You Only Whinge When Your Losing

This season has seen, more and more, the inconsistency in decisions made by referees and, week by week, we have managers bemoaning the fact. 

The problem is that there is an inconsistency on both sides, in that managers do not support each other if these decisions go in their favour.

We have staements in interviews after a game; ' I didn't see the incident, so I can't comment' or 'If the referee's given it then that's it, isn't it?' and it's left to the losing manager to stand alone, criticise the match official and then suffer an F.A. fine.

Kenny Dalglish is the latest manager to state the need for consistency after his player was dismissed for violent conduct but added ' but we weren't going to get anything tonight' inferring that the official may have favoured the home team. 

The Fulham manager was of the view that the tackle deserved a sending off.

Earlier in the season, an innocous tackle in the Merseyside derby led to Everton losing a player early in the game which Liverpool went on to win.The red card was rescinded on appeal, but Liverpool boss Kenny Dalglish refused to be drawn on the subject of the sending off.Kenny Dalglish had recently held talks with Mike Riley, the general manager of Professional Game Match Officials, after complaining that his club was being "battered" by refereeing decisions.   

In a recent game against Man City, manager Mancini was unhappy with the dismissal of Balotelli for 2 Yellow Cards and accused Skrtel of play-acting and Liverpool of pressurising the referee.He said ' the Liverpool players surrounded him saying 'yellow card, yellow card' he was given the yellow card. Dalglish said: “I think Balotelli got himself sent off.  His actions spoke louder than anybody else's. Sometimes if you look in the mirror you get the answer'.


In the opening game of the season Dalglish was forced to defend his team's discipline after 2 sendings off.He stated that Liverpool had a very good disciplinary record and that you never saw Liverpool players running to the referee to dispute a decision, so there is no discipline problem." 

In the Fulham game 8 players surrounded the referee after the dismissal of Spearing. Inconsistency? There certainly is - in all aspects of the game.


The recent Liverpool examples cited above are reflected by most managers and their teams each weekend and that is the underlying problem.Although they all agree there is a problem,they are acting in isolation without support from their peers.   

Maybe it is time for some of the more respected managers to combine as a panel and meet up with Mike Riley and some of his team to look at exploring ways of improving things.  

This problem not only affects them, it affects the supporters who watch week in - week out, and those supporting the teams outside the top eschelon believe there is a conspiracy theory against their club and that certain officials go out of their way to 'give them nothing'.

That just isn't true - is it?