Referee was determined to make Fulham lose

[Nick Bateman]

I found Mike Dean refereeing so much in favour of Sunderland, it was as if he had put a bet on it.  Of course, the former owner of a bookmaker's would never stoop to such deceit, and his betting business in safely out of his hands, in his wife and family's name now.

Dean should have sent off Lee Cattermole for a "break leg" coward's hallenge on Scott Parker, and then gave them a disgusting 'soft' penalty.  But all day he was awarding Sunderland decisions as though they were the home team.

Such officiating makes one want to stop paying good money to watch football matches and I am thoroughly fed up with the rotten standards of refereeing in the Premier League!

[Sgt Fulham]

There really needs to be a change. Referees should be sanctioned for poor performances and players who dive need to be punished retrospectively. Game-changing dives or 'cheats' need to be punished with game bans as this is the only way they will learn. After Borini's dive I wanted to go up to him and punch him in the face repeatedly and watching a football match should not feel this way.

Either way, this result cannot be put down to the referee no matter how bad he was. Referees can only award set pieces, its up to us to defend them, and we failed miserably.

[nose]

mike dean guaranteed a defeat, we saw that from aboiut five minutes in.
i hate him the same way i hated riley, jeff winter and the loathsome graham poll... halsey was still ffar worse than all of the afore mentioned combined! and i loathe d'urso and mr ***** Oliver is also awful

there is no question some are just poor but the ones I have named i truly doubt their integrity... i would be hap-py to debate with them their one sided biased decisions!

[nose]

oh ans adam johnson celebration after the first goal needed to be booked but riley, sorry mr dean looked on and let him wind up the home supporters.  yet catermole never even had a foul against him for a clear sending off offence.

[Logicalman]

But all day he was awarding Sunderland decisions as though they were the home team.

Such officiating makes one want to stop paying good money to watch football matches and I am thoroughly fed up with the rotten standards of refereeing in the Premier League!

So, it would have been OK if the 'rotten' refereeing was in favor of us being the home team? Sounds fair I suppose, though it belies your argument that standards are poor when you differentiate between what should be decisions for home teams and away teams.

The penalty was a penalty, notwithstanding Altidore managed to make it appear to be a trip rather than the leg in the midriff.
We were undone by set pieces, a poor defense and (for the third goal) a good through ball that went past an out-of-position Riise.

Don't hang a poor home performance on the ref decisions, it doesn't hold water, much like the 'home team decisions' argument made.

[KP_FFC]

i agree. he was dreadful, i was constantly swearing at him. we were playing against 12 men.

[Burt]

The ref was poor today, but our defence was worse.

We should be able to deal better with set pieces. Two soft goals. Not sure what the coaching set up is but it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if we don't tighten it up at the back and we continue to concede more than we score then we're in trouble.

[LBNo11]

...the first two Sundeanland goals were from free-kicks awarded for non-fouls by the cheating black cats, and Dean, true to form was awful. Our defence is awful, and our forwards are never anywhere near the goal (and on the odd occasion we had a chance in front of goal our 'beautiful touch' front man cocked up) but having a two goal cushion made it easier for the mackens to capitalise...

[MJG]

Sorry but we lost today because we are not good enough.
Sidwell & Riise's tackles may or may not have been fouls, but by doing what they did they gave the ref the option.
Sidwell has cost us 3 goals from just outside the box with his little leg out tackles.

[Nick Bateman]

The penalty was a penalty, notwithstanding Altidore managed to make it appear to be a trip rather than the leg in the midriff.
We were undone by set pieces, a poor defense and (for the third goal) a good through ball that went past an out-of-position Riise.

Don't hang a poor home performance on the ref decisions, it doesn't hold water, much like the 'home team decisions' argument made.

You obviously like having sand kicked in your face.  Altedore is a known 'diver' and he should have been booked for that one today.  Granted Senderos was clumsy (as usual) but he did NOT bring him down nor even make contact with the American.

But if you had watched the whole game, one could easily see the referee was intent on helping the away team win, whether Fulham could have done anything about it is another matter.

I did not mention the numerous other 'bad calls' Dean made, like when Tarbuck was 'taken out' near the edge of their box for a free kick in similar position to one he gave them!

[Baszab]

Jimmy Tarbuck would have been a useful option rather than Taraabt

[K33NY]

sunderland is a team created by hollywood actors, and all of them capable of winning golden globe or whatever........

[Logicalman]

The penalty was a penalty, notwithstanding Altidore managed to make it appear to be a trip rather than the leg in the midriff.
We were undone by set pieces, a poor defense and (for the third goal) a good through ball that went past an out-of-position Riise.

Don't hang a poor home performance on the ref decisions, it doesn't hold water, much like the 'home team decisions' argument made.

You obviously like having sand kicked in your face.  Altedore is a known 'diver' and he should have been booked for that one today.  Granted Senderos was clumsy (as usual) but he did NOT bring him down nor even make contact with the American.

But if you had watched the whole game, one could easily see the referee was intent on helping the away team win, whether Fulham could have done anything about it is another matter.

I did not mention the numerous other 'bad calls' Dean made, like when Tarbuck was 'taken out' near the edge of their box for a free kick in similar position to one he gave them!

Like many others here, I have had sand kicked in my face by more poor players at Fulham than anything else, and I still don't like it.

I did watch the whole game and the low-lights later on. There was contact with Altidore/Senderos in the area, his leg was at Altidores midriff and you just cannot do that without giving a penalty. Nobody will claim Altidore didn't make the most of it, of course he did, as I mentioned he appeared to make it look like a trip, but it was a penalty anyways and would have been given 90% of the time, unfortunately.

As I said, you want to blame the loss by our under-performing team on the ref, go ahead, your opinion counts, but it doesn't change the simple facts that Sunderland undid us today, the same way that Hull did previously.

[davew]

Perhaps our best chance was to kick the ref and get him carried off in the 1st few minutes, with 10 men we might have done better?

[Nick Bateman]

There were numerous errors of our own making, as has been the case recently since Curbs & Wilkins showed up (at least more so since then)!  Senderos is an "accident-waiting-to-happen" in every game; one still feels cheated by this corrupt official and its not a one-off.

Frankly, I am getting sick to my stomach seeing these cheats parading around in the Premier League, one shockingly bad performance after another, and robbing the public of a good honest game where the better team on the day deservedly wins.

Fulham were the better team and were robbed and the "career referees" have helped orchestrate our downfall once again.  :dft007:

[Pluto]

oh ans adam johnson celebration after the first goal needed to be booked but riley, sorry mr dean looked on and let him wind up the home supporters.  yet catermole never even had a foul against him for a clear sending off offence.

Insane that he wasn't booked for that. The fans pay good money to watch the game not to be abused and provoked by the entertainers on the pitch. He should be sanctioned retrospectively for that and the dive.

Dean turned in one of the worst refereeing performances I've ever seen. He literally sat back and let Sunderland dive their way to victory. Our players were visibly exasperated at half time. He is nowhere near the required level.

[Logicalman]

oh ans adam johnson celebration after the first goal needed to be booked but riley, sorry mr dean looked on and let him wind up the home supporters.  yet catermole never even had a foul against him for a clear sending off offence.

Insane that he wasn't booked for that. The fans pay good money to watch the game not to be abused and provoked by the entertainers on the pitch. He should be sanctioned retrospectively for that and the dive.

Dean turned in one of the worst refereeing performances I've ever seen. He literally sat back and let Sunderland dive their way to victory. Our players were visibly exasperated at half time. He is nowhere near the required level.

The it will be up to Fulham to bring this to the attention of the retrospective board and have something done about it.

The diving is getting out of control, again, by many teams, and until the PL are serious about getting rid, then players, from all teams, will take advantage of it. My only hope is that the issue does not herald in the advent of video refs at any point or at any level.

[Rhys Lightning 63]

I'm not one to usually blame referees, but my days Mike Dean was poor today. Jozy Altidore JUMPED when Senderos fouled him. The only thing missing was the Drogba headflick

[Sgt Fulham]

The problem is that referees are hardly sanctioned at all for piss poor performances week after week. Yes, they are human and make the odd error, but when, like today, it affected the game they need to be assessed. I see the same referees week in, week out and hardly any new faces. Surely there are more competent people out there??

[Neil D]

The penalty was a penalty, notwithstanding Altidore managed to make it appear to be a trip rather than the leg in the midriff.

Yes it was a penalty.  I was right in line with it and Senderos's effort was clumsy and unnecessary.  That said, at least he wasn't out of position for a change.