OPINION
Tottenham legend Graham Roberts is convinced that Premier League referees are ganging up on Spurs after the north London derby. The trouble is, he’s spreading his daft opinion on national radio.
Spurs were denied a late penalty in the game against Arsenal when Harry Kane went down under a challenge from Sokratis and Roberts thinks that Tottenham should also have had a penalty when Dani Ceballos tangled with Dele Alli.
“The referees over the last year, ever since Pochettino had a go at Mike Dean at Burnley, have been right against Tottenham,” Roberts said on talkSPORT.
“I honestly believe that 100 percent. I think what they’ve done is all ganged up and said to each other, ‘just don’t give them anything’. That’s obviously what’s happening.”
VAR bedding in
Many people were predicting a glut of penalties this season with the introduction of VAR but, so far, it seems the bar has been set very high in terms of overturning an on-field decision from the referee.
It has to be a ‘clear and obvious’ error and taking the Kane incident, pundits were split in the Sky studio and no doubt in homes around the country.
There are always going to be people who disagree with an on-field decision – mainly fans of the club who have the decision go against them.
There are also going to be fans who believe there’s an agenda against them from referees.
However, Roberts is more than just a fan and his views have more reach. For that reason, he needs to reign in his opinions.
To say that referees are ganging up on a team is ludicrous. You can trawl through games and find good decisions and bad decisions that go against any club.
VAR denied Man City a winning goal against Tottenham earlier in the season, and that decision looked to be really harsh on the Premier League champions. That lost Man City two points.
There’s a huge amount of pressure on referees this season with VAR shining an ever-brighter spotlight on their decisions. They don’t need people like Roberts making this worse with ill-judged comments on national radio.