No excuses for Bournemouth officals - but they won't be looking for them

In footballing debate, it's fashionable - and often de rigueur - to lurch to one end of the argument or the other just to make oneself heard over the hubbub of noise surrounding the issues.
But when it comes to discussion of last night's cock-up by the refereeing team at Anfield, the best reaction is probably - unless you're a resident of a certain south coast resort - to shrug your shoulders, make sure lessons are learnt form mistakes and move on.
I can make several serious excuses for the officials in last night's game, but the bottom line is that a mistake by one Assistant Referee was compounded by referee Craig Pawson also failing to spot that Moutinho should have been penalised for offside and Christian Benteke's goal disallowed.
It was the only goal of the game and Bournemouth left Liverpool with no points instead of a distinctly encouraging point.


It's almost certain that only a handful of very alert spectators at last night's game would have spotted that the goal should have been disallowed. But that's not a serious excuse. The Assistant Referee is trained to spot these breaches of the law.
In fact Moutinho was strolling slowly back from an offside position after a previous attack and was a couple of yards offside when the ball was crossed.  He tried to tap the ball in but failed, and Benteke tapped home for the winner.
The average spectator may not have had the trained eye to spot the error, but on television, the replays hammered home the mistakes.
                                                           TWEAKED LAW
Last season, the goal would have stood. This season, however, the offside Law has been tweaked to prevent goalkeepers and defenders being unfairly penalised. If a player makes an obvious move for the ball when he in an offside position - even if he doesn't make contact with the ball - he has to be penalised.
All match officials and teams have been briefed about this change, and there's really no excuse for the lapse last night.
The only positive to come out of the sorry affair is that a spotlight has been shone on the issue and  officials like myself will be keeping a close eye out this when their seasons open this Saturday.
In fact I had a similar issue in my first game of the season on Saturday, a very pleasant run-out in the delightful setting of the Medway Valley in Kent.
                                                        A LONG WAY FROM ANFIELD
0-0 for 88 minutes, the away team won the match when the ball was pumped forward towards a striker who was clearly - by about 10 yards - in an offside position. It all happened in a flash but I recall the offside striker did not move for the ball and a midfielder surprised the defenders by sprinting onto the ball and scoring.
After the game, the losing team's manager quizzed me about the incident - in the firendliest of ways. He felt the offside striker had made a move for the ball and should have been given offside. I disagreed, saying I felt he was never that close to the ball and didn't try to challenge for it.
I'm sure the atmosphere would have been a lot less cordial if it had been a league game, but I'm pretty sure I would have given the same decision - unless there were video replay cameras concealed in the sheep pens surrounding the pitch to prove me wrong!