? It's not like referees have never been caught taking backhanders is it?
Of course I'm not suggesting that happened here.
Take legal action against referres who make poor decisions?
What have you been smoking?
Should players that miss an open goal or slip in a crucial position letting in the opposing forward to score, face legal action???!!
Referee was poor yesterday (although he did get onemajor decision right when denying Burnley a penalty - see you haven;t mentioned that Chelsea fans).
Ashley Barnes challenge was one of the worst you will ever see. Should get a retrospective ban for it. But Ramires committed a similarly premditated challenge last season and didn't even get booked for it either. Have you forgotten that, Chelsea fans?
If Man City are seen to be having less bad decisions go against them than Chelsea in theese last few weeks of the season, then maybe Mourinho should be looking at himself to find the reasons for this. His pitiful reactions when decisions go against his team on a consistent basis mean it is les slikely that his team will get the benefit of the doubt. Referees (even if only subconsciously) are going o assume the worst from his team because of his pathetic attitude.
Chelseas should have beaten Burnley yesterday on relative abilities of the players. Why didn;t they? It wasn not solely down to the refeer at all.
And here we go again.....
You often reap what you sow.
Mourinho would be wise to focus on that, rather than being a smart-arse and pointing out the four minutes in the match that mattered, repeatedly and then saying that he doesn;t like to criticise referees.
The man is unbearable and it sometimes seems to rub off onto the Chelsea fans.
Must of rubbed off on you as well then.