[Albion] Was the Referee’s performance v Roma the best we have seen at The Amex?

[Colonel Mustard]

I’ve not read the discussion but IMO he was an excellent referee. He made it very clear in the first half that he wasn’t going to tolerate obvious time wasting with his yellow cards, including one for the goalkeeper which is almost unprecedented before halftime. The reason there were fewer cards for timewasting in the second half is that there was much less of it — certainly no more than you get in a normal PL match. Roma knew they'd be taking a risk of a red. And let’s face it, with a 3 goal advantage coming out at half time, they knew their first half strategy had achieved what they needed. No refereeing performance is ever perfect but his was really pretty good — better than I'd feared and better than we’re used to seeing.

 

[DavidRyder]

He didn’t have the bottle to second yellow their keeper, and I think the keeper knew that.

The ref did ok overall, considering that what we really needed was a St John’s medic wearing the black on the pitch instead, to cope with all the horrific Roma injuries…

(Can’t recall if the ref was in black, but for the purposes of my previous comment, he was!)

 

[Colonel Mustard]

He didn’t have the bottle to second yellow their keeper, and I think the keeper knew that.

The ref did ok overall, considering that what we really needed was a St John’s medic wearing the black on the pitch instead, to cope with all the horrific Roma injuries…

(Can’t recall if the ref was in black, but for the purposes of my previous comment, he was!)

TBF, I don’t think the keeper deserved a second yellow. His 1st half time wasting was very obvious, and he was carded after ignoring a warning. 2nd half was just standard PL style time wasting. Not enough to earn a red card.

 

[Seagull58]

Disagree. Van Hecke stopped low to head it... IMO their forward had every right to use his foot.

He ducked a little but he didn't stoop low. He got a boot in the head. Definitely a foul imo.

 

[Seagull58]

Pretty much agree with all of this, and it's almost as if you've taken it on yourself to assess officiating
The way I'd put it is:
-- he was good at clamping down on time-wasting in the first half: tick
-- why he disallowed their goal is beyond me, and I'd have been fuming if the boot was on the other foot: cross (or tick if, as with the majority of football fans, you view this as a positive)
-- thought he took his eye off the ball with their time-wasting in the second half: cross

The boot wasn't on the other foot though. It was in Van Hecke's head. Absolutely the correct decision to disallow it.