PLAY THE ADVANTAGE

Mike Jones seems like a nice enough guy.

But boy has luck not been on his side lately. First, he got punched in the face accidentally while mediating a “debate”. (Which was totally not funny, and yet totally was. Cause getting punched in the nose is just comedy gold.)

But he might have wished someone would punch him in the nose during Sunday’s Newcastle v. Manchester City clash. Because while I’m sure referees have worse nightmares (probably involving clowns), they don’t have many.

Let me start by saying that I have only seen clips and articles, but didn’t see the whole game. City won the game on two strikes: one from Negredo and one from my fantasy team nemesis, Edin Dzeko (a tale for another time). But that’s not the story.

The story is two very questionable Jones calls.

The first was to disallow a Cheik Tiote goal because Yoan Gouffran, in an offside position, was “interfering” with Joe Hart. Presumably, he was standing in front of his line of sight, but even that isn’t clear from the photos of the incident. Because Jones hasn’t explained, it’s hard to know exactly what he was thinking.

Did he think it touched Gouffran? Hard to say…

And while I take most of what Mark Halsey says with copious amounts of salt, he believes the situation doesn’t rise to the level of interference and the goal should stand.

The decision sent Alan Pardew into such a state of apoplexy that he called Manuel Pellegrini a c***.

And I applaud him for it, because that’s freaking hilarious. Wrong. But hilarious.

But Jones was an equal opportunity f-up Sunday. In a much worse situation to my mind, Mapou Yanga-Mbiwa took out Samir Nasri’s leg from behind, with no intention of taking the ball. Nasri writhed on the pitch in agony (with Pardew screaming at him to get up) before being carted off. Word has it, the injury is serious, but we won’t know how serious for a few days.

Red card, you say?

No.

Yellow.

Even Graham Poll is appalled. Though, to be fair, he’s always slightly appalled about everything.

Let’s hope Mike Jones got a good’s night’s rest and dreamed of clowns. It would be better than the nightmare he experienced on the pitch.

And just for fun, here’s Mike getting punched in the nose.

Update 1/14: I’ve found at least one refereeing blog that thinks Mike Jones did not only an acceptable but actually a very good job in the Newcastle v. Manchester City game. This is the only positive opinion I’ve seen, but I thought I’d include it for fairness.