Andre Marriner enrages Chelsea AND Swansea fans with performance in 2-2 draw

Who'd be a ref, eh?

Rob Burnett

Andre Marriner enrages Chelsea AND Swansea fans with performance in 2-2 draw

Look, refereeing is hard. And refereeing in the Premier League is REALLY hard.

With every match pored over by pundits and commentators with dozens of cameras and instant replays picking up every single mistake you make and analysing every single decision you take, it’s a pretty impossible job.

It takes a very strong-willed character to be a Prem ref these days – going to work knowing you’re going to have 30,000 people calling you a wanker for 90 minutes is not for everyone – but some refs just seem to invoke the ire of fans more than others.

Today Andre Marriner was the man in the middle for the Swansea vs Chelsea match at the Liberty.

And he somehow managed to invoke the ire of BOTH sets of fans for his performance in the 2-2 draw, which saw Diego Costa put the Blues ahead, then a Gylfi Sigurdsson penalty and Leroy Fer strike gave Swansea the lead before Costa added a second with 10 minutes left.

First off he had Chelsea fans and pundits politely – ahem – pointing out that Leroy Fer fouled Gary Cahill before he put Swansea ahead, something Antonio Conte was also unhappy about, telling Sky after the game: “I don’t want to talk about the decision [for the second Swansea goal] but I think it was a bad decision by the referee.”

https://twitter.com/mightygeorgeng/status/775018867529777152

Andrew marriner needs to see the Gary cahill challenge…He just robbed us of two deserving points.#CFC

— Zoheb akbar (@akbarnuhma) September 11, 2016

That Andre Marriner is a shit referee

— Harry Chan (@HarryChan01) September 11, 2016

Marriner MOTM.

— Chelsea Rumours (@ChelseaRumours) September 11, 2016

Then plenty thought Diego Costa should have been sent off for a dive – and again targeted Marriner for not showing the red card. Certainly BBC pundit John Hartson was clear on it: “No excuses from referee Andre Marriner. He could see it was a dive by Diego Costa and he should have been sent off.”

Incidents like this ruin the game, diving is cheating, Mariner should have yellow carded him. 😡 https://t.co/VBAtQ2vhDw

— EA. Bell. #SDP (@LizabethAnne32) September 11, 2016

Andrew Marriner 🙄🙄🙄 #SWACHE #costadive 🔴

— Trevor Sinclair (@trevor8sinclair) September 11, 2016

Costa will continue to dive until the ref sends him off, but it just happened to be Mariner who really needs the opticians'

— Pete. (@peterpilsbury) September 11, 2016

But most seemed just baffled by his all-round performance:

https://twitter.com/ChimChimeny11/status/775018900471906306

https://twitter.com/chelseafcland/status/775018999679741952