Oh yes he is! A baddie ref is vital to the football pantomime
Mike Dean gleefully takes up the role of bad guy during the festive fixture list
Where would Batman be without the Joker? What good Star Wars without Darth Vader, Harry Potter sans Lord Voldemort, Sleeping Beauty minus Maleficent, Peter Pan robbed of Captain Hook and football without bad refs?
More specifically, what would the Premiership be without Mike Dean?
Ref Dean has been the subject of a witch hunt after a series of mistakes during recent high-profile games.
Dean is no stranger to contention having courted controversy over the seasons with the same vigour as Zsa Zsa Gabor did potential wealthy husbands.
His bizarre facial expressions when directing play and having been more than once accused of celebrating goals during matches have made him one of the most recognisable and despised refs among many football supporters.
His appointment for Liverpool’s recent late win at Everton was fiercely debated because he is from the area and lives close to the two Merseyside teams; the jury has long been out on whether he is blue or red, though there is no evidence other than conspiracies that he is anything other than a professional neutral.
In the same game, he indulged in some exhibition refereeing, allowing a pass from Roberto Firmino to run through his legs to Adam Lallana – and he repeated the nifty footwork just days later, letting a loose ball run between his legs for Tottenham’s Dele Alli to latch on to.
But if Liverpool and West Ham fans are angry with Dean, that has nothing on those at Emirates Stadium.
Irate at their team’s poor record in matches refereed by Dean, some Arsenal fans set up an online petition demanding that he never officiates in one of their games again. More than 106,000 signatures were lodged.
His on-pitch animation has been put down to his enthusiasm for the game, enjoying like the rest of us an intelligent flawless piece of play and blinding goal, and as full of the exacerbated aahs and oohs at chances missed.
Though on many occasions they are, refs should not really be the talking piece of a game; the headlines should be the preserve of players or managers.
But on closer scrutiny, what would football be like without the baddie ref?
Dean is indeed the standout culprit among a rogues’ gallery of perceived sub-standard refereeing so far this season, and a slew of horror shows by the men in black has amplified calls for more technology to be relied upon to call the tough decisions.
But that is where Dean and refs of his calibre (he is still thought as one of the best) stand out. It is because they have the guts to call the big decisions as they see it according to the laws as applied during the frenetic pace of modern football that makes the game so addictive.
The critics of refs like Dean – many pundits among them – are misguided and myopic in their vision of the game as they would like to watch it, with more video play backs during play.
Far from being detrimental to the game, refereeing controversy is core to football’s popularity.
Referees make mistakes that drive avalanches of indignation, outrage and satire. They spark debates that can rage in the pubs, workplace, at the bus stop, and around the breakfast table for days, weeks, months or even years.
No other sport comes close to pulling such emotional triggers that the human condition finds so addictive and would miss terribly if they were sanitised by a video replay every two minutes.
Refereeing errors are, in the grand scheme of things, rare. The better team usually wins on the day regardless of what the ref did or didn’t do. In the main, they get enough decisions right to protect the game’s credibility, and theirs.
And without a baddie, football would be as redundant as James Bond without Blofeld. Oh yes it would.