Frank Dacey

Or the Shah of Iran might have fathered them both.

Apparently, they're not allowed to 'retire' referees on age grounds these days as that would be discriminatory. Presumably full-time referees are subject to employment law and so I suppose the only ways you could get rid of them would be demonstrable lack of fitness or demonstrable ineptitiude. Since Jon Moss has been lugging his belly around for the last 10 years presumably the fitness standards cant be that high and given that Lee Mason has been useless for years the bar for ineptitude must be unbelievably low.

Was in the first Liverpool team I ever saw. Not many of them left now. Makes me feel very old.

I think a lot of what you say is correct, but this sort of petty-mindedness among officials would be sorted out with stronger leadership at the top. The first step to improving standards is to sack Riley and Jones at the EFL. Someone else they should bin off is Elleray at IFAB with his constant fidgeting with the rules, which have made things worse rather than better, especially with relation to handball

Lee Mason has surpassed Andre Marriner this afternoon. How has this clown been part of an 'elite' group for over 10 years? It raises questions about how effective the assessors are if he has been allowed to continue for so long. I daresay potter will complain about him and the FA will fine him as they did Nuno earlier this season.

I think part of the problem is that VAR is being administered by current officials. one problem is that they're knackered because they have to be involved in more matches, whether at the ground or as VAR, with more travelling etc. Another factor is that you have a situation as at Fulham where a relatively inexperienced official is the VAR to a much more experienced official. Is Peter Bankes really going to feel confident telling Martin Atkinson he's made a mistake or forceful enough in telling him so. Atkinson will presumably (hopefully!) be retiring soon and then mifght be in a position to exercise some supervision over Bankes' career. I believe in America the VAR officials are not current referees and this might be worth investigating here.

'The best referees we have..' Are they? Of last weekends 10 refs, 4 came from the North West, 2 from Yorkshire, 2 from the North East and 2 from the East Midlands. As far as I'm aware only two of the select group officials come from the South. Can we really believe that a vast chunk of the country is incapable of providing a single 'elite level' referee or does Mike Riley (a Yorkshireman) simply have a thing for Northern officials? The VAR at Fulham who connived in that indefensible decision was Peter Bankes, from Merseyside. I used to watch him in the championship and thought he was terrible, a poor decision-maker and a weak character and yet somehow he has been promoted and I refuse to believe that it can be on the basis of good performances. Another thing I discovered this week was that the head of EFL referees is Mike Jones. That's the same Mike Jones who allowed the beach ball goal, despite it being against the rules. That's right, an 'elite' official who doesn't know the laws of the game. If you think the PL refs are poor some of the EFL make them look like Clattenburg and Collina rolled into one.

Any manager who takes on refs will; (a) get fined and (b) find that they get screwed over even more the next time as Rodgers found when he complained about Lee Mason and then had Howard Webb do us over completely the next game. Really it needs the LMA to lead the way but that organisation is Xenephobia Central so they won't complain if it's foreign managers getting done over. It might be a different story if it were British managers.... I see Wilder accused the refs of one rule for the big clubs and one rule for Sheff Utd. Will be interesting to see if the FA does anything to him and how their next match is refereed. Who are they playing next.....?

In the period just before Souness was appointed we lost 3-1 at home to QPR. We made Roy Wegerle look like Pele, Ronaldo and Messi rolled into one. The most abject performance I've been in the ground for; a win would have seen us go top of the league. There was a 1-0 defeat to an abject Watford in Houllier's first season in charge that was awful, too

I'm impressed you lasted the half, I switched off after 20 minutes.

It's been another terrible week for refereeing with Darren Drysdale squaring up to Alan Judge and Kevin Friend stinking it up in the championship game at Wycombe. How long before someone, a manager or a commentator says there's a crisis and calls for heads to roll?

Pound for pound, our best ever signing, and I'd argue the one who had the most transformative effect on the team. Great player.

Ex-ref Keith Hackett has suggested limiting offside to the 22 yard line.

I was listening to BT Sport tonight complaining about the VAR system not being able to freeze precisely the moment the ball is kicked with offside decisions. Didn't hear them make that point for Saturday's fiasco, but hopefully it might start a conversation about the technology and whether it is good enough to make these tight decisions.