Mascherano

[Marky]

And it was nothing as bad as the Martin Taylor incident. Never.

[Neil Young]

A fredo and Marky alliance.

Maybe there's some truth in this 'Axis of Evil' idea after all.

[Nic83]

It looked to me like he was just saying something like "what's happening, what's that about", no funny spanish insults or anything. IMO, the yellow for Torres was a joke and then Bennett got carried away in the moment with all the UTD fans chanting "off, off, off" etc and then he made another stupid error. He should be demoted for 3 games IMO. Disgraceful and ruined the match as a spectacle and basically took any hope we had of a come back away, not to mention the effect it has on the league as a whole. Can't see utd losing the league now. Maybe he has a bet on them.

[enema of the state]

It was a bad challenge but he did try to withdraw from it but he already committed himself. And it was his first tackle FFS. Technically speaking Mascher was in the wrong, but Bennett should have acted sensibly by giving him only a tickling off. He instead put down the marker on him, and based on the way he plays, there was gonna be only one result ... Him being red carded.

more to the point, he should have been impartial and treated both sides equally: clear fouls by scholes before, and vidic afterwards were met with friendly "chats" instead of a card.

it doesnt excuse mascherano's actions - he was stupid and he DID deserve a second yellow for any of a variety of pieces of dissent.

3 points gone, entertainment spoiled for the majority and a club with good discipline on the whole punished harshly while serial offenders the likes of rooney, cole and terry plough on regardless.

If it marks a genuine, consistent crackdown on dissent and ref intimidation then we ought to be happy - we would profit from it in the long term. I dont think it does, i think its a pointless gesture by a sub-standard referee and this time its at our expense.

[Exiled_red]

I think Mascherano, was stupid for going after the referee, for something which essentially had nothin to do with him.

However I think the referee was harsh to send him off after that particular incident, he should have given a warning for him not to come to him again or he should have waited until Mascherano did something in a more threatening or aggressive manner (which was fairly likely to happen).

If as seems to be the case the FA were looking to for an excuse to punish someone for what happened last week they wouldn't have had to wait long. I also think that after the events of last week all the officials involved in that game should have been given the weekend off to calm down, collect their thoughts and take them out of the firing line in light of the fall-out that followed.

So all in all no-one has come out of this particularly well IMO

[ronniedrew]

Mascherano was asking for it and behaving like a child, at the time i thought he was stupid and still do.

running distances to confront the referee is the stuff of a neville, laughable from a pro

[Redlife]

I'm not that bothered by Masherano's reaction. He was obviously wound up for the game yesterday (and he didn't lose it until the second yellow). If a few others dialled their aggression levels up a notch, I wouldn't complain.


He's still young, he'll learn, and that ferocious streak will win us a lot of games.

[Alpha]

You could see it coming, unfortunately.

Masche challenged Bennett's decisions on 3 or 4 occasions after he got his yellow. He wasn't being aggressive and in my opinion, is entitled to ask for explanations but he was still daft because it was obvious Bennett was getting pissed off with him.

My only complaint with El Jefe is that by failing to leave the pitch straight away, he has given the FA grounds to increase his ban.

But whatever happens, I've already forgiven him.

[AFII]

You could see it coming, unfortunately.

Masche challenged Bennett's decisions on 3 or 4 occasions after he got his yellow. He wasn't being aggressive and in my opinion, is entitled to ask for explanations but he was still daft because it was obvious Bennett was getting pissed off with him.

My only complaint with El Jefe is that by failing to leave the pitch straight away, he has given the FA grounds to increase his ban.

But whatever happens, I've already forgiven him.

Bennett should get the same punishment as Masch.

The problem is that Bennett has been doing this for years, it leaked out last year that Bennett is more or less hated by the other PL refs because he is such a big headed ****.

[Parm]

he was telling him to eff off all through the game you could clearly see it on the telly, silly sod. The ref was poor today but it was only a matter of time before he got sent off the way Mascher was carrying on, if he hadn't of done it then he it would've happened eventually anyway

yup, from the moment he got booked Masch looked like he was gonna get another sooner or later. As you say, the ref wasnt great, but Masch didnt help himself or us at all

[Marky]

I'm gonna get Masherano on the back of my away Liverpool top even if i will cost me an extra few quid.
His behaviour y'day has only made my liking of him increase, ok he could have kept his mouth shut but frustration got the better of him for 1. the ref not giving our players protection, 2. wes brown's goal and possibly 3. our lack of belief against United.
He really is a warrior, i just wish the overly praised and lavished Gerrard showed as much passion and fight as Masherano did yesterday and he's the ****ing Captain - he's allowed to have a word with the Ref if something isn't right.
Masherano is my new hero.

[lfcruleus]

I'm gonna get Masherano on the back of my away Liverpool top even if i will cost me an extra few quid.
His behaviour y'day has only made my liking of him increase, ok he could have kept his mouth shut but frustration got the better of him for 1. the ref not giving our players protection, 2. wes brown's goal and possibly 3. our lack of belief against United.
He really is a warrior, i just wish the overly praised and lavished Gerrard showed as much passion and fight as Masherano did yesterday and he's the ****ing Captain - he's allowed to have a word with the Ref if something isn't right.
Masherano is my new hero.

Im sure he will sleep well in the knowledge of that.

[Spionkop69]

Interestingly, the ref didn't consider Gerrard stating directly to his face "You're taking the ****ing piss now" as dissent and yet Mascherano's "what's happening?" was.

In fairness, Mascherano was walking a tightrope as soon as he got booked and didn't help himself but, the ref, who was once described by Fergie as not being able to ref using common sense (!), seemed destined to send someone off.

That said, Mascherano's behaviour after the card was inexcusable if understandable. If he hadn't done that, its a one game ban, but after that little performance we can forget about him until mid April as a minimum.

In the end, the Ferguson got exactly what he wanted from his pre-match comments to the press. A ref who, was already under pressure, being a fussy individual where the opponents were concerned. Funny how Fergie has been allowed to crank this ****e all week, virtually week with complete impunity.

[frank the tank]

It looked to me like he was just saying something like "what's happening, what's that about", no funny spanish insults or anything. IMO, the yellow for Torres was a joke and then Bennett got carried away in the moment with all the UTD fans chanting "off, off, off" etc and then he made another stupid error. He should be demoted for 3 games IMO. Disgraceful and ruined the match as a spectacle and basically took any hope we had of a come back away, not to mention the effect it has on the league as a whole. Can't see utd losing the league now. Maybe he has a bet on them.

spot on call nic

**** bennett...... he is a home-town ref of the highest order.....i ave been at games at anfield and he has ****ed them up by giving us too much..... he is a ****in ****e ref and i really really dont know how the **** he got the game in the first place.....

i'll tell ya one thing, the standard of referees in england is a ****in jokeshop!!! and has been for years - no ****in consistancy whatsoever - remember poll's 3 yellow cards in the world cup??? ****in ****s the lot of them - they havent had a good ref in this country since elleray retred....maybe the fa would be well advised in putting some funding into this cos all the cash they front up for grassroots football is obviously money down the ****in bog when the useless cunts cant even get a ****in team of so-called superstars to the euro finals.....stupid cunts.....they'll need more than ab-fab capello the ****in **** cunts...... if mascher gets a further ban for this, then i hope to **** we fight the thing..... i actually had a dream last night that we got the manc cunts in moscow and when the teams walked out onto the pitch, it was 90% scousers and we ****in battered the cunts......with javier mascherano getting the man of the ****in match and a big ****-off lfc banner at the end of the game "THANK YOU FOR THE TEAMTALK BENNETT"

I was sitting in with all those inbred ****wits yesterday (one minute singing death to all scousers and the next minute shouting "roooooney" - ****in inbred stupid, uneducated, ****in-their-mams-up-the-****ter just like the nevilles) and i'll ****in tell ya what, i was proud to be a red when we started belting out YNWA at the end..... they have ****in nothing...... sell-out cunts..... read fergie's notes in the programme - he goes on about when he first went to utd and liverpool were dominating the "soccer scene" - what a sell-out yank cunt......

rant over, im gettin ****in drunk

[AFII]

Andy Gray got it spot on....

A right Masch of it
Posted: 24th March 2008 10:54

Matches between the big four rarely come and go without incident and another instalment of action between Manchester United and Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal didn't disappoint.

We've had 'Pizzagate', 'Keown v van Nistelrooy' and the three red cards in last season's Carling Cup final to name but a few. So we shouldn't really be surprised that there was yet more infamy on Grand Slam Sunday. And we shouldn't be surprised either that the subject of debate this week, of all weeks, would be about respect, or a lack of it, shown towards referees.

After Ashley Cole brought the hot topic to the top of the news agenda last week with the contempt he showed for Mike Riley, players were going to be walking a tightrope on Sunday afternoon and in the end it was Liverpool's Argentine international Javier Mascherano who put a foot wrong and slipped.

Dismissed

Already on a yellow card when Liverpool were 1-0 down at Old Trafford, Mascherano chose the wrong moment to ask referee Steve Bennett 'what's happening?' when team-mate Fernando Torres was booked after he was fouled by Rio Ferdinand. Bennett drew another yellow card, then a red and Mascherano's afternoon was done.

While many will continue to argue that Mascherano should have been nowhere near the referee and didn't need to get involved, Andy Gray stood up for the Liverpool midfielder, telling The Last Word, that football has a problem if you get sent off for asking the referee a question.

"First of all I think Mascherano was disappointed with his booking," he told the Sky Sports show. "We could tell the minute it happened when he slid in on (Paul) Scholes, a lot of referees would have let it go, but Steve Bennett decided that he would book him.

"He was rattled by that, Mascherano, you could see it in his play.

"Steve Bennett has his own way of refereeing a game but it is not mine. A lot of people might say that he was absolutely, 100 per cent right. I don't think he was.

"I agree that he (Mascherano) should have stayed away. He didn't, so forget that. Are you telling me that Steve Bennett is going to send off every single player that comes up to him and says, 'what's happening?'."

Contempt

Gray argued that there was a big difference between Cole's and Mascherano's misdemeanours and that Cole, who escaped dismissal, should have seen red while it was rough justice on Mascherano.

He said: "Ashley Cole should have been dismissed in mid-week. No doubt about it.

"His treatment of the referee was a disgrace. To turn his back on him like that and treat him with such contempt, whether you like referees or not, was wrong, ill-advised and he shouldn't have done it. He should have been sent off and that might have been the end of it.

"But if you are telling me that if you go up to a referee and you stand in front of him and you are being not aggressive and he didn't swear at him (you should be sent off).

"Where are we going with this game? Where are we going with it? Do me a favour. There are problems in the game, we know there are, and Ashley Cole's was an unpleasent part of modern day football.

"But if we are going to send players off for going up to a referee and saying, 'what's happening?', and the referee cannot handle it and reacts like that every time, then we have got a problem.

Abuse

"I will tell you something that happened in the game: Another player, in the second-half, went over to Steve Bennett and he gave him a verbal volley of industrial language. Right at him.

"I'm not telling you (who) because it is not my business to get players into trouble but that is what happens. Suddenly, if you say 'what's happening?' to the referee, you get sent off, but if you give him a volley, you don't."

Although Manchester United were leading when Liverpool went down to ten men, Gray believed that Bennett's decision had an impact on the game, saying it changed the way that Rafael Benitez's side had to approach the match.

http://www.skysports.com/experts/exp...343128,00.html