Does Tony Pulis have a point: do big clubs get the big calls from referees?
You can, almost, understand where Tony Pulis is coming from.
The Stoke manager, a man who clearly feels he has been on the wrong end of too many bad decisions, argued that Premier League bosses should judge officials, with the worst ones relegated back to the Championship list.
"I'd like to see a system put in place where every club has a vote on the performance of referees," said Pulis. "Then they will have a responsibility towards the smaller clubs as well as the bigger clubs."
It is an age-old gripe and based on the truth - that the big clubs get the big calls more often than their lesser brethren.
That has, of course, always been the case, although, to a degree, Pulis has the right to moan as he can point to bad calls going against his side on FIVE different occasions already this season.
It started in the home defeat by Spurs, when Peter Crouch cleared from well behind the line. Then there was the blatant handball by Bolton's Zat Knight at the Reebok and Gary Neville escaping a second yellow for a hack on Matthew Etherington in the defeat by Manchester United.
Next, in the narrow loss at Everton, Tuncay's "opener" was harshly chalked off for a far from obvious foul on Leighton Baines with the sense of conspiracy compounded by Lee Cattermole's great escape for Sunderland, keeping out Kenwyne Jones' header with his right arm not once but twice in the same movement.
If decisions balance themselves out, then Stoke are due a windfall over the next few months and, having been denied at least eight points, and maybe more, Pulis has reason to fear that the referees and their assistants are conspiring against him.
Mind you, if Pulis was using the mistakes to pick out the referees who should be for the drop, he would have more than just two or three in his list.
For the decisions that have irked him so much have been made by no fewer that referees. Chris Foy missed the Crouch incident, Peter Walton was on duty at Bolton, Andre Marrinet let Neville off, Lee Probert saw the Goodiosn foul missed by the rest of the stadium and Martin Atkinson took the role of Mr Magoo on Wearside.
It all might add to Pulis' feelings that his side are being picked on, paying the price for the comments lobbed in their direction by Arsene Wenger and Danny Murphy.
The trouble for the referees is that it is hard to feel sympathy for them when they compound their mistakes by refusing to acknowledge them.
Mark Clattenburg at Old Trafford the other week was a case in point, although if Spurs thought they were hard done by there - which they were - they will be thankful for the swingback theory of decisions coming into instant operation.
That Tom Huddlestone stamped on Jonas Elmander at Bolton on Saturday was pretty clear from first viewing, only confirmed as the incident looked worse at every slow-motion play-back.
Foy missed it, allowing play to continue. But when asked by the FA to confirm the obvious, the referee - one of the more approachable of whistlers - told Wembley chiefs he had seen the incident at the time and decided it warranted no further action.
Ridiculous, of course. But instead of starting a three-game ban against Sunderland this evening - as he doubtless should have been - Huddlestone will be playing.
No wonder, when you get decisions like that, that clubs routinely go down the appeals route.
Arsenal have asked the FA to overturn Laurent Koscielny's red card against Newcastle on two grounds.
Manager Arsene Wenger has convinced himself that the foul did not prevent an obvious goalscoring opportunity as Nile Ranger was prevented from bearing down on the unprotected goal - the argument might, just, have been valid if Franco Di Santo was the striker involved - and that Sebastian Squillaci, who could not have come close to making a tackle unless Lukasz Fabianski has saved the initial shot, was also covering.
Should either claim be upheld it will make the FA's disciplinary rulebook even more of a joke and this is a case where the disciplinary panel should not only uphold the original decision but add an extra one match ban to the two the defender faces for a frivolous appeal.
The same beaks will also sit on judgement on Manchester City's Mario Balotelli in another case that makes little sense.
FA sources were explaining yesterday that City accepted the red card - believing the incident was worthy of a second yellow - but not the automatic sanction, meaning the striker might just serve a one-game ban at Eastlands tomorrow.
City themselves have denied that - mixed messages, for sure - but whatever the intent of the City man, he kicked out in frustration. Again, the decision must be upheld.
If either Koscielny or Balotelli do get off, it will add further fuel to the Pulis fire. Just as in the real world, footballing justice needs to be blind.
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