It has become a ritual under Liam Rosenior for Chelsea players to gather in the center circle before kick-off.
However, the club’s pre-match huddle against Newcastle United on Saturday saw a bizarre moment when referee Paul Tierney stood in the middle of the players as captain Reece James spoke to the team.
Newcastle won at Stamford Bridge for the first time in 14 years and later Rosenior said that Tierney should have focused on his job rather than crashing Chelsea’s pre-match huddle and that he will contact PGMOL, the referees’ body, to seek clarity on why the ritual for his team was disrupted.
But who was right?
Andy Davies (@andydaviesref) is a former Select Group referee, with over 12 seasons on the elite list, working across the Premier League and Championship. With extensive experience at the elite level, he has operated within the VAR space in the Premier League and offers a unique insight into the processes, rationale and protocols that are delivered on a Premier League matchday.
A huddle in the center of the pitch is a practice that Liam Rosenior’s side have used before games in recent weeks. But this time referee Tierney was standing on the center circle and was subsequently caught in the middle of Chelsea’s huddle, holding the match ball.
The more I watch Tierney in the middle of the Chelsea team huddle, the less I am convinced by his decision to stand and hold his ground over the match ball.
Referees do their homework, Tierney would have known that the Chelsea huddle was going to happen and with Newcastle due to kick off, his mindset was to be proactive and defuse any possible issues with the opposition.
However, his decision to stand over the ball as the Chelsea players locked arms around him and not move to a more neutral position is difficult to understand and increased the profile of the situation unnecessarily.
The Chelsea players didn’t seem worried by Tierney’s presence as they continued with their pre-match ritual, in fact I would be surprised if they hadn’t been pre-warned by Tierney in the prematch meeting that he would take up this position if Newcastle had decided to start the match.
Regardless, the optics didn’t look great for the PGMOL, Premier League or Tierney.
It was a ridiculous situation that could and should have been managed differently.
