I thought Jones was excellent just like John Brooks was aswell earlier , no problem at all with the penalty clear trip and very clumsy by Olise and he knew it which is why he didn’t complain and just walked away
Brooks and Jones have certainly stepped up and improved enormously especially since Webb has taken over , it seems Webb is certainly trying to get the best out of all the referees , I hope Bramhall gets another chance as he seems to be out of favour
I only saw bits of this game, choosing to watch England's terrible performance at the 15-a-side game instead. My mistake.
After about 54 minutes Robert Jones awarded a free-kick to City on the edge of the Palace box. The time elapsed between the award of the free-kick and the kick being taken was
two minutes and eighteen seconds. I know its a bit geeky, but I got fed up waiting and replayed to find out.
There were, at least, four "committee meetings" before the action resumed:#
1. A meeting between the referee and a sizable delegation of Palace player to determine whether the free-kick decision was correct (it was).
2. A meeting between an equally sizable delegation of City player to determine whether the offence had taken place inside or outside the penalty area. This was despite this being automatically checked by VAR (the innovation that was supposed to eliminate such meetings).
3. A further meeting over Mr. Jones' estimation of ten yards.
4. A final meeting over the location of the attacking City player who were near the defensive wall.
Apart from the fact that was over two minutes almost certainly not added onto the end of the half; each one of the "meetings" involved multiple players and could have been treated as dissent. I am not saying that every meeting attendee should have been cautioned; but this approach to "managing the game" has lead to this nonsense.
This is not a slight on Robert Jones - he is doing what his paymasters require - (or even the players involved) because you could find similar examples in pretty much every premier league game.
It is, however, an excellent example of where the game has gone and where it is heading if the game's top referees have to do the job with at least one hand tied behind their back.