'Poor officiating': Former head of PGMOL slams Stuart Attwell for what he did in Newcastle United game on Saturday

There's no getting away from the fact that Newcastle United were battered by Bournemouth on Saturday as the Cherries ran out 4-1 winners at St James' Park.

Newcastle were second best in every area of the pitch as the Cherries executed the perfect gameplan to mastermind a huge win, however, fans were left wondering what might have been after a controversial refereeing decision.

Stuart Attwell had an awful game in the middle with fans serenading the ref with "You're not fit to referee" in the second half, shortly after he had chalked off a Bournemouth goal - that's how bad he was - he did us a favour and we still went after him.

There was no consistency from the ref, either. Tyler Adams could have been booked three times in the first half alone, but nothing happened. Then suddenly, he was throwing cards around like they were going to explode in his pocket if he didn't use them.

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Stuart Attwell blew for half-time when Newcastle were on the attack

However, the most egregious error came on the stroke of half-time. Deep into first-half stoppage time, Newcastle had just had a superb Sandro Tonali effort saved by Kepa Arrizabalaga with the ball coming to Bruno Guimaraes out wide, and just as the Brazilian pulled back to launch the ball back into the mixer, Attwell blew for half-time.

It's not the first time this season that Newcastle have had a ref blow up for half-time while on the attack, and former referee Keith Hackett has now given his thoughts to Football Insider.

“I’ve seen this, it’s poor officiating. Years ago we had a situation where a Welsh referee, Clive Thomas in a World Cup game, at a corner kick blew the whistle as the ball was in the air, and Brazil scored, and he disallowed it because he said he’d blown the whistle.

“Now I just think that referees really need to call half-time when the ball is either off the field of play in a neutral position, or in midfield in a neutral position.

“Just go for the ball around the centre circle and blow then, rather than when there’s an attack or a potential chance to score a goal. The timing of games is not that finite.

“We know that there’s only 52 minutes average actual playing time therefore I do think a referee of his experience needs to apply a bit of common sense and not put himself in the frame of being criticised.

“Take care with your blowings of a football match at full-time and half-time. Dead ball.”

Keith Hackett was spot on

Obviously, we're not saying that we would have 100% scored from that passage of play, however, if it had been left to play out and we had, we'd then have gone in at half time at 2-2 and with a last-second goal like that, the mood in the dressing room would have been entirely different which could have massively changed the outcome.

We totally agree with Keith Hackett about referees making sure they blow the whistle when the ball is in the middle third of the pitch or out of play. It's common sense.

Darn referees!