Newell fined because of Rayner comments.

Apparently, £5,000 of this fine is down to specific comments about Amy Rayner being useless and £1,500 about women's role in the game overall. After watching yet another match at the weekend where the referee and linesperson had howlers and hearing about the Wigan manager Paul Jewell getting into trouble for comments about referee Phil Dowd, I await the news that a referee/assistant referee has been charged with consistent poor performances with baited breath.

I can't comment on Phil Dowd in particular, as I haven't seen the highlights of the Arsenal-Wigan match on Sunday. With Luton not playing, I did go to the Hawthorns to watch West Bromwich Albion play Sunderland. It was there that I witnessed a shocking performance by one of the assistants. One of the assistants actually had a very good game - maybe making a few bad decisions but generally getting decisions spot on. The other one missed a number of offside decisions, gave a few offsides that weren't and missed a few blatant free-kicks right in front of them. No prizes for guessing who it was. I'm not someone who suggests that all referees are rubbish - a lot of them do good jobs - it's just a select few in my opinion who are not up to it. Surely the FA can do all they can to deal with these officials? It seems not. Maybe one day they'll stop charging managers for making comments about officials and start thinking that they may have a point and look into them instead. I doubt it will ever happen though.