Barclays Premiership
Blackburn Rovers v Birmingham City
21st November 2004 at 16:05
Rate The Ref
Barry was the man in the middle for the game between Blues and Fulham. That night he showed sense and maturity, allowing the game to be flowing whilst keeping discipline. Barry has a low card count and seems to be following recent instructions to keep the number of bookings down.
Barry seemed to missing his Sunday afternoon nap. There were a large number of fouls right in front of him which went unpunished. Twice Dunn was shoved to the floor whilst in possession, Savage appeared to be kicked whilst on the deck and Gronkjaer, when not being pulled back, was clearly elbowed.
For the majority of the game, Barry stopped play to award a free kick where advantage was clear. However, he did allow advantage which led to Reid's goal.
The two main points of contention have to be the obvious elbow to Gronkjaer and a decent shout for a pentalty when Melchiot tripped Emerton.
Overall a poor performance from the man in black. He either ignored or just didn't see what was going on around him. Johnson should have gone in the book earlier than he did for a crude two footed lunge and Emerton had licence to man handle Birmingham players.
Ref rating - 4/10
Booked:
Johnson (Birmingham) - Unsporting behaviour
Ferguson (Blackburn) - Unsporting behaviour