Ratings & Reactions: Crystal Palace v Villa

[sidcow]

Someone said in the Match thread that you can't look to the ref if you lose a game you can only look at yourselves, but I disagree with this. 

So much of football is about momentum.  The ref did everything in his power to ensure the momentum was with Palace. 

Whenever Palace were attacking any kind of tiny contact from us was immediately given as a free kick.  This meant we could not interrupt their forward play, it was pretty much impossible to get the ball off them with anything other than the cleanest of tackles, so most of the time we got the ball off them they were immediately back on us again from a free kick. 

Conversely everytime we were on the ball Palace players were pushing and shoving at us, going in with very hard tackles and it was almost never given, we seemed to time and time again spring an attack and surge forwards only to be hacked down or shoved over and the ref each time waving his arms around so we are stopped in our tracks. 

Finally any player on a yellow card has to play within himself somewhat so by dishing out cards to so many of our players he helps blunten our aggressiveness whilst allowing them to get away with strategic foul after foul after foul with no punishment. 

And of course the ultimate of disallowing a perfectly good goal for no reason whatsoever. 

Kevin Friend seemed determined that we would get nothing from this game from the very start and he must be delighted to have achieved this. 

It has happened to us from him too many times now.  I am convinced that he has something against us.  I mean this 100%. There is something wrong with how he referees our games.  It's too much to be coincidence. 

 

Edited September 1, 2019 by sidcow

[John]

10 hours ago, andym said:

Having just seen that clip, he says i havent got a view, the ref is best placed and sometimes these things go for you sometimes they dont.

Thats manager speak for yeah we got lucky with that decision

On the one that I watched he also said "Kevin Friend's very close to the action there and as far as I'm concerned these things happen in football, you know. A decision has to be made. I trust the referee and I think he's one of the very, very best referees, does a very good job week in week out, he was there on the spot, he saw what he thought was an infringement and he blew for that infringement er I'm obviously more than satisfied to accept that."   

[hippo]

I been following villa for 50 years. I have mellowed in my fury of villa not getting points - calling refs biased and cheats and having an agenda against villa is something I left behind many years ago.

But I wake up this morning still believing that friend had an agenda to ensure villa didn't get anything from that game.

 

[ferguson1]

 

Appears to be enjoying the fact that he’s just booked Jack and chalked off our goal.   

Still makes my blood boil watching it back this morning.  

Edited September 1, 2019 by ferguson1

[Rugeley Villa]

If that game had been at VP I don’t think he would have got off the pitch very easily at all. 

[Kingman]

Will go down as one of the most baffling and shocking decisions in Premier league history, 

I'm sure he seen it enough tomes now and probably lost sleep over it and woke up embarrassed.

Just hope he's a big enough man to come out and hold his hands up to apologise.

 

[Robtaylor200]

Just watched it again on MOTD. Friend should not be allowed to ref again.

Daylight robbery and we can do nothing about it, makes my blood boil 

[ThunderPower_14]

I can't immediately think of a worse decision to disallow a goal, anywhere, anytime. 

Jack didn't so much as look in his direction and got straight up to continue the attack. We've been robbed of a point because Jack lost his feet in the contact. 

It's flat out cheating. I've never seen anything like it. Would he do that to Liverpool at Anfield? Chelsea at Stamford Bridge? Just a corrupt referee looking for any excuse to penalise us. 

[TheMightyVillans]

17 minutes ago, Kingman said:

Will go down as one of the most baffling and shocking decisions in Premier league history, 

I'm sure he seen it enough tomes now and probably lost sleep over it and woke up embarrassed.

Just hope he's a big enough man to come out and hold his hands up to apologise.

 

Not sure. He probably went to bed with a big smirk on his face. Some of these refs just love the attention and like the match to be about them. Doubt he will apologise and will just move onto the next game like nothing happened. Probably won't ref another Villa match though.

[Robbie09]

19 minutes ago, Kingman said:

Will go down as one of the most baffling and shocking decisions in Premier league history, 

I'm sure he seen it enough tomes now and probably lost sleep over it and woke up embarrassed.

Just hope he's a big enough man to come out and hold his hands up to apologise.

 

I doubt it, he comes across as an arrogant smug prick. Accepting he made a mistake of that magnitude is admitting he’s not fit to referee.

[AstonMartyn88]

7 hours ago, Ponky said:

Wasn't Andre Marriner banned from reffing Villa games for some reason? 

He’s a Villa fan. I was sat a couple of rows behind him and I think his Son at the Liverpool semi final a few years ago. He enjoyed it as much as the rest of us did when we scored

[rjw63]

If I was the club owners I'd be looking into taking legal action. This decision could cost us millions in 9 months time.

[ferguson1]

Imagine needing a point to survive towards the end of the season and we fail to get it! 

[Five Ken McNaughts]

4 hours ago, tinker said:

Should appeal Jack's yellow card and set the record straight. We should never have to endure that refs antics again he was clearly biased and as Motd stated, worst referring decision ever 

As far as I'm aware, yellow cards can't be appealed, only reds. (In Scotland they now can, and the SFA have rescinded yellows for players wrongly accused of diving). In other words, we continue to get shafted.

[John]

The VAR official (Andrew Madley) checked the incident and decided the verdict of simulation was fair! Referee Chris Foy has confirmed today, that if the pictures being seen by VAR don't totally contradict the referee's decision then he will not be overruled. My conclusion? Andrew Madley was more concerned about supporting a fellow referee's decision, than correcting an obvious error, unless he was auditioning for the role of Mr Magoo!

[TRO]

I thought the referee has horrid and judging by Stockley park they are not much better....if their priority interest is supporting referee's and not supporting right or wrong decisions irrespective, then VAR is a waste of money and of no benefit.

The integrity and competence of the referee is his own responsibility, not for VAR to cover for him, to maintain his confidence.....that is plain ludicrous.

However, I have to say we do also need to help ourselves......I only seen the highlights, but was able to pick up a few things......Guilbert was caught out of position a few times.....Jacks flippant challenge on Ayew and Mings challenge was not one of his best, but was he not in Engels position there.?....Trez's 2 challenges was fairly innocuous, but lazily executed IMO.....It wasn't our best day granted.....but watching Sheff Utd in their second half give an exhibition of pressing, it does make me wonder about our ability to do the same, they clawed their way back in to that game, but damn work rate and an ability to deny the opposition room to work, sure they made mistakes to go 2-0 down, but worked their socks off to get back in it.

I accept the arguments put forward by some i.e sidcow, but equally we have to look at ourselves......Jack is now getting some poor calls as a result of mostly phoney accusations of diving.....we have to remember diving and going to ground easily is not exactly the same thing, some referee's have been known to tell players to go to ground in the event of contact to help them make the decision, that is entirely different from gaining advantage with no contact. In my humble opinion, Jack is not a diver and never has been, but when he is fouled he goes to ground....

but I do have a reservation about some of our players being robust enough in every game, to secure points.....players like SJM and Tyrone Mings can't do it all on their own and they may have a dipper on occasions and need others to chip in with combative instincts.

I also think maybe 4-2-3-1 may be a better system to adapt away from home.....not sure that we are good enough to adopt the same system home and away in our first season back.

Edited September 1, 2019 by TRO

[Robbie09]

48 minutes ago, John said:

The VAR official (Andrew Madley) checked the incident and decided the verdict of simulation was fair! Referee Chris Foy has confirmed today, that if the pictures being seen by VAR don't totally contradict the referee's decision then he will not be overruled. My conclusion? Andrew Madley was more concerned about supporting a fellow referee's decision, than correcting an obvious error, unless he was auditioning for the role of Mr Magoo!

Agreed. The system is flawed - referees will not hang their colleagues out to dry. It is a complete waste of time.

[TRO]

18 hours ago, ChrisVillan said:

If the whistle went before the goal was scored, the VAR check can only have been for a penalty. Which it wasn't. This is 100% on Kevin Friend.

VAR is still obviously wank though, because if it doesn't allow THAT to be corrected, what's the point?

(There is no point. It's shit.)

Problem is we are assuming VAR will get it right.....in this case they got it wrong too against the opinion of all the pundits......Unless of course collusion is at play.

If these people at Stockley Park are just blindly backing the Ref to resist damaging his reputation......then its a farce

but its not just us......The challenge on Callum Wilson, was a RED all day for me.

[imavillan]

We can all bemoan the 'goal' that wasn't given which would have rescued a valuable point but the reality is we were not too good against what i consider to be a mediocre Palace team.

Palace are one of the teams who will be in the bottom half and one the teams we really need to be picking up points from.

It is going to be a tough old slog to get to the points tally we need to stay up. Our home form is going to be critical in helping to achieve this. 

[TRO]

I think the big question to the Referee would be......How could you be so sure it was a dive.

surely a Referee can only give a decision like that ,if he was sure......what criteria would support SURE in a case like that.....some could say, it was a penalty, I have seen penalties given for less than that....also the whistle went as Lansbury dispatched the ball how can that encourage the palace players to stop playing......I have no idea why, he and VAR were so sure of a dive.....referee's must be sure to give a decision like that.....He would be on safer ground if he had no blown and if he was criticised, to say I was UNSURE....and to be fair most folk would have accepted that in post analysis.

I am reluctant to contemplate conspiracy theories, but I can understand some folk raising the question.

It does appear to me a Ref having his own agenda, in which case he should be punished for abusing his position......impartiality was on trial here and an unsure call would have been the right one, at the very least to let play flow.

make no mistake here guys.....if the roles had of been reversed, it would have been a penalty to them, you have seen it all before..... 2 challenges on a player in full flight, it would have been nailed on against us.