Quote:
Originally Posted by SuperMatt18
He worded it poorly but his game plan was "Don't do anything to cost Tottenham the title", which is really the opposite of "cost Tottenham the title".
In the end Tottenham self destructed, and he stayed out of the way even though he is admitting he may have favoured Tottenham by not sending 2 or 3 of their players off.
Most Spurs fans are taking this to mean that he was biased against the Spurs, when actually it may have been the opposite. He was ignoring blatant violations by the Spurs in order to not give the media/fans the ability to say "Clattenberg giving x player a red card is what determined the season and cost Spurs the game"
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Right and I get that, but I think that there were a fair number of Spurs fans who already felt that he allowed Chelsea players to do all kinds of niggly things, which wound up the Spurs players. I don't think that you can blame anyone other than the players for losing their cool and running around dangerously tackling players or trying to gouge their eyes.
The optics of his comments like "some refs would've gone by the letter of the law..." are pretty terrible though. That's your job as a ref...that's why you're on the pitch!
It is what it is though. That game was really just the nail in the coffin of a poor stretch run and abysmal finish to the season for Spurs. I don't actually think he cost them the title or anything of the sort, but at the same time I hope he never refs another PL game or game of consequence.