STOKE CITY FC 2 QUEENS PARK RANGERS 3
As has been said before you have to wonder if some referees sometimes have agendas when they go into games. Mike Jones had a bad one yesterday and no mistake.
Stoke opened brightly, took a deserved lead, and could even have netted another couple early doors. Enter Mr.Jones! He was woefully inconsistent, but seemed to set about penalising Stoke for real and imagined misdemeanours, whilst letting similar offences by QPR players pass. He clearly has Jermaine Pennant down as a diver. Our player was given absolutely nothing, no protection even though he took a buffeting from the visitors, and was even felled in the box, but was told to get to his feet as the game was waved on.
The crowd ,deservedly, gave Jones severe stick, which interestingly in the second half was so intense that, clearly flustered, he produced a short run of very strange decisions in our favour.
The cherry (raspberry?)on top of his cake, though, came toward the end of the match, when, with the score at 2-3 and Stoke pressing incessantly for an equaliser, he failed to award a penalty when Huth was blatantly floored by Barton in the QPR box.
As several commentators have said, he clearly felt the need today to be seen to be strong, in the intimidating atmosphere of The Britannia Stadium........shame that balanced refereeing went out the window as he set about correcting some imagined imbalance......
Stoke opened brightly, took a deserved lead, and could even have netted another couple early doors. Enter Mr.Jones! He was woefully inconsistent, but seemed to set about penalising Stoke for real and imagined misdemeanours, whilst letting similar offences by QPR players pass. He clearly has Jermaine Pennant down as a diver. Our player was given absolutely nothing, no protection even though he took a buffeting from the visitors, and was even felled in the box, but was told to get to his feet as the game was waved on.
The crowd ,deservedly, gave Jones severe stick, which interestingly in the second half was so intense that, clearly flustered, he produced a short run of very strange decisions in our favour.
The cherry (raspberry?)on top of his cake, though, came toward the end of the match, when, with the score at 2-3 and Stoke pressing incessantly for an equaliser, he failed to award a penalty when Huth was blatantly floored by Barton in the QPR box.
As several commentators have said, he clearly felt the need today to be seen to be strong, in the intimidating atmosphere of The Britannia Stadium........shame that balanced refereeing went out the window as he set about correcting some imagined imbalance......
The game itself was exciting enough. Stoke had plenty of chances to put the match beyond QPR’s reach before they netted their equaliser. Crouch had two stabs at the same chance.His first effort came back off keeper Kenny.In a heap on the ground the lanky striker managed to untangle his ungainly legs sufficiently to help the ball toward the open net, but with little momentum. Clint Hill was able to clear the danger. Stoke had plenty of chances later on, but finished poorly.QPR had three chances and notched them all. The most worrying feature of the game for me was that our defence continues to leak soft goals, and the way our heroes visibly deflated when QPR equalised.
Any pluses? Jon Walters took his goal well, but looked pretty fed up with what was going on around him later on. Etherington looked the liveliest he has been since the FA Cup semi-final against Bolton. Higginbotham was back ,though he looked rusty, going missing in the build up/scoring of two QPR goals. Ricardo Fuller put in an appearance as sub after his long injury layoff. He looked sharp, getting behind the visitors defence once, but failing with his cut back across goal. Ryan Shawcross got himself on the scoresheet,hopefully the first of many....we need his goals.
Last but not least, Robert Huth gave his all, appearing in the QPR box with increasing frequency as Stoke pressed.He shot powerfully just over the bar as he came in from the left, just before being felled for the penalty that wasn’t.....well,at least according to MR.JONES !!
PS Perhaps some people should not be refereeing,but this (click link) is dreadful,and you can feel nothing but sympathy for the man.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/15806602.stm
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