The most entertaining game of the weekend came at the King Power Stadium, where Leicester came back from 3-1 down to win 5-3 at the expense of Manchester United. There is no escaping that United’s defense were all over the place. It was naive at the best of times, but the decision to award Leicester a penalty at 3-1 was extremely poor officiating. Being a United fan, its easy to dispute this decision, but from an official’s perspective it was a shocking decision. Firstly, Rafael is shoved over by Jamie Vardy. Mark Clattenburg waved play on, only to give the Foxes a penalty for a lesser offence. Vardy’s arm was raised in the first challenge, whereas Rafael used his shoulders in the second in order to defend. It wasn’t the reason for United’s downfall, but certainly changed the game and gave the home side the impetus to keep attacking.
Clattenburg correctly awarded Leicester’s second penalty after Tyler Blackett tripped up Vardy in the box. The red card that followed cannot be argued. The biggest game of the weekend came at The Etihad. Mike Dean was the man in charge and overall he was pretty picky with his yellow cards. This was highlighted by Pablo Zabaleta’s first booking which wasn’t even a foul in my view. Hazard just ran into him. The second yellow was justified though. A late, clumsy challenge, which was dealt with consistently from Dean, which is a positive. It would have been nice to see the game flow a bit more however.
West Ham goalkeeper, Adrian was involved in two incidents during the Hammers’ 3-1 victory over Liverpool. The first incident came after a challenge with Mario Balotelli. The pair exchanged words as well as handbags and both were correctly cautioned by Craig Pawson. In the second half, a ball was played through to Fabio Borini and Adrian charged out of his goal to claim the ball. He gathered the ball but raised his leg in an unnatural position, with studs showing and made contact with Borini’s leg. I can’t believe that he stayed on the pitch. It was a nasty foul that was certainly worth a second yellow at such an important time in the game, with the home side 2-1 up.
Stoke’s first goal at QPR surprised me somewhat. Peter Crouch had his arms pushing down on Rio Ferdinand. Nobody appealed for a foul which was strange as it was a definite infringement. Martin Atkinson should have spotted it. Poor decision.
Wilfried Bony’s appearance against Southampton was over before the break after two reckless fouls, both on Maya Yoshida. The first was a charge on the Japanese international, where Bony was shouting into the challenge. Bizarre to the the least. Jon Moss then dismissed Bony for a hack from behind. No question that the correct call was made. Consistent officiating.
Moving to Goodison Park where there were two more penalties, this time awarded by Michael Oliver. The first went in favour of Palace when Tim Howard bundled into James MacArthur. Correct decision and a good one too, especially with the amount of bodies Oliver had to look through. Oliver was again put on the spot in a similar incident, but this time Palace defender Scott Dann brought down James McCarthy. Again, a good decision by the leagues youngest official, who has the ability to be a Champions League and World Cup referee.
