Sometimes you fear for Neil Warnock. The embattled Cardiff manager is 70 and operates at level 11 all the time; quite how long before the old boy explodes is a worry-ing question. But he was quite right to combust over some appalling refereeing decisions during his Cardiff side’s completely undeserved defeat by Chelsea at the weekend, with a blatantly offside goal being just one of his many justifiable grievances.
Has there ever been a season when so many bizarre decisions by referees have affected the results of so many crucial matches? That Cardiff result could have a profound effect on their relegation battle, which could then impact on jobs, money and opportunities in the region. All because of one dozy linesman. It should be Swansea City playing Brighton in the semis of the FA Cup on Saturday, rather than Manchester City, who didn’t deserve to beat the Swans but scraped through, thanks to some dreadful refereeing. Aguero completed a hat-trick in the City/Arsenal game in February with a blatant handball, and when Liverpool drew with West Ham, Milner was so far offside it was visible from space when he crossed for Mané to score the opening goal.
And so on: obvious handballs, blatant shirt-pulling, clear penalties not given. It is almost as if referees have given up worrying about making even easy decisions in preparation for next season, when all this stress will be taken out of their hands, they can make the box signal in the air and hurry over to the telly to have a good look. Will there be a time limit on rulings? Or will really tricky situations last for minutes on end? Will some matches descend into a sort of footballing Brexit in which the officials and the VAR can’t come to a consensus and indicative free kicks are awarded with no legal status?
Sure, it’s a gripping Premier League and all that, but difficult questions have to be asked: how ready is the nation for Liverpool to win the title? Great players, fantastic history, charismatic manager of course.
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