The Clattenburg Code

Referee Mark Clattenburg must have felt more than a little foolish when he crumpled to the ground in the second half at the Emirates Stadium and needed treatment from Arsenal physio Gary Lewin. But his performance with the whistle was infinitely more embarrassing and on this showing he should seriously consider giving up refereeing as he appears to have very little talent for it.

Liverpool were the chief beneficiaries of his incompetence (or was it merely cowardice?) as first Carragher and later Pennant got off lightly in circumstances that would have provoked a red card from a more experienced official, while Robin Van Persie and Matthieu Flamini were routinely censured for more trivial contraventions of the law. In this respect, his approach is reminiscent of a policeman who declines to confront an armed robber, but is happy to book a middle aged motorist for marginally exceeding the speed limit.

Like many referees, Clattenburg labours under the burden of clearly never having played the game to a respectable level, which makes it difficult for him to identify fouls and consequently allows a certain latitude to teams whose principal tactic in the face of Arsenal’s flowing football is an over-aggressive approach. In fact, most of the time he seems, like the hapless Uriah Rennie, to be smugly re-interpreting the laws as he goes along.