Obviously i didn't see the game. However made a couple of calls and understand Healey dived for the penalty. These referees are rubbish. D'urso got banned for not showing a red after 2 yellows, even though one was given after the game was over. Forget the fact that he gave two penalty decisions wrong in the game. Steve Mclaren gets a fine for critisizing bad referee. F.A have to wake up to the fact our referees are hopeless. Poll and Riley were the laughing stock of the world cup and European championships respectively. Sack Hackett and bring in Collina now.
Very dissapointing with the result but more so that we didn't put them away earlier. Can hear Pardew saying " We were Robbed " How many times have we heard that this year? Keep the faith people it will come together one day.
Just finished watching - Yes it was a dive (clearly) what's more I think the ref knew it was but was trying to atone for two previous errors. Darren Powell handballed about one minute earlier (he had a bad game today!) and Anton brought one of their guys down in the box in the first half. Having said that we had a good shout for a pen as well.
It was unbelievable that no penalty was called for the foul in the first half. The appeals were very strong for the handball appeal, but since it was on the other side of the pitch, i didn't have a good view of it. I was kind of hoping that it was a bad call to give the penalty, as that probably would have been most fair.
That was as soft a PK as you will find. The hand ball though, in all honesty, probably should have been a PK. Still, bad move on the ref for being intimadated into making that call. A pure make up call.
My mate said there could have been 3 penalties, 2-1 in Leeds favour. However that shouldn't come into the last decision. Like most British referees the guy would have been incompetent.
I've sort of sobered up now after this mornings game, and looking back it may not have been a bad result, the Ref was crap, we all know that, the first half Leeds had most of the possession and came close to banging in 2, we should've finished them off in the 2nd half of course, but that's West Ham, one final point before I stagger off to bed, we're 5th from top, and Leeds are still 7th from bottom, I bid you goodnight.
I spent last night in the pub switching my attention between talking to an SAFC fan about last weeks game and football in general, glancing at the game on the TV and drinking beer. Incidently this is a process which I recommend highly!! Anyway I did see the penalty claim in the first half on the edge of the box. I think the challenge itself is debatable. He did appear to get something on the player and nothing on the ball but also the Leeds player was going for the penalty which makes it harder to assess. I think a conclusive point about this though is exactly where the contact, if any, was made. I think our defender probably did catch him but on seeing the replay I was watching the line on the edge of the penalty area when Sky Sports decided to put a big banner in the way saying "Was it or wasn't it?". Well that's what we all wanted to know Sky Sports. Thanks for that. Luckily they showed it again and got a very good freeze frame on the initial point on contact where the two players legs were touching. It was about half a foot out of the area. It was close but not quite inside. So I think a free kick bang on the edge of the area would have been the fair decision. I didn't see the hand ball and I only got a very brief glance at the foul that was given at the end. However I tihnk if our players fell they deserve a win then they should finish the game off properly instead of going for a 1-0 win. Perhaps 1-1 was a fair result. BTW Scout. As I am going through a bit of a 'turning the tables' style phase at the moment, in the interests of unbias footballing discussion how did you rate the referee against SAFC last Saturday? SAFC fans round here are spitting blood about him. Most comments I have heard have been bias rubbish I must admit but he did have a funny game. Bad decisions were made both ways I thought. But when we win we tend not look at the referees performance as much.
Actually, both were given during the match. First was for a foul, and the second was for dissent after kicking the ball away after a penalty was called against them that was never a penalty. http://football.guardian.co.uk/Match_Report/0,1527,-48253,00.html