During the heat of the moment, I'm sure we have all shouted at the TV screen at some bizarre referee decision. Yet somehow the linesman or referee assistant's avoid the wrath of us the fans.
Yet increasingly those men employed to assist the referee are actually making things harder for the referees. The Manchester United v Newcastle match first really highlighted this when the assistant awarded a penalty after the referee had first awarded a corner. Then yesterday another incident invovling Newcastle saw the linesman not signal for what was a clear red card for David Luiz. There was also a second goal for QPR which was wrongly ruled out for offside.
For to long the referee has become an easy scapegoat but since Sir Alex Ferguson's rant regarding referees fitness levels, everything that can be done has been tried and tested to try to get consistency. OK we still get Gary Cahill being sent off in one match and David Luiz only receiving a yellow for the same offence. Nowadays referees are full time professionals and they see pyschologists and dietitions, everything to help the referees keep up with play and make correct decisions.
At the moment they are being let down by their part-time counterparts and there are some experts calling for all officials to be made full time professional. Certainly that will improve standards but it's not going to stop human error or linesmen wanting to make names for themselves. I'm not saying that their job is easy aand they have a split second to make the judgement but decisions are being given that nobody else on the pitch are appealing for.
Where was the referees assistant during the Blackburn Rovers game where they scored from the corner that never was? I know they are supposed to help but being away from the action the way they are they don't get the same feel for the match as the referee does.
All we are asking for is basic decisions being correctly given or not. I'm a sure their performance would improve if there was some bonus system awarded on how they have assisted correctly or not. Something has to change because at the moment the referee's assistants are not doing what is expected of them and seemingly quite happy for the referee to handle all the flak.
I feel we have beome to hard on our officials. I remember seeing a clip of the bad idea when some bright spark thought attaching the referees with a microphne would be a good idea. That particular match was against Arsenal and nobody told the Aresenal players about the experiment. In one heated exchange Tony Adams was seen calling then referee David Elleray a cheat. Elleray's response. "We may be useless but we are not cheats". They are just trying to do a difficult job none of us would do. The linesman (referees assistants isn't a worthy title) need to do better.
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