Recent content by DavidObs

Although most supporters in this country would disagree I still think that our officials are overall just as good if not better as anywhere else. The grass is not always green on the other side - they need to see before they speak. I would accept that those that are say in the top 5 in the...

Good question, but Rusty is correct in that it has virtually always been the case for as long as I can remember & it doesn’t matter what tweaks are done to the Laws or any additional guidance provided, Europe/UEFA/European Referees continue to do the same thing with the same/very similar...

Mr Knight (as you refer to him) & I have had cross swords in the distant past, but not in recent years & overall, I think he is a good egg & certainly works hard (which includes him being a PGMOL Observer on Saturday’s & Sunday’s), though there are still things about the scheme I am not overly...

Good point & I suspect they could.

Fair & reasonable comments though as to the last para, in an ideal world you would think so. However, because I wasn’t appointed to a game last Saturday, I went to a game purely as a spectator with officials I had observed during the season on a fixture that needed the Home team to win to have...

From a purely development point of view I can see where you are coming from, but from a Referee/AR point of view I think that now more than ever before, they need to know where they stand in making their way through the pathway (assuming that’s what they want to do). In my days as a Referee (&...

Absolutely & i do feel sorry for some ARs these days with sometimes the small amounts of advice they are expected to provide, though they always have to be in the right place throughout, which some do not do.

Fair enough. I can understand your rationale with specialist AR.

On the aspects you refer to in this comment and the one previous on this occasion I disagree with you about the worthiness or not of Observer reports on a Referee’s performance. I am not saying it’s perfect & there is the question of consistency between Observers as well as possible north/south...

Good point and main reason why this has not happened before now. I can only imagine the FA are confident in appropriate numbers being reached/maintained.

I can’t say that I recall too many similar incidents in the PL over the past 20 years when both players put their heads together with only 1 making an additional forward movement. However, I can truly understand it being harder for you to send off in same circumstances - though perhaps same...

Yes, you are probably right if it happens in the World Cup, or any other FIFA/UEFA competition, but they have different interpretations on many things, including handball. Same Laws/different interpretation.

I can’t see that it was excessive force or brutality. Although I usually always like to compare apples with apples and oranges with oranges, as to hair pulls (not this incident of course), which are not usually excessive force, but are seen by the PL/FA etc as an act of brutality (at the moment...

It’s also not a headbutt that is often seen in football, especially Sunday morning football. What football expects is a horrid term, what does it actually mean, if there is a subjective decision for the award of a penalty - does football expect it, or not expect it! Is the incident involving...