Referees can use discretion + Arsenal’s midfield problem

Morning.

I suppose it’s quite funny to see my various social media feeds etc awash with examples of players who ‘delayed the restart’ this weekend by picking the ball up when a free kick was awarded, or stood in the way to prevent the opposition getting things going again quickly. The ‘letter of the law’ merchants have little to say about it, and here’s the thing we all know: if the letter of the law was applied across the board in every game, football would be ruined.

For example, very corner or set-piece into the box would result in either a free kick to the defending team, or a penalty to the opposition. It just depends who the referee decided to give the decision to. There would be no middle ground with the letter of the law. That’s why referees have the ability to use discretion.

Clive made a good Tweet (not gonna link it, coz Twitter is so toxic I can’t in good conscience send anyone there), which highlighted exactly that. Last weekend, when John McGinn booted the ball at William Saliba, he could easily have been booked, and when Ben White booted it right back at the Villa man, he could have picked up a yellow card too – by the letter of the law. Even when it looked like there might be a bit of aggro between the two sets of players, the ref came over, had a word, calmed things down, and we quickly got on with the game. No bookings, no red cards, just a sensible handling of a brief flare-up in a 90 minute game of football.

Now, I’m not here to defend Michael Oliver, whose track record of fudging decisions in games we’re involved in has been annoying at times, but you would 100% take that kind of officiating over the nonsense Chris Kavanagh served up on Saturday. His face when he was giving Declan Rice his second yellow was saying ‘You gave me no choice, what can I do?’, as if he couldn’t have dealt with the situation any differently.

Of course he could have, he just chose not to. You all can have you own opinions on why that…

Source link : https://arseblog.com/2024/09/referees-can-use-discretion-arsenals-midfield-problem/

Author : arseblog

Publish date : 2024-09-02 06:37:32

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