I feel there has to be a lot more transparency when/where the referee stops the clock… with the intention of extending the playing time at the end of the normal 45mins by the same amount… Maybe a digital display for everyone in the ground, and the play-acting Oscar nominee’s rolling round the turf, to fully bear witness to his actions…
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I thought Oliver was a bit of a spurs fan tonight.
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Abit…I thought he was their 12th player on the pitch…
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Oliver was poor but he also let Fab get away with a few challenges when he could easily have gotten a yellow
I used to be glad/happy if we got Oliver as a ref. But the last couple ofbtimes he’s come to Anfield it’s looked to me like he’s making a point of not being ‘swayed by the crowd’. I thought he was very poor tonight and could have produced cards earlier for both teams.
I get the feeling that if it had been Watford v Brentford instead of us v Spurs but playing the exact same game, same tackles, challenges etc. Then there card count would have been higher. 
He had a real off-day yesterday, it happens, at least he has no bias against us and we did not draw against Spurs because of him.
We could not beat them, Chelsea and Cheaty over two matches this season, that is the real reason we will not win the PL.
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Mike Dean should join them.
We play the game mostly in the right spirit. That’s not to say we don’t do some of the dark arts, like taking a yellow for the team. But from an overall perspective we are mostly in the fairness spirit of the game. I would argue that we are on the extreme fairness side of the spectrum.
A team like Atletico Madrid are on the other extreme of the spectrum. They’ll do anything to win at all costs.
Most other teams play along all different points on this spectrum. $hitty are very aggressive in the losing the ball transition phase where all that stats show that’s when they will do their dark arts (it doesn’t have to be Fernandinho type of challenge, but rather impede the player in such a way that their team loses that split second advantage and allows $hitty to recover their positions).
So now onto my thesis. Refs are human (may be a shock to some). A team that is in their face and pointing out every thing against them is more difficult to ref than a team that mostly moves on with their decisions. So subconsciously, refs will ever so slightly have some bias in their decisions.
The media with the Salah goes down easily jibes plant little things in people’s minds. The away crowd will boo any time Salah goes down, and these things added together plant little things in the ref’s mind. When there is a subjective call, that’s when decisions may go against us (compared to, if all was perfect, the natural variance in the decisions). The variance is skewed against us ever so slightly (but that is more than enough, just like the house edge in a casino).
The data analysis done recently with data in the Prem over the last few years show that Mo Salah is an extreme outlier in that he hardly gets any decisions in his favour. There is something really nefarious going on there. A multivariate analysis is needed to find out what is actually causing this (I’d wager if all things were equal, and our Mo played for Man Utd, he’d get many more fouls/pens awarded).
Here is a free reading from Paul Tomkins about this:
Paul Tomkins has also done some analysis (or written about) how there is a very real difference in officiating between a player from England and from abroad. Again, I’m not accusing the refs at all of anything like racism, but there is a real difference statistically in the output of the ref, and this bias can only be explored through a proper analysis.
So for me, there is no overall conspiracy. It’s the slight subconscious biases that over a season, shows that there is something amiss. Pointing out that we get decisions for us (like Fab not red carded) is all part of the normal variance in decisions. But the studies shown over several years show that if you look at it from a “population level perspective, we are on the wrong end of overall decisions.
And in the last few years where the league title is being won by a point or so, these little quirks tilt against us.
Oh, one more thing that can contribute to the bias feeling. Some teams can read the ref better than us, and this can contribute to decisions as well. It’s obvious to all that in the first 20 mins, teams can get away with murder, and then these adaptable teams then dial it in. But we play with the same spirit throughout, so over the course of many games, the team gaming the ref style can gain a small advantage.
$hitty score the most in the first 20 mins, where they really go for goal, and when the opposition get the ball and there’s a possibility of a situation, Fernandinho and co will tug on them, knowing full well they won’t be carded early. What this creates is pressure on the opposition from not being able to get out of the $hitty play and inevitably, they score a goal from the pressure.
Then in the second half, they know they can again do the dark arts in stopping the counter as they are not on a yellow. So, over the course of many games, this dark art style of play gains an advantage.
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Very well written @Worgan. 
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Oh Dear… Some hot-head still pissed at him eh
I don’t care what people think of Jon Moss, but that is disgusting.
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Premier League should never have given him such a ‘hot-potato’ to officiate given it was his last match.
If it wasn’t a Huddersfield fan out for payback, then it would surely have been a Nottingham Forest fan if the result had gone against them instead… but then common sense from the PL is something that is in short supply eh!
Lets hope he is insured and tempers of those culprits diminish over the summer.
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Shite as a referee and shite as the referee’s boss, next …
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They’re saying Howard Webb “could” be reinstated in a “Senior Position” at the PGMOL. That’s no good to me. I want it confirmed. Then I can mortgage the house and bet it all 9n Utd winning the league. Because it’d be nailed on with that git in a position of power.
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Is that serious?
He is one biased cunt, and will be seriously bad news for us if he is appointed
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I know Clattenburg was a bit of a dick at times but I would trust him to shake it up a bit.
I think the fact Atkinson and Moss just stuck around for so long is a massive issue.
The refs below must be garbage (or not trusted) for those to stay elite for so long. I’ve said the issue with refeering in this country is at amateur level, some of the youngsters I’ve seen get all sorts of crap and those are the ones who could go further. I’m a 39 year old who was bullied at school I can smirk with the best of them. Maybe the infrastructure has to be looked at. As all refs begin the way all players used to but players don’t now but refs still do.
Also your FA indoctrinated from the very start, some of the old duffers in blazers with their perils of wisdom also need to be replaced.
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He’s done a really good job in the MLS, things like feedback after a game on VAR.
Pity he publically said he had a UTD bias, not sure how that would work.
Thank fuck Riley is under pressure, useless fuck.
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Aye, appointing the ex-South Yorkshire policeman wont fill me with much hope.
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Surely at least this would come with a corresponding level of scrutiny, as opposed to the current referees who insist that they’ve always been a huge supporter of a League Two club, honest guv.
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