Referees deciding title race again

I said before the start of the season that "ultimately the title winner will be the team that gets the small details in their favour. The winner will be the team who suffers the least injuries to key players and is able to field its best XI on the most occasions; whose players get away with it when they should be sent off and avoid being on the receiving end of harsh red cards; who get penalties awarded when they deserve them and when they don't; who plays teams when they are vulnerable rather than bang in form and fully fit; who gets that jammy deflection on the late winning goal, and who gets the rub of the green and the bounce of the ball on enough occasions over the campaign."

We certainly haven’t had the rub of the green from referees with opponents being allowed to assault Torres game after game and penalty decisions going against us at Tottenham and yesterday at West Ham.

Meanwhile, down the M6, Man City went into the Manchester derby (why it’s called that when only one team is based in Manchester, I don’t know!) with their most in-form player, Adebayor suspended. They battled and recovered from some bad defending to score an equaliser in stoppage time and then the referee, Martin Atkinson, simply refused to stop the game until Man Ure had scored a winner. This sort of thing has been going on for years and it’s just fucking ridiculous. A match lasts for 90 minutes. The fourth official raises a board stating the number of minutes to be added on. Today that board indicated 4 minutes should be added on. For Atkinson to completely disregard that board and allow an indefinite period of added time to enable the Scum to collect 3 points is a travesty but it happens so often we’re not even surprised anymore.

Today Man Ure picked up 2 points they shouldn’t have. Add that to the 3 points they should have had against Arsenal and they already have stolen 5 points through unfair means. How can any team expect to beat them when they are gifted points in this way? The answer is that another team needs to be gifted points in the same way. While that clearly won’t be us, fortunately, Chelsea have been enjoying some lucky breaks of their own. They were hugely fortunate to take 3 points of Hull and today were grateful to Howard Webb for generously refusing to give Tottenham a clear-cut penalty against them at 1-0. It's not a fair competition but as long as those bastard Mancs don't win it, I don't care who else does.

It’s a sad state of affairs that this is the only way to win the title.