Whenever bad calls are made in league matches, the manager who benefited from the bad call normally says something like this, “You know, I didn’t see it. I heard it might have been (offside/not-off-side/over-the-line/fill-in-mistake here), but you know – English football is a very long season. These things have a way of working themselves out over the course of the campaign.”
On Sunday, several bad calls were made. One of those bad calls was the wrongly adjudged offside call on Luis Suarez’s goal in injury time. Now, one could argue that he shouldn’t have even been on the pitch after stamping on both Kevin Mirallas and, more egregiously, Sylvain Distin. One could also argue, as David Moyes did in his post-match presser, that the situation should never have been possible because there was no foul on Osman to set-up the free kick. However, for the sake of argument, let’s accept the initial assertion glibly offered by so many benefiting managers – let’s agree that ‘these things have a way of working themselves out over the course of the season.’
Well, if this assertion is true, then by my calculation – Everton are still owed three points by Premier League officials for their calls this season, at least three points . . .
(-2) September 17, 2012 – Everton 2 – 2 Newcastle
In one of the first 4-2 draws in Premier League history, Everton has a Fellaini goal wrongly disallowed as being offside, and an Anichebe header never recognized as rightly being a goal – though clearly shown to have fully crossed the line.
(-2) October 6, 2012 - Wigan 2 – 2 Everton
Everton received one point, when they justly deserved three. Arouna Kone put Wigan ahead after just ten minutes; though replays show Kone’s goal was clearly offside. A late penalty by Bainesy saved a point, but it was a road trip that should have given the Blues all three.
(+1) October 28, 2012 – Everton 2 – 2 Liverpool
As mentioned previously, Luis Suarez was onside. The goal should have counted.
So, there you have it. If the old adage is true, then three more points should be coming the Blues way in the months to come. And those three points are just calculating the missed calls by linesman this young season, not to even touching the uncalled penalty appeals (Baines v. Liverpool, Jelavic v. QPR and many more) or the fact that Everton had to play the Derby without Pienaar because of a phantom foul.
Don’t get me wrong, if you would have told me in June that we would be in 5th right now, 6 points above Liverpool, I would have taken it in a second – but that doesn’t stop my from feeling like we have deserved a bit more. For you, what has been the worst call of the Toffees season, thus far? How many points should the Blues truly have?
Reader Comments (12)
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2 Posted 30/10/2012 at 18:46:23
But I was simply stating, for the sake of argument, that if things do balance themselves out over the course of the season - aren't we still due more points?
In the end, we are exactly where we are. There is no changing our current table position. Our season will be decided by our mentality, class, and health moving forward - not by looking in the past. I just had heard several managers and players (Naismith, for example) mention how things balance out over time, and I thought it was an adage worth unpacking.
3 Posted 30/10/2012 at 19:08:04
4 Posted 30/10/2012 at 20:07:30
I personally feel no guilt about laughing my bollocks off at the disallowed goal but that is because of all the games that have been taken from us whether in the league, FA cup or League cup in Merseyside derbies over the years.
Decisions do not even out because they are not taken in the context of individual games ie a dodgy goal given when you are 2-0 down or a goal disallowed when you are 2-0 up. All I ask is for consistency and a modicum of fairness across the board as,no matter how often it is denied, the usual suspects get the majority of decisions.
5 Posted 30/10/2012 at 20:44:37
As for decisions this season I think we deserved to beat Newcastle because we were better and the same with Wigan. We should have (and did ) lost to West Brom and perhaps we should have done against QPR. There hasn't been however one game this season which we've won when I''ve though (we didn't deserve that at all e.g Fulham away last year). any points w ehave we've fully deserved and we should arguably have more regardless of refereeing decisions.
6 Posted 31/10/2012 at 06:21:52
OT, why has Rat boy widely been credited with 2 goals from Sunday? Surely the first shot was not on target until Baines' intervention?
7 Posted 31/10/2012 at 08:40:50
8 Posted 31/10/2012 at 08:50:54
9 Posted 31/10/2012 at 11:51:20
10 Posted 31/10/2012 at 12:15:29
11 Posted 01/11/2012 at 13:19:58
In 1998 we drew 0-0 at Bolton. Gerry Taggert scored a "goal" that wasn't given as it was ruled not to have crossed the line (it had). Us Blues pointed out that Nathan Blake had fouled Neville Southall in the build up and so the goal should never have stood - but the fact was that foul wasn't given, and had Taggert nutted it into the net, we would have gone a goal down.
That was in the first half - there's no guarantee we would've lost the game as being 1-0 puts a different complexion on it. Also, the fact we stayed up at the expense of Bolton on goal difference again cannot be drawn as an inference we'd have gone down IF the goal had stood, and IF we'd gone on to lose 1-0. It was too early in the season for it to be pivotal.
Imagine if Aguerro's last kick of the season had been disallowed!
12 Posted 07/11/2012 at 15:30:54
Matt, your point here makes absolutely no sense whatsoever. Seriously, none.
You say that you can't dispute the fact that a free kick was given or that Coates fouled Jagielka because those decisions weren't given, but you can dispute the goal. How does that work? Unless I'm very much mistaken, the goal wasn't given either? So it's exactly the same surely? As the goal wasn't given, they are annoyed; if it had been given, we would have been annoyed about the decision/lack of decision preceding it.
I'm not commenting on the actual award of the free kick or the possible foul, by the way – I saw it at the game and haven't bothered to watch a replay because it doesn't matter to me, it won't change the outcome.
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1 Posted 30/10/2012 at 18:36:56
You also forgot that in the build-up to Naismith's goal we got a throw-in when the ball actually came off Miralles last.
As infuriating as things can be, why not try to accept most decisions, especially the very difficult to call ones? The Kone and Suarez decisions were very poor whilst the two against us against Newcastle were very tough calls.