Sky Sports' Johnny Phillips: Officials treading the finest of lines
The fortunes of so much in football can be decided by the finest of margins...writes Johnny Phillips.
I don't believe in luck but there are decisions and consequences which must make managers tear their hair out at times. Players and fans too, but managers first and foremost because they are the ones that bear the brunt of results more than any of us.
This came to mind watching Birmingham's 0-0 draw with Newcastle at St Andrew's last Saturday.
It wasn't a game of great quality but it wasn't bad football either. There was enough organisation and endeavour on both sides to make it watchable. The odd chance came and went, with Newcastle the better of the two teams but not by enough to have felt truly aggrieved at the scoreline.
But they did score a perfectly good goal that was ruled out by a linesman for offside. Ayoze Perez had taken a shot, Birmingham's keeper Tomasz Kuszczak had made the save and Matt Ritchie had put the rebound in.
It was the tightest call.
After the match I interviewed both managers in Blues' TV interview room. After we spoke Newcastle manager Rafa Benitez asked my cameraman if he had the 'goal' available to watch on a monitor but as it wasn't an outside broadcast we couldn't show him anything.
Then one of the video analysts entered the room with his laptop with the move leading to the goal ready to view.
He put it down on the table in front of us and Benitez, video analyst, Newcastle press officer, cameraman and myself watched it back.
Benitez took control of the laptop and played it back and forth in real time.
Then he slowed it down.
Then he moved it frame by frame.
All the time he was looking for where the offside could have occurred in the build-up, eliminating the possibility of an infringement as the move developed and explaining to the rest of us why nothing could be ruled out.
It was surreal stuff listening in on a Champions League-winning manager as he made his point and – although myself and the cameraman were incidental bystanders amongst the Newcastle staff – we weren't going anywhere.
Finally Benitez settled on the crucial frame.
It involved his striker Perez making contact with the ball in shooting. At that moment Ritchie was in front of the Birmingham defenders but, crucially, behind the ball itself; onside.
As the camera angle was from the gantry on halfway it took some time to work this out.
The horizontal lines created by the mown turf eventually being the deciding factor, we all agreed. It was such a tight call by the official, but it was the wrong call.
Benitez looked pained in frustration.
Two points had been dropped and there was a lingering sense of injustice.
Newcastle have to get promoted. Benitez can't afford another season in The Championship.
He followed his heart not his head in deciding to stay on at St James' Park last summer, putting his reputation on the line.
If Huddersfield win their game in hand there will only be a four point gap to the play-off places. Benitez will have known all this as he stood and stared at the screen. His weekend was ruined.
Maybe longer than the weekend. With another two weeks to wait for a game the injustice would simmer away, nagging and tugging at his sides as he tried to prepare the team for the next game in this interminable marathon that is The Championship season.
Benitez left the room and headed for the press conference.
Gianfranco Zola walked in.
He hasn't had much to smile about lately but maybe this was the break the Birmingham manager needed. Another defeat with a fortnight before he could try and put it right may have been too much to take.
A point against the league leaders was something to build on as he attempts to steer Blues away from relegation danger.
What about the linesman who made the call?
He'd have been informed it was the wrong decision soon enough.
Even as he put his flag up there were irate Newcastle players to deal with. Several went over to remonstrate at the decision. But it all happened so fast.
The speed at which everything takes place makes officiating so hard.
Would technology have solved it? Not at all.
It took five minutes of deliberations amongst a committee of five in that TV interview room to get to the bottom of what happened. Good luck with that if ever they bring offsides under the remit of technological judgments.
In bringing goal line technology to the Premier League, the authorities have succeeded in eliminating a key area where mistakes were made with a definitive clarification that can be reached in very quick time so as not to slow down or halt play.
It is hard to see how this could transfer to other parts of our game.
So much is subjective and even when it is not, as with offsides, the time involved is too long and the camera angle can never be definitive as it is with one placed along the goal line.
Until the authorities do find a fairer solution we must abide by the judgments of the match officials.
They get far more right than they do wrong. But there will always be those tight calls.
Which leads us back to the fine margins of football; this sport is not an exact science and, however frustrating that may be, it is all the better for being allowed to flow the way it does.