Roma and the ref 2-1 Fulham

Conspiracy theories don’t usually do it for me, but after tonight’s farce….  if Jack Warner can retain a high ranking position in FIFA than nothing in football is impossible; could it be that UEFA, frightened by Roma’s poor start to the campaign and desperate to show off their new Europa League, have issued a far reaching anti-non-famous club mandate?

No, I don’t think so either, but in two games against Roma we have now seen three poor red cards (two of them while we were ahead).  Stephen Kelly was eventually dismissed in the home game after the referee thought he saw Brede Hangeland take down Jon-Arne Riise, and now, with Fulham in control, we see Erik Nevland sent of for… clipping Daniele Di Rossi’s heels?  And just to be safe, Paul Konchesky got a straight red too, his crime being to foul a Roma player who was in the act of prancing.  Said Roma player (his name escapes me) was kicked so hard by our left back that he had to roll over on the ground four or five times, as if he had jumped out of a fast moving train.

If UEFA are so set on using six referees for these occasions, why not open the ballot to good ones?  Sure, you can let the trainees have a go on the goal-line shift – nothing seems to happen there – but if the Europa League is to be taken seriously, why not let someone competent take charge in the middle?

Because if you don’t then things like this happen.  Fulham, our most celebrated game for donkey’s years, deservedly ahead, then cut down because a referee can’t distinguish between a slightly dodgy challenge and an achilles heel raking, or whatever it was he thought he saw Nevland do.  Game over.  It was going to be hard enough with 11 men.  Ten?  Forget it.  Roma would attack, pin us back, goals would come.   This is exactly what happened, Roma’s Riise firing in from distance via deflections from Gera and our own Riise to make it 1-1, a jammy goal but one that had been coming.   Then Roma scored again, a good left footed cross and a good header, and that was that.  We were pinned back and couldn’t keep the ball.  Because we were a man down.   It’s ridiculous.   We can all live with bad decisions, and indeed we profited from a couple of slightly iffy calls at the weekend, but there’s no way these were red cards, no way.  To think otherwise is to be wrong.

We started well.  Dempsey and Kamara worked well together, finding gaps in Roma’s defence and engaging well with Riise, Gera and the impressively attacking Konchesky.  Roma were sitting back, waiting for something to happen, and soon enough it did.  Dempsey cleverly reversed a pass into Kamara’s stride, Kamara nicked it past the defender, tumbled on the way through, and sure enough, penalty.   This somewhat dimishes the conspiracy theory now I think about it, but the penalty was that clear that even the most bent ref would have had to award it.  To do otherwise may have made the plot too obvious (I am still only half joking. I think.  Who knows?)

Kamara sent the ‘keeper the wrong way and Fulham were ahead.  Roma were occasionally impressive but this game was under control.  Nevland replaced the livewire Kamara at half-time (the latter having been injured for much of the first half), and the rest I have ranted about already.

Pah.