Simon Hooper, Relegation Battle and Psychology

[Google Bot 3,255]

I was thinking in regards to these opening games, and how important they could be come the end of the season if we''re found needing points.

So i considered....

What happens if we were to finish relegated, one point from safety, and look back at the opening game of the season and that terrible appointment, and subsequent performance of the match day ref Simon Hooper, who arguably... well, universally accepted i think?, cost us at least a point.

Do the club have the means of getting a lawyer to look into this? Probably not, i accept that at this stage.

However..

Do they have a chance of putting pressure on the authorities to ensure we''re ''looked after'' better in future? I think quite possibly, we see Manager''s doing it publicly putting pressure on officials, so you can''t tell me that bigger clubs who get the ''luck'' in games don''t have pressure on their bosses also?

If they haven''t already, the club may have missed a trick if they''ve not notified the authorities involved, that if come end of the season we are adrift by a point there will be a case of their legal team looking into this incident on the opening day.

That, in writing, i feel would be a justified action to take - not with the end goal to actually take legal proceedings, but to provide us a fairer rub of the green and make those responsible understand that we''re not taking any crap this season.

[Hank shoots Skyler 2,094]

I don''t think we''d look at taking further action because it would simply be put down to human error, a mistake, hopefully by the end of the season there will be a time where a refereeing decision gets us back said point, or maybe better!

Not sure if putting pressure on the officials via the media helps too much either. I''m sure referees are more grateful for Alex Neil''s approach than they are Mourinho''s/Allardyce''s etc etc.

There''s always talk about the refereeing decisions ''evening out'' over the course of the season- it would be interesting to keep track of the key ones and see just how up or down we are by the end.

Let''s hope we see an immediate return with the awarding of an extremely harsh penalty tomorrow..

[Webbo118 0]

[quote user="Lord Eddard Stark"]I don''t think we''d look at taking further action because it would simply be put down to human error, a mistake, hopefully by the end of the season there will be a time where a refereeing decision gets us back said point, or maybe better!

Not sure if putting pressure on the officials via the media helps too much either. I''m sure referees are more grateful for Alex Neil''s approach than they are Mourinho''s/Allardyce''s etc etc.

There''s always talk about the refereeing decisions ''evening out'' over the course of the season- it would be interesting to keep track of the key ones and see just how up or down we are by the end.

Let''s hope we see an immediate return with the awarding of an extremely harsh penalty tomorrow..[/quote]

What, from our friend Friend? Some hope.

[lake district canary 4,530]

Imo you should ignore the officials.  Let them make whatever decisions they make and get on with it.  Any action to try and influence them or put pressure on them before/after/during matches is bound to be counter productive and make it harder for them.  Yes they will make mistakes - it''s a pressurised world out there.   If the officials are honest with themselves, they will recognise their mistakes (whether they say so in public or not). 

The best thing the club can do is to be strong and not fall into the trap of  moaning about their lot. Yes, the psychology of refs may subconsciously have a slightly different attitude to "big" clubs compared to "smaller" clubs, but this happens in life, generally - ie. the more high profile and successful your company is, the more respect it will get from investors/banks etc. Lesser companies have to struggle to compete for the same.  

Just get on with it, play good football - and the odd decisions that go against will disappear into insignificance in the face of wins and success.

[Van wink 2,994]

We''ve got no control over those things, if we had had the right players on the field for the start of the season we would have probably come away with the points and the ref''s performance would be quickly forgotten.