Officials’ Gift Tracker, 2015-2016

I have to look at a replay of the Leicester shout. If it was just mutual shirt pulling it’s not a pen, but one commentator claimed that after they’d gotten themselves tangled up, Vertonghen took out one of his legs with his own. I don’t have a clear opinion whether that’s a pen or not.

Power, are you talking about when the defender put his arms out like a zombie around Bentecke? That one is one that definitely should be called, and by the rules is a pen, but isn’t usually called, IMO. If I start trying to track those, I’m afraid there will be too many to keep track of, though I hate the "isn’t usually given" argument against what are clearly penalties by the rules.

 

Yes that's the one and I think your logic works.
The offside goal is probably not clear cut either. The freeze frame shows them pretty much level but HD pictures are only 50 hz I think so if the frame after was the right one then he'd be 6 inches offside

 

I was thinking about that. They look dead even on the frame, but he’s either on or offside by inches and I don’t know which one it is. As you say, if there was a combined motion of 15 mph towards each other, there would be five or six inches change per frame @ 50 fps. The ref made the call wrongly because it was too close for him to do anything other than guess, but he still may have guessed right.

If we were looking straight down the line, Ramsey would be slightly offsides. Considering it looks like the ball is still on Cazorla’s foot, below, the critical moment is as you say in between this frame and the next one, and you’d have to say the linesman got it right, even if only by luck.

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The Rooney offside call was definitely correct. They had a really good shot of it and his knee was beyond the last man by a fair bit.
Tough call but a good one.

 

It would be a brave man to bet against Pool being top of the `points gained through official`s gift`s table` come May, the majority of referees will always give them the benefit of doubt with the 50/50 calls, hence why we see most close decisions going in Pool`s favour. That does not explain the amount of glaringly outrageous and bad decisions that are not even close Pool benefit from and enjoy though, maybe Referees just like them more than everybody else.

 

It’s almost as if the officials are quite good when they want to be.

So I guess the only gift this week was a pen that wasn’t against Vertonghen. I still want to look at video of that. I’d also like to know if there is a precedent. Two players foul each other. One player commits a third foul. Is it a pen?

 

I was going to link to the MOTD highlights on here, but I'll stick it on the match thread.
http://www.not606.com/threads/tottenham-hotspur-v-leicester-city.308673/page-12#post-8294555
The incident happens at about the 2 minute mark.

I think Mahrez makes the first pull, but it's very, very tight.
As they both continue to foul each other, I'm not sure if they can do something that's more of a foul and get called for it, but I guess that should happen.
Strange that it's not a more common occurrence, really.

 

The simple rule would be that whoever commits the first foul commits the foul. But even after repeated viewings I can’t tell who grabs first.

 

Probably Vertognen, he's a dirty player who uses non footballing means to get the ball at times. We would point it out about any other player in another team so why not our own?

I can't stand this guy's demeanour.

 

The Laws actually cover the point. They say under the heading "More than one offence occurring at the same time"

Offences committed by players from different teams: – the referee must stop play and restart it with a dropped ball from the position of the ball at the time of the stoppage, unless play was stopped inside the goal area, in which case the referee drops the ball on the goal area line parallel to the goal line at the point nearest to where the ball was located when play was stopped.

So the Ref must have thought neither shirt pull was a foul or didn't want to be a pedant.

 

Has this ever happened?

 

Man U’s first goal against Southampton in week 6 was clearly offsides, so the officials gave them two points this week. Costa should have been sent off for a slap to Gabriel’s face. Gabriel also deserved a red for trying to slap Costa. I suppose you could argue that prompt action against Costa would have kept Gabriel in the game. But I think 10 vs. 10 would have resulted in the same thing as 10 Chelsea vs. 11 Arsenal: 0-0. So I think Mike Dean gifted Chelsea two points in a remarkably spineless performance.

 

The Chelsea v Arsenal game is quite hard to call for this thread.
Lots of decisions to question, including a fairly early penalty for the hosts.

Costa's performance was up there with Sadio Mane's against us last season in the How The Hell Is He Still On The Pitch? stakes.

 

Did you think Chelsea were unfairly denied a penalty? I didn’t see it.

 

Gabriel on Hazard.
Supposedly shielding the ball, despite being yards away from it.

 

I’ll have to look at footage of it. It’s not usually given except when Hazard dives.

I’ll bet Hazard dived.

I’m trying to think of the last pen I saw for interference. Actually it was quite recent. A defender (Gladbach?) was called for a pen for failing to turn into a gas when a Bayern player ran into him. The Bayern player knocked it past him and ran straight into him, without the defender moving an inch.

 

Failing to turn into a gas is a red card every time. Used to be called obstruction and was an indirect free kick iirc.

 

Another gift in the Chavs/Goons game: Cazorla's first yellow shouldn't have been given, as Pedro was already taking a tumble before Cazorla was within a foot of him.

 

Somehow it should be clear in the laws that if you are not moving you can't commit a foul. But you often see people trip over a planted leg and get a free-kick or a penalty. Trippier's one on Thursday was close to that

 

It was certainly close. Trippier’s defending looked awful, no doubt. Sprinting in out of control.

There are certainly oddities. If you as an attacker can run between two defenders with the ball in the box and fall down it’s generally a penalty, regardless of whether you tripped over a planted leg. We lost the opener to Newcastle three years ago due to that one. Lennon and maybe Walker were standing a stride apart. The Newcastle player knocked the ball between them and tripped over what looked to be Lennon’s planted leg. Nobody complained, perhaps because he’d certainly made Lennon and Walker look bad.

Pending further review, I’m still inclined to say Costa and Chelsea had their way with Mike Dean, and wouldn’t have won otherwise.