RATE THE REF - Gavin Ward v Preston North End

[Claretitus]

He was absolutely dogger. Baffling decisions AGAINST both teams, but then when there WAS something blatant, against both teams, he didn’t give it. As said, the offside for their “ goal” clearly wasn’t ( but that was the Lino ), but then there was the 2 penalties that we should have had. Overall, the worst referee we have had in a long, long time. SHOCKINGLY bad.

[Turfmoorclaret]

Not so sure he is worth rating, but I believe there is a bigger issue at play here. There would have been an assessor there today who would have closed ranks and said "well done mate both teams were childish blah blah" and from there awards him 8s etc.For some reason the powers that be will not put forward the Rugby style clock timings. This would surely eradicate a lot of this time wasting. I watch the clock today and from 68 minutes to about 78 minutes the ball was in play for less than 3 minutes. The players/managers are now running the timings of the game unfortunately. There are stats on how many minutes the ball is in play and we are lucky if it is near 60.

Interestingly they no longer have assessors at games in the Prem and Championship. They now have match evaluators who was the game back on TV. Added time in the Prem is now down at Stockley Park by the AVAR and not the 4th official as in other divisions.

I am also a season ticket holder at Sale and we had Luke Pearce on Friday night. He got decisions wrong but in general was excellent and I recommend Ward went and watched him on how to control a game. Sale were taking the p*ss on line outs and he nipped it in the bud. Granted he's probably the best Rugby ref in the country but it was like two extremes over the weekend. The sooner they bring in the ear phones in football like they do in Rugby where fans can listen live to what referees are saying the better it gives you far more clarity as a fan!

[MrTopTier]

Southampton defender Jack Stephens has been banned for two matches and fined £50,000 after calling fourth official Gavin Ward a “f***ing little c***” following his red card against Manchester United last month.

Stephens also called referee Stuart Attwell "a c***" and used the same expletive again towards Ward after his sending off for a foul on Alejandro Garnacho.

https://nyti.ms/47RNhXW?utm_source=fbuk ... ntent=fbuk

Jack Stephens, not wrong was he!