Our biggest gate of the season (so far). Will it produce more votes on the Ken-meter than the 42 we got between the poll going live after Portsmouth and the site crashing?
Some of those 42 may have been Portsmouth fans, judging by the range of ratings. It was the first time the full scale was used, which means some people thought the ref was absolute perfection while others thought he was, in Ken’s words, Coote-like (or in plain English, abysmal)
Will this week’s ref do better, both in the K-rating and in the number of people letting us have a score? We shoud get more than 42 people if we scale up Tuesday’s figures, but even that seems a measly number compared to how many go through the turnstiles.
[polldaddy poll=10179569]
OK Malcolm, I’ll take your word but David Hopkin,the Bradford manager was on the half-way line and he was adamant the ball was 2 yards over the line !
As they say, it’s all about opinions. Flanagan I thought was most unfairly being held down and struggled to throw off his assailant ( probably a yellow card for each). Yes, it looked like a goal but the assistant on the West Stand side had a better view than anyone else in the ground. The WHOLE of the ball must have crossed the line for it to count. Apparently SSN said that VAR would have been unable to confirm a goal. It could easily have been awarded but criticism of the officials in this instance seems unfair.
From where I sit in the West Stand, level with the 18 yard line at the south end of the ground it was clear to see it had crossed the line and McLaughlin dragged it back.
That said, when players take corners these days it seems it is deemed legal to place the ball so that none of the it is in contact with the arc and as long as a mm or so of it is above the line, it is acceptable in which case there may just have a mm of the ball in the air overlapping the goal line. But I don’t really think so.
The linesman’s view would have been hampered by the post, the keeper’s body and Jack Baldwin so he probably couldn’t be sure. We all were in our part of the ground though.
It’s not often I will defend the officials for making bad decisions but yesterday, having seen the incident replayed on TV, although it was clear to me from my seat that McLaughlin hauled the ball back from inside the goal, if the linesman was unsighted from his angle (and there were bodies and a post in the way) and the ref was a few yards back then they could not give the goal if they were in any doubt about the legality of the goal.
But last week Loovens got sent off for what looked like an accidental clip as he tried to get goal side of the Portsmouth player. The law was changed so that teams weren’t punished twice by a sending off and a penalty and yesterday the Portsmouth defender Whatmough brought his man down in the box and only received a yellow. The TV highlights suggest that it was a worse challenge than Loovens’ was last week. There is a lack of consistency from ref to ref and even within the same game.
I haven’t seen replays of the Flanagan incident but I thought he was lucky to stay on yesterday. That said he did appear to have his leg grabbed by a Bradford player to prevent him getting back in position.
This week it looks like a load of Sunderland fans judging by the number of 10s!
Horrendous decision favoured us today.