Two things really, really pissing me off about this. All evidence points to this ref being a total and utter jobsworth. Looking at the evidence, he tells Mowbray and Carrick he’s going to show empathy, given the occasion, point one. We then have video evidence in the past of him, being micd up for the cameras for Var.
There’s videos showing him doing very similar to another player who had been booked to make a point despite there being other players round him showing a higher level of dissent, but he chose the player who was to make a point. In the same passage of play Hume does probably worse than Neil.
However Neil is the one on the yellow card, so the ref being the jobsworth he is, steps up and does exactly what a person of his nature does. You get people like this in life, however in my opinion, they should not be a referee of football. It’s about consistency, and overall fairness, however he’s clearly one of those people who’s in it for Himself and will regularly do stuff like this to show how good he is to the powers that be.
I hope and pray we don’t get him at the sol again, because all the evidence points to him repeating this, and whilst it could be in our favour, it may not be again.
Point 2 is the consistency, as I’ve said he’s clearly a jobsworth, all the evidence shows this. He’s made his big headline gesture, and will be so quick to go back to his bosses to make the point of him doing it. However what isn’t acknowledged is everything else that happened that was just ignored as far as a person of his nature is concerned he’d ticked his box.
Nothing done about an elbow, nothing done about the pull back, nothing done about the diving, nothing done about the persistent fouling, nothing done about goading the crowd, no foul on Patterson despite it being worse than the two he gave to the boro keeper. The list goes on and on.
I’m not excusing our pathetic performance after going down to 10, boro deserved their win, however this absolute wanker of a bloke, should be removed completely from refereeing for everyone’s sake. It’s not sour grapes, it’s the evidence that points to him not being cut out for this role. I just hope we don’t see him again, and would love it if the bloke was removed from the job all together, so that this can’t happen anywhere else in the country.
A referee needs to be fair and consistent, it’s not about him and getting further in his career which is exactly what a jobsworth always does.