THE day after the 203rd Merseyside derby, I sat down and spoke to Graeme Souness.
Obviously, the derby came into our conversation, and we both agreed that we had played in far more physical confrontations than that and ended up with 11 against 11, with only a couple booked on each side.
The refereeing guidelines were different then, but I agree with David Moyes when he said Saturday's ref was too fussy. Perhaps the match was just a little too big for him.
Whenever referees are handed a derby to handle, they have to understand that the passions are going to be more inflamed and the local players, in particular, are going to behave differently.
You can't referee a derby match as if it's black and white. That's not what football is all about. If you do, you run the risk of a derby becoming like just any other football match - and that's surely not good for the game.
Everton could even argue that Phil Dowd wasn't even following the letter of the law in the end.
If he had been, Xabi Alonso could quite easily have been booked for the foul which saw Steven Gerrard kick the ball away. A yellow card then and he would also have seen red for the late tackle on Phil Neville.
Then there was the Luis Garcia elbow, which was clearly more pre-meditated than anything Andy van der Meyde was sent off for.
Good refs give players in derby matches a little more scope, but that didn't happen on Saturday and the game suffered as a result.
It was bitty and stop-start and Everton paid the price for two dreadful pieces of defending.
Article
