Ask Andy Ritchie

Mar 28 2008 by Dougie Thomson, Huddersfield Daily Examiner

WHAT’S your take on the recent high-profile shows of dissent by Ashley Cole to Mike Riley and Javier Mascherano to Steve Bennett? Do you think the problem is as bad at League I level?

John, Fixby

I think we’re getting to the stage where something has to be done, perhaps going down the route of allowing only the captain to approach the referee, as is the case in both codes of rugby.

I was at the Manchester United versus Liverpool game at Old Trafford last Sunday, and I saw first hand the way Javier Mascherano seemed to be in the face of the referee throughout the entire game.

Okay, he might have been asking a question about the caution for Fernando Torres, but the manner in which he did it, and the fact that he was so often saying things to Steve Bennett, probably led to his second yellow, and therefore red card.

Having been sent off, Mascherano then compounded his offence with his furious reaction and apparent unwillingness to leave the pitch.

Recent events have done the image of the game no good whatsoever, and like it or not, the actions of top-level players are copied by youngsters.

Everyone gets frustrated by referees’ decisions from time to time, but you have to try and remember what a difficult job they have.

Dissent is certainly not something I’m happy about. To me, it’s one of the game’s cardinal sins, and I crack down on it when it occurs by fining players concerned.

Some bookings, for things like late tackles, are very hard to avoid, but a booking for dissent is totally needless.

I’ve said many times that I’ve never seen a referee change his mind because a player has complained about a decision.

Bookings lead to suspensions, and they are things you can do without, so to get one for dissent is plain daft.

I’m fairly happy with our record in this respect and in general, I don’t think haranguing of referees is as big an issue in League I as it is in the Premier League.

GIVEN Robbie Williams was fit enough to come off the bench at Bristol Rovers, why didn’t you start with him rather than play a right-sided player in Frank Sinclair at left-back?

David, Meltham

In an ideal world, Robbie probably wouldn’t have played, because his foot was still a little bit tender and he hadn’t trained all week.

But our plans were thrown into confusion because Aaron Hardy went down ill, so we were left very short on numbers.

We had little option but to put Robbie on what was a very young bench (at 23, he was the oldest).

The thinking was that we might not have needed to use him, but we felt that Malvin Kamara, after a number of good performances, was a little bit off the pace.

To get Michael Collins into midfield, the simplest solution was to switch Frank from left to right-back and bring on Robbie.

Up to that point, we didn’t have a natural left footer on the field, even though James Berrett had scored with his! Bringing on Robbie helped balance things up a bit, and I was fairly happy at the way things worked out.

NOW Tom Clarke (left) is back at the club after his loan spell with Halifax, is he in the first-team frame?

Frank, Bradley

We’ll be taking a close look at Tom in training, and hopefully he’ll have regained some sharpness while at Halifax, where according to our reports, he did well.

Ideally, I’d have liked him to get in some more loan appearances, but he chose against that option.