Tish And Pish Says Le Tiss

Last updated : 22 August 2005 By Barney French

I can see how Paul Konchesky’s tackle could be taken the wrong way, but the behaviour of the officials is all too hard to understand.

Konch lands a tackle in on Jenas with his stronger left-foot, struggling but nevertheless managing to win the ball by coming around the player, and whilst appearing two footed Jenas makes the most of it and is in no real danger.

Dermot Gallacher was all ready to send the Hammers left-back from the field but his indecisiveness lead him to confer with the linesman. Perhaps he was spurred on by the West Ham outcry but whatever caused it, no one can deny Gallacher had an uncertain mindset.

Yet the linesman’s flag had remained down throughout and so he obviously didn’t concur with Gallacher’s original thought. However, two men, one who did not think it was a red and one who didn’t know managed to knock heads together and come out with a red card. How? Through complete and utter incompetence and lack of clarity or authority. It would have been ok if Gallacher had shown authority and gone with his original choice, we could have argued til the cows come home but at least we’d have known he was clear in his mind. What this decision shows is a failure of the system and that in complete and utter uncertainty, when perhaps the balance was favouring giving Konch the benefit of the doubt, a terrible decision manifested.

Footballing legend Matt Le Tissier has since written on the skysports website telling of his misbelief at the decision. The skysports pundit said:

"It was a very poor decision and I really hope Dermot Gallacher is big enough on Monday morning to look at the video and say 'I got that one badly wrong'," he said.

"He actually made the decision to give a foul and then went across to consult his linesman for a minute or so, but I'm not sure how he can pull out a red card. I thought he was going to give him a yellow, otherwise he wouldn't have gone over to the linesman.

"I'm amazed and will continue to be amazed. Dermot Gallacher will go down a hell of a lot in my estimation if he doesn't change the decision - I find it incomprehensible.

"I have played this game for over 30 years and there is no way that is a foul, so unless they have changed the rules over the summer, he's got it wrong!"

Thankfully West Ham showed brilliance to keep the scoreline goal less with only ten men but it could have been all so different. West Ham, equipped with eleven men could have, and I don’t think any Newcastle fan would deny it, gone ahead and won the game.

Dermot Gallacher needs to answer some serious questions.