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Oh, what a tangled Webb games involving Manchester United and certain referees do weave.
It seems like such a shame that such an enthralling game (well, enthralling second half) should end with talk of the referee, but hopefully that will subside and the memory of a cracking see-saw encounter and comeback will be the enduring image.
I, though, have to do my job and assess the impact Howard Webb had on Chelsea 3 Manchester United 3. And it was a big one, with four key decisions in and around Chelsea's penalty area.
I'll admit that I did not see shirt-pulling by Jose Bosingwa on Ashley Young on first glance, but a replay showed that Mr Webb's position would have meant it was fairly obvious. He eventually gave a free-kick to Chelsea for Young handballing it on the way down.
The second of the first-half shouts was a definite foul by Gary Cahill on Danny Welbeck, although it was certainly outside of the penalty area. However, Mr Webb, again with a good view, still gave nothing - not even a free-kick, which would have been in a very dangerous area. I do not believe, had the foul been given, that it would have warranted a red card, as the chance wasn't totally clear-cut, but even a caution against a centre-back is a disadvantage that Chelsea escaped, particularly when you consider the standard of forward Cahill would have been playing against while on a yellow.
The first penalty given was a cert, for me. Patrice Evra was about to plant a foot behind the ball when Danny Sturridge basically kicked it away from under him. I can't see a dispute on that one.
The real issue is the second penalty that Mr Webb awarded. I think a combination of Branislav Ivanovic stopping and Welbeck actively trying to make contact with the Serbian defender led to Welbeck going over, and for me it shouldn't have been a spot-kick. It was extremely harsh.
Ultimately, if you are assessing the four big decisions, I think Mr Webb got one right and three wrong. And if you want to restart and perpetuate the ludicrous 'Webb favours United' myth, then I'd say of the three wrong decisions, two of them favoured Chelsea - and they were the first two. He had a poor game, but he probably harmed United more than he helped them.
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The blue side of Manchester were also busy having their own issues with penalties the day before.
Adam Johnson was the architect of the first; in more ways than one. His jinking run came to an end following contact with Chris Baird, but the issue, similar to the aforementioned Welbeck incident, was whether Johnson created the contact or not.
I think he did, and therefore I don't think it should have been a penalty. That said, from the angle Mike Dean had, I can absolutely see why it might have looked that way to him.
I do not, though, believe that Johnson dived and deserved a caution. To me, there is an art to trying to draw a penalty from a defender, and this is what Johnson (and Welbeck) was trying to do. I wouldn't have given either of them as penalties, because they artificially created the contact, but the fact that they did go down following contact does not, to me, qualify the incidents as simulation.
I think we must be careful, at times, to not get drawn into things that have to be black or white. Just because something is not a penalty does not mean it automatically has to be a dive. It can be somewhere in between, and I would apply this to both penalty incidents with Johnson and Welbeck.
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Gael Givet got his marching orders for a two-footed challenge on Robin Van Persie, and I find it very hard to sympathise with the Frenchman. I would say it was certainly a tackle with excessive force and that endangered the opponent.
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For me, the handling by Mark Clattenburg of the clash between Roger Johnson and Djibril Cisse was less clear-cut, although I am hardly scathing about the decisions he ultimately made.
To get the tackle out of the way, I thought it was a textbook caution. Johnson went through the back of Cisse in a reckless manner. It wasn't nasty or brutal, but it was reckless, and deserved the caution that he eventually got.
I think the sending-off could have gone either way. I'm not particularly bothered by the decision that Mark Clattenburg made. He had to take some action with a player grabbing another opponent around the neck, and I can see why a red card would be his decision.
At this point it is worth trotting out the usual defence to the platitude. 'Raising your hands' is NOT a red card offence. "You can't raise your hands in today's game," is a totally empty phrase, with little meaning and less substance. If Player A 'raises his hands' and tweaks Player B on the nose, I wouldn't expect Player A to be dismissed. A caution for unsporting behaviour? Yes, probably, but if it wasn't violent, didn't use excessive force or brutality and didn't endanger the opponent, then it doesn't deserve a red card, no matter where the hands were raised.
Cisse's matter was obviously a good deal worse than a playful tweak of the nose, but it wasn't exactly a punch in the face, either. I can absolutely see why a referee would say that a hand round the neck was excessively violent. It's a pretty indefensible act. However, I would also defend a referee's right to say that it was unnecessary but not a breach of the 'excessive force or brutality' section of the Law.
Some would say that this could be inconsistency, but I would argue that when a rulebook offers the chance for referees to interpret then you will have different outcomes.
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The Robert Huth red card was a bit of a head-scratcher. He definitely went in with momentum aplenty on David Meyler, and I'd say deserved a caution for clattering into the player. However, there wasn't a huge amount of danger, and if anything Huth was pulling out of the tackle a little to minimise the force applied.
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West Bromwich Albion fell at home to Swansea City on Saturday, having surrender a losing position. However, they may well feel things might have been different had they had a penalty given in the first half when City's Ashley Williams jumped into a cross with his hand. I think it deserved to be a penalty - and a caution too - but it was not given.
However, in referee Jon Moss and his assistants' defence, it is worth noting a point made in this column two weeks ago coming to light again in this instance. The Match of the Day commentator exclaimed shock at the referee not awarding the spot-kick - but only after viewing a replay. Obviously angles play a part, as we explored with Mr Webb earlier, but generally speaking if it isn't obvious on first viewing on TV, imagine how tough it is for the officials.
Rob McNichol
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