Dean’s single decision devastating for millions including sponsors, advertisers, players and the game

By CandH’s Niall McDonald

I was really looking forward to last night’s match.

A New Year fixture against one of the big boys. A full house under the lights. A chance to put one over on Jose again. An opportunity to test ourselves against some of the top players in the world, and in Zlatan, one of the best of all time.

It was the archetypal cold, crisp winter’s evening and everything seemed set for something special. I posted a comment on the C&H Facebook page an hour before last night’s game that I felt it was either going to end in a famous victory, or heroic failure. In the end it was more the latter, thanks to Mike Dean.

Now the rights and wrongs of the decision have been done to death already but as I sat watching Feghouli trudging off, in equal part disbelief, equal part devastation the old adage ‘an early sending off kills the game’ had never been truer.

“That’s it over now” I said to my daughter, before trying to explain to her what had happened – actually, that’s got me thinking – maybe referees should come out after a game and explain themselves to a group of 9-year olds?!

While the players and the crowd re-grouped I found myself running through the knock-on effects of that single decision. It goes without saying there’s the impact of the extra effort spent by the team playing a man down for 75 minutes. We were no longer able to use attacking substitutions or protect some key players and give others game time. What effect might there now be on the equally huge game against Man City in the Cup this Friday?

Feghouli’s had a torrid start to his career and, having been given his chance, now misses 3 games – putting him back and applying yet more pressure on the squad when we are already losing players to the AFCON. Antonio had the opportunity to play in a free, attacking role snatched from him. Instead he was shunted around the pitch, never really in the right place at the right time until he spurned his one-on-one – his confidence must be dented.

The loss of three points, or a point, could yet be absolutely crucial. Points drive league-placings, and influence team selection and tactics in future matches. Points also mean prize-money at the end of the year, which support transfer dealings. There were (officially) 57,000 in the stadium. A lot of time and money spent travelling, on a bank holiday, by a lot of people who were denied the game they wanted to see.

If we had pulled off my hoped-for ‘famous victory’ the club would have had fantastic marketing material to throw at all and sundry to show we were now, finally, competitive in the new stadium. Sky and 5Live gave this fixture showcase treatment – they can’t have been happy seeing the spectacle reduced to ‘attack v defence’ in the first act. How many viewers switched off? How many unhappy advertisers??

The FA and their sponsors can’t be overjoyed seeing the coverage of the game focused around refereeing errors, dismissals and offside goals? How do the players in Dean’s next game react? Will they think twice to compete for the ball for fear of a straight red? Will they, if Twitter lip readers are to be believed, even look at him in case they are given an early bath??

Now, we still might have lost to Man U with a full 11 and our very best game. But my point is that a single, incorrect decision by one person – and let’s charitably consider it a genuine mistake – impacts on tens, hundreds, thousands, millions of people and can cost them an awful lot of money to boot. And this was a league game – not a cup final, not a relegation decider, not the last minute of the season.

I wasn’t a fan of video replays and 3rd party intervention before yesterday: “these things even out over the course of a season”, as Arsene Wenger says. But would a 20 second delay have got us to the right decision? I think it probably would.”