What Exactly Does "Stone Wall" Mean?

“He’s a human, and everyone can make mistakes”.

Manuel Pellegrini was charmingly tactful about referee Mike Jones’ bizarre decision to book Sergio Aguero for diving when he was scythed two footed inside the penalty area with 10 minutes on the clock during the 3-0 win against Southampton."The worst refereeing decision this season”, it was called by Glen Hoddle at half time in the Sky Sports studio, describing this latest bizarre refereeing decision to impact Man City this season.

So as even “neutral” Sky pundits are sharpening the knives to dissect poor refereeing standards, I think its time to shout out the list to date, as it has affected my beloved club. Indeed, if these decisions truly do even themselves out over a season, Manuel Pellegrini may be able to send out the U16’s during March and April as City will be due a shed full of goals through refereeing fuckwittery.

So what evidence do I have to back up such a feeling of exasperation so early in the season? Well quite a lot actually, and while some decisions could be argued as immaterial to results (as hopefully was the Aguero yellow card verses Southampton), most are not.

It all started with Yaya Toure being felled in the box very late in the disappointing 0-1 reversal against Stoke. We then had a series of befuddling decisions by Mark Clattenburg in the 2-2 against Arsenal; climaxing with City being cheated out of a 77th minute penalty when Wilshire twice handled the ball (all the more galling as Wilshere shouldn’t even have been on the pitch, having commited at least two clear yellow card offences and one arguably straight red offence before scoring earlier in the game). We then had proof that the malaise is not just an EPL issue when David Silva was clearly fouled by Bayern Munich debutant centre back, Mehdi Benatia, in the Champions League opener. Back to the EPL and Mike Dean (to be fair one of the better referees on his day) next took up the Muppet challenge; deciding that it was perfectly acceptable for Diego Costa to throw Edin Dzeko to the ground and denying an early spot kick to City, and a yellow card to Costa, in the Chelsea game. City then even got erstwhile Uber-Ref turned pundit Graham Poll on their side in Moscow when a penalty was awarded against Alexander Kolorov (for literally nothing) in the 86th-minute in the ill feted CSKA game; this after Edin Dzeko was taken down by Sergei Ignashevitch and denied a clear scoring opportunity in the 40th minute, with no resultant penalty. Fast forward to the derby game and a truly awful performance from Michael Oliver who having correctly sent off United’s Chris Smalling for two bookable offences, bottled three blatant penalty shouts; Marcos Rojo on Yaya, Fellaini on Aguero, and then both Carrick and Fellaini fouled Aguero in full view. There was then the stonewall penalty in the 90th minute of the doomed CSKA home match when Sergio Aguero was clearly cropped in the box in the last few seconds.

So not exactly a short list, and as I say we are not yet half way through the Season!