Get it FAST or get it RIGHT?

What had the potential to be a great football game, West Ham United v Manchester United, was ruined due to a bad call by the referee after only 14+ minutes. To be clear, I do not support either club and my opinion would be the same if the call had gone against the other team. The immediate body language of Mike Dean after the tackle showed that he was not going to make a call. Then something changed!

This comment will make the stuffed shirts at the FA uncomfortable as it will the football "traditionalists" who would appear to prefer an obvious mistake by an official determine a result rather than to make an immediate review possible to either correct or confirm the call. With to-day's technology this could be done quickly. When the infamous tackle was replayed several times on TV, it was obvious, especially to the broadcasters and analysts, that either player could have been at fault, OR, that play should have simply continued. On analyst opined that the fact that the Man. Utd. player rolled over several times, while screeching , seemed to have influenced the RED CARD decision to be made.

The fact that football has adopted goal line technology helped referees today. We need to introduce a system where a manager can request an immediate review for certain key decisions, like disputed penalties or red cards, even if it only ONE request per game is permitted. Other sports have been much quicker to adopt technology, or make rule changes, to ensure than a key officiating error as in this game does not continue to be "part of the game".

By the way, the second Utd. goal was also suspect. How could a perfectly positioned sideline official not see that THREE players were off-side? But that topic is for another day. Happy New Year to all.