“I spoke with Mike following West Ham and Man City,” Martínez confirmed. “They accept there’s been an honest error made, but there have been too many now. I always feel the referees are part of the game and the error of the referee makes the game what it is.
“But it’s tough to take when you’ve got six or seven big calls which didn’t go your way and could have been so different and the scorelines could have changed. I’m a bit romantic on that and believe over the course of the season, they are going to level up. So watch this space for the next six games.”
And very damaging to us when occurring in our recent climate of pivotal players out injured and the others off form....the whole mix is toxic. Theres not a lot can be done when the wrong decisions are given instantly....human error. However to cut out some glaring howlers, I do think that interpretation of the rules is a grey area that needs firm guidance to be given to referees to enable a standard of some sorts at least. Its not rocket science but I wonder whether Riley has done this. Also, discretionary decisions like playing the advantage are well and good, but the facility loses its speciality when some referees don't enable it. The next stage would be more sophisticated cameras all over the place...and has been suggested, off pitch screens playing back incidents to a final decision maker...unaccessible, of course, to the volatile benches.
