Refereeing, Where did it all go so wrong?

Let me begin by saying that a referee is only human and therefore is allowed to make mistakes. The problem with a refereeing mistake is when it starts to cost a football club millions of pounds because it is occurring now, at the business end of the season, when one bad call can cost a team a title, a European spot, survival in a league and even promotion.

Now many times when a there is an officiating error at a football match, the linesman can be to blame. For example, last weekend, Chelsea beat Wigan Athletic 2-1 at Stamford Bridge. However, the linesman failed to spot that Chelsea scored two disallowed goals costing, one coming in the 90th minute costing struggling Wigan a point. That point could be crucial at the end of the season if Wigan go down by one point. It could potentially cost the Latics up to £40 million in lost revenue.

This then asks the question, at what point do managers stop being fined for speaking out about bad officiating and when will officiators start to feel the repercussions of making big game mistakes? Another question that needs to be answered is why, all of a sudden, are the mistakes cropping up all over the place?

I believe I have the answer to the second question. I will use a young referee, whom I believe is the best young referee in the Premier League, Micheal Oliver. Oliver, along with many other refs are being given a huge work load. Last week Oliver began the week at Old Trafford, refereeing Manchester United's live game againts Fulham. United controlled the game and were 1-0 up but in the 90th minute Fulham had a clear penalty denied that may have cost them a precious point. This then put Man United 5 points clear of Man City. The gap at the top of the Premier League should have been cut to 3 points.

Then the following weekend, he had to travel to Peterborough to referee their Football League Championship match against Leicester City. I am told Oliver had a very good game, where The Posh ran out 1-0 winners at London Road. Oliver then earned a week off but he was then given two huge games over the Easter in the Premier League. First he took on Liverpool v Aston Villa, a game in which both teams were desperate for a win. The game ended 1-1 but not without controversy as Liverpool manager Kenny Daglish was angry that his was not awarded two 'clear' penalties in the second half. 2 Days later Oliver was in London taking over Spurs' clash with Norwich City. This game also had controversy as Norwich had two clear penalties turned down. However as Norwich won on this occasion no one seemed to care about Oliver's mistakes.

Oliver is a very good referee but he is being given far to many games to take control off. There are 16 Premier League referees in total. This clearly is not enough and with so few Premier League referees they should not be being sent down to the Championship. In my opinion there needs to be at least 20 Premier League referees, so that a ref can referee every other match and then be fourth official for every other match. However if the FA do not want to do this then 1 of 2 things must happen. Firstly, there should be a Christmas break, to give refs a rest from the physical and mental drain they face. How many players can run around for 90 minutes 4 times in 2 weeks? The second option is to bring in video technology to help them out. I would give each team 3 video appeals in every match where they can choose to appeal against a decision that they feel was wrong.

However, I do not feel that video technology is going to work in the Football League. Sky Sports choose 2 matches a week to send their extra cameras to film games. The BBC choose 1 3pm game where they send their extra cameras to in order to film their 'main game' for the football leage show. All the other Football League games have 1 camera, on the gantry. These stadiums do not have cameras all over the pitch to see if player was offside or if a ball did cross the line. Could they afford the equipment and staff to do this? Most of them probably can't. Video technology is only really available to the Premier League.

If you guys have any ideas on how refereeing could improve then let me know in the comments section or contact me on Twitter at @UnitedWeStand95

Looking Ahead: Birmingham City (A) Mon 9 April, 17:20, Live on Sky Sports HD

So, the "mighty" Birmingham City are in town tommorow; and I'm sure they will travel down in their hundreds. Well they've never been big travellers. This is a game that will mean a lot to all supporters buy especially to anyone who has ever been to St Andrews. If you've never been to Birmingham away, I'll paint you a picture. There fans will wait till theres only a few of you and then come out of nowhere to give you a battering. I visited St Andrews for the first time last year in the Carling Cup semi final and I was shocked to see Hammers fans covered in blood from being attacked by natsy brummies. Due to this experience, I am always desperate to see us beat them when we meet, I want the bragging rights but more importantly, I want to see their fans gutted and have a long, depressing trip back to their slum in birmingham.

The majority of their support is nasty and I rank their fans close to Millwall on pure nastyness. It's funny though, there not so gobby or bullish when on their travels. Presumably because they do not have their equally irresponsible and bullish West Midlands Police Force to hide behind.

Moving away from their fans. I wll say I am looking forward to seeing what is going to be a cracking game of football. Birmingham are on a good run of from and we are both off the back of good wins at the start of this weekend. With us playing on Friday and them playing yesterday, we have had a crucial extra day to recover, so surely that means we have a physical advantage, especially as they've played a lot more games than us this season.

Joey O'Brien is the only person we know that will not feauture, while Faubert and Collison are 50/50 to make it. So we have a fit squad and one that should be able to see of Birmingham in this fixture. If we can play like we did against Peterborough, Reading and Barnsely then we can get a good win and put real pressure on Southampton and Reading.

My Starting XI v Birmingham would be:
GK: Green D: Demel, Tomkins, Faye, McCartney M: Nolan, Noble, Taylor F: Vaz Te, Maynard, Cole

SUBS: GK: Henderson D: Collins M: Lansbury F: Baldock, Cole

COYI
United We Stand

Bashing the Barnsley

Well, the record is finally ours. For the first time in our history we ahve won 12 games away from Upton Park in one season. And in what a way we done it I might add. Barnsley had all the characteristics and attributes to make this a very frustraighting game but our premier league quality shined right through to provide us with a whopping 4-0 win. I'd go as far to say that the players probably have to work harder than they did yesterday in training.

That kinds of performance which looked so easy and effortless for Big Sam's men shows why we are a premier league team. After Reading won 2-0 at lunch time, he players could have bottled it yesterday but they showed real calmness and composure to control the game for 90 minutes. Furthermore, the 'Total Football' lovers would have even been impressed by that. The last 3 games have been 'Total Football' and I have been impressed by the level of performance and the quality of it recently. For the first time, even I have believed Sam's comments comparing our performances to Swansea.

Everyone in Claret & Blue was fantastic and how great was it to see Mark Noble score a goal in open play and not from the penalty spot! I also have to show some respect to the Barnsley support (well, the ones who turned up at least) who appluaded Vaz Te's goal. They could have been bitter about him leaving them with little attacking options on the last day of January but they showed real class. That was the first I saw that kind of mutual respect between a opposing fans and an opposing player since we appluaded Tevez's goals against us.

Now, the task at hand is not to play like that for the rest of the season as much as I would like us to but to show that kind of spirit and be that clinical. Right now, results are all that matter and if you get a good performance with that then thats a bonus. Another shout out has to go to yet another amazing Hammers support. Going to a game at 5:30 in some place in Yorkshire, where the weather s bad and it could snow while the game is on TV makes no logical sense. But we don't do logical at West Ham and thats what makes our support the best in the world. Amazing Support and an amazing conga was made in the stands as well. Well done if you went, I'm gutted I missed it.

Anyway, I hope that performance and result encourages more people to go Monday. Come on guys, its not sold out yet and if you are over 16, just get a £1 ticket anyway, the stewards don't check! Furthermore, the game yesterday will raise spirits all over East London and hopefully it will keep the boo boys at bay.

Come On You Irons!!!
United We Stand!!!

Why Sam Is Our Man!

Sam Allardyce has been the victim of unfair criticism in recent months by many West Ham fans. In my opinion, Big Sam is doing a solid job as manager as West Ham and I do not feel it is fair to heap the blame on him. Yes, he has made some questionable decisions in team selection this year as well as some questionable tactics and substitutions, but answer me this: Has a manager ever gone more than 2 or 3 games without anyone questioning their judgement on a decision they have made for their team? Ill answer it for you. No managers have done it. Every manager makes at least 1 questionable decision every week.

Some fans, a minority I may add, seem to just heap the blame of our every mistake made on the field on to our manager. Is that fair? Do fans think Sam tells the team to play "hoof ball"? Do fans think Sam tells the strikers to miss numerous sitters in a game? Do fans think Sam has a word with the ref before each game and tells them to make some dodgy decisions? Do fans think Sam tells the defence to gift teams numerous goals? I'll answer the question for you again! No he does not. How can a manager be blamed for players making numerous mistakes, its not his fault that the strikers don't know where the net is at the moment. In January, we were all calling out for goal scorers and Sam responded. He tried to get Rhodes but it didn't happen so he did the next best thing and brought in Vaz Te, who has been a magnificent capture and Maynard, who is a proven goal scorer. 2 very good signings, who have helped us. It hasn't quite happened for Maynard yet, but eventually he'll start scoring regularly.

My next point on why Sam is doing a good job is a reflection on our last spell in this division. Every fan was fully behind Alan Pardew in the Championship as all fans should have been, he done a good job. But Sam has done much better than him in this league. I raised this point on Twitter a few days ago. Pardew's Seasons were like this:

Season 1: Pos 4th W19 D17 L10 PTS 74 - After 46 Games

Season 2: Pos 6th W21 D10 L15 PTS 73 - After 46 Games

Pardew gave us two solid seasons in the Championship, getting us promoted in his second year. Big Sam's Championship record currently stands like this:

Season 1: Pos 3rd W20 D12 L8 PTS 72 - After 40 Games

He is 1 win away from bettering Pardew's best season in charge of West Ham, which goes back the reason that I bring this up. Why isn't Sam receiving the same backing as Pardew from fans. The answer is simple. Some fans have never been willing to give him a chance. This stereotype about Sam where people say he only plays "Hoof Ball" is a load of rubbish. We have played football on the floor numerous times this season. I had this stereotype, but I no longer had this idea of Big Sam's Long ball philosophy after about 3 games. Fair enough it is not up to the standard of Swansea, which was a silly comment from Sam but at least its not as bad as some fans make out.

My view is this: Sam is not telling the players to hoof the ball. He wants them to play on the floor but if we're not winning at half time then players lose the composure and their cool, they start to panic and start to hoof the ball up field hoping a Cole or a Carew might get a knock on and we might nick a goal going route 1. If players like Cole, Baldock, Faubert and Carew took their chances we would be top of the league. Its not Sam's fault they don't do this. Support the manager, even if you don't like him. Gold and Sullivan are not going to sack him, so getting on his back does not help him or the team. Hes not going anywhere, so you may as well support him.

United We Stand!

Looking Ahead: Barnsley (A) Fri 6 April, 15:15, Live on BBC

Okay, so I've had a few days to think about the dissapointing result, yet kind of pleasing performance against Reading. Against Peterborough fans were singing "West Ham United, We Play On The Floor!". This chant was heard clearly by Big Sam and he gave the fans what they wanted, football on the floor and we won 2-0. This was carried through against Reading and for the first 45 minutes West Ham produced their finest home performance of the season but West Ham being West Ham, we gave away two sloppy goals and went in at Half Time 2-1 down. The second half was not as good but we were still the stronger side and penalty and offside goal cost us dearly.

Anyway looking ahead to the Barnsley game there are plenty of positives to take out of the Reading game as well as many factors to learn from. Firstly and most importantly in my opinion was the performance of Gary O'Neil. He was very very impressive and looks to be back at his best after a tough start to his time at West Ham due to injuries. His vision and work rate was excelent but best of all was his set pieces. For me, Matt Taylor has been poor recently and his corners have not been as good as they could be. When Taylor went off Saturday, O'Neil stepped in and put in some very good corners, one of which we scored from. He should now be out first choice corner taker.

Another positive was Carlton Cole. He ended his goal drought and looked very good and up for it on Saturday. His footwork was first class and he seemed to be oozing in confidence. He took his goal well and played of Vaz Te well. I'll admit I have been critical of him this season but when hes up for it then I will say he can be better than Lambert. The problem is that he does not do it enough. Just look at the Millwall game at home, the Pompey game at home, Birmingham Away as well as Fulham Away and Man Utd in the Carling Cup last year. Carlton turned up buzzing and the whole team played well. He has the ability to shape whether we play well or not and it was the same on Saturday, he turned up, we played well but unfortuanely the result went against us. If Carlton turns up in our last 6 games, we will win them all and we will go up automatically.

There were some moments though that perhaps Big Sam got wrong, but hes only human and its no reason for him to get sacked. Firstly, Faye was injured against Posh and thrown staight back in against Reading. The first half he was solid but in the second half he was off the pace and gave away an uncharacteristc penalty. Maybe he wasnt ready to go back into the starting eleven and I would have started with Collins. Secondly, the midfeild lost concentration when Noble went off and Tomkins was moved into midfeild with Lansbury on the bench, surely a like for like subsitituion would have made more sense because Tomks is not a midfeilder and I do not like seeing him in there. We have to learn from this and against Barnsley, we will iron out the mistakes and move forward. 3 points is important and for the first time this season, we have a must win game if we want to go up automatically. Now the problem Big Sam has is his team selection. Do not forget we play Birmingham on Monday as well in a game where the likes of Faye and Vaz Te will be vital but they are not the fittest players. Does Sam risk playing our big players against the Tykes and risk losing them against Birmingham?

M Starting XI v Barnsely Would be (With the Brum game in mind)

GK: Green, D: Faubert, Collins, Tomkins, Potts M: Nolan, Lansbury, Taylor F: Baldock, Maynard, Carew SUBS: GK: Henderson D: Faye M: Noble, Vaz Te F: Cole

The team above is a risk but I dont think Vaz Te, Faye or Cole are fit enough to play 2 games in 3 days. Also Im not sure on the condition of Mark Noble so I would play it safe and bench him so he is 100% against Birmingham.