Andre Marriner follows suit in what is becoming a sad but regular occurrence at Turf Moor, the Premier League match official capturing the headlines yet again for all of the wrong reasons.
Burnley attempted to get back on track against high flying Manchester City following their disappointing reverse at the Hawthorns in the recent 4-0 Monday night thrashing by West Bromwich Albion.
The Clarets started brightly and were quickly on the offensive in front of a sold out capacity crowd at Turf Moor. Burnley's Republic of Ireland international midfielder Jeff Hendrick was blatantly pushed in front of the myopic Marriner who failed to award Burnley an obvious penalty.
Conspiracy theories abound about the top flight teams always getting the big decisions in their favour, it was clear that Marriner's awful and bewildering decision supports the theory.
Dean Marney smashed home a marvellous twenty yard drive into the bottom corner to give a resurgent Burnley side a well deserved first half lead. Referee Marriner however would soon glad hand Manchester City an undeserved equaliser.
Nolito was tackled on the penalty spot in a goal mouth melee. The decision to award City a corner rather than a penalty was met with a swarm of City players surrounding the referee with England's Sterling at the vanguard of the protests.
Surely Premier League rules dictate that Marriner should have taken disciplinary action against the petulant City players? Not a bit of it. Marriner allowed the protests to go on unabated. The Burnley rearguard seemed totally distracted with the City kerfuffle and Aguero was left unmarked to slot home an undeserved and sloppy equaliser.
Constant play acting and time wasting are an obvious imported part of the Guardiola master plan, tactics which the referee was either oblivious too or simply refused to punish. The home crowd became very hostile to the constant diving and whining of City's England winger Raheem Sterling.
Sterling was treated to a punishing but fair tackle by Burnley's Ben Mee, his departure to the treatment table was met with general abuse from Burnley fans along the lines of "You've let your country down".
Sterling responded quite magnificently by sarcastically applauding the home fans as he hobbled off. Sterling epitomises everything about why Gareth Southgate urgently needs to address his England charges on how to deport themselves both on and off the field of play.
City grabbed a winner due to a curious mixture of sloppy defending and further myopic refereeing from the lost Marriner. Two clear fouls on Burnley players were not given in the build up to the second Aguero strike and ultimate match winner which also had a strong hint of offside about it.
Burnley seemed overwhelmed by the injustice of Marriner's unevenhandedness but still managed to trouble the City defence as they sought a deserved last gasp equaliser. Marriner would no doubt have found away to disallow the goal even if the Clarets had scored.
It was that sort of afternoon for the home team - again. (TEC).
Source: DSG
