Offside Ref

As far as I’m concerned the FA should throw the book, followed by the kitchen sink at Ben Thatcher.  There is absolutely no call for the foul he committed against Pedro Mendes.  He should have been sent off by the ref and that would of made the aftermath easier for the FA to deal with.

Currently as it stands the FA have to deem this to be an exceptional case before they can suspend him or take any other action, as it stands all they can do is fine him if they decide it was reckless challenge.  Now I don’t want to see players suspended but I think this really does call for it. To knock a player out cold and have them fit on the way to hospital is unacceptable and must be eradicated from the game.

Ben Thatcher is also being investigated by the police and it has to be said that if you did that in the street you’d expect the police to have at least a passing interest.

If ever there was a case for a fifth official with access to video replays it was in this Saturday’s, Everton vs Watford game.  The game end 2-1 to Everton, with Everton being awarded a penalty which should have never been given.

The penalty was awarded for handball in the area when the replay clearly shows the ball hitting Chris Powell (Watford) in the middle of the forehead.  This gets us to ask did ref have a clear view, did the linesman see anything.  While the last call does go to the referee and rightly so, they do have assistants that sometimes refs don’t always appear to make the best use of (probably not the case but it does feel like it sometimes).

So lets assume the ref was in a position to see and was a quirk of the angle making it look like handball or the linesman made a similar call and told the ref, and it was just one of those calls in football that wasn’t really anyone’s fault but was just a bad one because of a line of sight quirk.

Now I’m not really one to advocate the use of video evidence and certainly wouldn’t want the game stopped every two minutes to look at something but have come to the conclusion that where video evidence is available it should be used to aid in deciding game changing decisions such as penalty calls, sending offs, goals and maybe one or two other things.

Increasingly sportsmanship appears to be losing its way in the beautiful game with increased incidents of diving; calling for players to be sent off or carded, the list just goes on and on.

This bad sportsmanship looks set to kill off the unwritten rule that the ball is kicked out of play so that injured players can recieve treatment.  The Premier League now wants referee’s to decide when play should be stopped as some players have be faking injuring to break up oppenent attacks.

If the ref stops the game, it will result in a drop ball, if the ball is kicked out of play then it’s a normal throwing.  This should also stop controversial situations arising like Marc Overmars’ goal for Arsenal against Sheffield United in their 1999 FA Cup fifth-round tie.

Since this is not part of the football laws it come down to everyone to play there part to enforce it and I think they will as managers will be telling their teams that the opposition will use throws to attack and so should they.  The lower leagues have decided not to use this as they believe it’s currently not a problem there but will keep an eye open.

I can see this sticking and propergating down to the lower leagues and out to other leagues around the world.  It’s sad that it has come to this but it does appear to be the right thing to do for the integrity of the game.

The England that beat Greece 4-0 in a friendly yesterday was a completely different team than the one that turned up to the World Cup, the personnel were more or less the same but it was like a team reborn.

So has McClaren cast off the shadow that hung over him after being associated with the previous management? Well, it certainly didn’t hurt him that they won 4-0 and very convincingly too. I think now most are prepared to give him there support although some won’t be convinced, until they win a competitive game and others still until they take on a big side (Holland v England, 15 November, Friendly).

While Greece isn’t the strongest side in the world, it was only 2 years ago that they won Euro 2004, they had at least seven of the side that won Euro 2004 in the team last night, admittedly the team is getting on a bit but you can only beat what’s in front of you.

After the World Cup I think a lot of people’s belief in football in general and in the national side had taken a knock (me included).  Now I’m actually looking forward to the next game against Andorra, I can’t remember the last time I felt that.

I was hoping my next post was going to be about some nice, unfortunately it’s not especially so for West Ham fans.  Dean Ashton, who was going to get his first cap for England broke his ankle.

What I did find odd was West Ham’s lack of outcry at how it was unacceptable / unfair / etc. and that they want significant compensation.  Instead from West Ham boss Alan Pardew we get:

We are absolutely devastated. It’s a massive blow for Deano and his family, and for everybody here at West Ham United.

We are extremely disappointed by the news but, on a positive note, we still have four quality strikers at this club, which will suppress the blow somewhat.

We look forward to a speedy recovery from Deano and hope to see him back in action very soon.

Not a single statement of outrage or call for compensation made in public so far (they are probably speaking direct to the FA about compensation).

I began to wonder is this part of their media policy, which changed lasted year to be more friendly and foster good stories.  There is an article about Phil Hall the man behind this change at West Ham that was in yesterday’s Independent for anyone that’s interested.

It would certainly make sense if it was part of their media strategy, although the tabloids and the rest of the media would probably love nothing more than for West Ham to whip up the Club vs Country question but it certainly wouldn’t endear the club or manager to the average England fan and would produce a lot of negative press, something which West Ham are keen to avoid.

Last season West Ham earned a lot of friends from their performances on the pitch and their conduct off. It looks as if they have continued where they left off and credit to them I say.

When Steve McClaren was appointed as the next England manager by the Football Association before the World Cup, I doubt he thought he would have to disassociate himself from the previous manager by so much.

During the World Cup we watched as Sven sat there appearing to do nothing, occasionally talking to McClaren. McClaren would write something and show it to Sven and would then go and issue some orders. People begun to question who was really running the show. England crashed out of the World Cup having not put a single convincing performance in.

McClaren took over at the beginning of August and appears desperate to prove that his tenure will be his own and different to that of his predecessor. The first sign of this was when PR Guru Max Clifford was hired to be his PR advisor having previously advised him when he came clean with his extra-marital activities. Ultimately the fans view on him will come down to two things, match results and how convincing the team is and you just can’t spin that stuff.

So far he has had to made two football decisions:

• Pick the new team captain, this was a no brainer he had two excellent choices in Gerrard and Terry. Support for both from the general public was slightly in Terry’s favour and even those who wanted Gerrard believed that Terry was also a good choice and vice-versa.

• Pick the squad, this required common sense, something that Sven appeared to lack during the World Cup, and it looks like McClaren made the right decisions. Gone are Sol Campbell, David Beckham and David James and in comes some new blood. Demoted (and rightly so) to the U-21’s is Theo Walcott who I feel sorry for since he came to sum up the end of Sven’s reign and yet it wasn’t Theo’s fault that he was picked to be in the squad that he wasn’t ready to join.

In addition to these decisions he has made some backroom changes including the very popular appointment of Terry Venables as his deputy.

McClaren needs some wins quick and convincing wins too or his honeymoon period will stop before it starts. I think the crunch game for him will probably be the 2nd game, a Euro 2008 Qualifier against Andorra on the 2nd of September. Andorra is a very young football nation and McClaren has been promising convincing results, failing to deliver a win by a margin of at least 2 or 3 goals probably won’t bring calls for his head but will result in a huge knock to popular support for him.

On Wednesday England face Greece in a Friendly that couldn’t come at a worse time. The league managers want to keep their players and get them ready for the start of the season, they don’t want their players playing in a meaningless friendly that could get them injured. McClaren on the other hand wants to get the team playing in a way that he wants them and ready for the more meaningful games ahead.

So McClaren finds himself in a catch 22 situation in that he has to find a way to look convincing against Greece while attempting to bed in some players and find a formation, all while keeping the league managers happy and not injuring their players. It’s certainly a job that I don’t envy.

The Offside Ref site has been around in one form or another since 2001 (previously in the guise of Burtrand World), for those who are interested I’ll be putting up the site’s history in the About page in the main part of the site at some future point but the short story is that the site lost direction and decided to re-brand and re-launch it.

Inspired by the first page (offside rule) made for the site way back in 2001 I decided to use the most over used phrase in football to brand the site – Offside Ref.  Along with the name change the site moved fully on to a football theme, previously in theory it was history site despite taking 90+% of the traffic to the football section with most of that going to the offside rule page.

With a new look and themed site there still wasn’t anywhere that users could voice their opinion, which is why I started this blog.  My aim is to talk about the latest news from the football world and my views on it.  Comments are very much welcome even if your view is different to mine.

Now all we need is some football news.