BFTG - Luton

[Hound]

I don’t think the ref ever awarded the goal. Think he awarded the free kick and waited for it to die down before sending him off

Lino didn’t flag though

[Hound]

I’ll be honest I totally missed the handball despite it being right in front of me. AC moves his head like he’s headed it in. I can’t work out what he is doing on it really, it’s not like he suddenly throws up a hand to knock it in

Ref did well to spot it

[NathStPaul]

As Championship refs go I thought he was pretty decent throughout.

[Dirk Gently]

... and then the referee and linesman decided to send him off. ...

Not sure they had much choice in the matter.

[Orion1871]

I’ll be honest I totally missed the handball despite it being right in front of me. AC moves his head like he’s headed it in. I can’t work out what he is doing on it really, it’s not like he suddenly throws up a hand to knock it in

Ref did well to spot it

That's because he went to head it and missed it before it hit his arm. If he hadn't celebrated then they may have called it as an accidental handball and he would have stayed on the pitch.

As it is he celebrated and the officials were only too happy to send him off.

[Stranded]

I’ll be honest I totally missed the handball despite it being right in front of me. AC moves his head like he’s headed it in. I can’t work out what he is doing on it really, it’s not like he suddenly throws up a hand to knock it in

Ref did well to spot it

That's because he went to head it and missed it before it hit his arm. If he hadn't celebrated then they may have called it as an accidental handball and he would have stayed on the pitch.

As it is he celebrated and the officials were only too happy to send him off.

According to NHunt - Carroll went to speak to the officials afterwards and asked that very question and was told he would have been booked either way and therefore sent off.

[Franconian Royal]

My view of the 2nd goal was only from RoyalsTV. The moment the Luton fellas ran over to the ref complaining, that’s when the ref made his decision. Beforehand neither the ref nor liner saw it.
As for their goal, blatant foul on Lumley when he goes to get the ball, leading it to going upwards. Liner needed to call it. Ref was piss poor as he bottled a chance to send Doughty off in the 2nd half

[RoyalBlue]

I’ll be honest I totally missed the handball despite it being right in front of me. AC moves his head like he’s headed it in. I can’t work out what he is doing on it really, it’s not like he suddenly throws up a hand to knock it in

Ref did well to spot it

That's because he went to head it and missed it before it hit his arm. If he hadn't celebrated then they may have called it as an accidental handball and he would have stayed on the pitch.

As it is he celebrated and the officials were only too happy to send him off.

According to NHunt - Carroll went to speak to the officials afterwards and asked that very question and was told he would have been booked either way and therefore sent off.

Even having watched the replay frame by frame, I'm not sure how accidental it was. If the officials didn't regard it as accidental then it would still be a booking whether or not he celebrated. The celebration makes it pretty clear cut for them though since he was clearly intent on cheating once he knew ball had hit his arm and come nowhere near his head.

That having been said, we once again saw clear inconsistencies with the officials' decision making. Later on, a Luton player clearly deliberately handled the ball as he went into an aerial challenge near the touchline yet escaped a yellow.

We have to live with the consequences of officials correctly applying the laws of the game but we shouldn't have to live with them being inconsistent in their application of those very same laws.

[Royal_jimmy]

Actually thought it was the right decision, sadly. Now we are without Carroll for the next 2 matches which makes the task of staying up even harder

[Maguire]

I don’t think the ref ever awarded the goal. Think he awarded the free kick and waited for it to die down before sending him off

Lino didn’t flag though

Ah ok maybe that's what happened. I mean, it was blatant and the correct decision so no matter.

[RoyalBlue]

My view of the 2nd goal was only from RoyalsTV. The moment the Luton fellas ran over to the ref complaining, that’s when the ref made his decision. Beforehand neither the ref nor liner saw it.
As for their goal, blatant foul on Lumley when he goes to get the ball, leading it to going upwards. Liner needed to call it. Ref was piss poor as he bottled a chance to send Doughty off in the 2nd half

Agree with the latter two points. However, when it came to the 'goal' and second yellow, the ref was extremely unclear with his signalling. Furthermore, I don't think the AR started to move from where he was stood at the time which he should've done if there was no doubt that a goal had been scored.

This from FIFA:

7. “Goal – no goal” situations
When a goal has been scored and there is no doubt about the decision, the
referee and assistant referee must make eye contact and the assistant referee
must then run quickly 25-30 metres along the touch line towards the halfway
line without raising his flag.

[Hound]

Actually thought it was the right decision, sadly. Now we are without Carroll for the next 2 matches which makes the task of staying up even harder

The yellow for the handball was fair enough

Did think his first yellow was soft though. It was free kick of course but it wasn’t a dangerous tackle, their player wasn’t through on goal or anything. Definitely worse tackles made that didn’t get a yellow

Weird game from AC that. Awful miss at the start, that yellow card, great goal, handball goal and sent off. Went from being a legend to a bellend in about 5 seconds

[RoyalBlue]

Missed the game.

Read the match thread.

Good result.

Ratings please someone.

Lumley - 7 I guess, I think a good save and some good commanding of his area but didn’t get enough on the cross for the goal and then had no idea where the ball went.
Yiadom - 7 good solid Yiadom of old performance
Holmes - 7 put in a lot of good work
Sarr - 7 one of his better games for sure
Guiness-Walker - 6 got quite a lot wrong today but defenddd fairly well
Hendrick - 6 Mr average.
Casadei - 6 some good some not great, lost it a bit too much
Azeez - 6 great couple of balls in, but doesn’t look fit and lost it a lot.
Fornah - 5 I like him and the way he plays, but some errors and didn't link up too well with NGW
Joao - 8 my MotM, really good dropping into the hole getting balls to feet, holding it and getting play moving. At the heartof almost everything we did well going forward
Carroll - ? Stupid challenge for a yellow after his error. Great header to score. Haven't seen the second well enough to decide if he meant to put it in with his hand or not.

Ehibhatiomhan - 6 ran hard
Camara - 7 final ball wasn't there but this kid is good. And he put in work in defence
Abrefa - 6 contributed to get us a point. He's not been as good as his early promise, but this is all invaluable for his development and he's certainly not let us down.

Agreed with a lot of those, both ratings and comments. Joao was much better, although still not sure there was much cohesion between him and Carroll. Sarr probably worth an 8

Think you’re slightly influenced by pre match thoughts with Hendrick. Thought it was his best game in a Reading shirt. Could be wrong but seemed much more involved. Simple passes (but not safe passes as he’s too often been guilty of) and involved defensively.

Fully agree about Hendrick. Also showed a great deal of intelligence and experience after picking up an early yellow card. Managed to get in lots of key challenges (even if some were merely to slightly nick the ball away or hinder a run), particularly when we were down to 10 men, without ever risking a second yellow.

Shame his Newcastle buddy didn't behave the same way!

[royalstevep68]

I’ll be honest I totally missed the handball despite it being right in front of me. AC moves his head like he’s headed it in. I can’t work out what he is doing on it really, it’s not like he suddenly throws up a hand to knock it in

Ref did well to spot it

Agreed ref did well, I was right behind the goal, 6 or so rows from the goal and didn’t see it, but it was near impossible from my angle to see the handball

[Greatwesternline]

handball aside, Carroll has simply missed a great chance to get his head on it and score a second. Perfection of a cross.

[Sutekh]

I’ll be honest I totally missed the handball despite it being right in front of me. AC moves his head like he’s headed it in. I can’t work out what he is doing on it really, it’s not like he suddenly throws up a hand to knock it in

Ref did well to spot it

Agreed ref did well, I was right behind the goal, 6 or so rows from the goal and didn’t see it, but it was near impossible from my angle to see the handball

Thought he did decently to be honest, got the important things right (unfortunately!), really have to appreciate what refs do, they have to be looking simultaneously pretty much everywhere at everything and interpreting it all in a split second - and then you wonder why things sometimes get missed or or mis-interpreted. Sometimes things must happen so quick that a ref has to ask himself if he actually really saw it so relies heavily on the linesman to be on the ball too.

[SCIAG]

That having been said, we once again saw clear inconsistencies with the officials' decision making. Later on, a Luton player clearly deliberately handled the ball as he went into an aerial challenge near the touchline yet escaped a yellow.

We have to live with the consequences of officials correctly applying the laws of the game but we shouldn't have to live with them being inconsistent in their application of those very same laws.

Deliberate handball is not a cautionable offence.

There are two clauses in the laws that require certain types of handball to be punished with a caution, when a player:

- handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack
- handles the ball in an attempt to score a goal (whether or not the attempt is successful) or in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a goal

And DOGSO or denying a goal is obviously a straight dismissal.

Carroll handled in the process of scoring a goal, the Luton player handled in an aerial challenge by the touch line. The officials applied the laws correctly and consistently.

[Hound]

May be the usual bias but did think the ref gave quite a few soft ones to Luton, esp in the first half. Then think he got a bit card happy at the end didn’t strike me as being in full control at times but not awful

[Greatwesternline]

That having been said, we once again saw clear inconsistencies with the officials' decision making. Later on, a Luton player clearly deliberately handled the ball as he went into an aerial challenge near the touchline yet escaped a yellow.

We have to live with the consequences of officials correctly applying the laws of the game but we shouldn't have to live with them being inconsistent in their application of those very same laws.

Deliberate handball is not a cautionable offence.

There are two clauses in the laws that require certain types of handball to be punished with a caution, when a player:

- handles the ball to interfere with or stop a promising attack
- handles the ball in an attempt to score a goal (whether or not the attempt is successful) or in an unsuccessful attempt to prevent a goal

And DOGSO or denying a goal is obviously a straight dismissal.

Carroll handled in the process of scoring a goal, the Luton player handled in an aerial challenge by the touch line. The officials applied the laws correctly and consistently.

Indeed. Many people's complaints with refs come simply from their ignorance of the rules. I was watching Walthamstow versus Biggleswade on Tuesday, and the 'Stow manager was berating the lino for why the ref had not allowed a drop ball to be contested for them in an attacking position compared to one earlier when Biggleswade were in an attacking position.

The lino calmy explained that drop balls in the box are not contested. Those are the rules. The manager was completely stumped.

As an aside, i feel attempting to deliberately score a goal with your hand is as bad an offence as attempting to stop one with your hand, and should therefore be a straight red.

[blythspartan]

I thought Carroll deserved to get sent off tbh but his goal still got us a valuable point.

Joao had a good game and Sarr played well last night. I know Hendrick isn’t popular but I thought he did well too. I appreciate he is mediocre but I think we’d miss him if he wasn’t playing. He brings a calmness to the midfield.