29 Aug 2015

'The Ref's Crap!': Rodgers and angry Liverpool legend slate 'terrible' red-card fiasco

Disaster. A word that accurately describes Liverpool's performance (and result) against West Ham, but also the incompetence of match referee Kevin Friend, who basically ruined the game with two ridiculous red-card decisions. The Coutinho decision was bad enough, but the Mark Noble sending-off is one of the most egregiously incorrect refereeing decisions in some time.

After the game Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers slated both red-card decisions. He told the BBC:

"Both sendings off were very harsh. I don’t think they were sendings off at all. Coutinho's sending off really set us back. From that first period in the game, we never really got going.

On Coutinho's sending off, Reds legend John Aldridge raged:

"Game over. Terrible referee decision. clumsy, that's all it was. West Ham don't need the ref - its too comfortable without him helping them"

On the Mark Noble red card:

"It's official: the ref's crap! Another clumsy nothing challenge and noble's off".

In my view, neither player deserved to be sent off.

* Noble: How can anyone of sound mind deem this to be a straight red. Noble clearly got the ball; it wasn't two-footed, or reckless - he was in control of his tackle, and achieved the objective of getting the ball. What makes it worse is that Ings went down like he'd been hit by a train, but there's very little - if any - contact.


* Coutinho: There's no malice to the challenge, and it looks words than it is because Payet basically fell over whilst attempting a showboating trick. Payet fell onto Coutinho; the Brazilian didn't cause the West Ham man to go down.


Noble's reaction to his red card:

"I got a straight red, but I've watched it 10 times and there's no malice in it whatsoever. I've won the ball first, in my eyes it's not even a yellow. That would've been harsh."

If there's any justice, both red-card will be rescinded by the Premier League, plus as is often the case when referees ruin games with rank incompetence, Kevin Friend should be demoted to the Championship for a few weeks.

Bad refereeing decisions have dominated Liverpool's season so far, and in the first three games, the Reds reaped the benefits (Benteke's offside goal; Ramsey's legit goal being ruled out).

Football karma's a b**ch.

Author: Jaimie K


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