Ministering Angel

Appearances can be deceiving, so the fact that Premiership referee Mark Halsey moves and looks like a refugee from a ploughing competition should in no way be held against him.

Actually, there is a better reason. As the official in charge of Sheffield United’s game against Aston Villa at Bramall Lane, he witnessed at close quarters Villa striker Juan Pablo Angel deliberately elbow Neil Warnock’s captain Chris Morgan in the face shortly before the final whistle and took no action. No red card. No yellow card. Not even a rustic warning.

Halsey’s motives on this occasion are not known. Perhaps he was tired. Possibly he thought that violence of this kind was permissible in a man called ‘Angel’. Maybe his eyesight is defective (that old referee’s disease). Or conceivably it’s just that he’s incompetent.

In one sense, the cause is irrelevant – since the F.A. can claim that as Halsey saw the incident, no retrospective punishment is possible. In other words, Angel gets off because Halsey got it wrong, as poor referees tend to do.

So all the elbowers and divers and con merchants have to do is pray for a useless referee.

The odds are very much in their favour.