What is it with Phil Dowd?

[rutski]

You have answered your own question by saying he should have sent your son off for that offence. As for Ferdinand, yes he should have sent him off, but he would not have been dopey enough to get involved like that and lose his team 2 points

i dont think i said that at all, i think i said he wouldnt have sent either off!

[hawkeye]

reading this just tells you how difficult the refs job has become, how normal it is for players to use thier hands to stop opponents. the problem is that the authorities did not eradicate the shirt pulling when it started and now its got out of hand where wrestling matches occur and the ref has no idea what to do.
the refs are not up to the job that is obvious, so the only way is to use TV replays for just about everything, some say it will kill the game, well guess what they killed it a long time ago.

[villan from luton]

No worries, lets agree to disagree 

[villan from luton]

reading this just tells you how difficult the refs job has become, how normal it is for players to use thier hands to stop opponents. the problem is that the authorities did not eradicate the shirt pulling when it started and now its got out of hand where wrestling matches occur and the ref has no idea what to do.
the refs are not up to the job that is obvious, so the only way is to use TV replays for just about everything, some say it will kill the game, well guess what they killed it a long time ago.

In my 48 years, had never reffed a game till last Saturday, the ref didnt turn up and as I do the line got asked to ref, was hard work but the blokes were good and no hassles. Today was different and realised what a tough job the refs must have. Looking at the Chelsea game, should Torres have been sent off? I heard Johnny Evans suggest Torres actually deliberately touch him in order to get a foul. Is really tough

[hawkeye]

reading this just tells you how difficult the refs job has become, how normal it is for players to use thier hands to stop opponents. the problem is that the authorities did not eradicate the shirt pulling when it started and now its got out of hand where wrestling matches occur and the ref has no idea what to do.
the refs are not up to the job that is obvious, so the only way is to use TV replays for just about everything, some say it will kill the game, well guess what they killed it a long time ago.

In my 48 years, had never reffed a game till last Saturday, the ref didnt turn up and as I do the line got asked to ref, was hard work but the blokes were good and no hassles. Today was different and realised what a tough job the refs must have. Looking at the Chelsea game, should Torres have been sent off? I heard Johnny Evans suggest Torres actually deliberately touch him in order to get a foul. Is really tough

that is the point even with the TV replays we could not tell, my guess is the fact that Torres rolled over clutching his leg exagerating the contact convinced the ref to send him off. I guess this is when having refs that have played the game would help.

[villan from luton]

Hawkeye, if Torres was cheating though, he deserved that booking. Surely it wouldnt matter if you had played the game to see that? Personally, I thought there was slight contact, but he certainly made ameal of it

[Risso]

So rutski, are you siggesting he is just anti Villa? Was marriner anti liverpool today then and Clattenburg anti chelski, cos they fecked up as well, actually the linesmen did more so

i couldnt give a flying frig about anyone else, dowd IS anti Villa. and in no way should that 2nd have been a yellow card, just as they had players making late challenges on ours and him not booking them. tell me if he would have sent off ferdinand at old trafford for that? the answer is a resounding no. would he have sent off my son in a under 12's game at enville this morning? no! he should though because the laws of the game are exactly the same. it should have been a talking to at best, both players were at it.

It was a yellow card offence for which a yellow card was rightly shown.  I'm struggling to see what the issue is.

[eamonn]

You'd never get a ref sending off a player that early in a final, save for a real legbreaker of a challenge.  I don't think Dowd would be alone in that. 

It was a messy challenge rather than a professional foul IMO, and I felt Pubehead used that as a convenient excuse, to gloss over the fact that - the opening 10/15 minutes apart- we didn't cause them many problems.  You set up a team with 11v11 in mind and, as was often the case, his tactics came up short when it came to the crunch.

United went down to 10 men a few weeks prior to that at Villa Park - and still bossed the game.  So I don't particularly think it's a given that we'd have triumphed even if Vidic had gone off.

As for yesterday, he got it right.  Bennett made a fool of himself, even before the sending off. He's been a red card waiting to happen.

Agreed. The non-Vidic red card was the ready-made excuse O'Neill needed to cover for a performance that barely lifted above our non-attempt at winning the FA Cup final 10 years prior.

I found far more objectionable the award of a penalty for West Brom and a red card for Herd in last year's league game at VP.

[supertom]

No complaints whatsoever. I think Bennett had fouled someone shortly before his 2nd yellow too, so Dowd may have warned him the next one would be goodnight. Both were cardable. Both were also challenges that didn't need to be made either. He went into both recklessly. Kids will do that though.

[Mister E]

People do understand that it is possible to give a free kick for a foul without carding a player. This should be the case for non- dangerous fouls, and fouls that don't block direct goal scoring opportunities. I would say Bennet's 2nd offence was a free kick but not a card.

That's lovely, but unfortunately at odds with the actual laws of the game.  It was definitely a cautionable offence:

"Commits a tactical foul designed to interfere with or impede an opposing team’s attacking play (e.g., pushing an opponent or blatantly holding an opponent)."

You'd be right, Risso, if Norwich's Bennett had not initially run into Joe.
At the match, I said to my mate that Dowd got it wrong: the linesman actually awarded the foul and Dowd seemed to come to the second-yellow decision without having seen the whole incident (all he saw was E Bennett on the ground and the ball in space behind J Bennett).
For everyone saying that (our) "Bennett had it coming to him; he was a fool", that may be the case ;however, the reality is that the second-yellow incident was absolutely powder-puff stuff. The right ref response would have been to have had a word with both Bennetts about pushing and holdng.

Equally, when Herd dived in I said to my mate: "that's a second red card of the game". Herd was incredibly lucky to stay on the pitch.

All of which illustrates Dowd's ineptitude.

[Clampy]

The Herd one was interesting, he had a fantastic view of it. He either thought Herd made a genuine attempt for the ball (which he probably did) or remembered that he'd wrongly sent him off last year and turned a blind eye, who knows?

[eastie]

The Herd one was interesting, he had a fantastic view of it. He either thought Herd made a genuine attempt for the ball (which he probably did) or remembered that he'd wrongly sent him off last year and turned a blind eye, who knows?

I think playing the advantage helped us , if he'd blown up for the foul Norwich would probably have pressured dowd for a red and herd was very lucky to survive.

[Mortimer's Bear]

He should have sent Herd off.

[Mister E]

The Herd one was interesting, he had a fantastic view of it. He either thought Herd made a genuine attempt for the ball (which he probably did) or remembered that he'd wrongly sent him off last year and turned a blind eye, who knows?

I think playing the advantage helped us , if he'd blown up for the foul Norwich would probably have pressured dowd for a red and herd was very lucky to survive.

No question, eastie.

[nigel]

I always panic when Dowd's doing our games.
The mans a complete idiot.
I agree with PWS on page 1.
I didn't necessarily have a problem with all the decisions against us, it was the decisions he didn't give against Norwich.