Every Saturday, Chris Kamara heads to stadiums up and down the country to deliver his unique match reports for Soccer Saturday.
On Sundays you can see him back in the Sky Sports studios as he brings you all of the highlights as well as in-depth analysis of all the action on Goals on Sunday.
And then on Mondays you can find Kammy right here on skysports.com as he brings you his views on the weekend.
Ferguson: should timing be done by the fourth official?
Join us every week as he runs through his highs and lows of the Premier League...
AVB and Defoe proved their doubters wrong in emphatic style at Old Trafford
There's been a lot of stuff in the press about how Andre Villas-Boas had lost the dressing room at Tottenham, but when you saw the jubilation at Old Trafford and the embrace with Gareth Bale you could see that isn't true. It seems people have been stirring that up for their own reasons. I thought Bale was special and I also think the role Jermain Defoe plays in front of their five-man midfield is essential to the formation. It's a new role for him because everyone has always said he needs to play with a partner to score goals, but he's showing his maturity by playing up-front on his own. He didn't get on the scoresheet, but I was impressed with his work-rate and how well he occupied the defenders.
I'm still not convinced Manchester United need a holding midfield player
Everybody was telling me after the Tottenham game that's what Man United need because their back four was exposed. But they haven't needed a holding midfielder for the last two years, so why would they want one now? It was just one of those games where they conceded early on and couldn't turn it around. If it happens again in the Champions League and against Newcastle then maybe they need to look at that. You can make a case for all sorts of things when you lose a game that you expected to win, but let's give credit to Tottenham who showed they aren't a bad team.
I agree with Sir Alex Ferguson to some extent over the issue of timing
I had to laugh when I heard Sir Alex Ferguson's comments about injury time. "Fergie time" has always been an issue, but occasionally it works against him. I do agree that timing should be taken away from the refs, though. When it comes to injuries and substitutions, the stop-watch should be put on by the fourth official - who doesn't have a lot else to do - and that would give you a more accurate representation of how long was taken. You see some games when you get seven or eight minutes and other games when there's been lots of time lost, but you just get the standard four minutes. There is an issue there.
I'm one of those people who believes Luis Suarez IS a goalscorer
I know the jury's out on him and a lot of people say he's not a natural finisher because he sometimes fails to finish when he goes through one-on-one, but I don't agree. He played fantastically well against Norwich as he earned his hat-trick and he led the line very well. He was also more than unlucky not to get a penalty when he was fouled by Leon Barnett. There was no way Mike Jones was going to give him a penalty - and the assistant should have been flagging because he could see it clearly - and you have to question it because you're unlikely to see a more blatant penalty. There was also no way John Arne Riise should have been given a penalty for Fulham. In other weeks those incidents would have been the other way around.
Jordi Gomez was another victim of the inconsistency of referees
There was a strange one in Wigan's game with Sunderland when Howard Webb sent off Jordi Gomez for jumping in on the ball. He was going for the ball and it so happened that Danny Rose skipped in as well and there was contact. Last week we saw a similar thing with Jonjo Shelvey against Manchester United - and the players have been told they can't leave the ground so technically they should be sent off. But then you see Seb Larsson in the same game make a worse challenge and Howard Webb didn't even show a yellow card. How could he differentiate between those two? When they have their meetings on a Thursday, he should have to stand up in front of the other refs and explain it and admit that he got it wrong. You can see why Roberto Martinez thinks the world is against them.
It's up to the ref to spot Demba Ba's handball, not up to the player to own up
It would be very hard for any player to tell a referee not to give his team a goal. I know Miroslav Klose did it in Italy this week, but it's hard to do. Remember, Demba Ba didn't deliberately control the ball with his hand like Thierry Henry against Republic of Ireland. He genuinely tried to head it, but missed it and it hit his hand and went in. I can't see many players going up and telling the referee it was handball in that situation. Maybe he would have done so if Newcastle had been winning 5-0, but that was an equaliser. I was in the office with Brian McDermott and Alan Pardew after the game and they were both talking about it and saying it's the job of the referee to see it. Andre Marriner was in a fantastic position, but you can't expect them to see everything. However, it shouldn't have been a goal.
Comments (4)
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Matt Nicholas (Tottenham Hotspur fan) says...
Fergie wouldn't have been moaning about lack of injury time if they were clinging to a 1 goal advantage. Statistically there's not that much injury time at Old Trafford we're told. But statistically, how often are United desperately in search of a goal in the dying seconds? And when they are, there's always more injury time than the "average" of 3 minutes on a premiership match. If Mr Ferguson wish the time keeping to be removed from the referee and wishes for it to be more accurate based on the game then why not go all out, why not stop the clock every time the ball is not in play? As soon as the match it stopped, be it a foul, throw, goal kick, stop the clock. I'm sure Mr Tyler could tell is what the average "ball in play" time is this season. I should imagine no more than 35 minutes per half of a match on average. So each match ends up taking 55 minutes to complete 45 minutes of play. A match goes from 1 hour 45 minutes (including the 15 minute interval) to 2 hours 5 minutes. Have to say, I love football, but even I would be getting bored by that point.
Posted 13:46 1st October 2012
Alex Dawit (Newcastle United fan) says...
What always surprises me is behavior of Sir Alex when he loss always points his finger towards referee he again and again.... get trophies with the help of referees does he forget what happened to liver pool ? He has great team great coach but trophies are married by the help of English referees I don't know why it might be by the command of FA
Posted 13:18 1st October 2012
Ron Innes (Manchester United fan) says...
It not only the ref who should spot these handballs but there is a linesman, sorry I cannot call them assistant refs, who should be up with play and have spotted this and flagged it. These officials really are not up to the job
Posted 13:05 1st October 2012
Julian Wainwright (Chelsea fan) says...
Top praise to Roberto di Matteo, since he has been in charge Chelsea have been coming out on top against the top sides, last week Luiz and Ivanovic were slaughtered in the press for simulation yet Jenkins dive against Chelsea on saturday was awful and he got the free kick in a dangerous area, either come down hard on it with every player, including the young English lads,or unfortunately take it as part of the game nowdays.
Posted 12:51 1st October 2012
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