EPL's worst refereeing decisions of the season

These days, the English Premier league never goes by without  major talking points, ranging from racial abuse to diving issues. And the Premier league touts itself as being the best league in the world. Media partners like Sky Sports and Super sports  promotes  that EPL as the best, and EPL ex-players who become pundits seem to be on constant mission to get it into every sentence they say. Personally, I don't know if the Premier League is the best league in the world, all I know is that La Liga has the best teams in the world in Real Madrid and Barcelona, and a number of other teams that would do well in the EPL.

However, if the Premier League wants to be taken seriously with regards to their claim of being the best in the world, then surely it will have to cut out these bad headlines at least the issue of Refereeing. They should have the best referees in the world but they don't. Far from it, in fact the standard of refereeing in the Premier League is so bad and it seems to get worse as the season goes on. It's not just the referees, their assistants have been awful on a number of occasions this season, and they should not be overlooked.

Below are 5 examples of terrible officiating in the Premier League this season excluding the highly controversial Chelsea vs. Manchester United game.

1)  Everton vs Newcastle with Mike Jones as the Referee

There are two sides to this, and neither reflects well on the match officials. First and foremost is Victor Anichebe's header. It's hard to place blame on the referee seeing as he wasn't helped by his assistant, but as I said earlier, they are generally poor in the Premier League, as well. If the linesman is in position, he should have seen that the ball had crossed the line and should flag for the goal. Not long after that, the referee then makes a calamitous decision, having allowed play to go on. Hatem Ben Arfa picks up the ball and goes on the run, he gets tackled from Pienaar,a clear foul but advantage is still with Newcastle as he is clean-through on goal and has two team-mates running in support. A goal scoring opportunity until the referee blows his whistle. You could say that Mike Jones did not allow advantage after Pienaar's poor tackle, because he was trying to even out the mistake he made at the other end. That's no excuse, though. It is simply poor refereeing.

2) Stoke vs. Manchester City with Mark Clattenburg as the Referee

Mancini suggested that Crouch should be playing in NBA and that says it all, Crouch handled the ball three times, twice on purpose in the scoring of this goal, and yet the officials failed to see it, which is ridiculous.  It's not like Crouch was even subtle in his actions. His second handball could not have been clearer only if he had caught the ball, put it under his jersey and sidestepped the defender. Mark Clattenburg had a pretty shocking day, as he also failed to spot a blatant elbow from Andy Wilkinson on Mario Balotelli.

3) Liverpool vs Manchester United with Mark Halsey as the Referee

Right From the start of this match, Mark Halsey was not in control, and with the exception of one incident, he got all the big decisions in the game wrong. Daniel Agger was hauled down in the box. A blatant penalty. Nothing given. Jonjo Shelvey hacks down Rafael. No card given. This was a key incident as it was a very poor tackle and deserved a yellow card. If Halsey had given a yellow card, then the next incident probably wouldn’t have happened. Shelvey and Jonny Evans both went for what u could say was 50/50 tackle. Shelvey left the ground with both feet but went in one-footed and ultimately got the ball. His follow-through caught Evans, who then rolled around on the ground. Evans, for his part had jumped into the tackle in a two-footed manner. Shelvey was shown a red card after some delay, while Evans received no punishment. An utterly ridiculous decision that ruined (for Liverpool fans) what had been a great game until that point. Shelvey's tackle was full-blooded, and while it was slightly reckless, the facts are that he went in one-footed and won the ball. Evans went in two-footed in a similar manner to that, which earned Vincent Kompany a red card against Manchester United last season. It’s either a yellow card for both, a red card for both or at least a warning for both. To give one a red card and the other nothing is just terrible refereeing. Halsey didn't improve, and in the second half he continued getting things wrong. He did get the Manchester United penalty decision right. There was contact on Antonio Valencia, and while it was minimal and the player did make the most out of it. However, Luis Suarez was clearly tripped in the penalty area by Jonny Evans, and nothing was given. Robin Van Persie launched himself into a tackle on Suso which was at best one-footed and dangerous, at worst two-footed and reckless and was shown only a yellow card .While I don't think Van Persie's was worthy of a red card,but  based on the decision to send Shelvey off, the same should have been done to Van Persie .These were just some of the decisions that Halsey got wrong on the day, and when Gary Neville comes out after the game and say that Liverpool were robbed, against the club he lives and breaths, you know something was wrong

4) Fulham vs. Manchester City with Mark Halsey as the Referee

Following his very poor performance the week before, when he took charge of Liverpool-United, most observers expected Mark Halsey to find himself refereeing League One matches. Somehow, he was handed control of another Premier League match between Fulham and Manchester City. His performance was actually an improvement from the week before, but still ranged somewhere between poor and dreadful. He gave John Arne Riise a penalty for absolutely nothing, and then denied Manchester City a clear penalty when Sergio Aguero was brought down. If you wanted to stir up conspiracy, you can  point at  certain  events involving Mark Halsey.These begins with him sitting at the same table as Alex Ferguson during a dinner function a couple of days before United took on Liverpool. And then making "poor" decisions against United's biggest title-rivals the following week. *wink*...

5) Newcastle vs. Manchester United with Howard Webb as the Referee

There were three major incidents in this match where Howard Webb had to make key decisions. He got them all wrong, and all three went against Newcastle united. In fairness to Webb, the second one was his linesman's fault. In my opinion, it was a goal. The ball had crossed the line before David De Gea gets his hand to it, and was a goal. It's a tougher decision than the goal in the Everton-Newcastle game, because the ball is just over the line rather than a foot over the line, but it's still a goal. And if the linesman had been in a good position, he would have seen it.Mr Webb failed to award a penalty to the Toon after Papiss Cisse had his shirt blatantly pulled in the penalty area. The incident took place for so long that Cisse stood appealing to Webb while it was taking place, but no action was taken..And then to top up his afternoon's work, Howard Webb claims to have seen this particular incident and deemed it not worthy of further action. Robin Van Persie intentionally elbowed Yohan Cabaye in the head, and has been allowed to stay on the field. It's a disgraceful decision, but one typical of Webb. This isn't the first time a Premier League player has gotten away with a violent elbows from an opposing player. Surely, if referees claim to have seen these incidents and they haven't shown an immediate red card, they shouldn't be involved in the game..

Meanwhile I am sure there are  other poor refereeing incidents which I can't recall that have occurred this season but these ones I mentioned have been the stand outs in my opinion and this is excluding the recent clash between Chelsea Vs Manchester united. So feel free to tell me ur own wonderful refereeing decisions of the EPL season so far?????