Poor refereeing continues to hurt Spurs

In April, I wrote an article headlined ‘Our Champions League place could be scuppered by referees’.

I made the point that in my opinion ALL referee’s should have played the game of football for a minimum of 10 Years (even playing in local leagues) before being allowed to become a referee. In this way, they will get a ‘feel’ for the game, they would understand what tackling is and would also understand what diving and obstruction is. Until we get that in our game, all teams (apart from the so called top 4) will struggle to get into that elite position.

I also said all the referees are poor, and one of the worst is Howard Webb, the referee the FA think is the best in the world. Yes he got the World Cup Final, but what a ‘hash’ he made of it. Players who should have stayed on the park he sent off, others who should have been sent off stayed on the park. He very seldom gives us any 50-50 decisions in fact, hardly gives us a thing even when 100% sure.

So yesterday, Mr. Webb sends off the Man United player when he should have sent off David Luiz – Luiz is one of the biggest ‘cheats’ in our game – leaving Chelsea to win it late on against 10 men.

It would have made such a difference to our Champions League aspirations if the game had finished in a draw or even if Man United had won, but yet again due to a pathetic refereeing performance it has made things very difficult for us. Yes, it still is in our own hands, but we have to go to play Chelsea on Wednesday where we haven’t won since a Gary Lineker goal many years ago, and have had some really bad decisions against us over the years by referees. And not just at Stamford Bridge, look at the Martin Atkinson decision at Wembley a couple of years ago when he gave Chelsea a goal when the ball was two yards this side of the line.

We don’t just have bad referees making bad decisions in our games, we also get bad referee’s making bad decisions and scuppering our chances when they referee our rivals.