Whitey Grandad

Martin Samuel in The Mail thinks this fellow might be worth a punt: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-3338721/Why-don-t-Premier-League-clubs-look-Jamie-Vardys-Conor-McLaughlin-not-exotic-story-s-Northern-Ireland-s-choice.html

You were lucky! I had to get back to the coach and got completely soaked. A thoroughly miserable night.

It occurred to me yesterday that you don't often see players dithering like that in the Premier League and then losing possession. You often see a bit of miscontrol but complete indecision under pressure is rarer. We've had Artur and Yoshi. I don't know what he thought he was doing for their third. He seems to have a limited awareness of what's going on around his peripheral areas.

I've seen such incidents a few times but TV don't normally show it in the highlights, probably because they don't think it worth mentioning.

He is a part of our rich history. Everybody knows where they were when Ali came off the subs' bench.

Yes, he'll need to do a lot to make up for that débâcle.

I don't think calling him an idiot is fair. Incompetent (at right back) might be more accurate.

I assumed that was meant to Sat, Weds, Next Sat.

Yup. I've added a RB to my letter to Santa

If Cedric's not good enough then yes, I certainly agree with you.

Surely we have to take some account of their operating circumstances. The chairman and club finances must also have played a big part in any perceived successes or failures.

I had hoped to forget it

There are a lot of points there and I will only answer a couple of them. Cedric has received a lot of head injuries and I would put that down to his stature and technique. When he jumps his head often ends up at arm and elbow level so he is likely to get caught. You cannot blame the referees if you see his situation as unique, you have to look at the player. Most of the other points are just your opinion, which happens to be different from the referee who happened to be in charge. There are situations where if you had 100 referees in charge half would give a foul and half wouldn't that doesn't make half of them wrong, or are they only 'wrong' if there opinion differs from yours. Pellè's mid-air collision was nowhere near a stonewall penalty and one other person saying he thought it was doesn't make it so. Was Pellè backing towards goal at the time? Where were the defender's eyes looking at the time? None of this can be determined on the TV but will have influenced Mason's decision. Of course I would have been delighted if he had given us a penalty but it was no surprise that he didn't and nor would plenty of others. Remember that all of your opinions are coloured by your allegiance. Video referees would not stop love anything, you're just asking for another opinion which you hope would go in your favour. You can't decide matters like this by committee. As someone once told me, it's best to have an odd number of members for a committee and three's too many.

This is the most important point to take from the game. I have not seen any reference in the independent match reports that criticise the referee. To have a go at him every time we play badly or lose a game is getting a bit repetitive and you won't get much sympathy for that point of view from those who hold no affiliation to Southampon FC. We should always remember that the referee is not on our side and nor should he be.

I would add that his positioning is suspect.

You might think that was a mistake, others might think differently. All that you can ask is for some degree of consistency within each individual game.

He wasn't fouled. I accept that you have a different opinion but you have to accept that you are not unbiased.

That wasn't stonewall, nowhere hear it. Where do you get such ideas?

Not for the immediate future, at least. Maybe later this season he might get a few games if there's nothing to play for.

They are not mistakes, apart from some very, very few exceptions. Just because you don't agree with them doesn't make them wrong. What from last Saturday would you call a mistake?

thanks Yes, it was Falcao but if I had said 'the dirty cheating diving Chelsea player' there might have been too much ambiguity. The point I was trying to make was that we won the match 3-1 and penalty appeals by both sides were turned down by the referee. I don't think he treated us badly.

If we knew that we wouldn't have lost it.

Sorry if I wasn't clear, it was Saint Charlie who used those words, but let's understand one thing. Lifting your whistle and then not using it means nothing. You might automatically raise it in anticipation of a foul that does not materialise and this can happen many times in a game. Mané was touched and then flung himself to the ground but I don't believe that he was tripped. Some referees might have given a penalty but that doesn't make those who don't wrong or incompetent. Its definitely true that a player's reputation goes before him and it's been like that for as long as I have been following the game.

? Wasn't this the game earlier this season that we won 3-1? It would seem that I, at least, am talking at cross purposes.