In the 14th minute, of what turned out to be yet another anticlimactic 'big six' fixture, the only moment of significance in the game occurred.
Naturally, all the half time, full time and post match talk surrounded the ball brushing the knuckles of a player, which says a lot about the lack of talking points for the rest of the game. Had their been multiple goals, it merely would have been a passing event and unspoken of thereafter.
But what's actually interesting, is that it's brought up a lot more than just penalty or no penalty. It's demonstrated the state of refereeing in the Premier League. If you're unsure on what I'm referring to, by the way, then there was a "handball" by Chelsea player Callum Hudson Odoi, checked by referee Stuart Attwell at the VAR monitor who told him to award the penalty before Attwell disagreed and chose not to give the penalty.
Now firstly I'd just like to say that I don't think it should have been a penalty, but you've seen them given. Pundits and vocal social media voices have been divided on it too, as were Tuchel and Solskjær, which was clear from their post match interviews.
"How can this be intervened? The player in red plays the ball with his hand and then we are checking for penalty? Why does the referee have to see this? ... The referee did everything right." - Thomas Tuchel
The more interesting words came from Man United manager Solskjær who said:
"100% [we should have had a penalty]. When you look at it on the video, it's taken two points away from us. I can't say [what the referee said to the players] because that's not going to be good for him. It's not right, is it? All these outside influences, even the VAR talk before the game here on Harry. That's cheeky when they put that on the website. That's influencing referees. There's loads of talk about us getting penalties when there is no doubt whatsoever. Today we should have had a penalty." - Ole Gunnar Solskjær
Now the interesting part is what I have underlined. Man United defender Luke Shaw highlighted it in an interview before his manager:
"The ref even said to H [Maguire] that 'if I say it is a pen then it is going to cause a lot of talk afterwards'. H got told it was a penalty" - Luke Shaw
So hold on a minute, let me get this straight. A Premier League official has decided not to award a penalty at the highest level of football, when he has been advised to award it, simply because he is scared of the 'wrath' he might face from the vocal (and bitter) rival fans on social media afterwards?
What does that say about the integrity and reliability about the refereeing? The issue is, I'm not even surprised that Attwell had this fear. Only three weeks ago, referee Mike Dean and his family received a number of threats, including death threats, and abusive messages after his decision to send off Tomas Soucek. Clearly that was in the back of Attwell's mind in his reluctance to make a potentially controversial decision, even if technically it is the right one.
But how can it be that the referees are influenced by fans and pundits? They are the ones on the pitch with a job to do. And that's to officiate a football match based on a set of rules and if they can't do that without being influenced by outside events then surely they are not fit to referee?
Not only are the referees being influenced by fear, but they are influenced by so called "agendas" and accusations of team bias in their officiating. In this case, as Solskjær highlighted, "there's loads of talk about us getting penalties when there is no doubt whatsoever." In other words, people have been quick to point out that Man United were receiving a lot of penalties at one point and that perhaps this was unfair or biased.
Significantly, Liverpool manager Jürgen Klopp commented on this before their fixture in January with Man United saying "Man United had more penalties in two years than me in five and a half". The influence of these remarks is clear to see.
Before Klopp's comments:
- 25 games, 11 penalties (for United). 1 penalty every 204 minutes
After the comments:
- 16 games, 2 penalties. 1 every 760 minutes
So, yet again, this "agenda" was clearly in the back of Attwell's head when making the decision. I might reiterate at this point I still think a penalty would have been extremely harsh on Chelsea.
The final point I'd like to raise is that football referees are submissive and don't demand respect from the players. In today's penalty incident, Callum Hudson Odoi, as well as Harry Maguire and a few standing near, stood within metres of Attwell at the monitor bemoaning the process of the VAR review. This is technically a bookable offence yet the referees are too afraid to do anything about it.
But take rugby for example. The referees are referred to as 'Sir' by the players, only the Captain of each team is allowed to speak to the referee regarding decisions and offensive language towards the ref is an instant red card. They command respect. In football a team can surround and swarm the ref without consequence. Players manipulate refs with diving, screaming as they fall and gesturing for cards to opposition players. Nothing is done to prevent this happening and it shows that the men who are supposed to superior on that football pitch are in fact scared, intimidated and weak.
Whether or not the penalty decision was right or wrong, the morals behind the referees reasoning was certainly wrong and today was a clear example that refereeing in football needs to change.
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