Alan Shearer: Players who give away penalties for holding in the box like in Stoke v Manchester City only have themselves to blame
Newcastle legend believes Mike Dean got his decisions spot on after he gave a penalty for each side after tussles in the area
HOW stupid is any footballer who continues to grab an opponent in the penalty box, when the message about this season’s crackdown has been rammed home so hard?
Referees visited every Premier League club before the season started and told them exactly what to expect — backchat, shirt-pulling and trying to wrestle with other players would no longer be tolerated.
Yet you get the likes of Ryan Shawcross and Raheem Sterling ignoring the directive, and conceding penalties.
Why would you risk it? It is a no-brainer that there will a penalty awarded against you in those situations, especially so early in the season when officials are going to be ultra-vigilant.
For me, taking action of this sort was long overdue. Everyone has been moaning about it for years and the antics some players were getting up to at set-pieces was reducing the game to a farce.
I just hope every other referee follows Mike Dean’s example and applies the letter of the law. And not just now but throughout the season.
If there’s one thing players and managers hate, it’s inconsistency. That makes them angry more than anything else in the game. So let’s be consistently ruthless about this.
OK, you can say those penalties in the Stoke-Manchester City match looked a bit soft. But as the rules stand, Mike Dean was right on both counts.
Blame the culprits, not the man catching them in the act. You’ve only got yourself to blame.
And as long as every referee does the same thing, it will stop all the nonsense that goes on.
I don’t care how many penalties we see before the penny drops. If it’s two or three in every game, then so be it. You break the rules, you pay the price.
Something had to be done because the situation was getting out of hand.
The same thing used to happen when I was playing but not as bad as we’d been seeing recently.
It was getting to the stage where grabbing and holding were becoming the main means of stopping attackers — if not the only way.
People will say it still happens in Europe. But hopefully, they will follow our lead. I thought the standard of refereeing at Euro 2016 was excellent and this is another positive step.
So now teams are going to have to get back to the basics of defending set-plays, the way I was coached as a kid: ‘Look at the ball, where’s your man? Again, look at the ball, where’s your man? Stand within touching distance of your opponent but keep your hands to yourself’.
Sterling wasn’t even looking at the ball when he started grappling with Stoke’s Shawcross.
So it’s obvious all he is trying to do is stop the man, not challenge for the ball.
Sterling got totally the wrong side of his man and was just there to make a nuisance of himself. It was a clear-cut penalty all day long.
Mind you, it beggars belief that Sterling should have been the man marking Shawcross.
RELATED STORIES
Even if you are operating a zonal defence, it’s unforgivable to allow that sort of mis-match.
What you want is a fair contest between forward and defender, and as the season goes on I think that is what we will see.
I just wish that had been the case in my day because I just might have scored one or two more goals along the way.