But then why not give it to someone who is at the tail end of their career like a Dean or Atkinson? Nice going away gift. So Taylor wouldn't have done it if there were fans in the stands? That seems like a bizarre explanation. Although, I think it was inevitable that someone would referee the FA Cup Final again simply due to the fact that referees are now staying longer and longer at the highest levels. Fitness and nutrition has improved that referees are now easily able to referee into their fifties.
In a vacuum, I can somewhat understand this decision. However, I think the underlying reason is that the stakes for this FA Cup are considerably more than just the silverware itself. The FA had this event to give itself cover to put one of their top referees on the match. I think it's a pretty safe bet that with Taylor on the FA Cup Final, that you'll see Oliver on the ManU-Leicester game.
Because Taylor is considered better right now and--likely most importantly--it's the exact same two teams he did in 2017. Yes. The one thing that makes this believable for me is Elleray's sense of tradition (and likely that of the people around him). The whole experience around the FA Cup Final--particularly the dinner prior--is supposed to be the pinnacle of a referee's career, even more so than the match itself. So I sort of get the argument and the explanation (though leaning on the family attendance aspect seems weird... I'm sure you could sneak 5 people in to watch from a broadcast booth). But there are other ways to get around it. Inviting both the 2020 and 2021 referees to the 2021 dinner seem the most obvious option. I don't know about inevitable. The same dynamic you're talking about also has led to referees reaching the FIFA level in their late 20s and early 30s. So there will or can be several new options to get the match in any given year... so long as PGMOL is good at promotion!
That was a good "shout", but wrong. It's Atkinson on Leicester v Man United. Oliver is on West Ham v Villa.
Matchweek 38 Arsenal - Watford Referee: Mike Dean. Assistants: Ian Hussin, Darren Cann. Fourth official: James Linington. Replacement official: Adrian Waters. VAR: Lee Mason. Assistant VAR: Adrian Holmes. Burnley - Brighton Referee: Jonathan Moss. Assistants: Edward Smart, Richard Wild. Fourth official: Jeremy Simpson. Replacement official: Graeme Fyvie. VAR: Darren Bond. Assistant VAR: Dan Robathan. Chelsea - Wolves Referee: Stuart Attwell. Assistants: Adam Nunn, Simon Long. Fourth official: Gavin Ward. Replacement official: Akil Howson. VAR: Simon Hooper. Assistant VAR: Derek Eaton. Crystal Palace - Tottenham Referee: Andre Marriner. Assistants: Neil Davies, Graham Kane. Fourth official: Tim Robinson. Replacement official: Michael Webb. VAR: Andy Madley. Assistant VAR: Simon Beck. Everton - Bournemouth Referee: Chris Kavanagh. Assistants: Daniel Cook, Sian Massey-Ellis. Fourth official: Geoff Eltringham. Replacement official: Shaun Hudson. VAR: Graham Scott. Assistant VAR: Mark Scholes. Leicester - Man Utd Referee: Martin Atkinson. Assistants: Lee Betts, Constantine Hatzidakis. Fourth official: Oliver Langford. Replacement official: Robert Merchant. VAR: Paul Tierney. Assistant VAR: Peter Kirkup. Man City - Norwich Referee: Craig Pawson. Assistants: Richard West, Nick Greenhalgh. Fourth official: Tony Harrington. Replacement official: Chris Isherwood. VAR: Darren England. Assistant VAR: Nick Hopton. Newcastle - Liverpool Referee: Anthony Taylor. Assistants: Gary Beswick, James Mainwaring. Fourth official: Matthew Donohue. Replacement official: Wade Smith. VAR: John Brooks. Assistant VAR: Scott Ledger. Southampton - Sheffield Referee: Peter Bankes. Assistants: Marc Perry, Timothy Wood. Fourth official: Dean Whitestone. Replacement official: Matthew Lee. VAR: Jarred Gillett. Assistant VAR: Harry Lennard. West Ham - Aston Villa Referee: Michael Oliver. Assistants: Stuart Burt, Simon Bennett. Fourth official: Robert Jones. Replacement official: Lee Venamore. VAR: David Coote. Assistant VAR: Stephen Child. Atkinson and Attwell for the big ones. Taylor gets a warm-up for the FA Cup Final. Dean, Oliver, and Kavanagh on games involving relegation candidates.
This was always very unlikely to happen. With Oliver having taken charge of Leicester's previous home match, it would probably have been unprecedented. (Though we just witnessed a 119-year-old "rule" being broken...)
"Top six" matches: Liverpool - Man City (Community Shield): Atkinson Man Utd - Chelsea: Taylor Man City - Tottenham: Oliver Liverpool - Arsenal: Taylor Arsenal - Tottenham: Atkinson Chelsea - Liverpool: Oliver Man Utd - Arsenal: Friend Man Utd - Liverpool: Atkinson Liverpool - Tottenham: Taylor Chelsea - Man Utd (Carabao Cup): Tierney Liverpool - Arsenal (Carabao Cup): Marriner Liverpool - Man City: Oliver Man City - Chelsea: Atkinson Man Utd - Tottenham: Tierney Man City - Man Utd: Taylor Arsenal - Man City: Tierney Tottenham - Chelsea: Taylor Arsenal - Chelsea: Pawson Arsenal - Man Utd: Kavanagh Man Utd - Man City (Carabao Cup): Dean Tottenham - Liverpool: Atkinson Liverpool - Man Utd: Pawson Chelsea - Arsenal: Attwell Man City - Man Utd (Carabao Cup): Marriner Tottenham - Man City: Dean Chelsea - Man Utd: Taylor Chelsea - Tottenham: Oliver Chelsea - Liverpool (FA Cup): Kavanagh Man Utd - Man City: Dean Man City - Arsenal: Taylor Tottenham - Man Utd: Moss Chelsea - Man City: Attwell Man City - Liverpool: Taylor Tottenham - Arsenal: Oliver Arsenal - Liverpool: Tierney Liverpool - Chelsea: Marriner Arsenal - Man City (FA Cup): Moss Chelsea - Man Utd (FA Cup): Dean Arsenal - Chelsea (FA Cup): Taylor Distribution of these matches in the EPL: Taylor: 8 Oliver: 5 Atkinson: 4 Tierney: 3 Attwell: 2 Dean: 2 Pawson: 2 Friend: 1 Kavanagh: 1 Marriner: 1 Moss: 1
Nice prediction on Moss Though Tierney and Attwell probably got more of these big games than we anticipated.
Very surprised to see Atwell on Chelsea-Wolves. I personally don't think he's up for a game like that, but hopefully Atwell proves me wrong. Fair point on Oliver not doing consecutive Leicester home games. Atkinson should be a safe pair of hands for Leicester-ManU.
For the most part, the assigning does make sense. I'll still contend that Attwell isn't the right pick for Chelsea-Wolves based on what I've seen this season, but the others are more than reasonable. Putting Oliver on the West Ham-Villa game and Dean on Arsenal-Watford game makes sense given those games are so critical given it may come down to goal difference between those two. If I read the table correctly this morning (and I did read the table after my second cup of coffee!), Watford passes Aston Villa if they both win and Watford betters Villa's result by two goals. In other words, a 3-0 Watford win and a 1-0 Villa win means Watford passes Villa on goal difference. If both lose and Bouremouth beats Everton, then it may come down to goals scored. I guess if you can't have the title come down to the final day, having three teams chasing two Champions League spots and three teams trying to be the one team that escapes relegation is a decent consolation prize! When it comes to Oliver vs Taylor, I've thought Oliver is the better of the two. However, I know others disagree.
Is this Peter Bankes first match? btw I don’t see Lee Mason on any matches other than VAR. btw there are a lot of 4th officials that I haven’t seen before. A lot of VAR’s seem to be the old guard.
All matches on the same day at the same time with VAR in use makes this a new necessity. If you look at week-to-week scheduling in the EPL, you see a LOT of people pulling double duty (either CR-4th, 4th-VAR, or CR-VAR) and I think occasionally triple duty in a week. That's impossible when every match happens at the same time. So you have the ironic situation of needing to use new names on what is almost always going to be the most important day of the season. Would be quite something if a referee went down in a match of consequence Sunday. If I were scheduling, I'd have put big name FOs on the matches that matter and let the new guys take whistles on the irrelevant matches. Why does Pawson need to be on City v Norwich, for example? Same goes for Moss on Burnley v Brighton. I'd also have worked some of these names in over the past 5-6 weeks, so there could be some familiarity before the final day. But I'm just a guy at a keyboard so these ideas aren't going anywhere.
I Forgot the officials pull whistle / VAR duty. Or VAR / 4O. Here I was thinking the FA was being progressive in giving these officials all a shot. Forreals, I was thinking the same thing why weren’t these guys worked in during the couple of weeks, that way someone like Jose Mourinho isn’t screaming at a guy he has never seen before. It also makes sense to have people like David Coote at the 4O position as opposed to VAR (in case of injury) but I guess their logic is that they want the experienced officials that have an idea of what is expected at that level for all VAR decisions? Just seems like a logistical nightmare.
I realize that he’s more visible because of that A-League video, but I’m somewhat surprised Jared Gillett didn’t get either a VAR for one of the bigger games or a middle for a dead rubber game. Seems to be a bit of a waste to have him as VAR on Saints-Sheffield.
The logic is only a fixed cohort are trained as VARs. You can't bring in anyone new to be a VAR because they don't know how to do it. I mean, I can't crow and say I thought about this way ahead of time, because I didn't. But in retrospect this was a giant logistical nightmare waiting to happen and there should have been planning and adjustment for it by those who should have known better. You have a smallish SG1 referee corps and an even smaller VAR corps (with most of the VARs being part of that original corps). And then you need 30 people to fill the CR-4th-VAR positions on the final matchday. It was as simple math problem at best (30 spots and fewer than 30 people qualified based on the season-to-date). If there was more competition for the title, European spots and avoiding relegation, this could have been a nightmare.
I’m sure there are other factors coming into play here. Im not saying referee xenophobia but I’m sure they’re wanting to promote from within. Also like you’ve said we aren’t privy to his performance scorings etc.
Well shoot isn’t there already 5 games that matter? 2 for potential UCL (Chelsea v. Wolves; untied v LC), 3 for relegation (Villa WH; watford v Arsenal; Bournemouth v. Everton), and then we can throw in the spurs vying for UEL. So 6 key matches. I could imagine even crAzier if SG1 had some key injuries but I think they would just move them to VAR
Right. Six matches out of 10 that could plausible affect positions that matter for Europe or relegation. If the title was contested and you had one more relegation spot up for grabs, it could easily be nine or ten.
At least Oliver Langford has been in the middle of a fairly high-profile Premier League this season (Chelsea-Leicester after Graham Scott arrived to the match late). Imagine Mike Dean pulling up injured in Arsenal-Watford and James Linington stepping into the middle of a game with relegation stakes being that high. According to Transfermarkt, he's had about 50 combined appearances in the Championship the last two seasons and a FA Cup appearance (Crewe Alexandra vs Barnsley, 3rd round) this season. Given the stakes, I have a hard time understanding how the Premier League wouldn't make sure its five (six if you count the Tottenham match) key matches didn't have as strong of crews as possible. Given the amount of financial implications, if I were assigning I'd make sure all five fourth officials would be comfortable stepping into the middle of a game with that kind of pressure. I get that PGMOL probably wanted to give the SG1 referees as many games as possible after the return because of no game fees during the lockdown, etc. But from a forward-thinking perspective, some of these mid-table games without much implication for relegation or Europe would have been great opportunities to give some of the SG2 referees some legit match experience. The justification of keeping SG1 referees fresher, etc. would have easily justified it.
Hold on. The EFL Championship playoffs start Sunday, with a match at Swansea. The other semifinals are Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday. Best I can tell, there's usually at least a full rest day in past years between the final day of the season and the start of the Championship playoffs. That separation and rest allows SG1 referees to do the semis (I presume the person who has got the first semi typically only worked as a 4th on the final EPL matchday). Anyway, none of that is the case here. Long way of saying... who is going to do Swansea-Brentford and Cadriff-Fulham first legs? I imagine Paul Tierney has Cardiff-Fulham on Monday (which would explain why he, as a FIFA referee, is "only" a VAR on Sunday). But there's still no one from SG1 available to do the Swansea match. What am I missing?
You're missing quite a lot. Keith Stroud will do Swansea - Brentford and Geoff Eltringham has Cardiff - Fulham.