The Good-Bad Referee
The Good-Bad Referee
The new rules are being praised, but there continues to be wrong, game-changing decisions.
This week in football rolled through with the momentum of last week and my concerns of a feeling of burnout in regards to the new football season have mostly subsided.
Although I fail to watch a Premier League game in every time slot afforded to me, as I did last season (scary) - the games I have caught in the first two weeks have been nothing short of top draw.
The good-bad referee:
Over the past few weeks, what is clear is the shift in officiating the Premier League has seen; a really drastic change at that too. There seems to have been this almost immediate reversion back to a game that was played 10 or so years ago.
In theory, there cannot be too many complaints. A more free-flowing game is great for the spectator and reintroduces some of the excitement that is often cited to have been lost in recent years. An uninterrupted game, with the fiery duels, is something that holds our attention.
Manuel Pellegrini touches upon the speed of the league as a problem for La Liga, a league in which there is a culture to blow the whistle early, with stoppages ever frequent.
Illustrating this point is the statistic that holds La Liga as the league with the fewest minutes with the ball ‘in-play’.
This alarming statistic paired with the loss of the league’s top stars (including Lionel Messi) highlight a dangerous trajectory for Spanish football. It is not overly surprising that a Perez or Laporta would be incessantly pushing for a Super League.
![ESPN FC on Twitter: "Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez says the European Super League was created to 'save football.'… "](https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2Ff58cc9d4-2b94-4efb-b1bb-35100ccff31f_1200x675.jpeg "ESPN FC on Twitter: "Real Madrid president Florentino Pérez says the European Super League was created to 'save football.'… "")
So, with fewer fouls being called and a familiarity of officials with VAR (resulting in quicker reviews), the English game is regaining some of its fluidity. ‘Another foul? Ah, I’ll pick up my phone’ will become a slightly less common reaction in the 2021/2022 season.
But despite these benefits, I do have issue with its very direct, aggressive implementation. The well-intentioned shift in officiating in practice seems to be flawed. We can look towards the unfortunate experience of Arsenal when making this point.
In their game against Brentford, we see the Brentford player, quite excessively contact Balogun after poking the ball away, taking him to ground in the box. The initial poke should not invalidate the clear foul that follows. It is quite baffling how this fails to be a penalty.
Within the media: the journalists, the pundits - there continues to be a sort of complimentary view of these decisions. Carragher in the clip above mentions ‘how well he come(s) across, making that touch’. Roy Keane reiterated that sentiment, but it seems to come from a place of nostalgia rather than what is right or good for the game.
The Balogun incident aside, we see the same flaws in poor officiating in the goal Arsenal concede to Brentford, ignoring the foul on Leno and James’ foul on Saka. For all the criticism levelled at Arteta thus far, you could make a fair case for suggesting that if these games played out last season, they would’ve had a penalty vs both Brentford and Chelsea, with one of the Brentford goal’s being disallowed- all whilst battling the problems of a COVID-stricken team.
Klopp seems to be the most vocal critic of this shift in the referee’s temperament and based on what we have seen so far (and it extends past Arsenal’s experiences) I think he is justified to do so. In fact, I am quite glad a high-profile manager is contesting this change in its current implementation.
The Liverpool boss highlights the above examples but touches upon the need to continue to protect the players. In a league that started in August, off the back of a packed season and international tournament, the conditions inevitably increase risk to the players’ welfare.
Without the necessary protection, not only are results of games going to be dictated almost arbitrarily, in the name of excitement - but players will suffer in the long-term. I raised this point in a tweet and not much later, Gundogan fell to the ground clutching his shoulder, injured in the final moments of a physical game. A foul was not given.
For the spectator, sure it might be something that has genuine appeal, especially for the more physical sides in the league. Sean Dyche was notably quite pleased with the new rules following this weekend’s game. It is a quite unique throwback to a more old-fashioned game, only this time with the modern faces we’re used to.
Still, I cannot subscribe to the notion that it is this beautiful utopia and the problems of last season have now been resolved. If anything, the problem have simply shifted from one pole to the opposite. There is still questionable officiating, only this time on the side that people are familiar with.
Are the decisions correct? In many games in the short season so far, I would have to disagree. But is it a shift towards a culture that is better than the stop-start games we have seen recently? Yes. A happy medium is needed, this isn’t basketball and it isn’t Summerslam. Just give me good football.
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