Do Not Sell My Personal Information
Increasingly, the refereeing decisions are as influential as injuries and in-form players in shaping the title race. Is there really anything that could be done about that?
Sir Alex Ferguson said "you can’t win titles without your best players" two years ago in sympathy with Arsène Wenger’s injury crisis that cost them a chance at the title. It was a rare moment when one manager clearly sympathised with another instead of calling his team "kids". Injuries play a huge part in the title push. It is hampering Man Utd right now in a way that only Arsenal fans can truly understand.
In-form players also have a huge bearing on the title race. Nani, Nasri, Berbatov, RvP have been the in-form players shaping the title race. They took over from the in-form players that shaped previous races – Malouda, Drogba, Rooney, Ronaldo. The team with the most in-form players has the momentum. When one of them gets injured, it is big blow. RvP and Nani getting injured is a big deal for the title race and for their managers. Arsenal and Man Utd fans can understand each other here also.
Then there is the refereeing decisions. Man Utd complained bitterly after the Chelsea game. In my view they had the right to complain but not as bitterly as they did. It was not all that crystal clear that David Luiz should be sent off. One referee could have sent him off with good reason while another keeping him on can be justified. The penalty was a penalty. But I can understand the complaints because if it was against Arsenal, I would have complained.
But against Liverpool, Carragher should have been sent off immediately. That was a horrible tackle. Whenever Wenger has complained about such tackles, everyone has sought to talk about football being a contact sport etc. Alex Ferguson himself is said to have phoned Ryan Showcross to offer him support after he broke Ramsey’s leg. It is not about Carragher or Showcross, it is about football. If you make a tackle like that, you go off and you earn a big suspension. Next time, you will try to get it right. There was no malice in Carragher’s challenge – as in, that was not what he was aiming for. But that only means he is not a monster. It still means, however, that he deserves punishment and the yellow was not enough.
Carragher took out United’s most threatening player. Man Utd fans are entitled to feel extremely aggrieved by that. It not only deprived them of a force to win the game but limited their options in up coming games. Following that incident, Fabio got frustrated and also made a horrible tackle. That tackle is very much like Diaby and Sagna’s reactions that got them sent off. A direct result of a feeling of injustice. When Wenger made that point with Diaby and Sagna, he got no sympathy.
Against Sunderland, Arsenal were at the end of two decisive bad decisions. An offside that never was which deprived them of a winning goal and a penalty that got waved away simply because Arshavin did not go to ground.
We see now that Wenger calling for justice is justice for all, it is not just for Arsenal. When someone takes out a player who is then not available for future games, it is a massive blow for any club and it feels like a deep injustice. The feeling of injustice is one of the worst, it is what causes revolutions, it is a potent force and the FA cannot simply deal with it by trying to shut up the complaining manager.
It is impossible to remove mistakes by referees completely. That will never happen. So what can be done? Arshavin strayed offside a few times again Sunderland. That was his mistake. He got punished by missing the opportunity. Then he worked hard, improved and stayed onside and scored a goal and the assistant made a mistake. When a player makes a mistake, he gets punished. When a manager makes a mistake with team selection, he gets punished by the opponent. What happens when it is the official that makes a mistake? Nothing. That is where the injustice comes in. It is not that officials should not make any errors but when they make errors, football fans have to see that the officials too have a mechanism that punishes the mistake so they too have to work harder to get it right. That is justice.
Titles and games will be decided by officials sometimes. They are on the pitch, they are human, they will make mistakes. But true efficiency and justice comes from having a mechanism that punishes mistakes and drives standards higher on both sides and the FA can help with creating justice from things that are impossible for referees to get right on the pitch. For starters, if Wayne Rooney does something horrible off the ball and the referee sees it badly because it is off the ball, Rooney should be punished retrospectively. By doing so, we admit that they official was wrong and that is just being real – he is not superman. We cannot restore penalties or give goals after the game but we can start with other simpler things. If Carragher puts out a player with a clearly bad challenge that warrants a sending off, we cannot replay the game but we can see clearly that the offence warranted more punishment and give the punishment.
For us fans, it is always worth remembering that an injustice to one team will affect your team sometime. Other fans called Wenger a moaner or accused him of trying to make football a non-contact sport. We can now see that it affects every team and the sense of injustice is real. The only way to turn this into something positive is to unite and make the FA stop persecuting anyone who speaks against officials but instead take action to restore justice.
Many people speak horribly about players and managers without punishment. The referees also have their hand in the game and should be treated like every other professional in the game. Managers too need to start realising that when one of them complains, it is not a direct attack on the other one’s team, it is about the justice in football. It is about all teams. I am sure Ferguson will not be phoning Carragher to offer him support and I am sure he will look unfavourably if Roy Hodgson was to go on record to say he had done that.
