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Inspired by a comment on the commentary of last night's Watford v Chelsea game, but with the facts changed around a bit...

Referees are encouraged, when they see a foul, to wait a couple of seconds to see if the team with the fouled player gains any advantage.

A winger is fouled on the sidelines, ten yards into in the opposing half as he breaks on the counter attack. It's a yellow card offence in your view. The ball drops to a player of the same team in the centre circle. Before you decide to blow your whistle, the following goes through your head:

1. The winger is back on his feet and is not offside.
2. The player with the ball now has no pace
3. The striker sprinting forward (now on the half way line) hasn't scored in 8 games and can't hit a barn door
4. The team with possession has the highest set piece conversion rate in the league
5. The team defending has the worst record defending set pieces in the league

Firstly, what's your call: free kick or play on?

Secondly, which of these factors above are relevant to your decision?

Thirdly, should referees be encouraged to lean more towards a free kick for teams like West Brom and Watford and play advantage to teams that score more from open play? Should advantage be subjective (team and situation-specific) or objective (i.e., whether a team in general would have an advantage)?

(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Referee_Mark_Geiger_advantage.jpg)

Watford have scored 4 goals from set pieces being the 3rd fewest in the league.

Spurs have scored the most with 12.

Ha! Interesting. The commentator on BT questioned whether Watford would have preferred a free kick on account at being good from set pieces. That's what got me mulling.

Replace Watford with Spurs if you like.

Just pointing out the usual Watford stereotype from 80s :)

Palace, west brom and saints are the biggest set piece merchants percentage wise.

If it's the Fabregas incident I agree I'd rather have the central free kick rather than a woolly advantage out on the touch line.

Not sure the poor old ref can judge if the advantage has fallen to a donkey though!

And there was me thinking football only began in August 1992... :D

In an ideal world, the coach of the fouled team could decide whether he wanted the advantage, but that would never work in practice because of how quick the game is. It's down to the ref and his officials to make the call.


The central free kick is a similar one where a team has a free kick specialist in the side. Lord Becks by the D would be pretty similar to a penalty for some teams.

If the ball rolled out of play after a foul in the old Stoke days, the ref might be inclined to play advantage for Rory Delap's resulting throw in as it would be better than a cross from near the corner flag.

Shouldn't the rules of the game and how they are enforced be universal? Leave working out which teams/players are good at what to the coaches, just concentrate on being the best you can at applying the rules of the game to the scenarios that you are presented with imo

Universally agree the ref should decide? :P

Tough spot and I'm not sure I can help. Say the midfielder had been coached to hoof it out to get the set piece, would that be allowed? Advantage tends to be very short in football.