RateTheRef

How can this be allowed - ridiculous.

If both keepers have the same colours and no change the referee allows the match to proceed. At the level in question it shouldn’t happen and my feeling is that the keeper should not be allowed in the penalty area as it would be difficult to tell which yellow arm had put the ball in the net.
An idea for the ruling bodies, and free of charge.

I’m afraid in football these days we can only think of what it should be and not what it would be. We see so many strange decisions down to “game management”

May I enquire from a refereeing point of view how our learned correspondents view the wisdom of sending a referee to a match with significance for both teams in a county where the referee used to have joint registration and where the brother of the referee used to be a player.
My aged opinion is that it is unfair on the referee, creates unneeded pressure and potentially and needlessly leaves the referee open to accusations of favouring one team.
I am pleased to say that I did not see the match and cannot make any comment on the referee’s performance, but we are supposed to have a thought to Mental Health and the situation would appear to create extra stress .

If Sky News is to be believed there will be no further action taken by the FA because the referee saw it and dealt with it.
So we have the stupid situation where a player can be sent off by a referee who has seen a situation an dealt with it, but the player can appeal that the referee has made a mistake and request the decision be overturned, but the FA can do nothing if it thinks the referee has erred.
It makes you realise what FA really abbreviates.

Proof, if proof were needed, that the referee was correct to play on.

I think the emphasis should be on both obvious and opportunity with both carrying equal weight. It doesn’t have to be a sure goal but just the reasonable ability to have a shot. After all we see some wonderful goals scored from very difficult locations.
Of course we are led to believe that the Premier League has a substantial shareholding in PMGOL and does not want sendings off, which may of course be disinformation, but might explain to some extent the reluctance of some referees to issue red cards.
It does make life difficult for those in the lower echelons of refereeing however.

The number of cards is not an indicator of his performance, but rather of what was at stake for both teams. I do feel that some of the enforced positioning left him guessing for throw ins and he generally chose, wisely, to give them to the defending team. I still prefer referees to run diagonals to be nearer incidents.
My only real criticism would be the incident where the Sutton striker injured the Shrewsbury goalkeeper by sliding in when he was on the floor. There was nothing deliberate about it but he arrived after the keeper had palmed the ball away and could have done serious damage. I was amazed when play restarted with a corner rather than a fee kick. In tight matches it’s things like that that can make a difference, particularly with the fair cautions for other late tackles.