Only comment I'd make on Watters red is how he responded. Watching it back he's no complaints, but if he'd gone to the ref early and said fair cop, sorry, he'd have prevented Cambridge's players getting round him and I reckon only a yellow. If you watch the video replay, the ref doesn't exactly react to the challenge. I don't think he'd have sent him off without Digby's input.
My thoughts exactly. Stupid challenge, definite red. Learn and move on. I hope he apologises to his team mates, but let’s give him a chance to make amends.
Seen the highlights and I think the ref got it right, he led with his elbow and wasn't looking at the ball. Red card, end of story.
That's interesting about his previously excellent disciplinary record - makes what he did yesterday all the more incomprehensible. Hopefully the incident is an outlier, as it was a properly horrible challenge. What was he thinking? Cambridge were a pretty physical side but I hadn't seen any ongoing bad blood between individual players, which is what often leads to an incident like that. The Norwood one on the other hand looked like an awful decision. I also didn't think it was even a foul, but apart from that the ref was very solid.
Red all day long. You cannot connect with someone in the face with an outstretched arm. He knew he'd done wrong by sulking off as fast as possible.
What's worrying is that he wasn't leading with his elbow until he looked around and saw the player THEN he lifted his elbow up. His conduct after the act was even worse imo
Yeah he was stupid but the ref was doing nothing until he listened to the half dozen or so cambridge players deliberately try to get another professional sent off.
To be fair they were justified, you can’t look for excuses in this instance, however I believe the it was the assistant referee’s comments that got him the red card
I believe it was his own reaction. He showed the ref just how deliberate it was by how he refused to look at him, walked off and then blatantly ignored the refs calls for him to come over. If there was ANY doubt in the refs head about what to do then Watters made the decision for him
Duff should say "what did that gain, why would you do it", he will not be able to answer, cos there is no answer, deserves sending off for the stupidity of the action
Disagree. The ref is in direct sight and blows straight away. Deals with the player head injury first, then deals with the players, then quickly checks with the lino, then brings Watters back and issues the card. Very good reffing for me. Totally understand their players remonstrating. If it were one of ours that had just been clattered like that, I’d expect our players to be doing the same. And everyone in the stadium would have been demanding a straight red too.
But as i have said the same thing happened less than 5 minutes later to a barnsley player and this time it wasn't even jumping . Barnsley player and cambridge player had all feet on ground and cambridge player put elbow in cheek and actually kept it there directly in front of linesman on west stand. Nothing done or said. Inconsistency plus the injured party not making a meal of it. Nor did his pals go running to tell teacher
I'm sorry but no, the same thing didn't happen. There's absolutely no defending Watters or trying to blame their players. His actions were disgusting and his reaction was worse. Deserves all he gets
I have not said anything about watters being in the wrong he was. But please don't call me a liar, the same thing did happen in front of the linesman and me. I can assure it did happen and it was worse than watters did
Would like to see that. Not been any mention of it from anyone else, either during the game or after. If there had been a straight elbow to one our lads, I’d have thought it would have been mentioned. Either by our players at the time, or our staff after watching the footage.
It Nothing will be said because our lot got on with it and didn't spend 5 minutes rolling on floor. And you should know by now the media only picks up on it usually when the game is stopped. If the refhad blown or liner flagged then you would keep seeing replays. I wouldn't mind betting similar "misbehaviours" happen many times in games and never get spotted , that is untill the injured party rolls in the grass
Yeah but you said it was worse than Watters, so it must have been really bad. I’ll have a look on the full match replay. Do you know roughly when it happened?
