With a couple of minutes to go, Danny Murphy had a chance of glory. 1-0 down against Manchester United at Old Trafford, the ball was played into him as he ran into the penalty area. He had the choice, at that stage, to go for glory and shoot or to play for the penalty. Murphy chose the dark side and paid the price.
You see it's not that easy to win yourself a penalty. Despite the protests from Martin Jol and most of Fleet Street, the referee Michael Oliver, got it absolutely right.
Let's analyse it. Murphy did two things to show Oliver that he was going to go to ground. Firstly, as the ball rolled in front of him and before Michael Carrick made any contact at all with him, Murphy slowed down so that the Man Utd player almost inevitably made some form of contact with him. In fact Carrick rested his hands gently on Murphy's back.
At the same time Murphy jumped into the air, with both feet off the ground, making it look as though he had been fouled. As Murphy's left foot came back to the ground, there was indeed contact with Carrick's foot, but nowhere near enough that Murphy could not avoid falling to the floor, which he did.
Oliver was well placed and decided that Murphy had tried just that little bit too hard to get a penalty.
The Fulham player has over-learned the dark arts. A foul does not result in a neat fall, with both legs or feet together. A foul sends a player crashing clumsily and often painfully to the floor, often on one knee. This didn't happen with Murphy.
Oliver could not be certain it was a deliberate dive and so didn't book him. But he does have other options. It's a falsehood that it's either a penalty or a free kick to the defending side in these situations. The referee can simply play on. Contact does not mean a foul. The one thing Oliver could see was that something was not quite right, and that was enough to give Manchester United the benefit of the doubt.
If only Murphy had had a shot. He might be a hero today.
No comments:
Post a Comment