RateTheRef

Dale Johnson thinks both VAR decisions will be supported.

He thinks handball was very harsh but as on-field decision holds weight there was not enough for VAR to say it was wrong.

He says foul at end was not holding offence but tripping/blocking and first point of contact outside area.

Quote from: bmb on Sun 14 Apr 2024 00:41

Quote from: ChippenhamCherry on Sat 13 Apr 2024 22:38

Woefully inconsistent. Or I suppose you could call it consistent but all in one direction.
Not a single booking for Man Utd. They committed more fouls in the game.
Christie booked for diving, Mainoo's dive ignored. Cook and Neto booked for dissent. Fernandes in his face all game, not booked.
Not even a booking for Kambwala for the foul that lead to the overturned penalty (sidenote: since his arms wrapped around Christie, was it not a holding offence that started outside the box and continued into the box and therefore should have remained a penalty?) at the end, even though that was textbook stopping a promising attack.
He was poor with the the little stuff too. E.g. Unal penalised for a light push. Two minutes later he's pushed to the ground, play on, Utd nearly score. That's what lead to Neto's understandable dissent.
As for the Man Utd penalty, it's the very definition of a big club penalty. There's no way a small club is getting that in their favour at Old Trafford.
There are Premier League referees capable of refereeing the big clubs evenly with the little ones. But some just can't compute that the game might actually be going in the other direction than the one they prepped for, that the big club might be struggling, that the big club might be committing as many indiscretions as the little one. Tony Harrington very much fell into that category.

This.

However whilst Neto’s dissent was understandable I still didn’t like to see it. We’re normally better than that.

Very unusual for the anti ref songs to be sung loudly and continuously at Dean Court. Can’t remember the last time I heard them. We have one of the most placid crowds going.

Iraola is one of the worst for dissent and touchline behaviour, so he’s not “normally better than that”.  Just balancing things up slightly here 👍

Very good game of football and I think Nyberg had a great game. When I was watching, my first intial thought was penalty and screamed at my laptop for a penalty. However all it took was one replay to see how that is never a penalty. As an Arsenal fan, it’s annoying to see Saka try to con the ref but that happens with every team so it’s no surprise he does it and Arsenal aren’t the worst team to do so.

When the appointments came out I was a bit worried that himself and Lexeteir were put on last nights games, but Nyberg proved he deserved it. Can’t comment about Lexeteir as I was in and out of watching that game