Referee shown to be utterly wrong concerning Elneny but what about punishing the ref and offending player?

By Dr Billy “the Dog” McGraw

As you will have heard I am sure Mohamed Elneny’s ludicrous and insane red card given at the end of the Southampton match has been rapidly overturned after the FA review, meaning Mo is free to continue playing league games.   It would have been nice to suggest that the decision was inevitable, but of course this is the FA and PGMO we are dealing with here, and with them nothing is a foregone conclusion.

But as even the normally instantly pro-PGMO Daily Express reported in its website, “Confusion surrounded the midfielder’s dismissal by referee Andre Marriner on Sunday.”   They don’t however actually explain what that confusion was all about – and in the end I ended up confused more about the Express’ reporting than anything else.  Here’s what they said…

“After Jack Stephens and Jack Wilshere clashed, which resulted in the Saints star being sent off, Elneny appeared to raise his hands to Cedric in the aftermath of the incident.”   So why the confusion?  If he raised his hands against an opponent with intent to strike him then he should have been sent off for violent behaviour.

Unfortunately this is all considered a bit too complex for Express readers – and quite possibly for the Express reporter Aaron Stokes, a man who normally covers Liverpool and Man U for the paper.  For he next tells us “Arsenal fans were left perplexed by the decision at the time.”

Well not really.  It is the sort of decision-making we have become used to.

But now let us consider what happened.  There was clearly no attempt by Mo to assault a Southampton player – he was being pushed and shoved from all sides and was obviously doing some pushing back while attempting to get the players out of the way.  He wasn’t looking for trouble, but was being hassled.

However what also happened was that a Southampton player ran over to the referee, pointed at Mo and seemed to indicate that Mo had been guilty of violent conduct.  The referee then walked to Mo and sent him off without attempting to consult his support officials.

Clearly the Southampton player was guilty of trying to influence the referee unduly, and the referee was guilty of accepting the word of the player and seizing upon the opportunity to knock Arsenal.  Something that smacks very much either of gross incompetence by the referee, a ref feeling he had to balance things up, or of a complex Type III match fixing – not necessarily trying to fix this game (which was in its dying seconds) but reduce the Arsenal squad by one for the next three league games.

But the actions of the referee could also be explained by crude type I match fixing in which the referee is persuaded to support one team on the pitch against the other, for the benefit of the first team.

Of course I don’t know whether the referee is just unfit for purpose, or was encouraged by an outside agency to behave in a bizarre and eccentric manner, but most certainly, what should happen is that the Southampton player’s actions should be investigated in attempting to influence the referee, as should the behaviour of the referee.

Of course what this sort of activity does is make it slightly more difficult to predict the outcome of game fixtures – slightly more difficult but certainly not impossible.

However all these problems could be set aside if only the PGMO were an open organisation rather than a company that makes hyper-secrecy its prime objective.  If they told us exactly what happened to make the referee make a mistake, and how the events in this game fitted into their claim of 98% accuracy, we could be a little mollified.

As it is we are eternally in the dark – rather (it seems) like the VAR cameras are going to be next season in England.  As the rest of Europe refines and improves their operation, (which of course was never going to be perfect from the off) and the referees improve their ability to deal with them rapidly, so it appears that once again the ultra secret society that is PGMO will do its own thing.

So we could well end up with England being not only the one country without a referee in the World Cup, but also the one major league that doesn’t use VAR.  And as usual the shout will be that everyone else is wrong but the PGMO is right.

“An eternity of darkness,” is a phrase that comes to mind.

When it comes to refereeing in the Premier League I find it hard to think of a better representation.

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14 Replies to “Referee shown to be utterly wrong concerning Elneny but what about punishing the ref and offending player?”

  1. I think the reason the red card decision was overturned is that when looking at the incident, if Mo did enough to be sent off, then the two Southampton players should have been sent off as well. Very much the old 6 of 1 situation which would have meant that the south coast sinners would lose 3 players for 3 games. Rather than face any query as to whether the pigmob was responsible for Southampton’s demise they appear to make a correct decision with the card reversal. How dare anyone notice the fact that the card was a mistake in the first place? I am sure the person running around with a whistle was at least 107% correct in all his on pitch activities.

  2. Just reading the piece in the Guardian about Guardiola.

    So they recon it has been 7 years since he made it past semi-finals, this with having the biggest budgets in all of football history.
    7 years of failure. And he gets red carded.

    And yeah, they say :

    “Guardiola talked afterwards about fine details and one-off results but he is too involved not to see there is a pattern here too.

    City will be back, and no doubt stronger next year. Quite how Guardiola will respond to another oddly familiar setback at an oddly familiar stage is a fascinating prospect.”

    When I see the shitsorms any one defeat by Arsenal or any witty remark or commetary Arsene Wenger makes unleash, I can not not see the manipulation we are being served by the (so-called) press.

    Because all things equal, on the european stage, Guardiola is a specialist in failure, is he not ? And worse, a specialist in expensive failure. And considering his backline cost him more then 200 million over 2 years, something is wrong, is it not ?

    I must admit that VAR is dreadfully needed… Maybe Walter can confirm it was no off-side, as I’ve lost the certainty I had 25 years ago when I was still coaching…. ?

  3. In as much as the Pgmo referees are continuing with their pigmob action against teams in the EPL with Arsenal being their focal point to orchestrate their dasterdly act, Uefa referees might have shown last night at the Etihad Stadium in the Ucl match between Man City and Liverpool that the difference in referring between the Pgmo referees and their counterparts at Uefa is marginal if not the same as Uefa’s match officiating officials incorrect referring decisions in the eyes of some football fans have led to Man City losing the match to Liverpool undeservingly on the night. Which left Pep Guardiola distraught seeing his efforts to win the CL for Man City this season probably aborted by the linesman’s correctly or incorrectly flagging as there were no VARs application in use in the match to review the linesman flagging. But why have Uefa refused to approve the use of the VARs in their games?

  4. Elneny ‘s card was overturned and the decision will be used To show that all’s equal and that the courts are on the level. Pgmo will allow this one to get away and hold it up to prove that there is no bias.
    Instead of accepting their culpability they will take a positive that justice was served in the end.

    Hypocrites.

  5. knobby

    if you use example 12, the starting point should be when the initial ball was played i.e. by a city player. when the ball was chipped in by de bruyne, sane was onside. therefore, the goal should have stood.

    even if you consider the milner deflection, the ball was played by a liverpool player. therefore, sane should never have been flagged for offside because he was never offside in the first place.

    gunner6

  6. Sorry guys, don’t watch any football apart from Arsenal so didn’t see the incident. Will have to try to look at it when I find the time

  7. Well a few points I noticed from the article;
    1. You say arsenal fans were not perplexed as we’re used to such decisions. Well that is you speaking on behalf of all arsenal fans with a great degree of thought reading involved, something you accuse every other person of.
    2. On Elnenys offence you say he was being shoved and reacted likewise, that’s really not how it happened is it? Elneny shoved the Southampton player first, then there was a reaction by several Southampton players. I believe it was overturned because shoving is commonplace in a football match and as long as the force is deemed not excessive, players are rarely red carded.
    3. England the only country without a ref at the world cup? Exaggeration? Is it necessary to exaggerate? Or is it that the truth doesn’t do justice to your agenda?
    I’m tired already

  8. I’m still waiting to hear about Young being banned for trying to break Aguero’s leg and the punishment Martin Atkinson receives for such appalling negligence. Lest we forget, Young would be banned for the Arsenal game if he received the three match banned he so richly deserves. An eerie silence by the media once again…………….

  9. “It is not an offence in itself to be in an Offside Position. A player is in an Offside Position if:

    – He is nearer to his opponents’ goal line than both the ball and the second-last opponent.”

    When De Bruyne chipped the ball, before the deflection off Milner, Sane was gaining an advantage of being offside. There was only 1 defender ahead of him when the ball was kicked. I think

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