Re: Football Chat Thread : Thu Mar 03, 2011 7:43 pm
flipper wrote:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-1362014/GRAHAM-POLL-Martin-Atkinson-got-big-decisions-wrong.html
Graham Poll is an idiot.
Every decision went Chelsea's way? Atkinson blowing for a foul just before Torres smashed the ball into the net. Vidic was clearly the aggressor in that situation but he penalised Ivanovic merely for giving him back some of what Vidic started.
As much as the United fans play it down, Rooney threw himself to the deck to try and win a penalty. That was 30 seconds before Rooney scored. If play had been stopped to give Rooney the card he deserved then there'd have been no Rooney goal.
The ball hit Terry directly on his shoulder. It was never a penalty. Thank god Poll isn't a ref anymore if he'd give that as a pen.
Luiz deserved a yellow card for his trip on Rooney. But Scholes has deserved 1,600 yellow cards in his career that he hasn't received, so Utd can go **** themselves over that. The United player who fouled from behind before Malouda's early shot should have been booked, but wasn't. Rooney should have been booked for diving, but wasn't.
While Luiz deserved a booking it clearly was off the ball and the ref could have simply followed the ball and not seen the trip. Fergie, being on the sidelines, would have caught the trip because his eyes were still looking in that direction. If Atkinson saw the deliberate trip then Luiz should have been off, but you can't blame him if he missed it because he was following play.
I think the pen was very soft. The ball was ricocheting around and happened to fall kindly for Chelsea. Smalling had just blocked the ball and he didn't make any movement to trip Zhirkov so it really could have been given either way. But having said that, it was a cast iron penalty compared to Berbatov's against Liverpool, so again they can go **** themselves over it.
Vidic definitely deserved his second yellow. United were angry and were pi55ed off because Chelsea were successfully wasting time in United's end of the pitch. Every time a Chelsea player had the ball United players were kicking lumps out of them in frustration. Giggs was rightly booked for his cynical foul. Vidic then fouled Ramirez, Ramirez rode the challenge and went past him so Vidic dragged him by his shirt and pulled him down. It was the most blatant yellow of the night, on the ball, in a dangerous position and involved dragging back a player when beaten. Just because Luiz got away with a yellow (along with Rooney and Whoever) doesn't negate the fact Vidic deserved that yellow and knew he'd be off over it.
I can understand why Fergie's crying over the match. Much easier to focus on any perceived failings of the ref than make comment on the woeful second half his side put in. He's also going to put pressure on refs for the remainder of the season so that these decisions do favour United.
But IMO the decisions in this match favoured us about 60/40. The way Fergie and United fans are acting you'd think that United got nothing from Atkinson when that was clearly 8o11ox. And given the way United laughed over Rooney getting off over his elbow at Wigan, the hypocrisy from them is overwhelming.
