RateTheRef

I notice Mr Charles scored the winner today in bolton’s game after his dismissal was correctly re-allocated.

A reasonable excuse had there been a melee, but there hadnt. Was 2 attackers in goal area and unfortunately AR chose wrong one.

Was at Ipswich yesterday.

There is a making of a good referee in Tom, he let him self down with a few things such as time wasting, consistency in decision making at times and yellow cards not being showed. There was incident where the referee allowed the Ipswich player to walk across the pitch when he should have been going off at the nearest touch line which was about 2 meters away

Proper cup tie on a leveller of a pitch

Yes, I was there too along with an impressive number of Ipswich fans and a good turn out from the Clarets' fans too.

A leveller of a pitch ?  Nothing wrong with the pitch, other than perhaps the decision to use the sprinklers before the game making the surface slippery. Match was played in a good spirit and, as you say, a "proper cup tie". I didn't see any excessive time wasting ; substitutions from both teams were effected reasonably quickly. With regard to the refereeing he was certainly no worse than the selection of mainly inadequate referees to grace Portman Road this season. Inconsistency in foul detection was certainly a problem and whereas I like to see a game allowed to flow it seemed a bit of a lottery as to which were penalised and which not. Less of an issue with cards. He showed I believe 4 yellows which seemed about right for the game. I don't go to football to see loads of cards, unless nailed on and essential for match control. Had he shown more then Burnley would have been down to 10 men in the first half when he (correctly) played an advantage in the build up when the already booked Beyer bodychecked Jackson. Assuming he remembered who it was, he clearly erred on the side of generosity. If he didn't, he certainly wasn't going to ask the Assistant! He over-ruled the Assistants a few times, the yellow card for Harness was harsh. His worst decision was to award Burnley a corner when Zaroury shot fiercely wide and with the goal keeper's dive not getting within a yard of the shot, he inexplicably awarded a corner.

So an average sort of performance which, unusually, left no-one talking about him after the game.

Yeah it was never a corner that Zaroury shot.

The Beyer incident you are talking about came when Tom should have given a free kick on cork but like you said played the lottery.

The pitch was awful. Mud in some patches didn’t allow for a good passing game that both teams like to play, Kompany mentioned in after the game so wasn’t just me.

Ipswich gave us more of a game than some championship sides have this year and will probably be in an around the play offs.

Good luck for the rest of the season apart from the replay

We'll just have disagree about the pitch. Watch the highlights :

Pitch looks pretty decent to me albeit a bit slippery after the watering. Look at the Ipswich players' pristinely white shorts at the end.

Thanks for the good wishes - I'd say the same for you but you're not going to need them !!

Perhaps views of pitch "quality" will vary according to age?  For those who remember the ploughed fields and beaches of the 70s will judge most pitches in January 2023 to be like Wembley.  Younger correspondents used to pitches of billiard table quality will have a more critical eye.

I'm definitely in the former category.