Saturday 30 August 2014

Graham Poll Declares The Goodison Thriller as The Worst Officiated Game He's Seen



Graham Poll is arguably the best referee to grace the English game. The 51 year old who was controversially thrown out of the 2006 worldcup has criticised the officiating of the nine goal thriller between Everton and Chelsea.



In his words:"Ron Ganfield, take a bow. That was perhaps the worst assistant refereeing performance I have ever seen with so many key incidents judged incorrectly.

First of all, he failed to see that Branislav Ivanovic was in an offside position and allowed him to score Chelsea's second goal.

Then as Eden Hazard chased a through ball, Tim Howard clearly came out of his penalty area and handled the ball.

From first viewing it was clear and replays made it look even worse - it is impossible to fathom how it was missed. Howard should have been dismissed and surely would have been had any other Premier League assistant been running the line on Saturday.

Later in the first-half Diego Costa was put through and was onside but Ganfield flagged and then repeated his error in the second half when Romelu Lukaku broke away for Everton.

There was no favouritism by the officials - both sides were penalised incorrectly.

Fiesty: A nine-goal thriller at Goodison Park was helped by some awful refereeing decisions by the officials
 
Jon Moss, perhaps caught up in Ganfield's inefficiency, then allowed Howard to escape a red card again following Chelsea's third goal. First, he ran out and grabbed Costa's shirt. Then he went head to head with Azpilcueta. Yet only a yellow card for the American keeper.

An incredible game of nine goals, blessed with amazing ebb and flow, was perhaps ironically helped by the consistently poor officiating which also allowed Costa to also escape a red card. He should have been shown two yellows and dismissed."

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