I'm actually at a loss to know how to judge a refereeing performance. It seems that the letter of the law can be mostly be interpreted to mean all things to all men and the spirit of the "game" is often unclear from the written laws. For example where does law 11 tell us what the purpose (principle?/Spirit?) of the law is before it starts describing the miinutiae. I would say ditto handball and even foul play (although I concede that may take a bit more debate to decide - safety is clearly an issue but thereafter how do you balance as a contact sport with using physical contact to gain an advantage? Clearly the shoulder to shoulder charge is not the only allowable contact and intent, we are told, is not a factor so where does that leave us in understanding what the underlying rationale for determining what is permitted and what isn't - and does this change throughout a game?}
When the head of refereeing in England says that a decision was within an understanding of the written law but the "game" tells him it is contrary to what is expected,and IFAB don't see any need to reconsider the law them we seem to be in a mess.
With those caveats I felt A Madley's performance was OK when judged against the last 8-10 City games I have watched, I would probably only rank P Tierney's performance in our loss to Southampton as being more satisfactory. The judgement on Tierney is quite definitely contra-Pavlovian! On a hobby Horse of mine I think that the application of the law with regard arm to head contact is woefully inadequate and needs to be much more tighhtly regulated.