Contrast the no call by Taylor with the red card Tierney gave against Burnley. Wildly different standards.
Matchweek 38 Arsenal - Everton Referee: Andre Marriner. Assistants: Simon Long, Scott Ledger. Fourth official: James Linington. VAR: Lee Mason. Assistant VAR: Mark Scholes. Brentford - Leeds Referee: Paul Tierney. Assistants: Lee Betts, Neil Davies. Fourth official: Robert Jones. VAR: John Brooks. Assistant VAR: Sian Massey-Ellis. Brighton - West Ham Referee: Kevin Friend. Assistants: Matthew Wilkes, Steve Meredith. Fourth official: Andy Davies. VAR: Simon Hooper. Assistant VAR: Simon Beck. Burnley - Newcastle Referee: Craig Pawson. Assistants: Eddie Smart, Dan Robathan. Fourth official: Jeremy Simpson. VAR: Jarred Gillett. Assistant VAR: James Mainwaring. Chelsea - Watford Referee: Mike Dean. Assistants: Ian Hussin, Darren Cann. Fourth official: John Busby. VAR: Michael Salisbury. Assistant VAR: Derek Eaton. Crystal Palace - Man Utd Referee: Martin Atkinson. Assistants: Constantine Hatzidakis, Richard West. Fourth official: Josh Smith. VAR: Peter Bankes. Assistant VAR: Natalie Aspinall. Leicester - Southampton Referee: Jonathan Moss. Assistants: Marc Perry, Shaun Hudson. Fourth official: Leigh Doughty. VAR: Graham Scott. Assistant VAR: Timothy Wood. Liverpool - Wolves Referee: Anthony Taylor. Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn. Fourth official: Tony Harrington. VAR: Stuart Attwell. Assistant VAR: Dan Cook. Man City - Aston Villa Referee: Michael Oliver. Assistants: Stuart Burt, Simon Bennett. Fourth official: David Coote. VAR: Darren England. Assistant VAR: Adrian Holmes. Norwich - Tottenham Referee: Chris Kavanagh. Assistants: Harry Lennard, Nick Hopton. Fourth official: Dean Whitestone. VAR: Andy Madley. Assistant VAR: Wade Smith.
Oliver and Taylor for the title matches, Tierney and Pawson for the relegation matches, Kavanagh and Marriner for the fourth place matches. Dean at Stamford Bridge, Atkinson at Selhurst Park, and Moss at King Power Stadium for their swansongs. Friend completes the ten instead of Attwell, who is VAR for Taylor. What a season!
Dean's and Atkinson's appointments surprise me, though maybe they shouldn't. Not sure if it's an accurate reflection of where Riley thinks they are performance wise currently or some sort of semi-official policy where you don't give a retiring referee a major match to go out on (which if true, to be fair, is sensible in some respects).
Not only that, the Kane foul on Robertson was far worse than both of them. So not only do you have lack of consistency between referees (which is always present to some degree) there is also lack of consistency by an individual refere
I’ll be watching Mike Dean’s last game. I wonder if any in the current cadre will develop more on field personality- I think it’s good for refs to have their own fans, humanizing quirks etc. But they have a long way to go.
Before I die I want to do a Mike Dean fist-pump turning upfield toward the kickoff after an advantage turns into a goal.
Today's League One promotion final Referee: Simon Hooper Assistant Referees: Adam Crysell and Craig Taylor Fourth Official: Tim Robinson Reserve Assistant Referee: Greg Read VAR: Lee Mason AVAR: Matthew Wilkes
Do you think the players know it is the retiring officials last game? i know when an NHL official retires the players make a point of skating over to shake hands as they are about to leave the ice.
City keeper down for two minutes in stoppage and Oliver only adds 25 seconds. Villa probably doesn't score but still.
The ball was in play for about 90 seconds of the 4:25 of stoppage time at City. But when a single goal would have changed who wins the league title it doesn't look great. Part of me wonders if Oliver just wanted to get his team off of the field knowing that the pitch invasion was coming.
It’s one of those things that is so clearly unacceptable that you have to wonder if it’s actually unacceptable to the powers that be. Four minutes went up. Literally nothing happened from 90-92. When Pep started screaming for Oliver to end the match, I laughed. And then he ended it. I am still surprised. It had to go to 96. 95 just to keep up some appearances. Definitely something to remember next time we complain about CONCACAF timekeeping.
It was just a league championship on the line.why bother. With the advent of VAR and the army of officials requires to officiate a single match at this level, what’s another one to try to accurately keep track of this stuff within the same confines of what should be considered as stoppage time today.
You’d think those 5K Hublot watches would have a decent app to accurately record stoppage time. (Tongue in cheek for that one-I know the watch isn’t keeping time on its own.)
I guarantee you if that was game one or game 19 and not game 38 where the result only mattered to City, Oliver is going to, at minimum, 96. If Villa was in a relegation battle or fighting for a CL spot and needed a result, he's playing to 96. It's not right and I'm not defending Oliver, but imagine if he played to 96 and Villa scored? There would have been an entire analysis in the papers and in the media of how much time was lost. That's really the only thing I got there for why he blew it so early. That had to play in his logic. It reminded of watching first leg CL knockout matches from 2000-2012. If it was tied in the first leg, referees would never play more than 2 minutes of stoppage time in the first leg no matter what happened. Short of an ambulance showing up on the field you wouldn't see 3+ stoppage time. You could actually make decent money betting on stoppage time in first leg CL KO matches. Stoppage time at end of first half would never go more than a minute (occasionally you would see two). It was typically two minutes at the end if second half and three was worse case. The logic was a draw would be okay with both teams and why create unnecessary risk by giving appropriate stoppage time where either a goal would be scored or you have to make a penalty decision.
The hypothetical I went to was what if he was at Anfield and the Villa keeper went down. He’s going to 97. So yes, totally situational. And that’s what should make it unacceptable. Alas.
A possible contributing factor to the lack of additional time is Oliver wanting to get his crew off the pitch ASAP, anticipating a pitch invasion as soon as the whistle blows, or very possibly before, if more time is added. Very dangerous situation, as we have seen. PH
That had nothing to do with it. The pitch invasion was only going to happen once he blew for full time. He could have played an extra 10 minutes and the pitch invasion was happening once he blew for full time not before. There hasn't been a pitch invasion in the modern era before full time.