The country seems devoid of refereeing quality and common sense, especially when it comes to the "bigger sides" in the country. Anybody who saw Wayne Rooney's frankly disgusting off the ball elbow on Wigan's James McCarthy could have no argument or defence for Rooney's actions. If the rules have hindered the dealing with the incident, then they need looking at, this can't happen on a modern day football pitch.
Unsurprisingly, Man Utd. have come out in completely unjustifiable defence of their player, who despite his undoubted footballing prowess, has the ability from time to time, to lose his temper and show his nasty side a little too obviously.
Ferguson said:
"There's nothing in it."
He then claimed the media where causing such a ruckus as Rooney is apparently a common target:
"As it is Wayne, the press will raise a campaign to get him hung or electrocuted, something like that."
Fergie's puppet Phelan also made unbelievably hypocritical comments to diffuse attention away from Rooney:
"We can't dispute the referee's decision,"
"He's kept the game flowing and we're happy with that.
"There should not be a witch-hunt. The referee was consistent with all his decisions. We should lie low a little bit and let the powers that be take [control of] the game."
Suggesting there should be no "witch hunt" and that they should "lie low" in regards a refereeing decision is just laughable considering what would have happened if Rooney were on the receiving end of the elbow, or what happens when any key decision goes against Ferguson's men.
Referee Clattenburg, who followed up an awful performance as referee at Elland Road on Tuesday night, wrongly awarding us a penalty, said he saw the incident and took appropriate action, therefore nothing could be done. What a load of tosh. If he saw that, and that was his action, he should not be refereeing.
Even if he deemed it "appropriate action", there should still be a case for retrospective action, when the intent was clear for all to see. It could easily have resulted in injury for McCarthy and had he gone down in pain, instead of taking the blow, then you would have thought the outcome would have been different, as he made it look a lot less of an incident than the TV pictures showed it to be by staying on his feet, where others would have gone down.
Even if he deemed it "appropriate action", there should still be a case for retrospective action, when the intent was clear for all to see. It could easily have resulted in injury for McCarthy and had he gone down in pain, instead of taking the blow, then you would have thought the outcome would have been different, as he made it look a lot less of an incident than the TV pictures showed it to be by staying on his feet, where others would have gone down.
John Hartson said on Match of the Day:
"How on earth you can defend that? Having seen those pictures, I do not know. We like the fact that Rooney gets stuck in, he's a really good footballer. But it's not about him. We are not singling him out here."
His comments referring to consistency chime with many in the football world and journalists alike. The Telegraph's Henry Winter made several comments on Twitter:
"Rooney's frustrating. Great talent, great worker. Fairly grounded actually. But occasional blind spot. Elbow so stupid."
"Rooney great escape... another bad day for anaemic FA, again failing to govern the Wild West of football. Another bad day for ref credibility"
"So long, farewell, goodbye to the FA Respect campaign. Where's the Respect when one pro elbows another and the FA does nothing?"
This inconsistency is well known to Leeds fans, after Beckford was retrospectively banned for a similar off the ball elbow on David Forde of Millwall, who was provoking Jermaine and clouted him in the head just prior to the outburst. The referee dealt Jermaine a yellow for the incident, which should mean the end of it, but he claimed he did not see the elbow, thus Jermaine was banned.
If Clattenburg saw the elbow and dealt with it by not doing anything bar awarding a free kick, he should not be officiating. If he didn't see it, why didn't he say so in his post match report and thus allow appropriate action?
You also have to wonder what action would have been taken if Barton, Smith or Diouf for example had done the same ...
If Clattenburg saw the elbow and dealt with it by not doing anything bar awarding a free kick, he should not be officiating. If he didn't see it, why didn't he say so in his post match report and thus allow appropriate action?
You also have to wonder what action would have been taken if Barton, Smith or Diouf for example had done the same ...
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