Newcastle United's Obafemi Martins (centre) scores a goal past Aston Villa's captain Martin Laursen (left) and Luke Young (right) during their English Premier League soccer match at St James' Park, Newcastle yesterday. Newcastle won 2-0 with Martins scoring both goals. - AP

LONDON (AP)

English football's youngest Premier League referee has to explain his alleged errors to his bosses. Another is under fire for simply sticking to the rules.

While match officials struggle to gain respect from players and managers, they are accused of spoiling the game with nitpicking decisions instead of going after the dangerous tacklers.

According to the coaches, the referees lack consistency and, in some cases, try to make two wrongs make a right.

When the season started, referees appeared to get some major help even from their own critics. The Premier League launched its "Get on with the game" programme and players and managers signed a charter saying they would avoid criticising officials and show respect toward referees.

The truce didn't appear to last very long and, almost every week, managers and players run the risk of disciplinary action by telling the media what the referees got wrong.

The referees are advised not to answer back and the result is an almost one-sided argument, the officials being protected up to a point by the threat of punishment for those critics who go over the top.

Biggest problems

Two of this weekend's biggest problems happened at the Premier League game between West Bromwich Albion and Blackburn and the League Championship meeting of neighbours Derby and Nottingham Forest, where 25-year-old Stuart Attwell was in charge.

Attwell has taken Premier League matches but spends most of his time in the league below. He became famous for awarding a goal to Reading when the ball not only didn't cross the Watford goalline but didn't go between the posts either.

His performance at the Derby-Forest 1-1 draw on Sunday, when he disallowed the home side two goals and sent off a Forest player, angered Derby manager Paul Jewell.

"The referee's given the most unbelievable decision ever for Reading at Watford," Jewell said.

"He's 25, the next best thing since sliced bread, and then, after the Reading game, they've taken him off the Premier League for a month to get his confidence back and they give him a game of this magnitude. The referee's made a complete and utter howler (disallowing Miles Addison's headed goal) and it's cost us two points."

Now Attwell will defend himself to Keith Hackett, a former referee who is now general manager of Professional Games Match Officials.

"We will sit down, myself and another senior referee, with Stuart and review the game on a minute-by-minute basis and analyse every decision," Hackett said yesterday. "But that is typical of what we do with all referees, it is the process we go through.

"I was not at the game but I have read and heard some of the reports in the media and I am concerned by their content. But it is the life of a referee, I'm afraid."

In defence of referees

Hackett has frequently spoken up for officials who have come under fire and those who have been demoted to the lower divisions after poor performances.

He may well want to hear what rival managers Tony Mowbray and Paul Ince thought after West Brom's 2-2 draw with Blackburn on Saturday.

Both thought referee Mike Jones was wrong to award Blackburn a penalty and then send off its striker, Benni McCarthy.

The spot kick was awarded for Albion defender Ryan Donk tugging Jason Roberts' shirt when the Blackburn striker was nowhere near the goal and moving away from it. McCarthy was shown a second yellow card when he jumped for the ball near the half-way line, felt a push in his back, and touched the ball with his arm.

"You prepare all week and then you find yourself a goal down from a decision you never see on a football ground," Mowbray said of the shirt-tug. "It bewildered me. In the real world it doesn't happen and today's official seemed to think it was worth a penalty kick which was really disappointing."

If referees blew for every tugged shirt, he said, teams would wind up seven against seven on the field.

"In the same manner I would say, the (McCarthy) sending off, never in a million years," Mowbray said. "I don't think there's any room in the Premier League for decisions like that spoiling football matches. He probably got pushed. I was expecting a free kick against my player, not handball and sending off."