Worst referee I've ever seen

[Petriix 2,834]

I've seen some inept officiating but this is utterly ridiculous.

[canarydan23 4,060]

Hard to believe there isn't something sinister going on. I really struggle to believe a cognitively functional human being can do such an atrocious job by mistake. 

[The Real Buh 3,423]

If the crowd would have been there today he wouldn’t have gotten away with half of it. Yet another excuse for referees to just be bad at their jobs. The crisis of refereeing quality in this country rumbles on.

[Petriix 2,834]

So many fouls not given. One out of four blatant penalties. McLean was elbowed in the head and somehow the foul was given against him. Pukki clearly tugged back when through on goal. Not to mention the phantom offside for the disallowed goal. It's an absolute joke!

[City 2nd 191]

1 minute ago, The Real Buh said:

If the crowd would have been there today he wouldn’t have gotten away with half of it. Yet another excuse for referees to just be bad at their jobs. The crisis of refereeing quality in this country rumbles on.

Exactly why VAR was brought in!

[The Real Buh 3,423]

Just now, City 2nd said:

Exactly why VAR was brought in!

Giving these refs VAR is like giving putting royal icing on a cat s4it spongecake 

the root cause is them being crap and they have been for years, across the leagues.

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias

It's a thing. Nobody remembers good referees or good decisions, they only remember the bad referees and the bad decisions.

I'm not denying that tonight's referee got a lot wrong and that his errors cost us points.

But the reason refereeing is 'so bad' is because everyone except referees is partisan, and remembers the decisions that go against their team and forgets the ones that go for them.

Fully prepared for a load of ranting, effing and jeffing in response to this post, but once the dust has settled there's a lot of truth in what I'm saying.

[The Real Buh 3,423]

1 minute ago, Feedthewolf said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias

It's a thing. Nobody remembers good referees or good decisions, they only remember the bad referees and the bad decisions.

I'm not denying that tonight's referee got a lot wrong and that his errors cost us points.

But the reason refereeing is 'so bad' is because everyone except referees is partisan, and remembers the decisions that go against their team and forgets the ones that go for them.

Fully prepared for a load of ranting, effing and jeffing in response to this post, but once the dust has settled there's a lot of truth in what I'm saying.

I’ve always said this isn’t a “our ref was crap” issue it’s a “refereeing standards are at an all time low in this country across all levels” issue

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

Just now, The Real Buh said:

I’ve always said this isn’t a “our ref was crap” issue it’s a “refereeing standards are at an all time low in this country across all levels” issue

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

[cambridgeshire canary 6,668]

Sadly this is just the regular normal championship refareeing at this point

[Bill 1,788]

He let pass far worse tackles than the one he awarded the penalty to us

Then with an eye to possible recrimination, he began waving the yellow card in the last few minutes like some it was some Polaroid being dried

[The Real Buh 3,423]

1 minute ago, Feedthewolf said:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Confirmation_bias

Ok, that’s fine, but I think I have a reasonable point. Referees like Mike Dean are considered amongst our “elite” it’s hardly the greatest crop we’ve ever had is it?

[Van wink 2,994]

I wish we could stop blaming the refs when we don’t win

[Branston Pickle 3,631]

I’ve seen worse refs this season; regarding our ‘goal’ you can’t blame him for what his linesman has given.

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

1 minute ago, The Real Buh said:

Ok, that’s fine, but I think I have a reasonable point. Referees like Mike Dean are considered amongst our “elite” it’s hardly the greatest crop we’ve ever had is it?

Personally, I'd say that it's about the same as it has been, although VAR has obviously muddied the waters. Whenever we watch a match, we see wrong decisions and debatable decisions. We notice them. When they go against our team, that's amplified hugely.

The average football fan (and I include myself in that, despite having refereed for the best part of 10 years) is not in a position to make a rational and objective judgement on the quality of refereeing, due to aforementioned biases.

If an individual referee made as many errors as Mr Langford did tonight on a consistent basis, he would be demoted. Players have bad games, refs have bad games. Thing is, nobody will pay any attention to what Mr Langford does until he either referees us again, or is seen in the press for having given a controversial/terrible decision somewhere else.

If a player plays consistently badly, he'll get harangued by the fans and/or dropped. Referees just have to float around from ground to ground being hated on every week and only remembered for the things they get wrong. It's a fool's errand, and as fans we should exercise a little more intelligence in our behaviour towards officials. By all means give them a load of stick when you're watching at the stadium, I do... it's difficult not to!

It's just worth a little bit of reflection to remind oneself just how f*cking hard it is to do the job, when you have nobody on your side and everyone remembering you solely for your mistakes.

[Thirsty Lizard 3,154]

By far and away the worst decision in the game was disallowing Cantwell's goal for supposed offside. That is one of the worst decisions by a linesman that I have ever seen - nothing short of scandalous. 

And yes, the ref was appalling too. 

Edited December 29, 2020 by Thirsty Lizard

[lake district canary 4,530]

The most annoying thing was missing the pull on Teemu's shirt for the first penalty. If the ref didn't see it, then the lino should have been up with play and seen it.

[lake district canary 4,530]

The most annoying thing was missing the pull on Teemu's shirt for the first penalty. If the ref didn't see it, then the lino should have been up with play and should have seen it.

 

[keelansgrandad 6,679]

I have followed City since 1960 and nothing has changed in 60 years. Its the refs fault.

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

7 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

By far and away the worst decision in the game was disallowing Cantwell's goal for supposed offside. That is one of the worst decisions by a linesman that I have ever seen - nothing short of scandalous. 

And yes, the ref was appalling too. 

Have you seen a replay of the incident from side-on? I've only seen the real-time replay, which was from the wrong angle to be conclusive. It seemed to be wrong, but haven't seen any evidence to prove it. And I don't mean Cantwell being offside, which he clearly wasn't, but Pukki for the original flick through.

[Capt. Pants 4,194]

Last season we were whining about VAR and some on here couldn't wait to be back in the Championship, they wanted the excitement where any team could beat another. Now we're in the Championship and you can see the officials are crap. They're are not much better in the EPL and you can see the need for VAR as the stakes get higher. 

We didn't do enough to win the game and could have actually lost it. Just suck it up and move on.

[hogesar 9,606]

22 minutes ago, Thirsty Lizard said:

By far and away the worst decision in the game was disallowing Cantwell's goal for supposed offside. That is one of the worst decisions by a linesman that I have ever seen - nothing short of scandalous. 

And yes, the ref was appalling too. 

 

21 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

The most annoying thing was missing the pull on Teemu's shirt for the first penalty. If the ref didn't see it, then the lino should have been up with play and should have seen it.

 

The Lino looked about 80 years old. I thought my Grandad had escaped the confines of his bungalow and got lost again.

[Olano 100]

49 minutes ago, lake district canary said:

The most annoying thing was missing the pull on Teemu's shirt for the first penalty. If the ref didn't see it, then the lino should have been up with play and seen it.

I dont think that was a penelty. The 2 that where given were corect. Think the ref goth it right on the peneltys

[Fifty 45]

42 minutes ago, Feedthewolf said:

Have you seen a replay of the incident from side-on? I've only seen the real-time replay, which was from the wrong angle to be conclusive. It seemed to be wrong, but haven't seen any evidence to prove it. And I don't mean Cantwell being offside, which he clearly wasn't, but Pukki for the original flick through.

 

[Feedthewolf 4,844]

3 minutes ago, Fifty said:

 

Thanks buddy, that clears it up. I guess the reaction of our coaching staff on the sideline should have made it obvious that we'd been done an injustice there. Yep, that's a shocker.

[City 2nd 191]

1 hour ago, The Real Buh said:

I’ve always said this isn’t a “our ref was crap” issue it’s a “refereeing standards are at an all time low in this country across all levels” issue

It needs people like you to take up the whistle Buh. You might just find it’s not as easy as you think!

[Disco Dales Jockstrap 1,891]

1 hour ago, Feedthewolf said:

Personally, I'd say that it's about the same as it has been, although VAR has obviously muddied the waters. Whenever we watch a match, we see wrong decisions and debatable decisions. We notice them. When they go against our team, that's amplified hugely.

The average football fan (and I include myself in that, despite having refereed for the best part of 10 years) is not in a position to make a rational and objective judgement on the quality of refereeing, due to aforementioned biases.

If an individual referee made as many errors as Mr Langford did tonight on a consistent basis, he would be demoted. Players have bad games, refs have bad games. Thing is, nobody will pay any attention to what Mr Langford does until he either referees us again, or is seen in the press for having given a controversial/terrible decision somewhere else.

If a player plays consistently badly, he'll get harangued by the fans and/or dropped. Referees just have to float around from ground to ground being hated on every week and only remembered for the things they get wrong. It's a fool's errand, and as fans we should exercise a little more intelligence in our behaviour towards officials. By all means give them a load of stick when you're watching at the stadium, I do... it's difficult not to!

It's just worth a little bit of reflection to remind oneself just how f*cking hard it is to do the job, when you have nobody on your side and everyone remembering you solely for your mistakes.

Great post Wolfy.

OTBC

[Thirsty Lizard 3,154]

1 hour ago, Van wink said:

I wish we could stop blaming the refs when we don’t win

But this is a silly black and white comment VW. There are many times when we don't win when it's nothing to do with the officials. There are some occasions when we don't win when it IS something to do with the officials. Tonight was one of those occasions - particularly the decision by the linesman - which was nothing short of appalling. 

[hogesar 9,606]

The ref was shockingly bad and so was the linesmen.

Nothing to do with confirmation bias, we have had a host of shocking refs in our wins this season too.

This ref decided to make sure it would cost us with a host of awful decisions devoid of logic.

It was clear our pen was only given because he knew he'd messed up on the Pukki one, and possibly one more. Oh and when Vrancic was running into the area and was pulled back. Didnt need half a second to give QPR their pen (which was a pen, mind).

The standard of refereeing likely hasn't got any worse its just if you're a team that dominates play as much as we do, particularly in the final third, then there's much more decisions to be made for or against you in terms of fouls in dangerous offensive positions. That's whats probably highlighted it.

[Canaries north 151]

I'm sure the Watford fans will remember the ref. At first sight I can't believe anyone didn't think it was a penalty but with the benefit of replays it was a perfect tackle on Pukki.