There are certain comments that have found a way into the vocabulary of many play-by-play and colour commentators that are downright irritating. Here are the ones that are guaranteed to have me shouting at the TV and that distort viewers understanding of the game and how officials are told to interpret the laws.

1.    "He got the ball" - as in a tackler comes out of a challenge with the ball or eventually makes contact with the ball and somehow that makes everything automatically legal.

There is nothing in the Laws of the Game that judges the legality or illegality of a tackle by whether or not a defender wins the ball. The decision is based on whether or not the defender plays the ball first. Even then the referee might judge the challenge to have endangered the opponent and the defender to be guilty of serious foul play.

2.    "There was no malice in the tackle" - as in a foul is committed and it is inferred that the tackler should somehow be let off because he didn’t mean to commit a foul.

It doesn’t matter whether a foul is intentional or not – it is still a foul. The only thing that is up for consideration is whether or not it is just a foul, a foul and a yellow card, or a foul and a red card –there is no get out of jail card just because the player looked like he didn’t mean it.

3.    “He was entitled to go for the ball” – a red herring if ever I have heard one.

You hear this one normally when a tackle is a fraction late or when an attacker and goalkeeper challenge for a loose ball. You would think from the comment that there are numerous times when a player is not entitled to go for the ball when it is in play. The only one I can think of is when the goalkeeper has the ball in his grasp.

4.    “Was he the last man?” – as in the defender fouls a forward and the commentator suggests that whether or not he is adjudged to be the last man will decide whether or not he is sent off.

The laws say nothing about being the last man. It comes down to whether or not an “obvious goalscoring opportunity” has been denied “to an opponent moving towards the player’s goal by an offence punishable by a free kick or a penalty kick.”

5.     “The assistant referee took a long time to put up his flag” – a ball is played through and the assistant waits until the player comes within playing distance of the ball before indicating his decision.

The assistant referee is following the directives in respect to offside and waiting to judge whether or not the player is “involved in active play.”

Are there any that drive you up the wall?