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“Red card ref got it wrong”

18 Aug 2010

Despite the majority of the discussion surrounding referee Martin Atkinson's performance at Anfield focusing on the sending off Liverpool's new signing Joe Cole, arguably the poorest decision of the weekend his dismissal of Arsenal's Laurent Koscielny.

This decision, which has been decried by pundits as being harsh at the very least, was even more shocking because Atkinson had earlier decided against handing a yellow card to Liverpool goalscorer David Ngog . Unlike Koscielny, who seemed to be fairly unlucky to have been adjudged to have deliberately handled the ball, the striker intentionally punched the ball away in order to gain a clear advantage.

With the exception of the excellent Howard Webb, very few of the Premier League's referees have been able to cast themselves in a positive light in recent years, something that has caused the FA to rush through reforms to speed up the process which trains refs for the top flight of English football. No one wants to see a big game decided by a refereeing mistake, but sadly officials could have a big impact on the Everton v Liverpool betting later in the season.

With this level of inconsistency occurring in one of the first big games of the season, it is likely that Premiership managers will be dreading the prospect of getting Atkinson as the man to take charge of their team's games.