Referee

[Eastend 75]

After last nights injuries and dodgy pen the inconsistency of refs does my head in I didnt go to game last night but listening on radio . Skuse punctured leg Cunningham severe ligament damage reckless 2 footed challenge on fonts no red cards but 2 bad injuries that's not including Fontaine tackle . How can these refs b so inconsistent shocking .

[ChrisBCFC]

It is because they are weak bottle jobs who collapse under pressure. Yesterday was another prime example.....its even got to the stage now, as an away team, that if we get 1 or 2 decisions I worry, cos we know 1 will go to the home team. Remember Palarse away last season?

Anyone see the Leicester Blackpool game a few weeks back? Ref blew his whistle for a pen within a second of the tackle, a ridiculous decision,

[Monkeh]

It is because they are weak bottle jobs who collapse under pressure. Yesterday was another prime example.....its even got to the stage now, as an away team, that if we get 1 or 2 decisions I worry, cos we know 1 will go to the home team. Remember Palarse away last season?

Anyone see the Leicester Blackpool game a few weeks back? Ref blew his whistle for a pen within a second of the tackle, a ridiculous decision,

its because they are not full time and only get around £200 quid a game, its about time the football league and the fa got together with the refs and make them full time professionals and pay them a decent wage,

That is the only way refs will improve, its no good everyone in football moaning at them if no one in football is doing anything to help them,

I get pissed off with all these ex pro's ccritising refs if they had any balls what-so-ever they would be come one after they retire,

Lets help them for god sake if we don't they will only keep on making the same mistakes week in week out

[Eastend 75]

I'm all for a hard game with strong tackles take everton Newcastle Monday night tackles flying in second half no probs also understand players get injured part of the game but for reckless challenges that only get yellow cards terrible and wen u see Wat they give other yellow cards for it just don't make sense . The players who commited these challenges IMO were instructed by there manager to get really stuck in wink wink

[Squire Dastardly]

A dreadful night for referee Sarginson. He apparently made a few dodgy decisions in the first half that went City's way. The home crowd then gets on his back and he responds by swinging the other way. The penalty decision was an obvious example. Far worse though was his total failure to clamp down on the extraorinary violent tackles on Skuse & Cunningham which resulted in serious injury to at least one of them. When the defender's studs penetrate a man's skin is there any doubt that it must have been a bad "feet up" tackle? Furthermore, as McInnes hinted, if a red card had been rightly handed out for this seriously violent play, then Cunningham would not likely have been subjected to the serious ligament damage that will see him out of our defence for the next few weeks.

Refs have responsibility to protect players from these violent assaults.

[red panda]

A dreadful night for referee Sarginson. He apparently made a few dodgy decisions in the first half that went City's way. The home crowd then gets on his back and he responds by swinging the other way. The penalty decision was an obvious example. Far worse though was his total failure to clamp down on the extraorinary violent tackles on Skuse & Cunningham which resulted in serious injury to at least one of them. When the defender's studs penetrate a man's skin is there any doubt that it must have been a bad "feet up" tackle? Furthermore, as McInnes hinted, if a red card had been rightly handed out for this seriously violent play, then Cunningham would not likely have been subjected to the serious ligament damage that will see him out of our defence for the next few weeks.

Refs have responsibility to protect players from these violent assaults.

Just to be clear, the two outrageous tackles that should have resulted in red cards were on Fonts and then Cunningham. Skuse was hurt in a crowded penalty area. Del is absolutely correct when he says that a red card for the challenge on Fonts might well have deterred a similarly reckless, and much more damaging, challenge on Cunningham a few minutes later.

[GodEmperor Palpatine]

its because they are not full time and only get around £200 quid a game, its about time the football league and the fa got together with the refs and make them full time professionals and pay them a decent wage,

That is the only way refs will improve, its no good everyone in football moaning at them if no one in football is doing anything to help them,

I get pissed off with all these ex pro's ccritising refs if they had any balls what-so-ever they would be come one after they retire,

Lets help them for god sake if we don't they will only keep on making the same mistakes week in week out

Regardless if they are part time, they still have a duty to protect all players on the pitch from violent challenges and keep order! If they are being half hearted due to wages then they should not be reffing these types of games. The Ref it seemed last night didnt want criticism from Posh fans rather than doing the right thing especially with the 2 footed lunge on Fonts, this led to the challenge on Cunningham who is out for a while thanks to the refs half hearted approach.

[MarcusX]

Just to be clear, the two outrageous tackles that should have resulted in red cards were on Fonts and then Cunningham. Skuse was hurt in a crowded penalty area. Del is absolutely correct when he says that a red card for the challenge on Fonts might well have deterred a similarly reckless, and much more damaging, challenge on Cunningham a few minutes later.

As he said, the Skuse injury seemed to go un-noticed in terms of what actually caused it. There certainly wasnt much outcry from the stands, it seemed like a bit of a scramble and Skuse was on the ground off the pitch so play continued

[redlandrebel]

Agree with all of the above. To make matters worse, there should have been 5 minutes of added time and it went to 8 or 9 minutes. It's almost as if he wanted another goal from Pish!

[i_am_red]

It is always a telling sign of a ref's bad performance when even after a win, people are moaning about him.

It sounds like he made 3 bad decisions last night and it has cost us A) a clean sheet and B) two players

As said above he has a duty to protect the players and he clearly did not. Hopefully he will be reminded of his responsibilities.

[North London Red]

Agree with all of the above. To make matters worse, there should have been 5 minutes of added time and it went to 8 or 9 minutes. It's almost as if he wanted another goal from Pish!

And they weren't comfortable viewing either! As soon as Peterborough got it back to 2-1, I kept thinking that the game had echoes of West Brom away a few years back - leading 2-1 having had two players stretchered off (Bell and Testemitanu if memory serves), and 8 or 9 minutes of stoppage time to play (before a Lee Hughes equaliser right at the death) - thankfully last night had a different outcome.

[bearded_red]

Yes, some decisions didnt go our way and there was horrendous tackles and people didnt get booked or admonished or whatever. Yes, these things happened to our players. it happens

Were you at the game?!

There were THREE potentially leg breaking challenges on our players that were only punished with a yellow card. Fair enough forget about all the other mistakes the referee made, but I would suggest that this is a fairly important issue!

How on earth you think anybody should just think 'it happens' and move on is beyond me.

[BookEnd]

Whilst I can forgive the occasional human error from ref's, last nights showing was unacceptable. How p'boro finished with 11 men on the field god knows. Tomlin was diving all night long as soon as he was touched and obviously won the pen, how the ref kept buying it I don't know, giving in to the pressure of the home support maybe... Either way Mr Sarginson could of ultimatley cost us 2 points in the end, luckily for us we held tight.

[mcbcfc]

Having just watched the highlights they were two dead cert reds, horrible tackles, Taylor should of had a pen. But on the other side I would be complaining if the Fontaine challenge in the build up to our second goal wasn't given as a foul, even though he won the ball he dived in. Peterborough's pen was ridiculous the whole game the pundits were saying they were going to ground easily so why did Woolford try to grab him (I'm not sure he actually reached) when he was going nowhere?

[bearded_red]

Right so there were three 'potential', the clue is in the word ,potential, leg breaking challenges that the ref dealt with by offering a yellow card according to yourself. Subsequently, the players who made the challenge, were admonished for making said tackle because of the warning issued. So it didnt meet your expectations of what should have been done, so what? you didnt have the same view of things as the ref, and he made the call. You didnt agree with it then fine, however according to your testimony the players did actually receive punishment for the tackles and were 'punished' for them.

Well the clue isn't in the word potential actually is it. For a start Cunningham could well have suffered a fracture. Even if he hasn't he will doubtless be out for a fair old while. Secondly the Fifa definition of 'Serious Foul Play' is- 'Any player who lunges at an opponent in challenging for the ball from the front, from the side or from behind using one or both legs, with excessive force and endangering the safety of an opponent is guilty of serious foul play'. Doesn't actually say that the tackle has to cause injury does it?

Maybe I'm being stupid, but I really don't understand yourt point about how the players have possibly been punished for the three tackles. These are the facts-

Three Peterborough players were guilty of serious foul play.

The punishment for serious foul play is a red card.

The referee issued yellow cards to all three players.

I would say that the referee failing to impose the rules of the game is actually quite a serious issue and this isn't actually City fans 'violently frothing at the mouth demanding reds or more punitive action for every little thing that happens on a football field'.

[red panda]

Is this the 'we hate every referee we ever have forum'? as after every, single match, people will rip the ref to shreds, whether we won lost or whatever,

No it's not that at all. There were two outrageously bad tackles that were not punished with red cards. This is far beyond the usual level of refereeing incompetence. Why shouldn't we be cross about these specific incidents??

Refereeing hasnt got worse, people's expectations have gone through the roof and now they pick up on everything, like some frenzied rabid dog

No-one is expecting perfection or saying it's part of a general trend. It's simply that there were two shocking decisions by anyone's standards and at any time. One of our best players got serious hurt. This is "not picking up on everything".

it happens

I suggest you visit Cunningham and say this to his face.

[Welcome To The Jungle]

Can't comment on the tackles but that was a penalty so soft I would have happily wiped my ass with it after a hot curry

[bearded_red]

The players got a yellow card for their tackles this would come under the unsporting behaviour part of the reasons for giving a card. It's open to interpretation, for sure, but some of things that may be included in unsporting behaviour includes when a player "commits a direct/indirect free kick foul in a reckless manner (for example, charging, pushing, tripping)" which would apply in this instance.

That people on here are suggesting all kinds of insanity such as Peterborough or the FA getting the cards rescinded (in another thread) so another punishment can be added shows exactly how much red lust there is at present and a complete ignorance or naivety or overreaction on some parts because our players have been injured by said tackles and it's clouding their judgement. Instead of being objective or at least trying to be, it's complete subjectivity tempered by the injuries to the players and a overwhelming sense of injustice about the incidents.

Have you even seen the 'tackles'? You don't seem to have actually given an opinion on them?

The one on Fontaine was two footed and late.

The one on Cunningham was performed with a straight leg after the Peterborough player had spent quite a considerable amount of time in the air.

The one on Davies was well over the top of the ball and then dragged down Davies' shin. On any other night the tackle would have been the worst of the game.

Please explain to me how these incidents can be described as 'charging, pushing or tripping'.

The part I've highlighted is complete nonsense. Two of the three tackles didn't cause injury to our players, so the theory that fans are overreacting to injuries is purely stuff of fantasy. I would ask that if all the fans are doing is reacting to injured players than surely we would also want 'justice' for the incident that led to Skuse getting injured? But as it is everyone knows that was a nothing incident and Skuse simply got unlucky.

[Scrumpy Dziek]

Can't comment on the tackles but that was a penalty so soft I would have happily wiped my ass with it after a hot curry

The 'push' was also outside the box

[bearded_red]

I said the yellow card can be given for unsporting behaviour one of the caveats for that is as mentioned, you would have to ask the referee as to why he deemed it yellow, and not red, read his report, if the FA will give you a copy. if you are that incensed. I'm not the referee, i just confirmed that the players had been cautioned for their tackles at the time and the potential reason for it, nothing more nothing less. Ergo what purpose would be made from explaining things to you other than to go round and round in circles?

Silly me for not seeing things or putting things in the way you specifically want or agree with things, could have said player, player(s) or whatever, it doesnt really matter. My point was that people have been clamouring against the refs for a long time on here, off the top of my head Gillingham, Cardiff amongst others this season, Brett's sending off late on last season and so on this season. Refs get regularly battered on here and held up out to dry because in general the fans dont agree with the decisions that are made, which cost us players either through suspension or injury or goals, the free kick vs Blackburn is another where people have gone to town on the referee on this board.

This is tempered with the fact that these tackles were against our players has resulted in a very biased or rather over the top response to it which has spread across the forum and now means that for everything the ref is always wrong. It is rare to see our fans give any credit to a ref in any match we have played, instead it's always moaning about issue xyz and about how the fans would have done things differently.

As said if the club felt that strongly about things rather than Del saying that the ref should have sent off Little, thus avoiding the later challenge then surely a complaint would have been put in against the ref to the FA, or similar?

I'll ask again, have you seen the tackles? What is your view on them?

From what I can make out you have decided to accuse fans of bias or reacting in an over the top manner over incidents you haven't even seen purely because there has been alot of abuse of referees on this forum over the past few months. This is an absurd stance on the subject. To be frank I couldn't care less about the rights or wrongs of referees in previous games, how harsh posters on this forum are towards referees or even how bad in general the referee was the other night.

I do however have an issue with three horrendous challenges being made on our players in one game and the referee failing to deal with them in the appropriate manner.

[Red_Jim]

I'll ask again, have you seen the tackles? What is your view on them?

From what I can make out you have decided to accuse fans of bias or reacting in an over the top manner over incidents you haven't even seen purely because there has been alot of abuse of referees on this forum over the past few months. This is an absurd stance on the subject. To be frank I couldn't care less about the rights or wrongs of referees in previous games, how harsh posters on this forum are towards referees or even how bad in general the referee was the other night.

I do however have an issue with three horrendous challenges being made on our players in one game and the referee failing to deal with them in the appropriate manner.

I've watched the highlights and can confirm two of the tackles were an absolute disgrace - the two footed jump in tackle on Fontaine (which would be a red in ANY game by the rulebook), and the tackle on Cunningham which was wild, overly aggressive and late.

RMLF, have you watched the highlights?

[red panda]

it's a discussion board

Exactly

In general, after every single match just about there is a thread about the referee being incompetent or some how not giving us our dues, this one because of the injuries to players has got even more rabid than usual about things.

Ive said what I think in my above comments, it's a discussion board, that's my view on the discussion.

After every game it's ref this, ref that, ref the other, Our player(s) got injured, if things were that injust or incorrect, rather than a muted criticism about it in the match report then surely the club would have appealed to the FA regarding the ref's actions?

Afaik they havent, will stand corrected if the above is incorrect.

And thus the insanity continues. unreal, you dont like what Ive said, so the repost is say it to is face and see how far that gets you, hinting that I will get abuse or trounced or something for having a view. Fantastic. Why dont you go and have a long conversation with the ref, read his report on the game and discuss what your views are on his standards of officiating? Oh wait, that's not going to happen is it? so stop with the hyperbolic comments.

I said the yellow card can be given for unsporting behaviour one of the caveats for that is as mentioned, you would have to ask the referee as to why he deemed it yellow, and not red, read his report, if the FA will give you a copy. if you are that incensed. I'm not the referee, i just confirmed that the players had been cautioned for their tackles at the time and the potential reason for it, nothing more nothing less. Ergo what purpose would be made from explaining things to you other than to go round and round in circles?

Silly me for not seeing things or putting things in the way you specifically want or agree with things, could have said player, player(s) or whatever, it doesnt really matter. My point was that people have been clamouring against the refs for a long time on here, off the top of my head Gillingham, Cardiff amongst others this season, Brett's sending off late on last season and so on this season. Refs get regularly battered on here and held up out to dry because in general the fans dont agree with the decisions that are made, which cost us players either through suspension or injury or goals, the free kick vs Blackburn is another where people have gone to town on the referee on this board.

This is tempered with the fact that these tackles were against our players has resulted in a very biased or rather over the top response to it which has spread across the forum and now means that for everything the ref is always wrong. It is rare to see our fans give any credit to a ref in any match we have played, instead it's always moaning about issue xyz and about how the fans would have done things differently.

As said if the club felt that strongly about things rather than Del saying that the ref should have sent off Little, thus avoiding the later challenge then surely a complaint would have been put in against the ref to the FA, or similar?

Whatever

[downendcity]

In general, after every single match just about there is a thread about the referee being incompetent or some how not giving us our dues, this one because of the injuries to players has got even more rabid than usual about things.

Ive said what I think in my above comments, it's a discussion board, that's my view on the discussion.

After every game it's ref this, ref that, ref the other, Our player(s) got injured, if things were that injust or incorrect, rather than a muted criticism about it in the match report then surely the club would have appealed to the FA regarding the ref's actions?

Afaik they havent, will stand corrected if the above is incorrect.

And thus the insanity continues. unreal, you dont like what Ive said, so the repost is say it to is face and see how far that gets you, hinting that I will get abuse or trounced or something for having a view. Fantastic. Why dont you go and have a long conversation with the ref, read his report on the game and discuss what your views are on his standards of officiating? Oh wait, that's not going to happen is it? so stop with the hyperbolic comments.

I said the yellow card can be given for unsporting behaviour one of the caveats for that is as mentioned, you would have to ask the referee as to why he deemed it yellow, and not red, read his report, if the FA will give you a copy. if you are that incensed. I'm not the referee, i just confirmed that the players had been cautioned for their tackles at the time and the potential reason for it, nothing more nothing less. Ergo what purpose would be made from explaining things to you other than to go round and round in circles?

Silly me for not seeing things or putting things in the way you specifically want or agree with things, could have said player, player(s) or whatever, it doesnt really matter. My point was that people have been clamouring against the refs for a long time on here, off the top of my head Gillingham, Cardiff amongst others this season, Brett's sending off late on last season and so on this season. Refs get regularly battered on here and held up out to dry because in general the fans dont agree with the decisions that are made, which cost us players either through suspension or injury or goals, the free kick vs Blackburn is another where people have gone to town on the referee on this board.

This is tempered with the fact that these tackles were against our players has resulted in a very biased or rather over the top response to it which has spread across the forum and now means that for everything the ref is always wrong. It is rare to see our fans give any credit to a ref in any match we have played, instead it's always moaning about issue xyz and about how the fans would have done things differently.

As said if the club felt that strongly about things rather than Del saying that the ref should have sent off Little, thus avoiding the later challenge then surely a complaint would have been put in against the ref to the FA, or similar?

I'm not clamouring against refs nor am I calling for some sort of retrospective retribution based on the severity of injury to our players.

What this game demonstrated is what can happen when a ref is not prepared to make the right decision at the right time . Throughout the first half he gave loads of soft fouls to Posh, and let them get away with a few but to a degree you half expect the home team to get the balance of decisions like this.

After half time the complexion of the game changed. We upped our game ( not too difficult after a lacklustre first half) but there was little doubt that Ferguson sent Posh out fired up and prepared to be much more physical, and a few early tackles were a warning of what was to come. The physical side of Posh's game seemed to go up a notch after the first goal and I struggle to see how anyone in the ground would have seen Little's challenge as other than serious foul play. It was two footed and agressive, and i think was a result of the player's frustration as his mistake that led to Baldock's first goal only a short time before.

In the prem I have no doubt it would have been a red card, and so it should have been on Tuesday night. The ref bottled it completely, and in doing so made a rod for his own back and for us. A red card would probably have reigned in the extremes of Posh's physiscal game but by bottling it he effecftively endorsed the way Posh were playing so they carried on in the same vein. After that another serious challenge was almost an inevitibility ( I would have put my money on it being againts Albert) and as the ref saw Little's challenge as deserving of only a yellow, then the precident had been created for Barnett's challenge on Cunningham so it was going to be a yellow.

Getting the decisions changed to red won't help us one iota and it certainly won't get cunningham back fit any quicker. However, I do hope the referees administrators have the ability to review the refs performance as far as these 2 decisions are concerned if it means he doesn't see this type of challenge as yellow card offences in future, as this might avoid another player suffering a serious injury,as Cunningham did.

[Eastend 75]

I'm not clamouring against refs nor am I calling for some sort of retrospective retribution based on the severity of injury to our players.

What this game demonstrated is what can happen when a ref is not prepared to make the right decision at the right time . Throughout the first half he gave loads of soft fouls to Posh, and let them get away with a few but to a degree you half expect the home team to get the balance of decisions like this.

After half time the complexion of the game changed. We upped our game ( not too difficult after a lacklustre first half) but there was little doubt that Ferguson sent Posh out fired up and prepared to be much more physical, and a few early tackles were a warning of what was to come. The physical side of Posh's game seemed to go up a notch after the first goal and I struggle to see how anyone in the ground would have seen Little's challenge as other than serious foul play. It was two footed and agressive, and i think was a result of the player's frustration as his mistake that led to Baldock's first goal only a short time before.

In the prem I have no doubt it would have been a red card, and so it should have been on Tuesday night. The ref bottled it completely, and in doing so made a rod for his own back and for us. A red card would probably have reigned in the extremes of Posh's physiscal game but by bottling it he effecftively endorsed the way Posh were playing so they carried on in the same vein. After that another serious challenge was almost an inevitibility ( I would have put my money on it being againts Albert) and as the ref saw Little's challenge as deserving of only a yellow, then the precident had been created for Barnett's challenge on Cunningham so it was going to be a yellow.

Getting the decisions changed to red won't help us one iota and it certainly won't get cunningham back fit any quicker. However, I do hope the referees administrators have the ability to review the refs performance as far as these 2 decisions are concerned if it means he doesn't see this type of challenge as yellow card offences in future, as this might avoid another player suffering a serious injury,as Cunningham did.

100 % spot on

[Super Scotty Murray]

Is this the 'we hate every referee we ever have forum'? as after every, single match, people will rip the ref to shreds, whether we won lost or whatever,

Refereeing hasnt got worse, people's expectations have gone through the roof and now they pick up on everything, like some frenzied rabid dog

Yes, some decisions didnt go our way and there was horrendous tackles and people didnt get booked or admonished or whatever. Yes, these things happened to our players. it happens

To be honest I would agree with you most of the time that the over-reaction to referees is usually unwarranted. However, I was at the game the other night, and the referee got it wrong in a bad way, as his poor decision making led to one of our players getting a serious injury.

McInnes is 100% right that if he had sent off the player for the foul on Fontaine as he should have, then the challenge on Cunningham would likely have never happened. This is more serious than missing a penalty, or giving lots of un-necessary free kicks. As a few have said here the referee has a duty to protect the players and he did not on this occasion.

I know some people on here are not very eloquent at arguing their views, and I disagree with people who are saying these were deliberate dirty challenges. In the most part they were not, they were just a poor struggling side trying to show passion for their manager and getting it badly wrong. The only challenge that was deliberate was the one by Tomlin and that was the least bad of the three. However, whether they were deliberate or not is basically irrelevant, a dangerous challenge is one that could cause injury, whether deliberate or not.

I left this game after a win, and genuinely was not in a good mood, because the win was so tarnished by these injuries, especially considering one was to one of our best players and the first decent left back we have had since Mickey Bell.

I think in this case you have to accept you are wrong for trying to defend the referee.

On another point, those moaning about the ref for giving the penalty are wrong, because the linesman gave the penalty! The ref did not have a great view so was correct to accept the linesmans decision. It was clearly exaggerated by Tomlin, but Woolford should have known better than to get so tight to him in the area when he had been diving for the whole game.