Well done Phil Dowd

I can well imagine Phil Dowd woke up in his hotel in Manchester on Saturday with a grim sense of forboding hanging over him. It was a compliment to him to be selected for the toughest match of the week, although these games seem to come along on a weekly basis these days.

Well Dowd can wake up wherever he is today feeling proud of the job that he did. Dowd managed to keep the lid on a clash that was toxic from start to finish. A few well-timed interventions stopped an unpleasant clash from spilling over into fighting on the pitch and potentially worse, fighting on the terraces.
Dowd was clearly aware that Patrice Evra and Luis Suarez would clash at some stafe, and in fact may have been relieved that the initial problem came at the handshake, when Suarez behaved in a petulant way by avoiding Evra's hand.
Dowd was able to step in and prevent further trouble and was then able to get on with the game, which actually had surprisingly few flashpoints. Dowd did very well to spot Rio Ferdinand's perfectly timed tackle on Suarez when he would have been through on goal. Suarez looked for a penalty, throwing himself to the ground, but Dowd didn't fall for it.
I felt that Suarez could have been in trouble for pushing Ferdinand so that he collided heavily with Evra, but Dowd ignored it.
At the end of the game, Evra behaved poorly, hysterically leaping up and down very close to Suarez in an attempt to provoke a reaction, and Dowd again stepped in to usher Evra away as Suarez quietly - and wisely - left the field. On what looked like Dowd's advice, a steward held Evra back as angry Liverpool players remonstrated with the Man Utd fullback.
All in all, not a match Dowd would have enjoyed, but his credibility has gained a lot of ground. .