A fresh restart

Referee and assistants

If rik was disappointed with Mr. Lannoy at Chelsea, I was lucky to get a very positive performance at Ramat Gan. The game flowed without too much interference by the ref, and as there were many exciting moments, allowing the play to go on added to the spectators and telly viewers satisfaction. The main problem with the Nord Pas de Calais man has always been his lack of visible authority which ended many a time with things getting out of hand when somekind of skirmish or fistfighting erupted. This time around, nothing of the kind happened, though in some worrying situations the referee's handling of the incident was not perfect. Especially so, when Melikson of Israel was bundled off the ball and over the touch-line (without Lannoy and ar Annonier noticing the infringement), the player quickly returned to the field just to throw himself on the ground in order to stop the game and thus gain some time for his team who led 2-1 at that moment. Mr. Lannoy rightly ordered him to get off the pitch for treatment but didn't show him the yellow card which the player thoroughly deserved. The ref didn't do so, probably because it should have been a second one, as the player had been cautioned eight minutes before. Not the best of excuses for not taking the right action. The ars were ok. Some of their offside/onside decisions were questionable with no replay action to scrutinise. There is also a question-mark over Coentrao's cross (37') - did he reach the ball before it crossed goal-line or after? Annonier let him get away with it. Both ars followed the same policy regarding interference of defenders which resulted in a corner-kick when there was an opponent was offside. The most blatant case when a cross was aimed at Ronaldo who was offside deep in Israel's penalty-area. A defender in front of him headed the ball behind the goal-line. Cano awarded a corner-kick. I would have flagged for offside.