Furious pundit demands ‘action’ after Everton vs Liverpool derby ‘totally ruined’ amid Sean Dyche, Jordan Pickford criticism
Sean Dyche and Jordan Pickford were right to call out the officiating in the Merseyside derby and Everton must now “demand action”, according Michael Ball.
The former Toffees defender wrote on Twitter and then went further in his Liverpool Echo column on 23 October that the 2-0 defeat at Anfield on Saturday was “totally ruined” by referee Craig Pawson for not sending off Ibrahima Konate after having dismissed Ashley Young.
The Everton boss called the officiating “impossible” after the game [BBC Sport, 21 October] while the keeper called it “arrogance” [Mirror, 23 October] after controversial decisions went against them in another trip to their rivals, and a furious Ball doesn’t want to see the issue allowed to slide.
Ball wrote: “We never seem to get the decisions at Anfield and our players probably already know that. But that doesn’t make it right. Any 50/50 decision during the derby was going Liverpool’s way, and that’s seemed to happen for years.
“I was happy with Dyche and Jordan Pickford for calling the situation out for what it is after the game. Referee Craig Pawson totally ruined what should have been a fantastic spectacle for the neutral and the fans of both teams.
“It’s so frustrating being a Blue because we knew going into Saturday things were likely to be different after Liverpool and Klopp called out the referees for their high-profile [Luis] Diaz error in their defeat at Tottenham last month.
“You hold your hands up if you are beaten fair and square, but I felt that wasn’t the case as the referee had a major say. It is a clear second yellow card for Konate. If you want to be picky, [Kostas] Tsimikas made three or four fouls in the first half in the space of ten minutes and also got away with it. It felt like it was one rule for them and one for us.
“You don’t want any favours from referees, you just want them to be fair and do their job. That never happened.
“Everton and Sean Dyche will want to put this to one side and focus on our next game with West Ham, but the club cannot let this go away. We should be talking about the derby, but it’s VAR and the officials again.
“These are blatant, basic errors that are being made time and time again. I feel the club needs to be stronger and ask for accountability. It can’t carry on like this as we’re not getting anywhere. We all expected things to get better when Howard Webb became involved with the PGMOL, but it’s gone backwards.”
Fight fire with fire?
In an ideal world the officials would be getting decisions right, or at the very least applying the same standards to everyone, and there would be no need for anyone to make a fuss afterwards.
It hasn’t been entirely one-way traffic, of course, but Everton have been on the wrong end of more than their fair share of dubious decisions, often in high-profile matches.
And when the Toffees went into the derby with many fans concerned that Liverpool’s extensive complaints over the VAR farce in their previous defeat against Tottenham on 30 September would affect the refereeing in this game it is all the more infuriating
If it apparently worked for them then the Everton hierarchy might as well do the same and kick up a big fuss, if they aren’t too distracted by the machinations of the protracted takeover process.
Clearly, no club should be looking to influence officials from one game to the next but if that is the way things are going then there is little use in the Toffees sitting back and letting things by.
If nothing else the more pressure put on Webb and company the more chance that something might be done about a standard of officiating which does appear to be deteriorating rather than improving.
It should be said that the pressure on referees is clearly high, and the abuse they increasingly get at all levels cannot be excused, but evenly applying the laws of the game is a fundamental aspect of the job and it certainly looked like that didn’t happen at Anfield at the weekend.
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