The top clubs still get the breaks

Match of the Day was on the TV as I started to type my latest rant about Manchester City. Fabulous team but like all teams at the top they do get cut some remarkable slack at times. This isn't new but I find it more surprising now, with all the video analysis that all of us see. Including PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited, keep up!) My own team has benefited from this behaviour often enough in the past. Referees sometimes freeze when a player from a team at the very top gets it all wrong. Sometimes fouls aren't given, red card moments are allowed to pass. It's as if they think "surely I didn't just see that...."

Last weekend's examples came from Manchester City against Burnley. Yes it ended 5-0 so the fact that Manchester City should have ended the match with 9 men may not have affected the result, though the first incident happened in the first minute and City's second goal should not have stood. But the suspensions that would have followed could affect what happens over the next 3 weeks, had the referee acted on quite appalling challenges by Vincent Kompany and Leroy Sane. I know, with City's depth of squad, maybe not. City don't exactly need help from the refs.

Kompany has, for me, been perhaps the most over-rated player in the history of the Premier League. Yes, he can play. But he gets eulogised as if he was, if not Bobby Moore then John Terry. Which he's blatantly not. On Saturday he took out Aaron Lennon at crotch height, missing the ball by "about a yard" as Lineker and Murphy put it on MOTD. It was a clear red card from a player who, readers will know, I feel is always a red card waiting to happen given his poor tackling technique which often turns into a lunge for the ball. Although this incident happened in the first minute, referees are trained to understand that  isn't any different from any other minute of the game. So why wasn't it given?

Late in the game Leroy Sane lost the ball to the Burnley right back and attempted a needless - and foul - tackle from behind to recover it. When that failed he took his opponent out with a scything swipe from behind. No sanction. The incident happened near Burnley's box. If a Burnley defender had challenged a City player in that way in that part of the pitch, what do you think would have happened?  Sane's challenge seemed to be borne of frustration, perhaps because he is no longer an automatic starter since Mahrez's arrival. Indeed, you could see it coming just as I did on quite a few occasions in my own playing "career" when you could see a hothead boil over after losing the ball. So no excuse for the ref.

City also got a big favour in the build up to their second goal after players from both teams froze as Sane went down easily in the Burnley box. David Silva's brain was working but he was off the pitch. He played the ball from just over the dead ball line (so it was out of play AND he was offside) enabling City to score. To be fair, that is a double error by the Assistant Ref, but the offside should also have been twigged by the ref himself. It was one of those occasions where the officials should think "that didn't look quite right". I remember, refereeing in the heights of the Oxford Boys' League, realising that there was actually time to "replay" such moments in my head before giving the goal. Refs are trained that, while decisions have to be prompt, there is a short window to think first. And, if the ball is dead, a longer window to talk with the Assistant, though many refs seem to hate doing that, as it looks as if they aren't sure.

Actually, the real problem last Saturday was that the referee, Jon Moss, is not one of the better Premier League referees in a weak field. Moss was one of the refs that former top flight ref Keith Hackett said should be cut from the PL list when he reviewed how they had all done last season*. Mind, Hackett said 6 of 16 should be dropped and gave a couple of the others a rating of 5/10! I've noted before that it's no coincidence that there were no English refs at the World Cup. (Mark Clattenburg would have been picked but quit the Premier League to pick up petrodollars in Saudi).

The Premier League refs, all full-time professionals of course, get together frequently for reviews. One wonders what Moss's colleagues will say to him about those decisions at their next get together. But will it make refs treat the top clubs, especially playing at home, the same as all the others? That would be a triumph of hope over experience.

But a question. When VAR comes in, will it make a difference? It probably would have changed all three of these decisions at the Etihad. So, in theory at least, it could go some way to leveling this particular aspect of the playing field. We'll see.

* Telegraph 23 May 2018. My top 10 referees of the season and those the Premier League should not retain.