Quote Originally Posted by Supersub6 View Post

My moan is that Simon Hooper was very much favouring the Seagulls and booked 4 Clarets whilst not booking Gilmour in the second half for a lunge on Brownhill. O'Shea was cautioned in the first few minutes because he slipped and then hung on to their player's ankle, no problem with that. Redmond was booked for a bit of a lunge when he stood on a foot, always seems to be a caution these days. Charlie Taylor was booked for time wasting I think but not sure about that at all. Odobert was booked when he was involved in a 50/50 and just caught their player when they were on the ground -----his only 'foul' but he gets booked.

I have given up on what constitutes fouls, handball, cautions and everything else which used to be straightforward when I played and officiated. I have watched Crystal Palace v Liverpool today and Andy Madley had a nightmare and I certainly wasn't impressed by Simon Hooper in our game.
Jarred Gillett last night, Villa v Arsenal, a player pulls an opponent back by the shirt, Gillett gives the free-kick, but no yellow card, which surprised me, five minutes later another player gets pulled back by the shirt, another free-kick and this time a yellow card. Same referee, same offence, one's a yellow, one isn't, you get the impression refs these days just don't know what they're doing, they're all over the place. Could it be VAR has somehow addled their brains, something is seriously going wrong with them.