Howard Webb has admitted that a penalty given against Tottenham for Manchester United in 2009 is the one decision that he wishes he could go back and change from his career as a top-flight referee.
This is the penalty call in question – one I’m sure a great deal of you will remember. Our former midfielder Michael Carrick goes down under the challenge of Heurelho Gomes, and Webb points to the spot.
via ytCropperWebb confesses that “it was obvious within seconds” that he’d got it wrong, and the replays show that Gomes pushed the ball away fairly.
“The one that stands out is one where in the game I knew I got it wrong,” Webb told The Athletic. “It was a Premier League game at Old Trafford – Manchester United versus Tottenham Hotspur in 2009.”
“I could see Carrick got there first and then the goalkeeper clattered into him. It was really an easy penalty award,” Webb said. “I was expecting the usual cursory appeal that you get from the players, not the huge look of absolute astonishment and amazement and incredulousness on the look of Gomes. It was obvious within seconds I’d got the decision wrong. There was something more to this.”
We were 2-0 up at the time, at Old Trafford, and went on to lose 5-2.
Sir Alex Ferguson’s side would win the title that season and thankfully, despite Webb’s error, we would still finish fourth to qualify for the Champions League for the first time; 10 years to the very day in fact.
Howard Webb was Fergie’s love child. Referees should go unnoticed but this fella always wanted to be the centre of attention. When he let De Jong off for attempted murder on Alonso in the World Cup final summed him up as a referee. Awful.
Scandalous decision. But bottled it after as usual to concede 4 more , however up til then Utd had run out of ideas