O’Neill and Cattermole cry ref justice, claiming Wirral Whistler visit from Toon
Posted on March 5th, 2012 | 35 Comments |
O’Verrated O’Neill, cast light on the unusual sending off of Sunderland’s bad boy hatchet man, Lee Cattermole, who was given a straight red card by Wirral whistler, Mike Dean, a full two minutes after the final whistle had sounded. It brought his total number of bookings up to 64 yellow cards and 7 red cards in a total of 193 senior appearences so far.
It was a match marked by controversy, which of course is not an unusual thing in Geordie / Vagrant derbies. No less than seven yellow cards and two red cards were brandished by the Wirral whister. The indiscipline also spread to the dugouts, where Alan Pardew and O’Neill were shouting and waving their handbags at each other on two occaisons, with goalkeeping coach, Andy Woodman, also being banned from the dugout for the second half after what was reported as a “scuffle in the tunnel” at half time.
Coming back to the original story though, it transpired that “Clattermole” had taken issue with Dean’s second half decisionmaking in a not altogether polite fashion as the players and officials were walking off after the game. According to O’Neill, the Sunderland camp had also heard that a Magpie mafia had paid a visit to Dean’s dressing room at half time, possibly to make him an offer he couldn’t refuse?
Speaking on the incident, the Ulsterian explained that although Cattermole was a very naughty boy, there were mitigating circumstances, saying:
“The referee said he had sent Lee Cattermole for foul and abusive language towards the referee. It must have been coming up towards the tunnel.”
“I don’t think first of all you can be doing that sort of thing, he should leave that to me if that’s the case. But possibly in mitigation we’d heard that some of their staff had visited the referee’s dressing room at half time.
“Of course, we weren’t party to what was said but I think Lee’s mitigating circumstance was he felt that alot of decisions had gone Newcastle’s way in the second half.”
It could be that this is some kind of prelude to an appeal against the hatchetman’s three game suspension, with Sessegnon and Cattermole being key players for the Mackems, losing both of them for the next three games (against Liverpool, Everton and Blackburn) will undoubttedly be a setback to the O’Neill revolution in the North East’s Third World enclave.
Meanwhile, the Magpies’ Silver Supremo, Alan Pardew, played down the handbags, and denied that any meeting between Newcastle United staff and Mike Dean. He said:
“Unless you are a manager or a player you do not understand the pressure there is on this game,” he added. “There is a lot of emotion and that is why both games this season have been so tight.
“This is a passionate game. In terms of the mind-set of the other team, yeah, it frustrated us. I am not going to get away from that and maybe the benches could have handled the frustration better and we could have been a bit more grown up about it.
“But this is a game that gets you I’m afraid and if one or two or us – including myself – stepped over the line today I can only apologise for that but it happens.
“Let’s not all get carried away here. This has been a great game of football. Hat happens on the bench sometimes gets out of hand, silly things gets said and it happens all the time. I am not taking the moral high ground other than to say it was a bit unsavoury.”
Going on to strongly refute claims of any halftime meeting with the Wirral whistler he continued:
“It is completely untrue,”
“None of our staff is allowed in the referees’ room. No one tried to enter it and no one did enter it. I heard that rumour and it is not right.
“But you shake hands at the end of the game and it is all forgotten. It will be in my case. He is upset about it. I am upset about it but I hope he comes in and has a glass of wine but I am told he’s gone.”
Pardew also made some remarks in the interview on Sunderland’s style of play. It was brutal but effective in the first half, with the Mackems closing down our midfield relentlessly, choking the supply to our two Senegalese “Lions of Teranga” upfront. O’Neill’s team were playing like ten “Chopper” Harris’s, and “Clattermole” himself could have found himself taking an early bath after a vicious challenge on our own delicate flower, Cheick Tiote, in the first couple of minutes of the game. It was certainly a long way from the kind of football practiced by O’Neill’s managerial mentors, Brian Clough and Peter Taylor, who were masters of the art of fluent, flowing football. On this the Grey Gaffer said:
“I didn’t like the way the game started. The first tackle [Clattermole on Mr.T] set the tone for the first half. It was premeditated. I was disappointed with it and he could have gone off at any other time.
“There was a physical pattern to the game and it was just a matter of who could keep their head and I was just hoping to get to half-time with 11 players.
“When they did get down and play, Sunderland were better and bossed us a bit but we changed it because we got wrapped up in the physical side of things and we had to get away from that.
“I was really frustrated at half-time with the attitude of both teams but in the second half the pressure started from the very first whistle. When you put pressure on like that something is going to give and I knew that someone was going to go if we put them under pressure.
“In the end it was an unlikely source because Stephane Sessegnon had been quite calm. I didn’t expect him to get sent off. Maybe one of two of the midfielders and then it was a case of whether we would get the two goals we needed.”
To Pardew’s credit, the Magpies did seem to take a much better approach after the half time interval, stopping the rot even before the sending off of Sessegnon (once again for a foul on Tiote), though that incident certainly helped. In some respects it was a reversal of our recent poor performaces, where the team would be firing on all cylinders in the first half, only to be outmanoeuvred in the second when cannier opposing managers made tactical changes to adjust.
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NUFCBlog Author: workyticket
workyticket has written 1091 articles on this blog.
FFS why can’t the makems be gracious. I’ve got a couple of good friends who are 5under1and fans and I went out for a pint last night. No sooner had I got the words “good hard derby” etc out than they jumped on the bias of the ref towards the Toon. They must have seen a different match than me, Dean gave us nowt! They then bleated on about press bias and thugish toon players. Honestly, you couldn’t make it up! They kicked us off the park first half, had 2 players sent off, we had 2 genuine penalty shouts waved off, their keeper and players kept feigning injury and wasting time when one nil up and they even kicked off after the match. These 2 friends of mine are professional decent men but still they turn into blind fools over their filthy team! I was too soft on them over the recent 5-1 and 4-1 results. I don’t think it would be reciprocated and from now on I’m gonna gloat way more!