As flies to wanton boys are Everton to the referees; they cheat us for their sport.
February 5, 2008
Ed Bottomley brings us his opinions on Everton’s peaks and troughs.
Evertonians must like tension, the years we spent on the razor’s edge of relegation, years of fraught nerves and throttled match-day programmes, weren’t able to be healed by warm coddled midtable safety for long; now we have a different set of reasons to grab every point that we can get. Whereas in the past we would breathe a long sigh of relief at the season’s end - at the dodgy offside goal we scored (and the ref didn’t notice) - now we count the points struck off our potential points tally by officials in need of dark glasses and white sticks. A point here, a disallowed goal there, it all counts, and it all makes a huge difference. Like the princess who had umpteen mattresses between her and a pea, a minuscule refereeing mistake can have gargantuan consequences.
Pierluigi Collina’s heartbreaking and unfathomable decision to disallow Duncan Ferguson’s equaliser against Villarreal that stopped us cold at the Champions League qualifier stage still haunts me. This season, however, the gaffes could stop Everton from even getting to that stage. I have to wonder if the FA charge against David Moyes for his post-derby Clattenburg comments (”Didn’t Clattenburg go to Hong Kong with Liverpool for the Asia Cup this summer? Maybe he wants to be their friend.”) was recently dropped because the FA feared where this investigation would focus. The Merseyside derby result hangs on my back like a black dog, as do the two points dropped against Blackburn at the weekend, when James Vaughan and AJ combined wonderfully, but were denied cruelly by the linesman.
To borrow and bend the Bard: As flies to wanton boys are we to the referees; they cheat us for their sport.
As it is, Everton are in fourth spot but remain uncomfortably close to the chasing pack. If certain results had gone the way the laws of the game intended and myopic refs hadn’t missed legit goals we would surely be more securely ensconced in fourth place.
Despite a video dossier to the contrary, the knee-jerk reaction of most refs to the sight of AJ taking a tumble is to treat it as a dive, such is his reputation. AJ is forced to chase long balls and lost causes, evade defenders, sidestep his reputation as a diver, stay on his feet despite being fouled, and then score; a thankless task.
The fact that Everton haven’t been awarded a single penalty in the Premier League this season speaks volumes. Add to that the several penalties we have been awarded by continental referees in the UEFA cup games we played this season, and you wonder if there is a congenital British eye defect inbred amongst referees and linesmen.
Looking back at Everton’s miraculous 3-2 win against pugnacious bruisers Wimbledon back in 1994 - coming back from 2-0 down to win 3-2 in truly miraculous circumstances. I always suspected a Faustian pact secured this win, are we paying for that luck now?
Comments
7 Responses to “As flies to wanton boys are Everton to the referees; they cheat us for their sport.”
Got something to say?
Sponsor
Bet on Football
COS Mentalists Poll
Things That COS Nutters Are Currently Saying
- Race concerns over UEFA finalists (3)
Hun: Q - What does a Glasgow Rangers fan do when they win the 2008 UEFA Cup Final? A - He switches off his playstation and gets back into bed with his sister.
- Mike Tyson offers support to Newcastle, Tottenham and England legend! (6)
jomil: i herd that mike tyson is comin to newcastle is it true
- Can Liverpool striker score more than 40 goals next season? (15)
You are retarded: FernandoTorresLiverpool’ sNumber9 Loverpill? Chokers? What the fuck are you talking about you prick? Ian - Liverpool won’t make...
ian: LMFAO liverpool will not make it past 40 goals, they have no real goal threat other than torres. Crouch i hate to say because i have a passion for the...
Kano: NO FUCKING CHANCE
- Liverpool line up £12m superstar bid – This guy would be great signing! (44)
LiverpoolAreShitAndAlwaysHaveBeen: LiverpoolAreShitAndAlwaysHaveB eenLiverpoolAreShitAndAlwaysHa veBeenLiverpoolAreShitAndAl...
- Portsmouth midfielder ‘didn’t feel good enough’ at Arsenal (11)
Jman: er, rayparlourforpresident, its called shorthand, it makes it easier to write lol. its not that someone cant spell its that its a bit quicker. it...
- Can Arsenal come back from losing TWO top midfielders? (13)
Jman: simples answer - come back from wot? 3rd place?
- What’s this? A player wanting to stay with Arsenal! (14)
Jman: bill vector seems to be very unsophisticated in his disapproval of Bendtner
More COS...MORE! Bwahahaha!
- Arsenal’s star midfielder gets his own TV show… woohoo!
- Fabregas - Puyol swap? What a mismatch!
- Portsmouth midfielder ‘didn’t feel good enough’ at Arsenal
- Race concerns over UEFA finalists
- What are your TOP THREE Premier League signings this season?
- Can Arsenal come back from losing TWO top midfielders?
- Yaya Toure wants to team up with Arsenal’s big brother
- Manchester City and Tottenham set to play keeper swap
- Chelsea pip Manchester United to Bosingwa - and boost the Porto coffers again!
- Who should Tottenham sign to replace Berbatov?
Great article and a lot of truths in there, cheers for a good read.
Brilliant article, more please
Nice one Ed. Couldn’t of put it better myself!
Whilst I’ll agree that it was well written I must disagree with the conclusion that poor referees have been the cause for Everton not having a buffer between it and the rest of the teams chasing fourth place this season.
Every team has fouls called for and against them including terrible decisions such as that against AJ on the weekend. By your arguements many teams would have a claim to say that they should be higher up the table or even challenging for the title. It’s amusing how teams that are battling relegation are always happy to overlook contentious decisions in their favour yet when they have a sucessful period they don’t notice the contentious decisions for them and only notice those against.
How many teams have gone to Old Trafford and seen contentious penalties given against them? Chelsea could feel agreived that they are not closer to the top 2 after a questionable goal on the weekend. Liverpool have drawn no less than 10 games and surely there was a contentious decision or two in these games that may have given them a few more wins (and a clear claim on 4th spot).
But most importantly whenever fans claim that they were robbed of a victory they often fail to realise that a goal can change the complexion of the game. Who is to say that with a goal scored Everton would not have sat back and defended whilst Blackburn threw everthing forward to try and grab an equaliser? Maybe even 2 goals to win the game? Or conceded another? My point is it’s impossible to say that had a disallowed goal been the reverse decision that any team would go on to win the game?
Referee’s are human and make mistakes both for and against teams and YES sometimes more against your team than others and sometimes it’s the other way round, it may never ever even out over time but there isn’t much we can do about it. We could sit here and argue about many penalty claims, failings to send off a player but it’s all conjecture.
Everton are in fourth 1 point above the pack end of story.
yea i think you are paying for the HansSegersgate affair. A price worth paying I’m sure you’d agree. You wouldn’t have got Moyes if you were still languishing in the Championship.
prem should hire foreign refs who have less bias.
http://www.rightresult.net/index.php
pretty interesting stuff right there…