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Special Word For Mr Mick Russell


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Mick Russell the referee at Fleetwood. The best performance I've seen officiating a Latics match in many a year. Old fashioned lets get on with it and no nonsense for play acting. Fantastic that man.

I was saying the same on the way home, it was like he didn't want to blow his whistle ever! As a result the game flowed much better.

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Mick Russell the referee at Fleetwood. The best performance I've seen officiating a Latics match in many a year. Old fashioned lets get on with it and no nonsense for play acting. Fantastic that man.

 

And he had the nouse to realise that Poleon with a clear shooting opportunity wasnt an advantage!

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I think refereeing this season, at all levels, has been atrocious. A real stark drop from recent seasons. You struggle to get through a game, even at Premier League level, without a game changing howler. Vertonghen's non-goal this weekend was shocking.

 

But yes, Mr Russell was excellent. Law of averages means we get a complete dud for the next game though...

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I am not sure I agree with the quality of referring is getting worse agrument.

 

 

They are human beings who do a pretty good job overall. Perhaps things that have changed that impact the perceived** quality of performances include:

 

1) The pace of the game has increased due to player fitness and pitch quality. Its arguable that this pace makes it more difficult for a human being to keep up as much as in the past.

2) The level of 'cheating' that goes on has increased. Generally now a referree has to content with 22 players all trying to con them at every opportunity (just watch the hands shoot up for throw-ins corners that they know are not theirs)

3) The level of scrutiny we can now see - even 3rd Division incidents are shown on TV, on highlights packages etc etc. Mistakes have always been made, we just now can see it for certain.

 

 

For me football is an entertainment industry and sometimes having a slightly dodgey referee decision can ingnite an otherwise boring game. Also having the 'we was robbed' discussions in the pubs / offices after games is part of the game for me. Also we all remember the bad decisions that go against us, but rarely remember the ones that go for you (for example watch the goals from the 'Great Escape' game against Southampton and be glad the ref didn't give the hand ball that could have changed the game).

 

** I say percieved as on a few occasions I have been to watch a game of another team with friends. And sat as a neutral in a home crowd, you realise how biased your view of football games are when it involves your team.

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At Wembley last year for the RLW C sem-final the ref got all sorts of abuse for just about every decision that went against the home side.

 

Unlike football those moments can be shown on the big screen and almost without exception when the replay came up everyone shrugged and acknowledged hat the ref had got it right.

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I think refereeing this season, at all levels, has been atrocious. A real stark drop from recent seasons. You struggle to get through a game, even at Premier League level, without a game changing howler. Vertonghen's non-goal this weekend was shocking.

 

But yes, Mr Russell was excellent. Law of averages means we get a complete dud for the next game though...

No we had the complete dud against Donny !!!!!!!!!!!

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No we had the complete dud against Donny !!!!!!!!!!!

 

Not the greatest performance I'd agree but on reflection and watching the replays even as a Latics fan I can see that:

 

(a) Mills was a red card offence. The fact he didn't blow straight away was odd. but the correct outcome.

(B) The first goal was one of those fouls on the keeper that fans bemoan when they are attacking and grateful for when defending. 50/50 decsion.

© The 'play-on' decision at the end was the most inexcuable...but even then you can say we had control of the ball at the time and perhaps we had been seen to time waste?

 

 

Don't get me wrong as a Latics fan I left that game with a huge sense of injustice and still feel overall we didn't get the rub.....but from a neutral point of view it probably looked far different.

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I was seated in the small stand at the opposite end to most Latics fans, so had a different view to most.

The ease with which Poleon went to ground was worrying from a footballing and also a sporting point of view. But Philliskirk was attempting to dive at the slightest provocation.

The ref generally made the right call, but occasionally got it wrong.

Well done to the ref but maybe clubs get what they deserve and the fans just end up feeling short changed?

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If the game is becoming quicker, and players are becoming faster and fitter, referees should follow suit. There was a bit in the Chron this week about Latics offering help to referees, and LJ saying that most we get are amateur. Surely the FA should be striving to having professional referees at professional matches? There should be facilities for improving their fitness and their judgement, decision making skills etc. I've lost count of how many times this season a linesman has been 10 yards behind the play, then they have to completely guess at offside.

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Is it not nearly always the case that the winning team think it's a good refereeing performance whilst the losing team proclaim it's one of the worst they've ever witnessed?

 

Quite possibly in most instances. But Russell's was a top performance.

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Is it not nearly always the case that the winning team think it's a good refereeing performance whilst the losing team proclaim it's one of the worst they've ever witnessed?

 

Pretty much. The only thing I would say about Russell on Saturday was that me and my Dad were complimenting the performance after about 20 minutes, and then again at HT when the game was tightly balanced.

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I am not sure I agree with the quality of referring is getting worse agrument.

 

 

They are human beings who do a pretty good job overall. Perhaps things that have changed that impact the perceived** quality of performances include:

 

1) The pace of the game has increased due to player fitness and pitch quality. Its arguable that this pace makes it more difficult for a human being to keep up as much as in the past.

2) The level of 'cheating' that goes on has increased. Generally now a referree has to content with 22 players all trying to con them at every opportunity (just watch the hands shoot up for throw-ins corners that they know are not theirs)

3) The level of scrutiny we can now see - even 3rd Division incidents are shown on TV, on highlights packages etc etc. Mistakes have always been made, we just now can see it for certain.

 

 

For me football is an entertainment industry and sometimes having a slightly dodgey referee decision can ingnite an otherwise boring game. Also having the 'we was robbed' discussions in the pubs / offices after games is part of the game for me. Also we all remember the bad decisions that go against us, but rarely remember the ones that go for you (for example watch the goals from the 'Great Escape' game against Southampton and be glad the ref didn't give the hand ball that could have changed the game).

 

** I say percieved as on a few occasions I have been to watch a game of another team with friends. And sat as a neutral in a home crowd, you realise how biased your view of football games are when it involves your team.

 

Great post.

 

I took up the whistle because I had that menatlity of 'surely it cant be that hard' so put my money where my mouth is and did the course. Needless to say its very rare now that I have anything bad to say about officials.

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