Editorial

English Angle: Double Standards, Lampard, Gerrard & The Life Of Riley

Another boring game made interesting by some awful officiating, writes Goal.com's Sulmaan Ahmad...

Feb 2, 2009 3:30:37 PM

EPL: Frank Lampard, Liverpool - Chelsea (PA)

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EPL: Frank Lampard, Liverpool - Chelsea (PA)

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That Liverpool and Chelsea played out another excruciatingly dull game was not surprising - it's what they do. Equally unsurprising was that Steven Gerrard and Frank Lampard managed to do almost exactly the same thing as each other with drastically varying results.

They are icons for their clubs, match-winning midfielders who both under perform on the international stage - largely because every manager tries to play them together. Yet it's Lampard who takes abuse from the infamous 'boo-boys' and is labelled as a limited, flukey and overrated player by the masses.

The real catastrophe is that this unreasonable public perception filters down all the way to the pitch and the match officials. Graham Poll, an ex-England referee who infamously issued three yellow cards in one game to Croatia's Josip Simunic at the 2006 World Cup, even admitted just weeks ago that running through the mind of referees are the ramifications of sending off high-profile players - the 'Golden Boys'. Yesterday's referee, the one and only Mike Riley, did an expert job in humiliating himself. It is unlikely the reasoning behind his dreadful decisions will ever be made public.

So, what do we know? We know that Lampard does not have the luxury of Golden Boy status. John Terry, Steven Gerrard and Wayne Rooney perhaps, but not Frank Lampard. Fair? What is fair? Who even knows any more?

We also know that the score was 0-0 early in the second half then Gerrard went flying into a tackle on Salomon Kalou that the Ivory Coast international did well to evade and avoid losing a metatarsal or two in the process.

Everybody and their mother knows that about two minutes after the Gerrard challenge, a loose ball was converged upon by Lampard and Xabi Alonso. The Liverpool midfielder swung a wild boot at the ball and the Chelsea stalwart stuck an outstretched leg in its direction. Lampard won the ball. Lampard was sent off.

First and foremost, credit must be given to 'Supergoals' for leaving the field in a dignified and orderly fashion, despite clearly feeling aggrieved by the decision and with emotions running wild in such a high-octane encounter - it can't have been easy.

Beyond that, the post-mortem reveals that there was more cause to book Xabi - the latecomer in the 50-50 - than Lampard. Though his foot was raised, studs were up and there was the possibility of inflicting an injury, Lampard's tackle was essentially inch-perfect and completely legitimate in what is a contact sport, lest that fact be overlooked in the name of every modern-day superstar's sense of self-importance and delicacy. The whistle needn't have even blown had it not been for Alonso's post-clash theatrics - the entire incident really was just that innocuous.

Chelsea are appealing the red card and common sense suggests they will be successful, but it's scant consolation, given that another big game has been and gone without the Blues collecting even a solitary point. Liverpool were superior, without doubt, but it was Gerrard's action-man antics in the 88th minute that eventually led to the ball finding its way out wide to Fabio Aurelio and then into Fernando Torres to head home the decisive goal - what if Gerrard had been off by that time?

His tackle was not a red card offence, but a yellow without doubt. Add this to what would have been a second yellow, which he received for another desperate dive on the edge of the area, and he would have been off.

Lampard wasn't quite having the day he would have liked. He may not have gone on to play a part in winning the game as Gerrard did eventually, but he may have surely prevented a defeat, purely by making up the numbers if nothing else. The Blues may feel rightly robbed of the chance of taking something from Anfield and staying in touch with Manchester United at the top of the table.

The incompetence of the match officiating was compounded at the death, when Jose Bosingwa put a boot into the back of Yossi Benayoun, who was wasting time by the corner flag. This was as clear a sending off as you'll ever see, and the referee's assistant was two yards from the incident. Nothing was done about it. Riley knew he had unjustly handicapped the Blues earlier in the game and most likely concocted a theory that, by overlooking Bosingwa's stamp in stoppage time, he made right his earlier wrong.

He didn't.

Chelsea's title aspirations have been hampered, while Liverpool's slump since Rafael Benitez's capitulation-inducing rant at Sir Alex Ferguson has come to a somewhat fortunate end. Lampard lost out, while Gerrard continues to live the Life of Riley.

Sulmaan Ahmad, Goal.com

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