• Chelsea defender shown yellow card in 3-0 win
• Pardew says Mike Dean admitted his mistake
The Newcastle United manager, Alan Pardew, has said that the referee Mike Dean has admitted he should have sent off the Chelsea defender David Luiz during the Premier League match at St James’ Park on Saturday.
The Brazilian was shown a yellow card for a fourth-minute challenge on Demba Ba, in a match that Chelsea’s won 3-0.
Pardew said after the game the official had told him, at half-time, that he did not show a red card because Ba did not have the ball under control.
Speaking on Sky Sports on Sunday, Pardew said Dean’s opinion of the incident had changed after seeing it again.
Pardew said: “I have got no problem with the referee yesterday, he made a mistake. Actually, he has since after the game seen it again and said to me, ‘I made a mistake, he should have been sent off’.
“At half-time yesterday, his opinion was different, but his opinion would have been altered if his assistant referee had done his job, in my opinion. When I saw the referee at half-time, I said, ‘Why did you not send him off?’ He said to me, ‘He didn’t have control of the ball.’
“Well, how can you have control of the ball when the guy is knocking you over? There is no way the goalie is getting to the ball, but the bigger problem I have got is with the linesman on this occasion, because I was looking at the linesman. The linesman can see that – he didn’t flag, he didn’t go mad, he didn’t do anything, so Mike Dean is making that decision from 40 yards away.
“If the linesman is waving his flag and suggesting, ‘You know what, this is an incident here,’ and they have got their little mics…
“It would have altered the game, down to 10 men, Chelsea, the pressure they were under. I wouldn’t have lost my centre-half [Fabricio Collocini] to injury because we were forcing the game. I had people charging around trying to get back a situation when we would have been in control of the game. Not only do I lose the game, but I have lost two players through injury. I’m still angry.”
Newcastle had the benefit of a controversial decision at Manchester United last weekend, when they were awarded a penalty for a Rio Ferdinand challenge on Hatem Ben Arfa after the referee, Mike Jones, had originally awarded a corner. That game finished 1-1.
Pardew said: “The problem we have got in this country is that it’s something like the budget, I am told, £8m for the referees, everything – assistants, assessors, the whole budget. Now when you think about how much money is thrown at this game, that can’t be right.
“The training for the referees is about £30,000, believe it or not. We have got assistant referees who are not full-time, so we are going to have this problem unless we say assistant referees are professional. The referee has then got a unit that’s trained, that trains together, that works together, that knows each other, who can deal with those situations because they are dealing with them when they are training in the week. Unless we do something like that, it isn’t going to improve.”
Alan PardewNewcastle UnitedChelseaguardian.co.uk
