Pawson makes third Loftus Road visit - referee Monday, 2nd Mar 2015 23:01 by Clive Whittingham Craig Pawson makes his third visit to Loftus Road this season on Saturday, in the young referee's first full campaign on the Premier League list. Referee >>> Craig Pawson (Sheffield), highly thought of young official who is embarking on his first full season in the Premier League after ten top flight appointments last season. Assistants >>> TBC Fourth Official >>> TBC HistoryQPR 3 West Brom 2, Saturday December 20, 2014, Premier LeagueJames Morrison, who looked like being the key man in an away victory to begin with, suddenly turned into a penalty-conceding machine. First he held Leroy Fer in place at the near post by wrapping both arms around the Dutchman's waist — referee Craig Pawson pointed straight to the spot when goalkeeper Ben Foster subsequently fumbled the ball into Fer's path. Charlie Austin, who'd missed a spot-kick on the first day of the season against Hull , lashed home right footed. Crucially, only four minutes had passed since that second West Brom goal. Momentum had swung. The mountain seemed more of an uphill slope. Something was afoot. Pawson initially embarked on a quest to even things up. Farcically penalising Henry for very little on the edge of his own area allowing Gardner to strike a deflected free kick towards goal and draw a save from Rob Green. The keeper later thrust up a hand to palm Sessegnon's powerful drive away, and Richard Dunne was rightly yellow carded for crashing into the back of Varela as he threatened to turn away into space once more. The half time positives from a QPR point of view could be scribbled on the back of a postage stamp with a thick pen: only one goal down, could scarcely play any worse second half. Barton should have had a penalty for his efforts too. Clearly tripped by a lazy hanging leg from Morrison, again, he was told to get to his feet by referee Pawson, possibly because the fall to ground was so exaggerated and theatrical. Blatant spot kick though, Morrison behaving as though he’d put QPR on his coupon. Austin, Vargas and Henry all had shots blocked and the Loft began to hum. At the other end West Brom almost scored directly from a corner. Green sprung from his line to punch a cross away when he could have caught the ball. It had all gone a bit Zippo's Travelling Circus and it was anybody's to win or lose. Pawson refereed like a man on the brink of losing control, without ever quite doing so — Steven Caulker blatantly fouled Saido Berahino after he'd been introduced for Brown Ideye and play-on was waved. Then Sessegnon clattered into Barton with two feet showing and a free kick was awarded to West Brom. QPR: Green 7; Onuoha 6, Dunne 7, Caulker 6, Yun 5 (Hill 30, 6); Vargas 6 (Hoilett 67, 6), Barton 7, Henry 6, Fer 5, Zamora 6 (Kranjcar 80, -), Austin 9 Subs not used: Ferdinand, Phillips, McCarthy, Mutch Goals: Austin 24 (penalty, won Fer), 48 (assisted Zamora), 86 (assisted Barton) Bookings: Dunne 38 (foul) West Brom: Foster 5; Wisdom 6, McAuley 5, Lescott 6, Pocognoli 5 (Gamboa 91, -); Sessegnon 7, Gardner 6, Morrison 5, Dorrans 6, Varela 6; Brown 5 (Berahino 69, 7) Subs not used: Baird, Yacob, Myhill, Mulumbu, Dawson Goals: Lescott 10 (assisted Sessegnon), Varela 20 (assisted Sessegnon) Referee - Craig Pawson (Sheffield) 6 A weird one. Got the Fer penalty correct, although you rarely see them given, and the Barton one wrong, although you can see why the theatrical fall put him off. But just always felt like he was on the brink of losing control of it. I’m probably being very harsh.
Queens Park Rangers 0 Hull City 1, Saturday August 16, 2014, Premier League That worked out well for QPR, who have in the past not bothered having medical examinations of new signings, and don’t tend to be too thorough with them when they do. The R’s brought Austin to Loftus Road and rode back to the Premier League on the back of his 20 goal campaign, which included two crucial strikes in a play-off semi final against Wigan. When the Tigers turned out to be QPR’s first day opposition, Austin will have afforded himself a wry grin and when referee Craig Pawson harshly penalised the visitors’ excellent centre half James Chester for handball in his own area five minutes from time the script seemed written. Austin, who scored five out of five from the spot in 2013/14, grasped the ball immediately to his chest while Hull protested the decision, and looked confident as he stepped up at the Loft End, but Hull goalkeeper Alan McGregor and his understudy Steve Harper had picked up a quirk of Austin’s run up in their pre-match homework that can give away the direction of his kicks and the Scottish stopped saved the ball low to his right. Not only that but, crucially, he managed to scoop away the rebound with his trailing leg. Rangers’ centre forward will have to wait another week at least for a first ever Premier League goal. Hull will claim that justice was done. Chester’s hand had been down by his side and made no deliberate move towards the ball when he was penalised for blocking a cross from substitute Junior Hoilett. Whether the penalty decision from Pawson, a relative newcomer to the top division himself after promotion last season, signifies a change in interpretation from the “unnatural position” understanding we seemed to have reached last season, and a move towards the way they work in La Liga where penalties are awarded for the ball striking the hand regardless of position, intent or distance from the player only time will tell but it seemed like a harsh call to me. At the midway point of the first half a terrific pass from Joey Barton gave Remy a chance to turn inside Davies and extract the game’s first yellow card. The free kick was well right of centre and seemed ideally placed for Faurlin’s left foot only for Barton to step forward and try to curl it right round the wall and into the net on the keeper’s blind side. Shane Warne in his prime couldn’t have turned a ball that far and the attempt was pure ego. As I feared when Barton scored a fine dipping free kick at Leyton Orient in pre-season, he’s clearly going to insist on taking absolutely every dead ball that Rangers get this season and his execution of a range of set pieces here was wildly inconsistent. The momentum seemed to be leaning more and more towards QPR as the first half drew to a close with Loic Remy at the heart of a lot of their good work. The powerful Frenchman crossed for Jordon Mutch to glance a header wide at the near post when he might have scored, then shortly after Jelavic’s penalty shout he drove a pure strike straight at McGregor. He hit the deck appealing for a spot kick of his own just before half time but Pawson, rightly, showed no interest. QPR: Green 7; Caulker 7, Ferdinand 7, Dunne 6 (Zamora 78, 5); Simpon 5 (Phillips 68, 5), Traore 6; Barton 6, Faurlin 6 (Hoilett 69, 6), Mutch 6; Remy 7, Austin 6 Subs not used: Henry, Onuoha, Hill, Murphy Bookings: Dunne 68 (foul) Hull: McGregor 8; Davies 7, Chester 8, Bruce 6 (McShane 45, 6); Robertson 6, Elmohamady 6; Huddlestone 6, Livermore 6, Snodgrass 6 (Quinn 40, 8); Ince 7 (Meyler 82, -), Jelavic 6 Subs not used: Brady, Figueroa, Harper, Aluko Goals: Chester 52 (assisted Quinn) Bookings: Davies 26 (foul), Jelavic 78 (foul) Referee — Craig Pawson (Sheffield) 5 Overall, I thought he had an excellent control of the game, allowing it to flow in an unfussy manner. The three bookings were all correct and you couldn’t pick fault with him for 88 minutes. But I thought Nikica Jelavic was fouled by Traore in the first half and that should have been a penalty, and the spot kick that QPR were awarded was incredibly harsh on James Chester. Two big decisions wrong in my opinion, equals a lower mark than his overall performance really deserved. Queens Park Rangers 2 Accrington Stanley 1, Tuesday August 24, 2009, League Cup Sean McConville gave Heaton his first save in competitive football for Rangers with a speculative drive that the keeper easily gobbled up showing safe hands. Hearts were beating a little faster moments later though when a poor backpass from Stewart to Heaton bounced slowly to him, he did not receive a call for ‘man on’ and as he hurriedly tried to clear the ball he seemed to catch the oncoming McConville who went down like a scuttled pocket Battleship. Cue agonised expression, moaning etc. However when he realised only a goal kick had been given, he jumped swiftly up like a greyhound from trap one and ran after the referee for a good 25 yards. Jesus would have been proud of the seemingly miraculous recovery. McConville was rightly booed for some time afterwards. QPR: Heaton 8, Ramage 7, Stewart 5, Gorkss 5 (Borrowdale 46, 5) Connolly 7, Ephraim 7, Mahon 4 (Routledge 68, 7) Leigertwood 5, Buzsaky 4, Vine 4, Agyemang 2 (Taarabt 46, 6)
StatsIn truth, Pawson has struggled at times this year having been elevated to the top flight permanently, although the debate about overworking match officials in the wake of Martin Atkinson’s catastrophe last week certainly applies here — Pawson was fourth official at the Legaue Cup final on Sunday, then bizarrely given Carlisle v Cheltenham on Tuesday night, and is now in charge here.He sent off two in Chelsea’s win at Crystal Palace — Damien Delaney sent off for the home side almost immediately after Azpilicueta had walked for the visitors and with the officials clearly influenced by the reaction of the Chelsea players. At Aston Villa v Leicester last week he booked eight and incorrectly sent off the Foxes’ Paul Konchesky. Steve Bruce was highly critical of him after Hull’s 2-1 home defeat to Spurs. So far he has shown 78 yellows and nine reds in 23 matches, and five reds in his last six games alone. Pawson refereed 27 games last season, ten of which were in the Premier League. Overall he showed 94 yellows and four reds in those games (3.48 yellows a match). His biggest haul in a single fixture was six yellows and a red, which he reached on two occasions before Christmas: Brighton 1 Forest 3, and Yeovil 2 Charlton 2 in the Championship. He was below his average in the Premier League games — 28 yellows and no reds across his ten fixtures. Two of those ten games involved Hull — their 2-0 defeat at Liverpool and 3-1 set back at Manchester United. He also refereed 3-0 home win against Sunderland in the FA Cup. The season before he refereed 36 games spread across the three Football League divisions and two cup competitions. He showed 103 yellows and four reds in those games (2.86 bookings a match) and his biggest single haul was eight yellows in Burnley’s 2-2 home draw with Millwall in the second tier. He booked two in Hull’s 0-0 Boxing Day draw with Leicester. Other ListingsFA Cup >>> Quarter finals weekend gives us a chance to see who the authorities think are our top referees of the moment — they’ve gone for Andre Marriner, Lee Mason, Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor.The Twitter @loftforwords Pictures — Action Images Photo: Action Images Please report offensive, libellous or inappropriate posts by using the links provided.
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