Moyes rages at the fat controller

By Chris Kirwan
March 4 2003

David Moyes felt that Charlton were helped to their 2-1 victory at the weekend by poor decisions by the consistently awful Jeff Winter and his two linesmen (sorry, assistant referees).

Moyes said after the game,

"He was a big-time homer. He was more concerned about his rub-on tan."

The main talking points were the opening goal for Charlton and Scott Parker's challenge on Alan Stubbs, whose injury is not as bad as initially feared. On the opening goal Richard Wright stated,

“We have looked at it on TV and the other player was coming out. But he has actually gone into the area and so was interfering with play. We know officials are going to make mistakes, but you would like to think they would own up to it.”

Moyes was also disappointed that Scott Parker did not suffer the same fate as Rooney at St Andrews for his lunge at Alan Stubbs,

"Wayne Rooney was sent off for the same sort of tackle, and this one was worse. We didn't even get a free-kick for it, which was incredible." But Kevin Lisbie disagreed, replying, "Scott didn't go in with his studs up. I think they just collided and both got caught."

Nobody likes to see teams go down to ten men, but there has to be a consistency of decisions. Nobody disputes that Parker was going for the ball, but so was Rooney against Birmingham, and we were without him for three games of his four match ban as a result of the red card. The Blues lost the opportunity to get a good point away to a useful Charlton side as a result of poor decisions. Lets hope the old cliche about decisions 'evening out over the course of a season' comes true.

Oh, and i met Gary McAllister in Leicester on Saturday. He was very friendly. Not bad for a Kopite.