Quality of refereeing

Feels to me that the abilities of the refs are similar to the players. They make mistakes, they do wrong things. The better refs work in higher tiers, just like the players do. 

Yesterday I was in line with what looked like a foul and I'm usually on the side of 'shut up and get up' after a supposed foul. But I'd say the ref made fewer mistakes than most of our players yesterday. 

For example, Chambers should have been sent off against Middlesbrough and we’d have then lost that game. But it’s forgotten about because it’s in our favour. If it’s the other way then we remember it 

My issue is that the Championship refs, are full time, in select group 2, and seen as potential Premier League quality. If that’s the case, there is something fundamentally wrong either with the selection process by PGMO, or that PGMO aren’t prepared to deal with the quality issue they have 

rananegra said:

After yesterday, I thought I'd start this. My mate who doesn't like criticising refs was there yesterday. It seems every time he makes it we get a poor ref. In my mind, yesterday's buffoon wasn't the worst we've had this season. If this division really is the 4th biggest in Europe, why are non-league quality refs in the middle so often? The point Ronnie Moore made about referees potentially costing Millwall promotion might not receive much sympathy, but if we care about sporting integrity, surely we need referees who won't miss penalties and will stand up to timewasting and cheating?

We've had ref's decisions go against us a lot this season, and I don't think it evens up. Part of this is we don't seem to get in the ref's ear like the other 23 teams in the division, but I don't think it is all. We seem to get homers at away games and awayers at home. I appreciate this might be my bias talking, but …
21/3 Norwich at home - denied blatant pen, timewasting by Norwich allowed
14/3 Oxford away - pen awarded wrongly against us.

28/2 Wrexham home - poor officials overwhelmed by the Hollywood bright lights but not actually directly costing us

17/2 Pompey home - ref completely biased towards Pompey but they would have won anyway

29/12 Pompey away - we equalise after 6 minutes of the 5minutes added time, Pompey get the winner in 9th minute. Our fault for switching off, but if it had been the other way round we all know the ref would blow up on 96.

I've been incensed by officials at Southampton at home, and Wednesday at home (missed red card) but neither affected the outcome.

Have we had any massive decisions in our favour this season that we shouldn't? Should we have a "Worst Ref of the Season" award?

And more to the point, isn't there anything the football authorities can do to improve the quality of referees? I don't like VAR but I think we are consistently hard done by, would it help?

The refs are not good, but maybe the start point is not the refs, but the players and coaches that promote time wasting and cheating.

Jones yesterday bemoaned the Norwich player going down with fake cramp. How many times this season has our goalkeeper pulled a calf muscle, only to make a remarkable recovery.

in my view the players / coaches are as much to blame as the refs.

it needs a fundamental reset.

I tell you what I've noticed. Every time we lose someone is blaming the referee - this week it's gone into overdrive.

Referee's have always made some dodgy decisions and they always will. Why? Because they're human and will make mistakes from time to time. And even if they don't make mistakes people will still think they do if a marginal decision goes against their team. 

A lot of the decisions referees make are subjective. Not everyone will agree. Once you understand and accept that you can then stop blaming them for our own failings.

Someone will no doubt come on and say we need VAR in the Championship. Like that is some miracle cure and everything will be perfect if it comes in - just like the Premier League. But I expect few people will look closer to home and bemoan our own players cheating and trying to con the ref. We do it the same as everyone else.

Do we get our fair share of "dodgy" decisions?

Possibly / probably.

The question that needs to be asked is: do we get our fair share of dodgy decisions in a part of the ground that actually helps us?

Not that often.

We end up on the wrong end of decisions that could cost us a goal: clear pens like yesterday, dodgy offside decisions against us, perfectly good goals disallowed (Clarke against Leicester - didn't cost us the win but GD could be crucial).

At the other end we have shockers awarding the oppo a penalty (Oxford away immediately springs to mind), offsides not given which lead to goals against us.

When we get an "evening up" decision it tends to be in neutral territory and no threat to the oppo.

Yellow cards are inconsistent. How often do we see our keeper go into the ref's book at the first instance of "time management", even in the first half, but the oppo gets away with murder (like yesterday). Our players seems to get carded for fouls that the other mob get away with.

The application of time on is, at times, criminal. Yesterday's ref must have had somewhere to go because 5 minutes in that second half was woefully short. And it's not the first time we've been undersold when we're chasing a game yet if we're hanging on the ref can find a couple of hours to add on!

Look at the treatment the likes of Leaburn and Dykes get from centre-halves without reward yet as soon as they do the same back they're penalised.

The sad thing is we're never going to get anything different. We're either the small/ lower ranked club getting shafted by the important decisions going the big/higher ranked club's way or we have a ref making a case of not confirming to that approach when you'd think we should be benefiting from the better "status".

fenlandaddick said:

Used all our good ref tokens up with the red cards I'm afraid 

Don't be silly - we never get any decisions go our way.

Crispywood said:

problem as well is when you have a manager and style of play where the concept is keep things tight let there be nothing in the game and win it in the moments. You’re exposing yourself to let the referee have a much more vital impact on the game than they realistically should do. Jones can plan how to nullify opponents but he can’t plan on a ref not having a howler 

That is a good point. Without criticism, our games are often decided on small margins so refereeing errors may have a bigger impact. We do get decisions, I thought Chambers was lucky not to be sent off at Boro. But I do feel refs overall do us more harm than good. Some of that will be bias of course but not all of it. When was the last time we scored a goal from a missed offside? We have conceded a few of those this season. We have had goals wrongly disallowed, have our opponents? 

Millwall's opener against us was offside, off the top of my head. We scored an equaliser which was harshly disallowed. 

Alwaysneil said:

Chambers got at least a quarter of the ball before he hit his oppo and half an inch lower it wouldn't even have been a foul. Never a red 😃

I think it was one of those that isn't always a red but you can't moan too much when it is. I thought Okoli's was an as clear as day red by the laws of the game. Tanganga went in too recklessly with force in front of the ref. I think that was a 60/40 red. It would be interesting over a season to log this sort of thing. 

MuttleyCAFC said:

Alwaysneil said:

Chambers got at least a quarter of the ball before he hit his oppo and half an inch lower it wouldn't even have been a foul. Never a red 😃

I think it was one of those that isn't always a red but you can't moan too much when it is. I thought Okoli's was an as clear as day red by the laws of the game. Tanganga went in too recklessly with force in front of the ref. I think that was a 60/40 red. It would be interesting over a season to log this sort of thing. 

Get a thread going for next season where we tally up all the major ref decisions for and against could already see how that would go

On a positive tho think we have had the majority go against us and we still sit 18th in the league, with a few better decisions that should balance out next season we should ideally finish in a better position even if the gap in football quality between us and a few other teams doesn’t change 

I attended a PGMO online seminar a few weeks back. It was quite enlightening. Championship referees meet every week and as a group they review all “key match incidents” - red cards, penalties, disallowed goals etc. I think NJ referred to this in his press conference when he said the refs confirmed Oxford’s shouldn’t have been a penalty. Their statistics show they get 85% of decisions right. That’s pretty good - unless chance means you are on the receiving end of the 15% too often and I reckon we will have been for these past two weeks. 

I am on the side of referees, we have no referees we have no football. I hated people having a go at referees when I was playing as I am confident one has never changed their mind about a decision because some Beckham wannabe on a Sunday morning has screamed at him and called him shit. I made it my business to be nice to them from a human level, offer them drinks, food if there was any, and generally be a decent person to them also to understand what they liked and didn't. Anyone who played in the R&D leagues throught the 80s to the middle 2000s will have run up against Geoff Ford, he would wave play on to some outright assaults but you swore, even under your breath, it was a card. Often red. Others were the opposite, some even told us before the game "I want to let the game flow, but don't take the piss, I've given up a lie-in to be here and I don't want to regret it dealing with any of you calling me a wanker or a cheat". Fair enough 

Then we meet the characters who make it to refereeing at our level. Professionals and with any professional they will have someone looking for a metric. How many late finishes, too many cards, not enough cards, how many low scores from managers. And whilst I accept people have to be measured in whatever they do. Refereeing is a tough, subjective job. Handballs are anyone's guess now, I don't think anyone needs to have played the game at any level to tell the difference between the ball smacking someone on the arm at speed or someone using their arms to gain an advantage but the FA or whoever the referees keepers are have made a pigs ear of that 

Offside. This is one thing where VAR could have helped fans and linesmen alike. Instead we get 15 minutes of back and forth about a toenail being Offside. If it is that close then its not Offside

The one that does my head in is the wrestling in the penalty box. If referees gave penalties for this then it would stop immediately, they don't, so it hasn't. I remember us having a ref v Bristol Rovers the 2011/12 season and gave us a penalty for wrestling in the box for a corner, our players then showed how much they had to learn by giving away an almost identical one just after so maybe my theory is wrong. 

All that said, I get very wound up by referees and officials in the professional game. Inconsistency is my biggest trigger and I only feel vindicated moaning about a referee when we win to avoid the sour grapes accusations.