Incompetent officials overshadowing how good Brighton are

How do you even begin to describe what we witnessed between Spurs and Brighton on Saturday afternoon?

I was not at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium myself but listened to the game live on BBC Radio Sussex. I have since watched Match of the Day and also the extended highlights on both Sky Sports and the Albion website.

One thing is quite clear above everything else – Brighton are great at football. That is what should be discussed afterwards. The performance of the Albion in outplaying Spurs rather than endless debates about VAR and another set of apologies from PGMOL for costing us more goals and points.

The incompetence of match officials is overshadowing these as being the best times to be a Brighton fan. When referees are always the talking point rather than players and teams, the Premier League has a serious problem. It makes the claims of it being the best league in the world laughable.

Brighton had the upper hand over Spurs, only to be undone by a combination of factors not just involving the refereeing team.

Son Heung-min scored a superb out-of-the-ordinary goal and then the Albion left Harry Kane alone to add a second.

One defensive error punished by the England captain cost Brighton a point. And of course, the officials both on and off the pitch have lost them all three.

There is still though much to play for. Remember what they say, “It is never over until the fat lady sings.” Hopefully, Roberto De Zerbi and the lads have not become too disheartened by it all.

Also hopefully, we do not see Stuart Attwell again for some time. I am afraid to say he just does not cut it at this level of football.

Fairness plays a huge part in life and so it should. The law, for example. If something goes to any court and is deemed to not be fair, it is thrown out because of the European Court of Human Rights.

When things are not fair, then apologies are not enough. In those circumstances, individuals and businesses and compensated for being impacted by unfair treatment, whether it be deliberate or a mistake.

Should the FA take a similar approach to refereeing incompetency? Should there be a panel in place to judge whether Saturday’s points should be shared between Spurs and Brighton, or even awarded retrospectively to the Albion because of gross unfairness?

Could the game be replayed because the result was so badly impacted by the officials getting things wrong?

And what about VAR? Lewis Dunk said afterwards what is the point in having it if you do not bother to use it for checking incidents like the two penalties Brighton were denied? The captain is right.

Those operating VAR are clearly not up to the job and cannot cope with the pressure. How can those at Stockley Park watch the foul on Kaoru Mitoma and not give a penalty?

Mr Attwell was pretty close too and managed to miss it. It felt like VAR decided it was not a penalty because it wanted to back Mr Attwell’s original decision, which is not the point of the technology. In any case, Mr Attwell should have gone to Specsavers.

I have watched the second disallowed goal incident with Danny Welbeck over and over again. Welbeck’s shot appeared to hit the thigh of Alexis Mac Allister, who can be seen moving his arm out of the way.

So many contentious decisions went against Brighton, even Lord Sugar tweeted to say the Albion had been treated unfairly.

To make your own mind up on what happened, you have to watch the highlights. Away from all the controversy, you see that Spurs were under real pressure. When this happens, the big clubs always resort to gamesmanship in their desperate quest for points, particularly near the end of the season.

We saw that when Spurs played Everton on Monday night and Kane could have won a Hollywood Oscar for his acting performance in getting Abdoulaye Doucoure sent off.

It happened as well in Liverpool 2-2 Arsenal. The Trent Alexander-Arnold incident riled the Kop up and the whole match turned from that point on in Liverpool’s favour as they overcame being 2-0 behind.

During the run in, Brighton must not let any opponents get under their skin. Do not take the bait, forget the other team and forget the officials; our players are better than most.

We will surely see this occur when facing the masters of acting up, Manchester United in the FA Cup semi finals.

Before that, it is the trip to Frank Lampard’s Chelsea next week. Brighton will be hoping to improve on seventh place, having been overtaken by Aston Villa but with two games in hand on Villa.

De Zerbi may be missing from the dugout again after he and Spurs manager Cristian Stellini were shown red cards.

Hopefully, an apology from De Zerbi will suffice to get him off the hook. Saying sorry with no further punishment is enough for PGMOL, so why not our head coach? What is good for the goose is good for the gander.

I bet it will not work that way, however. All Brighton can do is keep playing their football and hope that fairness prevails, so that their amazing season is not remembered more for refereeing mistakes than anything else.

Up the Albion.

Tony Noble @Noble1844Tony