[Archived] Man Utd Vs Tottenham

[bellamy11]

An absolute travesty of a decision from the linesman tonight has robbed tottenham of a win at Old Trafford.

This will surely result in another massive call for video evidence to be used in football matches. Maybe if the FA hired competant linesman this issue wouldn't even be raised?

[grizfoot]

Video evidence, the tottenham players could tell it was over the line and they where at the other end of the pitch.

Same old Man Yoo always cheating !!

[cn174]

As far as linesman decisions go, that was absolute sh!te!!!

Carroll was almost all over his line before he clawed the ball out. How only the linesman couldn't see this (oh and Fergie most probably) is beyond me.

[AlanK]

I have not seen these sort of decisions given anywhere except Old Trafford. It stinks.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Disgraceful wasnt it!!!

Couldn't believe that wasn't given, surely video replays will be brought in even though controversy adds to why football is so great!

Thats another point Manchester United shouldn't have this season! I remember a certain "3 minutes" at Ewood as well!

Jammy gits!

[Radagast]

Video evidence, the tottenham players could tell it was over the line and they where at the other end of the pitch.

Same old Man Yoo always cheating !!

If the goal was down to a moronic linesman it can hardly go down as Utd cheating.

The sentiment is dead-on though. Hoachy bar stewards.

[doctorryan]

A couple of goal judges (1 behind each net) would solve this problem nicely.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

Sky Sports Match Report

[herbergeehh]

I wonder if United would've gotten the goal if it were the other way around..?

Absolute disgrace..

[bellamy11]

About half an hour on and I'm still seething.

Officials don't have the bottle to make decisions in front of nearly 70,000 home fans. It really stinks.

Edited January 4, 2005 by bellamy11

[Radagast]

Sky Sports Match Report

That is just unreal. What are these gimps getting paid to do?

[Manchester Blue]

About half an hour on and I'm still seething.

Officials don't have the bottle to make decisions in front of nearly 70,000 home fans. It really stinks.

My thoughts exactly. I honestly don't believe that linesman couldn't see that, the whole ground knew it had gone in but he didn't have the bottle/guts to give it.

[Tim Southampton Rover]

To be honest, i'd rather referees and assistant referees talk to the media about why they didn't give certain decisions than have video replays.

I think they would get a lot more respect that way from players/staff and fans.

[Rovermatt]

Sky Sports Match Report

At any other ground in the world that would have bounced into the back of the net. Typical.

[T4E]

Well I thought it was bloody funny, and gave an otherwise fairly boring game a huge talking point. Yes it was a bad decision, but then stuff like this is what makes football so great.

It's a hard knock life.

[Radagast]

Not for United.

[Oklahoma]

Here in Portugal it happened the same in SL Benfica- FC Porto game.

Vitor Baia made a big mistake and cleared the ball when it was already in.

But in this case, the referee had the ball to go against 60000 fans of Benfica!

And he even "forgot" two penalties against FC Porto

Benfica would be first now if the referee had given it (it would be a tie as FC Porto won 0-1).

[boris bear]

As far as linesman decisions go, that was absolute sh!te!!!

Carroll was almost all over his line before he clawed the ball out. How only the linesman couldn't see  this (oh and Fergie most probably) is beyond me.

Of course Fergie couldn't see it so he didn't blame the linesman or the ref. He could however see that Man U should have had a penalty, well what a surprise.

Look out for this linesman along with Mike Riley officiating every week at Old Trafford.

[BMan]

I guess my idea of having a linesman in each quadrant of the field isn't so bad after all. Two for giving offside decisions, and two to look out for fouls away from the play and situations just like this one.

[broadsword]

Good bleeding gawd! Are these chaps for real?

That looks a good foot over the line.

Edited January 4, 2005 by Bryan

[ABBEY]

dont forget your seeing the usual different rules when utd play.

who can forget sahas handball pass and fergie getting the ref to change how much injury time there was......

DONT FORGET RULE ....MANU

THE WHOLE OF THE BALL MUST MAKE THE NET BULGE WHEN SCORING A GOAL AGAINST MAN U.

[percy]

About half an hour on and I'm still seething.

Officials don't have the bottle to make decisions in front of nearly 70,000 home fans. It really stinks.

My thoughts exactly. I honestly don't believe that linesman couldn't see that, the whole ground knew it had gone in but he didn't have the bottle/guts to give it.

Didn't see the match and haven't seen the highlights yet, but judging from that picture it looks like an absolute sham of a decision. And a farce. And maybe a sham as well.

My Dad did make the following point about the Sky coverage, though. He said the commentators were unsure about what the decision should be themselves until they saw the replay clip - then worked up into a nice frenzy about the failure of the officials to spot it! As things stand, officials don't have this benefit and we have to rely on them being in the right place/being able to see/being competent/not being scared of RFW, etc.

Recently there has been a series of controversial decsions such as Tiago's (sp?) handball against Liverpool, Carragher's repeat against Norwich (the irony!), Ashley Cole's handball against Newcastle and the almost sending off of Andy Johnson for his 50-50 with Bernard. In all cases, the officials have edged on caution and neglected to make a importnant decision in favour of taking a easier option (even though in both the Tiago/Johnson cases, the ref's body language/initial reaction suggested a decision had been made and then was changed). Is this a common theme?

I really hope a strict punishment guideline is enforced to prevent officials who fail to make such important decisions from making them again. It's hard enough to do well against the bigger clubs in the league without them getting the benefit of decisions and choosing their own injury time, etc . A couple of games demotion to the RolaCola Championship isn't enough in my opinion, but then I can't suggest many better ideas myself (that are legal, anyway). Even then, we'd probably need RFW's permission.

Agree with T4E though, it does make football interesting and gives us plenty to talk about. Imagine if every decision was given perfectly and we had state of the art equipment everywhere to monitor the game and give the officials exactly what they need? Where would the controversy come from? Chelski using a hacked or more enhanced version of "MSWorks Offside Decision Maker 2006 (including Ruud Van Nistelrooy sub-rules)" than Charlton? Not quite the same is it?

[i won't be saying the same next week when Nissa's perfectly legal 40 yard thunderbolt is ruled out against Portsmouth because the officials were too busy polishing their Alex Fergsuson pin badges to notice it cross the line. Makes me sick.]

Edited January 4, 2005 by percy

[philipl]

Didn't the Mancs benefit from another 93rd minute handball goal in the month they played us. I think on that occasion, Everton suffered.

Correction, as Radagast has pointed out below- it was Bolton who suffered

Anyway, so far as the Premiership is concerned, it pretty well became a one horse race tonight with Chelsea winning and the Mancs "drawing" and Arsenal also only getting one point.

Have to say, the action wasn't even fast when Carroll clawed the ball back from out of his net- it was a yard not a foot over.

That linesman bottled the decision pure and simple.

As it is the darling of the media folks, Spuds, who have suffered this time, perhaps the deeply suspect refereeing which the Mancs get the benefit of will get some proper exposure this time. The headline in Skysports would have equivocated if Rovers had been on the wrong end of that decision.

Edited January 4, 2005 by philipl

[Radagast]

'twas Bolton that were cheated after us, philipl. Bellion was the culprit I think.

[Tris]

I am 100% against the use of "technology" to eliminate this sort of farce - and, granted, it is a farce tonight.

And I'm also going to defend the linesman, although I will admit that had Rovers suffered from that decision I would struggle to do so.

Football has survived well into it's second century without the use of microchips in the ball or cameras on the line.

Only the advent of multi-channel TV and 24 hour sports news channels has accelerated the clamour for the use of technology.

Human error is a factor in the game. Strikers miss penalties. Keepers slice clearances (or throw shots from the half way line into their goal). Russian linesmen give debatable decisions to win World Cups.

And tonight, in a situation where the ball moved dozens of yards in either direction within seconds, a linesman who will surely be described as "rotund" in tomorrows papers put his head down and legged it (after 90 minutes of legging it) towards the United goal line.

And missed the moment - clearly. To accuse him of cheating is crass and unfair. The failure - IMO - is not that individual - it's the whole team of match officials. There are four of them at pitch level, and the number of times they fail to use each other is ridiculous.

At Premiership level, there is also a ref assessor at every game in the stands. Rather than turn to solutions which overrule human error, I think there is a case to force all the 5 officials at games to work together to minimise the chance of mistakes.

Tonight, probably at least 3 of the 5 saw that Spurs scored a goal. But the rules / protocol don't allow them to contribute, if - as tonight - the ref has trusted the judgement of the official closest to the incident.

It's a team game, and the match officials at games have to start acting as a team. Tonight's incident has highlighted it, but the number of times a linesman fails to help a ref is inexcusable.

But my main objection to technology is because it can never be replicated at lower levels. At the level I play, you accept the decision of the referee. Sometimes there are linesmen, sometimes not.

There will never be cameras and microchips. There will always be human error. And the day you introduce different rules depending on the level of competition is the day football falls to bits.