{"id":2987,"date":"2014-03-23T16:35:43","date_gmt":"2014-03-23T16:35:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/?p=2987"},"modified":"2014-03-23T16:38:12","modified_gmt":"2014-03-23T16:38:12","slug":"dont-mess-with-liverpool-rodgers-warn-ref-who-sent-gibbs-off","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/football\/dont-mess-with-liverpool-rodgers-warn-ref-who-sent-gibbs-off\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8221;Don&#8217;t Mess With Liverpool&#8221; Rodgers Warns Ref Who Sent Gibbs Off"},"content":{"rendered":"<div><\/div>\n<div>\n<p itemprop=\"description\">Legendary referee Clive Thomas has called for Andre Marriner and his assistants to be banned for the rest of the season for sending off the wrong player.<\/p>\n<div>\n<p>Thirty years after hanging up his whistle, Thomas \u2013 who was nicknamed The Book for his strict approach \u2013\u00a0has again courted controversy in a withering attack of refereeing standards.<\/p>\n<p>Kieran Gibbs was sent off in Arsenal\u2019s 6-0 defeat at Chelsea Saturday even though Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain was the man who dived to palm away Eden Hazard\u2019s off-target shot. Thomas said\u00a0assistant referees Scott Ledger and Marc Perry and fourth official Anthony Taylor should share the blame with Marriner.<\/p>\n<p>\u2018It was the most disgusting, shocking decision I\u2019ve seen,\u2019 said the 77-year-old Welshman.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;\u2018In my opinion these four wouldn\u2019t officiate another Premier League game this season.\u2019&#8217;<\/p>\n<p>Meanwhile, referee Andre Marriner has apologised for sending off the Arsenal defender.<\/p>\n<p>A Professional Game Match Officials Limited statement has revealed the apology after Marriner dismissed Gibbs for a foul committed by Alex Oxlade-Chamberlain which resulted in a penalty in the 17th minute of the match.Loading article&#8230;<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<div>\n<div>And ahead of his team&#8217;s next game against arch rivals, Liverpool boss Brendan Rodgers says he has seen plenty of \u201cfirecracker\u201d Merseyside derbies over the years &#8211; and wants a strong performance from referee \u00a0Marriner, who incidentally will official \u00a0Sunday&#8217;s game at Goodison Park.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<div id=\"related_items\"><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Legendary referee Clive Thomas has called for Andre Marriner and his assistants to be banned for the rest of the season for sending off the wrong player. Thirty years after hanging up his whistle, Thomas \u2013 who was nicknamed The Book for his strict approach \u2013\u00a0has again courted controversy in a withering attack of refereeing [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[60,80],"tags":[37],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987"}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2987"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2991,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2987\/revisions\/2991"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2987"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2987"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/africanexaminer.com\/sports\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2987"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}