[Torque]

Matches between the big four rarely come and go without incident and another instalment of action between Manchester United and Liverpool, Chelsea and Arsenal didn't disappoint.

We've had 'Pizzagate', 'Keown v van Nistelrooy' and the three red cards in last season's Carling Cup final to name but a few. So we shouldn't really be surprised that there was yet more infamy on Grand Slam Sunday. And we shouldn't be surprised either that the subject of debate this week, of all weeks, would be about respect, or a lack of it, shown towards referees.

After Ashley Cole brought the hot topic to the top of the news agenda last week with the contempt he showed for Mike Riley, players were going to be walking a tightrope on Sunday afternoon and in the end it was Liverpool's Argentine international Javier Mascherano who put a foot wrong and slipped.

Dismissed

Already on a yellow card when Liverpool were 1-0 down at Old Trafford, Mascherano chose the wrong moment to ask referee Steve Bennett 'what's happening?' when team-mate Fernando Torres was booked after he was fouled by Rio Ferdinand. Bennett drew another yellow card, then a red and Mascherano's afternoon was done.

While many will continue to argue that Mascherano should have been nowhere near the referee and didn't need to get involved, Andy Gray stood up for the Liverpool midfielder, telling The Last Word, that football has a problem if you get sent off for asking the referee a question.

"First of all I think Mascherano was disappointed with his booking," he told the Sky Sports show. "We could tell the minute it happened when he slid in on (Paul) Scholes, a lot of referees would have let it go, but Steve Bennett decided that he would book him.

"He was rattled by that, Mascherano, you could see it in his play.

"Steve Bennett has his own way of refereeing a game but it is not mine. A lot of people might say that he was absolutely, 100 per cent right. I don't think he was.

"I agree that he (Mascherano) should have stayed away. He didn't, so forget that. Are you telling me that Steve Bennett is going to send off every single player that comes up to him and says, 'what's happening?'."

Contempt

Gray argued that there was a big difference between Cole's and Mascherano's misdemeanours and that Cole, who escaped dismissal, should have seen red while it was rough justice on Mascherano.

He said: "Ashley Cole should have been dismissed in mid-week. No doubt about it.

"His treatment of the referee was a disgrace. To turn his back on him like that and treat him with such contempt, whether you like referees or not, was wrong, ill-advised and he shouldn't have done it. He should have been sent off and that might have been the end of it.

"But if you are telling me that if you go up to a referee and you stand in front of him and you are being not aggressive and he didn't swear at him (you should be sent off).

"Where are we going with this game? Where are we going with it? Do me a favour. There are problems in the game, we know there are, and Ashley Cole's was an unpleasent part of modern day football.

"But if we are going to send players off for going up to a referee and saying, 'what's happening?', and the referee cannot handle it and reacts like that every time, then we have got a problem.

Abuse

"I will tell you something that happened in the game: Another player, in the second-half, went over to Steve Bennett and he gave him a verbal volley of industrial language. Right at him.

"I'm not telling you (who) because it is not my business to get players into trouble but that is what happens. Suddenly, if you say 'what's happening?' to the referee, you get sent off, but if you give him a volley, you don't."

Although Manchester United were leading when Liverpool went down to ten men, Gray believed that Bennett's decision had an impact on the game, saying it changed the way that Rafael Benitez's side had to approach the match.

Title

He said: "It is a scoreline that suggests that Liverpool have been hammered but the truth of the matter is that they weren't hammered.

"The two goals came at a time when they were down to ten men and they knew they had to chase the game.

"If they had any ideas at all about being in the shake of this title race, I think Steven Gerrard and Benitez and his team knew that they had to win at Old Trafford."

With Arsenal losing at Chelsea, regardless of how or why events unfolded, Manchester United now have a five-point cushion over Chelsea in second at the top of the Premier League and a vastly superior goal difference to both Arsenal, now six points adrift, and Chelsea.

Liverpool, 14 points behind United, have a bigger battle on their hands holding off Everton for the final Champions League spot (watch the Merseyside derby live on Sky Sports from 3.30pm, Sunday March 30).

Javier Mascherano won't be there, suspended of course, but the debate about whether he should or shouldn't have been sent off will rage on.

Source

Personally I agree with the ref. Mascherano was looking for trouble and he found it.

Gray said that from the moment Mascherano fouled Scholes, he knew the ref was going to show a yellow card. As far as I remember, Mascherano's game was rough from the first minute, and he had made more than one foul by the time he got the yellow card.

About the second yellow: the Argentinian saw that Torres was booked for arguing and I can't understand what the hell was he hoping to get by arguing with the ref, if not a second yellow card?

Something was wrong with the lad, you could see how he was fighting to get to the ref after he was sent off.

[dada]

I really think his brain just cracked. I mean, he was acting so stupid from the moment he ot his card. We fans arent stuff, we saw the "fuck off" time and time again and when Masch went to the ref after Torres' card I dont see how on earth he could be saying only "whats happening?" unless he repeated 4 or 5 times in different languages. Its times like these I feel sorry for delusional Liverpool fans to be honest, especially considering all the "knocks" Torres has picked up from the big/bad Utd defenders. Damn pussies...

[Dirtycheat]

2 things i learnt from this

1. Gerrard is a shit captain.
not once did he go to javier and calm him down or hold him back. He was just absent throughout the whole game and at times i actually forgot he was playing. What sort of captain would hide away from that responsibility.

2. Rafa is a shit disciplinarian.
He cant teach discipline. Put it this way, if that was anderson who went round insulting the ref, pointing fingers and just being an overall prick i doubt the first thing fergie would do is reassure the player that its the ref's fault and just let him off the hook. Rafa is just an imbecile.

i have no idea whats wrong with javier. He was being a prick all match and i actually think the ref was soft in letting him off on so many occasions before the red.

[mccrank]

per:
ESPNsoccernet - England - Mascherano pleads ignorance

Javier Mascherano still has no idea why he was sent off against Manchester United during Liverpool's 3-0 Premier League defeat at Old Trafford.

....Mascherano claimed: 'I do not know why I was sent off.

'I asked the referee what was happening. I did not swear; I was not aggressive and I did not confront him.

'All I did was ask him what was happening, nothing else.'

Mascherano, who subsequently lost his cool as he made his way off the field, told the Liverpool Echo: 'When he showed me the second yellow card and sent me off I could not believe it.

'I am sorry to my team-mates because that meant we went down to 10 men - and that made things even more difficult for us.'

soooo..let me get this straight: no swearing, no aggression, and no confrontation??? Mascerano is insane. If Rafa was a man and not a cunt he would show his midfielder the tape of the match. Like the part where Masch is seen dropping f-bombs. Or the part where he runs to the ref from midfield just to "find out what was happening." You gotta love a guy who wants to get down to the gist of every call. Did someone tell him that he's NOT the captain?

Maybe the team operates as such: We need Javier to make sense of this situation or else we wont be able to continue playing mediocre football. If Javier is in the dark then we are all in the dark. Javier, anytime you see the color yellow please make sure you find out exactly what is going on, its important for the team. We cant continue sucking if you dont find out why cards are being issued.

Liverpool is joke.

[GocartMozart]

while i agree that no other player outside of the captain should ever be challenging a call, i do think bennett was a bit harsh. to me it was clear that he had an agenda of being particularly conservative do to a mandate from above. That said, the card was warranted and Mascherano had no place to be there or put himself in that position. As for Gerrard, where the fuck was he? It's nice to see Xavi try to stop Mascherano, but the armband was nowhere to be seen. Maybe he's still looking for real estate in and around london.

Not that this matters. This all takes away from the fact that liverpool were going to lose with a card or without. the three points are with the better team, and liverpool is just looking for some glimmer of pride. Ironically, by complaining they reduce their credibility to that of a common criminal, which is what basically comprises the majority of their fan base

[Busby Boy]

Originally Posted by mccrank

per:
ESPNsoccernet - England - Mascherano pleads ignorance




soooo..let me get this straight: no swearing, no aggression, and no confrontation??? Mascerano is insane. If Rafa was a man and not a cunt he would show his midfielder the tape of the match. Like the part where Masch is seen dropping f-bombs. Or the part where he runs to the ref from midfield just to "find out what was happening." You gotta love a guy who wants to get down to the gist of every call. Did someone tell him that he's NOT the captain?

Maybe the team operates as such: We need Javier to make sense of this situation or else we wont be able to continue playing mediocre football. If Javier is in the dark then we are all in the dark. Javier, anytime you see the color yellow please make sure you find out exactly what is going on, its important for the team. We cant continue sucking if you dont find out why cards are being issued.

Liverpool is joke.

I agree completely with what you've posted, Mascherano was/ sorry..is insane to do what he did, it beggars belief..you cannot take Scholes out of it with an horrendus tackle which gets you booked in the first place..then take it upon yourself to continually tell the ref to 'fuck off'...you are asking for trouble....

....what really astonished me was the fact that Mascherano had to be man-handled by Alonso, Liverpool's trainer and eventually Rafa B...to be finally persuaded to get off the pitch...Javier needs to see a shrink.

As regards Liverpool being a joke, they certainly were in this game. The most satisfying thing about United's win was that everybody was saying that Liverpool were coming into form, going to give us a game, Torres was going to find the back of the net against us...blah, blah...we hammered them.

You're right about Gerrard, captain-wonderful was shit...he always trys to score wonder goals.

[TeKnIcIaN]

I can't wait to discuss this with my Scouser tenant

Mascherano was absolutely off his head in the game. In my opinion, he was lucky to remain on the pitch as long as he did. Even after that nasty lunging tackle on Scholes, he could have gotten an extra yellow for telling the ref to "fuck off" (I can lip read something that blatant) and the constant beaking at the ref for the rest of the half was just begging to be sent off.

It was so ridiculously insane that it was beyond belief. Even without the Cole incident in midweek, he would still have been riding the rails of dissent against the ref. Who on earth did he think he was going over to beak at the ref over Torres' booking? I have no idea what Torres said to the ref, but that did seem like a rather soft booking to me in all fairness. Maybe he thought he was covering for Captain Invisible or something, but there should be a better candidate than the hothead who'd been pissing the ref off the entire half.

I thought Bennet had a pretty fair game, although booking Rio for clearing the ball was a bit over the top. He showed pretty admirable restraint in not giving Mascherano the second yellow until the twit ran half the width of the pitch to force the issue.

Mascherano was quite simply a twit for getting his stupid self sent off, and Rafa is being a twit for trying to defend the indefensible. We had the game by the scruff of the neck by halftime anyway, so I don't think it altered the eventual outcome too much.

In fact, Rafa should consider himself lucky he wasn't down to 10 men after 5 minutes when Carrager almost hauled Rooney down in the box when he was clean through on goal. I do admire Rooney's honesty, but if he had gone down, it would have been a penalty and a straight red.