Officials’ Gift Tracker, 2015-2016

Don't forget in our previous match against Sunderland, Walker was blocked off / ran into the defender in similar circumstances. No pen. Again, it could be obstruction but that doesn't seem to be a valid shout in the box anymore. Most importantly though, the problem is that the decision is random. Different refs on different days will give different decisions based on the same incident. And... I say again... when something is that subjective, certain teams will be favoured.

 

You are certainly right about that.
One of the odd things about the Costa incident in Chelsea v Arsenal is that Mike Dean's report allegedly says he got the yellow card for the chest bump that pushed Koscielny to the ground. The problem with that is that it isn't a yellow card offence - it's either violent conduct which is a Red Card or nothing at all. The only yellow card offence that he could have committed with the ball out of play is "acts in a manner which shows a lack of respect for the game". I reckon that Costa should get a caution for that about every five minutes. Its also a yellow card offence to "verbally distract an opponent during play or at a restart" which Costa also did after the first yellow card.

The laws on obstruction are as clear as mud:
"Impeding the progress of an opponent means moving into the path of the opponent to obstruct, block, slow down or force a change of direction by an opponent when the ball is not within playing distance of either player.
All players have a right to their position on the field of play, being in the way of an opponent is not the same as moving into the way of an opponent.
Shielding the ball is permitted. A player who places himself between an opponent and the ball for tactical reasons has not committed an offence as long as the ball is kept within playing distance and the player does not hold off the opponent with his arms or body. If the ball is within playing distance, the player may be fairly charged by an opponent."

How is it possible to shield the ball while not holding off the opponent with the body?

 

I think you might have missed one in this game, RWAEB. Understandable, as it was largely glossed over to talk up Man Utd.
Southampton should've had a penalty when the score was 1-0. Rojo fouled Ward-Prowse in the box.
The difference between it being 1-1 and 2-0 to the home team is enormous, for me.

It was also annoying, if not particularly relevant to the result, to see Mane pull off another outrageous dive and get away with it.
Clattenburg knew exactly what had happened, yet chose not to punish him. Pathetic.

 

Thanks for pointing that out. So I guess I’ll say the officials gifted all three to Man U and took three away from Southampton, unless there’s something else I missed. That would be in line with the earlier three point gift to Liverpool, though that one there were more than two crucial calls that were wrongly given Liverpool’s way. I’ll try and find the two debatable decisions on replay.

They’re just saying that telekinesis is permitted.

So the pressing need here may not be so much for a profound understanding of football as competent copy editing.

 

A simple question needs to be asked: how is a manager calling out a referee for their obvious incompetence "bringing the game into disrepute" yet a referee being so inept at their job they directly cost a team the game somehow isn't?

 

Glad to see that Costa has been shafted, no thanks to the referee though.

 

No gift for us, but a bad day for the men in black. Or yellow or whatever.
Three offside goals, Demichelis staying on for no apparent reason and a host of inconsistent bookings and non-bookings.
In a game with little niggle and no players trying to have sneaky digs at each other off the ball, this lot were terrible.
The sad thing is that we all expect it from Clattenburg and his sidekicks.

"Correct" score? 2-0, maybe?

 

On paper, yes 2-0. Tough to call with the timing of the Dier goal that pretty much turned the game, but reading into it that much is like using a crystal ball. 2-0 was my correct score, Toby and Lamela being the only legit goals in the goalfest

 

I guess the rule is that any goals scored after a wrong call until possession changes should be considered offcials’ gifts. Ten seconds or so went by between Walker’s offsides and Dier’s goal, and the goal had nothing to do (on the face of it) with Walker being offside. I started wondering, what if it were a minute? Would Dier’s goal still be an officials’ gift? Did the failure to flag Walker for offside ruin the game’s juju, making it a no contest?

Then I realized the first sentence probably makes more sense than any other option. It’s interesting that the only two legit goals were Lamela’s free kick and Lamela’s goal.

 

Ivanovic has a bulging fistful of shirt and yanks Van Dyke down in the box as a corner comes in. A gift in the making unless Chelsea win by two or more, or Southampton win.

I’ve certainly never seen the officials go all hands to the pump when a Sky Five season is in peril. And you never expect to see officials bending over for Mourinho at Stamford Bridge.

And an even more blatant Chelsea pen is ignored. It must be said it was on Marné, who surely is the little boy who cried pen. And Marné promptly gets a yellow he doesn’t deserve for a clear foul just outside the box a few seconds later.

You do start to wonder what the point is of playing games at Stamford Bridge. Award Chelsea the points and move on.

And Southampton score after a half they’ve dominated. The officials could gift Chelsea four or five today. Two in the first half was barely enough to keep it level.

 

I would say Southampton get one back, but this is very difficult. Costa sees the keeper coming, taps it out of bounds and drags his foot. But the keeper clatters him without touching the ball. It’s usually called, I think. The surest thing is is that Maddingly has it wrong again, because it’s either a pen or a yellow for diving. Stecklenberg was miles away from getting the ball.

 

That was Falcao. I thought pen at first look.

 

The ref gave the yellow for diving and got it right I think

 

City definitely got a very generous call from the linesman, which prevented them from going 2-0 down.
Mitrovic was about 3 yards onside and it would be easy to argue that this might have swung the game in the home team's favour.
Their mentality's clearly been very fragile recently and the crowd would've been right on their backs.

Ok, they came back to win comfortably and could've got more in the second half, but the same was true when we beat them.
That didn't stop the focus on Walker being offside, despite De Bruyne's opener failing to attract the linesman's attention.
Why is one offside call being wrong by a mile very costly, but the other not?

I think that most of the other fixtures probably just about evened themselves out, despite some mistakes.
Stoke scored a perfectly good goal, but Villa should've had a penalty, for example.
Sunderland fans were quite aggrieved that Noble wasn't sent off, but the incident was edited from the highlights, so I've no idea if they're right.

 

The simplest way to track gifts that I could think of is to assume that in the event of incorrect decisions, the eventual outcome would stay the same, except for certain changes:

1. Goals incorrectly allowed or disallowed get chalked off or added on.
2. If a player should be sent off, but wasn't, any goals scored by his team get chalked off.
3. If a player was sent off, but shouldn't have been, any goals scored by the other team get chalked off.

These are very arbitrary assumptions which would turn out to be untrue in many cases. But they seem about as fair as any other, and at least will be relatively easy to remember and apply consistently.

You're suggesting a new one, which is that if a goal is wrongly disallowed which would have given a team a two goal lead, we should assume the team with the lead would go on to win. I'm not sure how I feel about it. Does anyone else have any opinion?

I might add that what I'm really aiming for is a way of keeping a tally of who the officials are favoring, to what degree, and how much it might affect the final table.

 

I'm not saying that they would have and I think that your method's the most sensible one for this thread, but they might have.
The suggestion from various sources was that our equaliser turned the game, but is that any more influential than opening up a two goal gap?
Given the way that Newcastle's defence went to sleep, possibly not, but would that have happened at 2-0?

Impossible to know, obviously, but I'm not sure why one was a big talking point, while the other was completely glossed over.
Possibly something to do with expected results. City were virtual certainties to beat Newcastle. We weren't expect to win.

 

The other thing I thought was strange was that possession had already changed after the missed offsides on Walker. De Bruyne was not making a desperate clearance, as I remember. He had any number of options other than knocking the ball on the ground to Dier. So how long after that missed offsides should City not be responsible for its mistakes? Commentators were quick to argue that the two missed offsides calls were not the same because one was more extreme. But you could argue that ours was ancient history by the time Dier scored, and theirs was the immediate cause of the City goal. People so seem to be much more outraged by missed calls when the favorite suffers.

 

I can remember Big Mike England going missing sometimes.I think Mike only enjoyed playing the "big" teams....and this cost us points.Perhaps Verts mind is somewhere else also.........?

 

My son was watching an old Match of the Day just now, and the Everton Chelsea game was on. In it at 2-1 Everton, our favourite defender JT does a clear back pass but it isn't punished. This has been forgotten as Everton won anyway, but surely is an example of a quite important decision not being given, and an example of one of the more "subtle" decisions in favour of the big teams which can potentially turn a game almost as surely as a dodgy penalty etc. For example when a team gets an early yellow against ManU at Old T, which leaves the player less effective for the whole game.

 

Timing is everything--and it’s the timing of the officials’ gifts which has gotten me more than the gifts themselves. I don’t know how many bad spells for the big teams have been ended by a rash of gifts from the officials over the past few years, but it seems like many to me. It was certainly interesting to note we were minus 11 or so in pens the last year Bale was here, when we missed a CL spot by two points, I think. Then the next year when we weren’t a threat for the top four, the pens--and for that matter the run of calls over the course of the year--were about what you might expect.

It may be I’m seeing all this through Spurs’ colored lenses, but I doubt it. In any case, that’s one reason I wanted to try to take a more careful look at the calls this year. I’m tempted to interpret the officials’ actions in the Chelsea game as them trying to give Mourinho a win, then backtracking when it was clear even their best efforts weren’t going to be enough.