..exactly, luck has nothing to do with regarding the other team and only makes the ref look brilliant or absolutely stupid, refs today make their entire performance run purely on luck because they cannot keep up with the increasing speed and their lack of eyeballs, they need help with another ref behind the scenes with a screen and without people shouting in their earholes to simply get the right decision every time ..which will alleviate all their trouble and strife on the pitch from players and fans, leaving them to sort out the little incidents well away from the penalty boxes or to even just act like a robot being told what to do by the other ref behind a screen.
Yesterdays ref was the first one I've actually witnessed being constantly influenced by the crowd, he was completely clueless to what was happening without their help.

I've no idea where I could have watched the game without actually being up there.
And I have been a fan since the 60s.

Willo's problem is that he won't ever admit that the ref made an out-and-out mistake. I am a qualified cricket umpire and I know I have made decisions that were just wrong and could not even be justified - and which gave me sleepless nights! Cricket umpires have bad games, so do refs, and yesterday's ref had a shocker - three out of four pen calls wrong.

Willo defends him on the first Benteke decision on the grounds he might have thought the defender got a foot to the ball first. Well, the defender clearly didn't, and the ref got that totally wrong.

On the Snodgrass call, he clearly didn't see what had happened, otherwise he wouldn't have called a pen. Since he didn't see what happened, it means he guessed, which is utterly wrong. If you didn't see it you can't call it.

In his zealous defence of all refs everywhere, Willo never deals with the psychology of officiating, or analyses why mistakes are made. He poses as a refereeing expert but never deals with these vital factors. I went on umpiring courses where umpires of the stature of Billy Bowden admitted he made mistakes - but went on to say that the vital thing is understand why you made the mistake and learn from that.

Willo is not interested in that kind of analysis or what can be learned from yesterday's abysmal refereeing performance. All he does is defend refs right or wrong.

The right place at the right time

As a PS, you wonder what the assistant was doing for the Snodgrass call. The assistant was quick enough to change the ref's when Benteke won a pen against us for Liverpool. Why didn't the lino query this call since it was so blatantly wrong?

Edited by peterg (11 Dec 2016 1.15pm)

The right place at the right time

Excellent post, Peter. It's good to hear a view from the 'other side', so to speak.

Bexley Dave

Can you hear the Brighton sing? I can't hear a ******* thing!

"The most arrogant, obnoxious bunch of deluded little sun tanned, loafer wearing mummy's boys I've ever had the misfortune of having to listen to" (Burnley forum)

Regards the Snodgrass incident, the Assistant was on the far side well away from the action and from his angle couldn't possibly see that no contact was made.

As for Benteke, the assistant was on the near touchline not far from the incident so had a much better view.