“If it ain’t broke…”: The beauty of a clean sheet

In the same edition of The Football League Paper, I also came across a rather frustrating guest column by Graham Westley.

The main article was one campaigning for the importance of dealing with head injuries swiftly and comprehensively, which is definitely a valid case to argue for. But my issue is with his five points to improve football, which preceded it.

They are as follows:

1. Make score draws worth more than low scoring wins
2. Make high scoring wins worth more than home wins
3. Make away wins worth worth more than home wins
4. Do more to reduce the cost of ticket prices for families
5. Allow assessors to intervene and use their bird’s eye view to help referees from the stand in key situations to prevent them making catastrophic major errors in a game

“If those changes were made I think we’d get more entertainment, more goals, more open games, more fan satisfaction, and fewer pressurised decisions. All positive steps forward.”

So, I totally disagree with the first three points. They seem to be undermining the nature of football itself. Ticket prices are a political issue, and something I wholeheartedly agree needs dealing with. The assessors point is to do with improving an aspect of the game – not altering the fundamental rules, as we see in his ideas about changing goal and win values. But changing the value of wins, draws and goals? That’s just not football, is it?

1. Make score draws worth more than low scoring wins

Preposterous? To win a football game, with presumably a solid defence and effective attacking tactics, but earn less points than a team whose defence went AWOL but still scored plenty seems madness. It certainly sounds like disrespect to the art of defending.

2. Make high scoring wins worth more than low scoring wins

As above – I still feel like good defending is being overlooked in this point. The notion that a goal is more valuable than a well-timed block or goalkeeper save, is naive and a little depressing for someone who’s team cultivated the offside-arm-raise as part of Arsenal’s ‘famous back four’. Watching Raphael Varane blossom under Mourinho at Real Madrid was as beautiful as seeing Jese’s enthralling offence. They say beauty is in the eye of the beholder because what might garner “more fan satisfaction” for one person, won’t cut it for someone else.

I’ve watched Arsenal and Barnet more than most this season – and tactically they each have something very different to offer. What I love and admire about Barnet’s tactical play I don’t comparatively enjoy in the same way when I watch Arsenal, because I prioritise different critiques and expectations across the different groups of players.

At Barnet, I love a solid 1-0, 2-0, 2-1 win; Martin Allen bringing on a fifth defender and relieving the likes of creative Luisma, once the game is in hand. At Arsenal, in many cases, I hope for more goals and, frankly, expect to concede some too. In short, my appreciation of different aspects of the game alters in different contexts.

3. Make away wins worth worth more than home wins

I’d give a tiny bit more room to wiggle on this idea… and then say ‘no’ again, anyway. It’s all about the fundamentals – and as far as home and away advantage, that is on the effectiveness of the 12th man (the fans) and the quality of the pitch and facilities. A lot of the time, it is the calibre and noise-levels of the fans that is important in terms of inspiring the players – and that is the case for home or away fans; if they’re loud, they’re loud. I go to The Emirates a lot, so can tell you playing with 50k more fans doesn’t mean we are louder – it doesn’t mean we offer the audio-advantage for the players. Similarly, not every team automatically has a fantastic home-record. Charlton haven’t won at home since October 21st.

It implies games can’t be thrilling, unless they have a goal. (What about chances created?) It implies tactical nous is unimportant (for who would praise a team that concedes four goals, just because they scored four also?) Remember Mourinho’s comment’s after Arsenal’s 5-4 victory over Spurs?

“In a three-against-three training match, if the score reaches 5-4 I send the players back to the dressing rooms as they are not defending properly. So to get a result like that in a game of 11 against 11 is disgraceful.”

I’m not saying there is no value or joy to be had in a high-scoring game – they are thrilling every once in a while, and fan’s certainly leave feeling they’ve had their money’s worth. But that’s based on a one-off game/result. I can’t say I’d feel as happy about conceding four-goals on a regular basis. Simply, logically, one would have to look at the team and say: the defence needs tightening. But then, who would do that if winning 2-0 at home with good defending and forwards that take their chances meant taking home less points than drawing 3-3?

It adds ulterior motive to performances and results, and undermines the essence of tactical decisions and effective defending.

To give a little insight as to what you’d be missing with Westley’s ideas in place, here’s a review of the enjoyment of a nil-nil, after Luton v Shrewsbury’s encounter:

“I watched Luton play Shrewsbury on Thursday night. It was a 0-0 draw but it was an enthralling encounter. The game constantly evolved and it was a fascinating tactical encounter. Until, that was, Shrewsbury suffered a pair of really soft yellows and a resultant red in the 70th minute. I was commentating on the game and couldn’t believe what I was seeing. It was a terrifically enjoyable and competitive game. Tackles were hard but honest. And there was absolutely no need for a red card to destroy the match. 

Please can we have some common sense in the refereeing of games? Small decisions should be made in the context of the big picture. Games that are getting out of hand need steps to be taken. But cracking contests between top teams should be decided by players not by debatable decisions.”

What we saw here was an “enthralling” 0-0; “a fascinating tactical encounter” that was “terrifically enjoyable and competitive”, despite the lack of goals – perhaps even because of it!

And who penned this praiseworthy commentary of a 0-0? Graham Westley of course. And not just that, it was printed alongside (thus totally discredited) most of his five points to improve football.

I rest my case…

“Blame Referee”

Reading The Football League Paper on the tube home, I couldn’t help but notice the proliferation of complaints about refereeing this weekend.

The further on I read, the more managers I found to be lambasting decisions, or lack thereof, from their appointed referees. From The Championship to League 2, it started to feel like every other game had a poorly performing official.

Starting off at Portman Road, Mick McCarthy gave both barrels to journalists waiting after the game.

“Informed that counterpart McClaren had hailed the ref’s performance, McCarthy laughed. ‘Well if that’s what he thinks, I’ll have to give him these,’ he said reaching for his reading glasses.
“Come on. The game has gone. Let’s come out here and say it how it is. Is it a f*cking penalty? Yes. Is it a f*cking foul? Yes. He’s got his arm out here. The ball hits his hand, it’s a penalty.
“With the Eustace one, I asked the referee at half-time what was going on. He said it was an accidental collision. Well I have to tell you – I’ve had some accidental collisions in my time, It’s violent conduct. He body-checks him from the side. He’d been booked already and he would have had to go off. It was a very strange decision.”

This mood of fury and disbelief set the precedent for what was to follow throughout the rest of the Saturday afternoon press conferences.

Neil Lennon followed suit in criticising his referees penalty calls – however he did manage to bite his tongue better than McCarthy bothered to.
“I’m not convinced it was a penalty, in fact I’m not convinced ours was a penalty either, so you can obviously read my thoughts on the referee’s performance overall.”

The Gills stand-in coach, Steve Lovell, was disappointed with their penalty decision:
“I thought the penalty was a bit of a soft one and the referee didn’t have the best afternoon in the world but that’s all I’m going to say about it.”

Both managers condemned a penalty call at XX as Barnsley scored a controversial penalty against Yeovil Town. Barnsley’s Danny Wilson agreed the goalkeeper “got a touch on it.”

Yeovil’s Gary Johnson stated: “We think it was two bits of unprofessionalism. One from our player to get sent off because that was stupid… the other is the penalty. We had two at Bristol City over Christmas hat we know aren’t penalties after seeking clarification.
“And we believe this will be another one that the officials will end up telling us wasn’t a penalty.”

Dean Smith of Walsall was furious with his referee’s performance in their 4-1 defeat against Scunthorpe.
“I’ve seen it again as well and it’s never a penalty. It’s cost us the chance of getting back into a game that I thought we were getting back into.
“He couldn’t give the earlier one quick enough either – he looked almost disappointed that he didn’t have to give it. To be honest I wasn’t even angry about it – I felt sorry for him more than anything because I thought it was such a poor decision.”

Leyton Orient manager, Fabio Liverani, was so incensed by a foul on Bradley Pritchard that he found himself sent to the stands. Being away from the dugout wasn’t enough to cool the Italian’s mood ahead of the post-match press conference, as he unleashed:
“The match has been badly conditioned by the referee’s decision. It’s impossible to say anything to my players after that because the referee got it wrong.
“Certainly it was our mistake for the goal, not the referee’s and we didn’t have a very good first half. But besides the first 30 seconds we played in my opinion very good football in the second-half.”

Bradford’s Phil Parkinson gave another no-holds-barred post-match interview, after seeing his side lose 2-1 to Rochdale.
“They’ve got a penalty and he’s been sent off – it’s never a sending off, it’s an absolutely atrocious decision. We knew it was at the time, and when you see it again it looks worse.
“It summed up the referee’s performance – he was terrible on the day. I won’t hide away from it, there was a pitch inspection this morning and he was telling me how he’s come up from Surrey. If that’s the best ref we can get and we’ve brought him up from Surrey the God help us. That performance was shocking.”

Latics manager Lee Johnson blamed solely the officials for his team’s draw with Doncaster.
“The game changed on some poor officiating. Sometimes you get three of four poor decisions but in fairness it was probably more 18 or 19. It’s not a great challenge from [Joseph] Mills, but the manner in which the officials dealt with it was very, very poor.”

Portsmouth lost to a Newport goal they believed should have been judged as offside. Andy Awford commented:
“It’s difficult to take. I’m as honest as the day is long and if the players don’t do enough they get a kick up the backside, but they did enough. I’ve got to be careful what I say because I don’t want to get fined, but we’ve been done by something out of our hands, which is disappointing.”

Neal Ardley held the referee to account for AFC Wimbledon’s side’s 2-1 defeat at Stevenage.
“It doesn’t surprise me that the penalty went that way, I thought the officiating all game was awful. It was a scrappy, tough League 2 game and I thought in the end he was giving bad decisions for us to counteract the ones he’d given against us.”

It felt unlikely that refereeing on the whole was this error-strewn throughout the Saturday 3 o’clock’s. So what does that say for the conduct of the managers?

Make no mistake, no winning managers had a bad thing to say about the refereeing. In fact, on a couple of occasions (notably Newport’s Justin Edinburgh and Stevenage’s Graham Westley, for a correct penalty call and offside decision, respectively) there was room for post-match praise for the jobs of their officials.

For the losing managers, are they using the referees as a scapegoat for other issues, and poor performances across 90 minutes; is it so simple that one decision defined the course of the match – or is it just more convenient to summarise it that way? Could they perhaps be using their post-match pressers to equally criticise systems, tactics and players – of course they could. It’s just far easier to deflect blame and hang that particular hat on the official, who rarely has a voice to answer with.

Saturday 10th was certainly a bad day at the office for the men in black – be it because they were at fault, or because they had to simply shoulder the blame anyway.