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What happened with the match?

  • The referee cost one side the game through incompetance

    Votes: 22 35.5%
  • There was no one but the players to blame for the result

    Votes: 18 29.0%
  • There was certainly bias in decisions

    Votes: 20 32.3%
  • Conspiracy

    Votes: 2 3.2%

  • Total voters
    62

sebcole

Well-Known Member
Sep 1, 2009
1,102
879
I watched this game on a stuttering stream on the internet, so even I may have missed some more unfair decisions from the referee.

From what I saw, the bias was toward Portsmouth, even from the open passages of play - he allowed them to retake a free kick they messed up when they took it quickly, almost providing their first goal. He blew his whistle instead of allowing a great position of spurs advantage with Bentley on the right was ready to cross toward an unprepared defense, in order to talk to Brown, which he could of so easily done so after the advantage resulted in a goal or when the ball goes out of play.
 
Referees, like the government, are meant to protect the rights of the people, through the created laws for the situation. In this case it is football. Now what is a referee by definition? 'An official who oversees the play in a sport or game, judges whether the rules are being followed, and penalizes fouls or infringements'
 
Governments are becoming more subversive and corrupt, through abusing the rights of the people they were consented to protect in the first place. One way is through the withholding information that should be free to see, so as they have an advantage over the public. Refs are also now, not acting in the interests of the people, and so a change must be made. Villa yesterday, Spurs today... both penalty decisions that count for more in changing the result of a game than spending 80 million on a Ronaldo would, not to mention the over watering of Wembley pitch. How can national field, of which the highest calibre of ground staff are employed, to prepare it for matches just a few days in a year mis calculate its preparation to such an extent, that it effects the outcome of matches. Not even Sunday league football suffers this incompetence.

The disallowed goal, was by all the commentators I heard across several streams - said that was no way a foul, having the advantage of slow mo. The only person to say it was a foul was by Greame Souness on ESPN, and he said it should only be a foul because refs are always giving those kind of decisions to the keepers, but he also admitted that within the letter of a the law it should not be a foul. So what does the letter of the law account for, if it is not being used? What are laws and rules created for, if not applied? (more abuse?) I lost interest in competing in football long ago, since the institution acts against an essentially great sport. It takes the fairness and fun away from the game, and when players pitch their hopes in careers controlled by UEFA, FIFA or the FA, then they must expect misguided outcomes, and injustices amongst the relatively few matches that aren't affected by human bias or incompetence.

The semi final was heavily one sided in luck, I think it is fair to say. I do not go along with the sentiment that Spurs should have buried the game early so that the last 20 minutes were inconsequential. Sometimes teams cannot score, even if they try. My first instincts were to admonish Spurs for not scoring at least 2 goals before 70 minutes, since we played poorly against them at the lane, yet yielded early goals as to not put us in a vulnerable position. I think we all expected a fairly easy passage. And we started the way we intended.

Their first goal would not have been scored if it wasn't for the soggy pitch. We would maybe not have scored our goal if they had not scored theirs, but even if we did score, it was not allowed to count. Then, after we had at least 3 penalty shouts, one which was a definite handball, in or outside the box, NONE of which were given, and then they had one which looked good like in a car chase, because it was so fast.... how could Riley have seen that given his pudgy body. I lend to the case that he has also got a chubby brain, so as his thoughts are not synaptically responsive enough for fast action calls.

Referees are bottling penalty calls, which they would nonchalantly give outside the box (from a fear of consequences). That is WRONG. Plain and simple, but free to see in most matches. This is why it was such a shock, at least to me to see 3 penalties given in one match to ONE side, and that side was not the more reputable of the sides (Sunderland vs Spurs). Very rarely is there so much consequential box action, but if the letter of the law was applied, then there would be more penalties deciding outcomes in nearly every match.

Why are the referees protected? Shouldn't they be the ones protecting the teams from unfair play. Now they are a tool that creates unfair play. Rules reversed. Perverse predicament. Once again, power corrupts. They need to explain themselves.... of course. Every government needs to be open about their decisions, other wise we have secrets, which lead to unfair discrimination. So, now by nature, the game is no longer a game where people can shake hands at the start from a tradition that maybe once made sense. Nearly every facet of sportsmanship is dissolved into fraud. Players diving. Waving of hands to invoke yellow cards. The crowd baying for their sides advantage. Nothing is fair now, it is imbued by emotion, which is the ying to the yang of reason.

Why even bother?
 

Stavrogin

Well-Known Member
Apr 17, 2004
2,360
1,472
Sometimes you wonder if you're biased but I can't help but think we do very badly out of referees in some games.

I'd like to see someone go through the match with a fine tooth comb and tally up how many decisions wrongly went against us. I think it would be quite overwhealming. There's a couple of reasons for it though: Referees just don't 'get' Crouch, the amount of fouls given against him is ridiculous and if I were him I'd get so frustrated - he should complain, if he hasn't already. The other is that Portsmouth were a little like Arsenal today in their ability to foul and be 'fouled' to their benefit.

I guess it's impossible to say whether refereeing genuinely getting worse but games do seem to won or lost on refereeing decisions more than ever.
 

Matthew Wyatt

Call me Boris
Aug 3, 2007
2,224
1,988
Blaming the officials or the pitch is weak. I blame the players and the manager. If Spurs were my child I'd be kicking them out of home and confiscating their door key. Go forth and grow up!
 

Yidoinoz

New Member
Feb 4, 2010
98
0
Facts:

We had 120 minutes to score against a make shift defence of a team that has let in 60 goals in the league.

We looked vunerable at the back, more so Bassong.

Midfield central pair were laboured going forward and offered little attacking options. WE lost the game in midfield, Modric was poor.

We created 30 chances but none clear cut, our stikers were always in the wrong position at the wrong time. Crouch thje worst culprit with about 10 'pass backs' to James

If we got the above right and had half the passion of the Portsmouth players then we wouldn't be blaming the ref who i admit displayed the worst referreing i can ever remember. He may as well of been running around with a tall hat, tattoes and a bell. Alan Portsmouth Wiley
 

Gilzeanking

Well-Known Member
May 7, 2005
6,090
5,015
This was discussed in a bbc blog...after the Villa semi .

The conclusion was that ,as in Holland ,refs should do interviews after a match .

If the refs know they will be asked to explain key decisions then they would concentrate closer on the actual law rather than allowing external pressures to affect their decisions .

They are now well paid professionals ,there is no excuse anymore .
 

JimmyG2

SC Supporter
Dec 7, 2006
15,014
20,779
Blaming the ref and/or the pitch is to let ourselves off the hook.

Once again we dominated play but failed to convert chances.
We had more shots, more corners, better passing statistics, but weren't inventive enough or quick enough of thought and movement to nail it.

Referees are human and make mistakes. If you watch any match with biased glasses, which is inevitable as we are all fans, you see only the things that adversely affect your own team.

The disallowed goal was an error by the ref. and Jame's reaction cofirmed it. But we had six or seven othwer chances that we missed with no help from the referee at all.

Dawsons slip was not reproduced by the Portsmouth defence but he got away with several clumsy challenges which he was not penalised for.

If the Palacios penalty had been at the other end then not a murmer would have been raised, 'nailed on' comes to mind. He did get the ball first but that doesn't prevent him from fouling the man subsequently.

I can't be bothered to think of excuses or wallow in self pity about the iniquities of the world in general. We didn't win it despite having the better team with better players because we haven't worked out how to break down packed defences, are not clinical enough in front of goal and to an extent lost our discipline in defence on several occasions.

Arsenal on Wed. is winnable, I'm looking forward to a good game and three points.

4th. the real prize is still on.
 

dontcallme

SC Supporter
Mar 18, 2005
33,903
81,483
Usually I'm very much of the opinion that referees are human and make mistakes. In most cases there are enough opportunities for the opposing team to put it right.

Yesterday we had enough time and opportunities to win the game but the referees performance was an absolute disgrace. He got the big decisions wrong and all in Portsmouths favour and many small decisions too. The pitch was also awful and needs to be put right before the final.

I don't believe in conspiracies, I think it was just an awful performance from the ref. The players need to react in the right way and get a result in our next two games.
 

UncleBuck

Well-Known Member
Aug 20, 2003
9,150
11,085
We have no one but ourselves to blame, we did not create enough clear cut chances. There was a level of expectation that all we had to do was turn up and Pompey would roll over.

Yet again we have shown that we do not have the mentality for the "big" games.

Yes the pitch was poor, yes the referee was a complete tw^t, as was the one in the Chelski v Villa match. We can't blame anyone other than ourselves.
 

Krafty

Well-Known Member
May 26, 2004
4,768
2,098
Would have said no one but the players to blame, but I think Harry also has to be blamed. We had no plan B, the subs changed little, his talks at the breaks did little, he didnt appreciate what Pompey had, and the players were the same. Arrogance throghout a lot of players, shouldnt have picked half fit ones, all in all they take the win as given and didnt deserve anything
 

sharky127

SC Supporter
Jan 14, 2005
2,464
1,100
Would have said no one but the players to blame, but I think Harry also has to be blamed. We had no plan B, the subs changed little, his talks at the breaks did little, he didnt appreciate what Pompey had, and the players were the same. Arrogance throghout a lot of players, shouldnt have picked half fit ones, all in all they take the win as given and didnt deserve anything

Difficult to have a Plan B that would work on that pitch. We tried initially to play the ball behind the defence for Defoe but with the pitch being so wet the ball just skipped off the surface each time and through to James.

To be fair we tried most approaches but the pitch coupled with the outstanding Rocha and Mokoena in defence nullified most of our game. James also pulled of some great saves! It just wasn't our game yesterday.

Fair play to Pompey they deserved to win as i thought their whole team worked exceptionally hard and i was especially impressed by Wilson.

Lets move on and focus on 4th!
 

KentuckyYid

*Eyes That See*
May 11, 2005
13,013
2,265
This was discussed in a bbc blog...after the Villa semi .

The conclusion was that ,as in Holland ,refs should do interviews after a match .

If the refs know they will be asked to explain key decisions then they would concentrate closer on the actual law rather than allowing external pressures to affect their decisions .

They are now well paid professionals ,there is no excuse anymore .

This.

If the referees were made accountable for their actions in public view we'd see better decision making.
 

thfcsteff

Well-Known Member
Jul 30, 2005
1,117
339
Blaming the officials or the pitch is weak. I blame the players and the manager. If Spurs were my child I'd be kicking them out of home and confiscating their door key. Go forth and grow up!

I'm glad you're not my father with that absurd attitude. Know the difference between poor behavior and bad luck, that's my advice to you sunshine!
 
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