Pablowolf
Gets Wanderers mixed up
- Joined
- Jun 2, 2018
- Messages
- 3,791
- Reaction score
- 333
Michael Oliver is not wearing a dunce’s hat. Nor, as far as it is possible to discern, does his neat black hair conceal devil’s horns. He does not express any visceral dislike of the team you support.
He does not name a player he is itching to send off or a manager he has it in for. It might come as a surprise given the silence that is usually imposed on our best referees but his voice actually makes him sound suspiciously like a human being.
In fact, let’s go further. Given the relentless abuse and mockery that is the lot of a Premier League referee, Oliver is remarkably free of self-pity or resentment or anxiety or distrust or defensiveness or arrogance.
He loves his job, he says. He loves working with the best footballers in the best league in the best stadiums in front of the best fans. He loves football, basically. And in turn, the game should count itself fortunate it can rely on people like him.
Oliver, 35, is a Newcastle United fan so he knows what it is to be a supporter who feels that the world is against you. ‘Every decision against Newcastle is a bad one,’ he says, with a grin.
‘That’s the way it works. Look, some of the things supporters say are from a different planet. You can take them with a pinch of salt because you know they are so focused on wanting their team to do well and it is never their team’s fault and there is always a reason why they got beat.’
He refuses to dwell on occasions he has been targeted, like the time three years ago when he awarded Real Madrid a last-minute penalty in the second leg of a tie against Juventus in the Champions League.
It was an obvious penalty and a straightforward decision but that did not stop Oliver being vilified by Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and sections of the Italian media.
Abuse quickly followed. Oliver’s wife, Lucy, also a referee, had a Twitter presence so much of the anger was directed through her. ‘Go do the dishes, we kill your husband,’ had a light touch compared with some of the other messages.
‘You have to die,’ another informed her, ‘and that piece of s*** your husband.’ Some dispensed with the pleasantries. ‘Man of s*** must die,’ one read. To add to the fun, someone screamed abuse through the letterbox of their home.
It was an extreme example but being a referee is never easy. From the outside, it is thankless. It is always his or her fault.
Some thought that the introduction of VAR would change that and that controversy would disappear. Some worried there would be nothing to argue about in the pub any more. Instead, the introduction and implementation of VAR, pitchside monitors, new handball rules and close offside decisions have become national obsessions.
They have also become sticks with which to beat referees. New sticks. As if there weren’t enough before. The new procedures are often cited as evidence that referees are automatons who have no feel for the game. When people say the rules are ruining the game, it often feels as if they are blaming the referees for enforcing them.
‘I know VAR has become an obsession,’ says Oliver, ‘but I am for it. There is all the clamour about it changing the game. But if you scrapped it tomorrow lunchtime, all you would hear all weekend would be people shouting “that would be a pen with VAR”. As soon as you moved it away, people would want it back.
‘Ultimately, even with VAR, it’s still my decision. I’m the one who makes the decision on the field. And if I get it right first time around, there is no reason for VAR to get involved. Now that I can go and watch on a pitchside monitor, you’ve got a second chance, too. You can change your mind or stick with it.
‘As a referee now, you should never be driving away from the ground dreading watching Match of the Day on a Saturday night or dreading Sunday morning stuff on Sky. That can only be a benefit. I have had games in the past, before VAR, where you are driving home and you are the only person in the ground who thought it was a pen and when you found that out, it was too late.
‘Now you have got the technology to figure it out. We have the debate about “clear and obvious” but I don’t know how you get to a place where everybody is going to be happy with it. It’s all still subjective. It’s still somebody’s opinion. You make the decision on the field and somebody then has the chance to look at it again but when we sit and discuss clips weekly on Zoom you put 16 of us in a room and we are split 8-8 or 9-7 or 10-6.
‘I think VAR’s helped the game. You are getting more fair decisions. You are getting the acceptance of players. If you go across to the monitor, there is more of an acceptance on-field because players are happy that at least two people have seen it. You have seen it live, someone else has seen pictures.
‘There is not as much holding in the penalty area as there was three or four years ago, for instance, because people are conscious it’s more likely to get spotted and that can only be a good thing. There should be a cleaner game. The teams that score a winner with an offside goal in the last minute no longer do.
‘It’s helped with the abuse we get, too. Players are not complaining persistently about decisions that happened 20 minutes ago. They are happy it’s been spotted, happy it’s been checked. They say what they think and then the world moves on. You look at the infamous Andy D’Urso clip of 20 years ago [when Roy Keane led a group of Manchester United players screaming in the referee’s face]. I have not seen that type of reaction for years.’
Referees still get things wrong. That is one of the inconveniences that comes with being human. Oliver doesn’t duck that, either. He says he has watched over and over again the incident in the Merseyside derby earlier this season where Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk suffered a serious knee injury in a collision with Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.
Oliver and the other officials became distracted by a tight offside decision and allowed Pickford to go unpunished. It was a mistake. Oliver acknowledges now that Pickford should have been sent off. Although that would not have altered the seriousness of the injury Van Dijk suffered, it would have eased the seething sense of injustice many Liverpool fans harboured over the incident.
That humility and conscientiousness are two of the reasons why many consider Oliver to be our best referee. His style is a long way away from the showmanship of predecessors like Graham Poll, who seemed to want to be friends of the players and thought they were part of the show, too. Oliver says people have told him he is ‘politely aloof’. Which is exactly what a referee should be.
‘Every referee is different,’ he says. ‘Everyone has got their own style. I keep getting told I am politely aloof. You have that distance between you and the players but you are willing to engage. This is my 11th season in the Prem so everybody knows you and you know everybody. I have got Marine-Spurs on Sunday and I would find it strange shouting ‘No 10’ towards Harry Kane.
‘Everybody knows who he is and I have refereed him a lot over the years. So why not call him “Harry”? And he’ll call me “Michael”. Because you have been around for so long and you have reffed them seven or eight times a season, you end up having a relationship with them. Because you see them that often. It is professional and you understand where the line is drawn but you have almost got to get on.
‘I don’t think there is a danger of favouritism. If you see a challenge during the game and you blow your whistle for a foul, you don’t think “I’ll give that because it’s Harry Maguire or Kevin de Bruyne".
'You genuinely don’t have the time to think about what you’re doing. It’s a reaction. It’s something you’ve done thousands of times. You are aware of characteristics of players and I think you should be.
He does not name a player he is itching to send off or a manager he has it in for. It might come as a surprise given the silence that is usually imposed on our best referees but his voice actually makes him sound suspiciously like a human being.
In fact, let’s go further. Given the relentless abuse and mockery that is the lot of a Premier League referee, Oliver is remarkably free of self-pity or resentment or anxiety or distrust or defensiveness or arrogance.
He loves his job, he says. He loves working with the best footballers in the best league in the best stadiums in front of the best fans. He loves football, basically. And in turn, the game should count itself fortunate it can rely on people like him.
Oliver, 35, is a Newcastle United fan so he knows what it is to be a supporter who feels that the world is against you. ‘Every decision against Newcastle is a bad one,’ he says, with a grin.
‘That’s the way it works. Look, some of the things supporters say are from a different planet. You can take them with a pinch of salt because you know they are so focused on wanting their team to do well and it is never their team’s fault and there is always a reason why they got beat.’
He refuses to dwell on occasions he has been targeted, like the time three years ago when he awarded Real Madrid a last-minute penalty in the second leg of a tie against Juventus in the Champions League.
It was an obvious penalty and a straightforward decision but that did not stop Oliver being vilified by Juventus goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon and sections of the Italian media.
Abuse quickly followed. Oliver’s wife, Lucy, also a referee, had a Twitter presence so much of the anger was directed through her. ‘Go do the dishes, we kill your husband,’ had a light touch compared with some of the other messages.
‘You have to die,’ another informed her, ‘and that piece of s*** your husband.’ Some dispensed with the pleasantries. ‘Man of s*** must die,’ one read. To add to the fun, someone screamed abuse through the letterbox of their home.
It was an extreme example but being a referee is never easy. From the outside, it is thankless. It is always his or her fault.
Some thought that the introduction of VAR would change that and that controversy would disappear. Some worried there would be nothing to argue about in the pub any more. Instead, the introduction and implementation of VAR, pitchside monitors, new handball rules and close offside decisions have become national obsessions.
They have also become sticks with which to beat referees. New sticks. As if there weren’t enough before. The new procedures are often cited as evidence that referees are automatons who have no feel for the game. When people say the rules are ruining the game, it often feels as if they are blaming the referees for enforcing them.
‘I know VAR has become an obsession,’ says Oliver, ‘but I am for it. There is all the clamour about it changing the game. But if you scrapped it tomorrow lunchtime, all you would hear all weekend would be people shouting “that would be a pen with VAR”. As soon as you moved it away, people would want it back.
‘Ultimately, even with VAR, it’s still my decision. I’m the one who makes the decision on the field. And if I get it right first time around, there is no reason for VAR to get involved. Now that I can go and watch on a pitchside monitor, you’ve got a second chance, too. You can change your mind or stick with it.
‘As a referee now, you should never be driving away from the ground dreading watching Match of the Day on a Saturday night or dreading Sunday morning stuff on Sky. That can only be a benefit. I have had games in the past, before VAR, where you are driving home and you are the only person in the ground who thought it was a pen and when you found that out, it was too late.
‘Now you have got the technology to figure it out. We have the debate about “clear and obvious” but I don’t know how you get to a place where everybody is going to be happy with it. It’s all still subjective. It’s still somebody’s opinion. You make the decision on the field and somebody then has the chance to look at it again but when we sit and discuss clips weekly on Zoom you put 16 of us in a room and we are split 8-8 or 9-7 or 10-6.
‘I think VAR’s helped the game. You are getting more fair decisions. You are getting the acceptance of players. If you go across to the monitor, there is more of an acceptance on-field because players are happy that at least two people have seen it. You have seen it live, someone else has seen pictures.
‘There is not as much holding in the penalty area as there was three or four years ago, for instance, because people are conscious it’s more likely to get spotted and that can only be a good thing. There should be a cleaner game. The teams that score a winner with an offside goal in the last minute no longer do.
‘It’s helped with the abuse we get, too. Players are not complaining persistently about decisions that happened 20 minutes ago. They are happy it’s been spotted, happy it’s been checked. They say what they think and then the world moves on. You look at the infamous Andy D’Urso clip of 20 years ago [when Roy Keane led a group of Manchester United players screaming in the referee’s face]. I have not seen that type of reaction for years.’
Referees still get things wrong. That is one of the inconveniences that comes with being human. Oliver doesn’t duck that, either. He says he has watched over and over again the incident in the Merseyside derby earlier this season where Liverpool captain Virgil van Dijk suffered a serious knee injury in a collision with Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford.
Oliver and the other officials became distracted by a tight offside decision and allowed Pickford to go unpunished. It was a mistake. Oliver acknowledges now that Pickford should have been sent off. Although that would not have altered the seriousness of the injury Van Dijk suffered, it would have eased the seething sense of injustice many Liverpool fans harboured over the incident.
That humility and conscientiousness are two of the reasons why many consider Oliver to be our best referee. His style is a long way away from the showmanship of predecessors like Graham Poll, who seemed to want to be friends of the players and thought they were part of the show, too. Oliver says people have told him he is ‘politely aloof’. Which is exactly what a referee should be.
‘Every referee is different,’ he says. ‘Everyone has got their own style. I keep getting told I am politely aloof. You have that distance between you and the players but you are willing to engage. This is my 11th season in the Prem so everybody knows you and you know everybody. I have got Marine-Spurs on Sunday and I would find it strange shouting ‘No 10’ towards Harry Kane.
‘Everybody knows who he is and I have refereed him a lot over the years. So why not call him “Harry”? And he’ll call me “Michael”. Because you have been around for so long and you have reffed them seven or eight times a season, you end up having a relationship with them. Because you see them that often. It is professional and you understand where the line is drawn but you have almost got to get on.
‘I don’t think there is a danger of favouritism. If you see a challenge during the game and you blow your whistle for a foul, you don’t think “I’ll give that because it’s Harry Maguire or Kevin de Bruyne".
'You genuinely don’t have the time to think about what you’re doing. It’s a reaction. It’s something you’ve done thousands of times. You are aware of characteristics of players and I think you should be.
