In football, some referee calls and decisions could either go your way or against you. If a player on your team does right, no punishment. If the player doesn’t, he faces punishment. However, when it gets to a point where the referee just keeps blowing against your team, a sense of foul play is rumored between fans. Especially fans that watch the Premier League in Nigeria, fans would be like: “Oh this ref dey do ojoro“. Even in England, people will begin to whisper: “he is blowing against us”. Rivals will find it amusing but when it happens to them, they flare up too. Well, in this article, Premier League big-six clubs and the ref(s) they hate so much will certainly be revealed.
6) Tottenham Hotspurs – Michael Oliver
Tottenham Hotspurs have suffered so much at the hands of Michael Oliver. It goes way back, even during the early refereeing career of Michael Oliver. Meanwhile, the one that hit so hard was his sending off of Romero and Udogie as Chelsea walloped a depleted Spurs 4-1 during the 2023/24 season.
Spurs fans have since then openly voiced out how they feel about Michael Oliver taking charge of their future games. There is certainly bad blood between this club and the ref.
5) Manchester United – Anthony Taylor
It may look like this ref has done nothing towards this club but take a deeper look, he loves haunting them. During the old times, United where accused of being helped by refs, nowadays refs seem to be against them – this man in particular.
Anthony Taylor has made lots of calls against United, especially when the Red Devils take on fellow big sides. Quite ironic, this ref is a Manchester-born ref but is always at the throne of Man United’s downfall of recent.
4) Chelsea – Anthony Taylor
Well, maybe some Man United fans dislike this ref, but ALL Chelsea fans HATE this referee SO MUCH! Anytime he is assigned a Chelsea game, the fanbase goes all blazing with their opinions.
What Anthony Taylor has done against this club is uncountable and has cost them so much. Just this past weekend, he brandished so many yellow cards to the Blues even when some players just tried explaining. Chelsea fans filed an online petition for him not to ref their game again after a controversial Tottenham goal in the 2022/23 season.
Well, he still refs their games and causes them more harm.
3) Arsenal – Chris Kavanagh & Any Referee
The thing with Arsenal is that it seems refs take turns going against them. You can’t pin one ref and say “Oh Arsenal fans hate him”, but it can be Anthony Taylor today, Michael Oliver tomorrow, Jarred Gillett, and so on.
Although, the Gunners fumed against one ref recently. Yes, for his controversial sending-off of Declan Rice against Brighton, the fanbase developed anger toward Chris Kavanagh. Sadly, Arsenal couldn’t take maximum points on that day mostly because of the controversial red card.
2) Liverpool – Every Referee
This team hates every ref in the Premier League as their fanbase feels that “England” is always against them. From the days of Martin Atkinson, Howard Webb, Paul Tierney, now Anthony Taylor, Michael Oliver, David Coote, Simon Hooper, Chris Kavanagh, and so on.
In their defense, they have been dealt one blow or the other by these refs. For example, Simon Hooper’s poor officiating in Liverpool’s away loss to Spurs in the 2023/24 season. Also, when Virgil van Dijk was clattered by Jordan Pickford no penalty or red card was given. David Coote who was the VAR missed Pickford’s nasty challenge.
However, when referees favor this club, their fanbase will forget all the supposed crimes against them and live on happily till the refs offend them again.
1) Manchester City – No Referee
You can’t be in shock, right? This is quite common among all fanbases of English teams. Manchester City seem to be the most favored side in the league as they rarely have issues with any ref. One or two refs may have made calls against them but not frequently to lead to hatred.
For example, Manchester City faithful were all annoyed with Simon Hooper in a game against Tottenham in the 2023/24 season. A City player was fouled but instead of giving the side the “advantage” when they were clearly on a potential goalscoring attack, he stopped play. This amazed the whole City-hood for some minutes, especially the players and the coach.
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 They Hate So Much https://www.sportychefs.com/?p=2498&preview=true){kind=link}