Referees, managers and accountability is a grey area for debate. Managers should have a right to opinion and fair comment on a referee’s decision but Dalglish’s comments after the Stoke game went further than one bad decision by Clattenburg. Dalglish was quoted as saying:
“The first four league games have had contentious decisions in them and every one has gone against us. If we continually get battered by things outside of our control we are not going to get much chance.”
Dalglish is by no means the only manager to criticise the referees. Sir Alex Ferguson’s outbursts against referees last season earned him an unprecedented five-match touchline ban. But this sense of conspiracy or bias on the back of a bad decision and ultimately human mistake creates a stronger sense of a siege mentality against referees.
The powers that be need to act quickly to sort out this refereeing mess but managers themselves need to be careful not to cross the line between understandable frustration and full blown conspiracy theory, as football again edges dangerously close to becoming too much about bad decisions and not enough about good football.
The article was written by Jenny Kerwood for FootballFancast.com. Make sure to check out the latest news, blogs and podcasts at FFC – ed.
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I have no idea what you were looking at when the penalty was awarded (probably your make up mirror) Jonathan Walters was fouling Jamie Carragher not the other way round. I am assuming that you are either a Stoke or Manure supporter from your comment: Stoke’s fantastic 1-0 win, sort of says it all.