Nani Goal - Manchester United vs. Tottenham Hotspur, Old Trafford. 30/10/2010

I'm sure most of you have seen the incident by now, and you can skip to the next paragraph, but for those that haven't I'll offer a brief description of the whole incident. Nani is taking on Kaboul and running at pace, there looks to be a bit of contact and Nani goes tumbling theatrically to the ground. Assuming he has been fouled Nani reaches for the ball with his hands, clearly handling it at least twice. The Spurs goalkeeper Gomes, seeing this, and that a penalty has not been given by referee Mark Clattenburg rolls the ball out to take a free kick. However, Clattenburg has not actually blown the whistle for a Tottenham free kick, and Nani realising this rolls the ball in to the net while Gomes is taking his run up. Discussions between the linesman and referee start, and in the end Mark Clattenburg almost reluctantly it seems gives the goal.

Let’s start at the beginning. Was it a penalty? If I had been the referee (or even a video referee) I wouldn’t have given one, I didn’t feel there was enough there to warrant a penalty. Having said that, there was contact, and you therefore couldn’t have that many complaints if a spot kick had been awarded. I think it’s one that could go either way, and depends on the individual referee.

I have heard this incident discussed on MOTD, Sunday Supplement and Goals on Sunday as well as read discussion in various newspapers – and no one seems to be able to agree what happen. Chris Kamara in particular was very critical of the linesman for not flagging immediately, and seemed to think that the referee didn’t even know a handball had occurred (essentially almost completely absolving the referee of blame and shifting it to his assistant.) I do not agree with this at all. My take is that the linesman didn’t flag because he, like Gomes assumed that as the handball was so blatant, the referee had already seen it and thus there was no need to alert the other official with his flag. Once Nani puts the ball in the net, the assistant referee thinks ‘Oh, maybe Mark didn’t see it after all’ and puts his flag up (admitadly after Gomes starts to protest).

In my understanding of the incident, the linesman, Nani and Gomes all made minor errors. The linesman in not flagging (assuming the referee had given a free kick), Nani handling the ball in the first place (assuming the referee had given a penalty.) And Gomes – who should have kept the ball in his hands until he was certain a free kick had been awarded.

However for me Clattenburg made several major errors. He has reportedly told the Tottenham players after the game that he saw the handball and was playing an advantage. Well I’m sorry Mark but that doesn’t fly with me. You can bring the play back to an incident if no advantage materialises and I would say that conceding a goal counts as no advantage – and you couldn’t argue that enough time had elapsed for the ‘advantage’ to be over either, because Gomes hadn’t even kicked the ball. If the reports are wrong and Clattenburg didn’t see the handball, then he should have ruled out the goal during the discussion with his assistant. He also should have cautioned Nani for deliberate handball either after this discussion or when (as he should have done) he stopped the game following the handball. He also showed extraordinarily bad judgement in sending all the Tottenham players away (including booking Modric for dissent) and yet allowing Rio Ferdinand to listen and even contribute to his discussion with the linesman.

It doesn’t seem to add up at all – either he did see the handball, but forgot to book Nani and considers conceding a goal to be an advantage (or forgot that he can bring an incident back after an advantage doesn’t materialize) or he didn’t see the handball, and didn’t believe his assistant that it had occurred.

The bottom line – for me the referee was at fault, and although unlikely to have affected the outcome of the game, a serious error was made, and the goal most definitely should not have counted.

The match finished 2 – 0 to Manchester United, which leaves them 3rd in the table, with Spurs 5^th. (Goalscorers: Vidic 31, Nani 84)

Links

BBC Match Report: Here

Guardian Match Report: Here

SkySports Sunday Supplement Discussion of incident: Here

Extra Assistants – Right idea, wrong placement.

As you are no doubt aware, this season in UEFA competitions (The Champions League, and Europa League) extra officials are in place behind the goals to help the referees with penalty area decision making. A rather weak half measure designed to quiet the increasingly loud calls for video technology, these assistants (at least in the games I have seen) have had very little impact on decision making and are all in all a bit of a waste of space and money.

That however is not to say I am against extra officials – I just think that behind the goal is not the area they need to be. My idea (and I hope in the next few paragraphs to sell it to you) is to double up on the much maligned good old fashioned linesman.

At any one time there would, under my plan, be two linesman in line with play, one on either end of the pitch (another cheaper option, fitness probably not allowing, would be to have the linesmen run the full line, from end to end.) There are many reasons for this the first and foremost being offside decisions.

The reason I came up with this idea is that I didn’t see (unlike for instance, Goal line decisions) an easy way to implement technology for offside decisions. You would have to let the play go on even if there was a potential offside, because if the video proved it was not offside you would need to know what happened. This would mean you would have to play until the ball went out of play, the review decision. If it was offside, play would have to be brought back (even though many minutes may have gone past!) And if it wasn’t offside then the play that had gone through up till the ball going out would have stood. This is messy and completely would disrupt the flow of the game. And yet I think offside decisions are vital decisions and players deserve to have more correct offside decisions than they currently get.

Under my plan for a forward to be given offside BOTH linesmen would have to flag. If only one flagged play would continue. (Note: If video technology was introduced it could be that only partial decisions (ie where one linesman flagged) would be reviewed.) Even (as is more likely) there was no video replay introduced, this would give more “benefit of the doubt” to the forward (as is supposed to be the case, but hardly ever is in reality). As a forward there is nothing more frustrating than timing your run to perfection and being flagged, and I think nicely weighted through balls and well-timed runs are one of the best things to watch on a football pitch so it’s good for the fans, plus I think we would get more goals.

Often I think offside decisions are biased due to the side the linesman is on, i.e. based on whether the linesman is looking “through” a defender. Also whether the linesman is right up with play affects the accuracy of the decision, with two linesman it is more likely at least one of them will be right up with play and can give the best decision possible, if both linesman do what looks right to them, as linesmen tend to be cautious I think requiring both to flag for offside to be given would mean far more decisions would be given correctly. Also one linesman flagging might “remind” the other linesman who if in agreement could then raise his flag (although I’m not sure whether this is a positive or a negative!” Overall though surely we would get more goals, and that’s a good thing!

Of course these officials could also help out on goal line, and corner decisions, but offside would be the primary benefit, and I feel that offsides are a crucial decision that are getting little attention in the technology and refereeing debates that are going on at the moment. My plan isn’t perfect, but I feel the extra officials would do far more good on the side-lines than stuck behind the goals. Let me know what you think – especially about how to get more offside decisions correct and what decisions you think it would be easier to implement technology for.

Welcome Post

Welcome to SeenThemGiven, a blog about the most controversial topics in football. Especially when they involve the guys we love to hate - referees! Each week I'll cover the most controversial decisions from the Premier League and Champions League, as well as from further afield if things happen that are really worthy of discussion!

I'll also be talking about broader decision issues that affect the global game, such as hard tackling, video technology.

I'm eager to hear your comments on my writing and on topics you want to see discussed. And be sure to let me know if theres a particular incident that you feel I've missed.

Just to be up front about it, I'm a Chelsea fan but I hope to manage to write about even decisions that have gone against the Blues in a balanced unbiased way (just as well I am not writing a post on Tom Henning Øvrebø's performance in the Chelsea vs. Barcelona game)

I hope you enjoy my blog!