We've Got Howard The Coward AGAIN

All I can say is I bet tippex are well pleased with the refusal to sack Webb in the aftermath of the Carling Cup Final. How can a proven liar be allowed to officiate ANY game? Let alone two consecutive games against a side for which he has a clear problem with. Seriously, if I lied about a colleague throwing a punch in my workplace I'd be sacked wouldn't I?

Ferguson will be well aware of the history between Arsenal & the Coward, so I fully expect to see a full blown rant about how Webb missed a clear penalty, plus 2 sending's off & numerous other yellow card offences when Arsenal played Liverpool & that he will try & put them right during this match. Infact to be honest I wouldn't even blame Alex for doing that because he knows the FA will be watching him, so the decisions will all go in Utd's favour. He probably cannot believe his luck getting this t****r as ref or maybe it was decided by Gill.

If the FA are honestly saying they only have 1 person good enough to referee Arsenal v Man Utd, then serious questions have to be asked. To say how well he done in the Liverpool/Arsenal game is a complete joke & shows them up for the farce they are. Of course though midlothian99 could be right about them needing Liverpool to be challenging at the top, in which case Webb had a terrific match on sunday!!

Rocky7, there seems unfortunately these days an awful lot of whinging about the ref missing things here and there, being too lenient, being too harsh etc. I don't want to see instant replay after every event. It is up to the law makers to say any feet of the ground is a red card, but then players can inadvertently hit the ball and go over the top into the player. Watching the Rugby World Cup final again 12 of South Africa's 15 points shouldn't have been awarded as the ref called the penalties incorrectly and I'm sure if he'd had longer than 0.02secs to make a decision might have made a different one. What happens? .. you just accept officials make mistakes and move on rather than berate them as cowards and liars. If a colleague said another person had thrown a punch but in fact hadn't then undoubtedly you would have to explain yourself. If the person was 100% innocent then you'd probably be seriously disciplined. If you had over exaggerated and although punches were not thrown, the accused had charged aggressively into others, you probably be asked to be more accurate in future. You only get sacked if you make something up completely, not for inaccurately reporting an incident

**why can't others

Refereeing is the only profession where poor performance is accepted on the basis that 'it's a difficult job'. You wouldn't accept mistakes from your aircraft pilot or surgeon on that basis and neither should you accept it in football referees. There are only 17 refs on the prem register (40% of the european average). Other countries have more to minimise the celebrity cult affecting referees. You also find that of these 17 referees only about half referee the televised games regularly so that the major games are often officiated by the same names. This creates the risk with so few referees that teams can allow for the idiosyncrasies of individuals and know what they can and can't get away with. Teams know the 'homers' so for officiating to be level we need more referees and fewer show ponies looking to make themselves the centre of attention.

ok first of all howard webb is not all that bad.he is exremely lenient thats one thing for sure.wel he did create a major blunder the CC final but i feel that was cuz cuz he got the wrong info from the linesman.wel if he is told by the linesman that ade threw a punch well he has no choice but to send him off does he?......well from wat i ahve seen he is the better of the lot and hasnt made too many howlers.though i feel he had a bad game at anfield.......i am quite surprised that he got awarded this game........i dunno with wat mentality he is goin to go in to this with........hope he has a gud game cuz i dont think a referee shud ruin such a spectacle

I think the dubious goals panel looks at who the actual scorer is not whether a goal was actually scored. The idea is that once a punishment is issued on the pitch it can't be upgraded. If a yellow was upgraded to a red, then the other team would complain they had not suffered the benefit of their team having an extra man.

It's ridiculous that this guy is officiating again. Even a neutral can understand that we might feel insecure about him given our strained history. Why put us AND the ref in this situation - when they could let somebody else do it, and so avoid all the speculation about favouritism? Like Amos said, we need more refs to dilute their profile. Their job is hard enough without being made to feel like they are so frequently the centre of attention.

Howard really didnt do that bad in our game vs Pool. He missed Cara try to rip Cesc shirt off but thats about it. The Mascherano was a yellow but nothing more. Where i have a problem is that Cesc goal celebration gets the same punishment as that tackle and that is not Howards fault but the stupid rules committee who havent ever played the game.

Cara's shirt removing exploits were on display the week before vs Everton, when he did the same thing to Lescott. It's not just shirt pulling, it's man handling worthy of the Rugby team, and has to stop. The guy is a cheat, and once the thick headed refs figure out his gameplan and award a penalty or two, maybe he'll stop. Too late for us and Everton though.

I hate this ref. He lets the players kill each other and barely calls fouls.

I think one of the problems with all this vitriol against referees, is that the next generation of refs give up. Amos has made a good point about a lack of referees compared to Europe, but is the level of abuse they get discouraging the next generation? Yes, they are professionals, but even top professionals in any career make mistakes. Already glaring errors are punished by refs getting demoted. Recently on the news there was a case of school football matches being cancelled because there was no-one to referee the game, and in the interview, a 16year old said he'd been attacked by parents, whilst another Sunday league ref had had his car vandalised. Unless fans keep things in perspective and turn down this constant and unnecessary level of abuse against officials because they make errors or award decisions against your team, we could be killing the game. I know you lot didn't like Martin Jol, but he rarely critised the ref despite some 'interesting' decisions and I think he should be congratulated for that.