Arsenal v Stoke 22 September 2013 – The Officials
Andrew Crawshaw
I think that by now everyone probably knows this, but for those who might not the Officials are :-
- Referee – Mike Dean
- Assistant referees – J Collin and G Beswick
- Fourth Official – L Mason.
So the response of the Dark Lord to Arsenal being top of the table last week is to send in his most able and trusted lieutenant and make no mistake about it our record with Dean in charge over the last few years is Biblically Awful.
We have been treated to some appalling refereeing by Mr Dean in recent years and he has taken the greatest delight in our misfortunes, his jump when we lost the Carling Cup final, his jig when Spurs went two nil up at the Emirates. Indeed the record is so bad that even the papers were commenting on it last year. The usual response is to think about putting money on the following events coming to pass :-
- Penalty given against Arsenal
- Arsenal player sent off (usually Vermaelen if he is playing)
- Clear penalty not given to Arsenal
- Arsenal to loose the game.
In general Stoke slightly underperform with Dean compared with their overall percentages with marginally fewer wins, significantly fewer draws and a corresponding increase in losses.
In the Stoke referee review for 2011/12, there was one game by Dean and that had a 50/50 bias so there seems to be no overall historic indication of Mr Dean being a pro Stoke referee – if anything slightly the opposite.
Now let’s examine Walter’s team’s reviews for last year. Firstly, despite reviews of 17 games in total there are no reviews of him doing a Stoke game. He had four shockers…
- Spurs v W Ham 60% weighted score;
- Sunderland v W Ham 61weighted score%,
- W Han v Villa 62 weighted score%,
- Arsenal v City 67 weighted score%.
In contrast, he also had six games with highly commendable weighted scores; Spurs v Chelsea 85%; United v City 86%, Spurs v Swansea 89%, Arsenal v Wigan 90% and Chelsea v Wigan at 92%.
So the worst score we saw from Mr Dean last year was 67%, far from the worst refereeing we saw –
- Lee Mason 55% Stoke v Arsenal;
- Anthony Taylor 58% Sunderland v Arsenal;
- Neil Swarbrick 58% Arsenal v Everton;
- Michael Jones 60% Arsenal v Norwich;
- Michael Atkinson 61% Chelsea v Arsenal;
- Chris Foy 63% Arsenal v Stoke
- Howard Webb 67% Liverpool v Arsenal
- Chris Foy (again)67% Arsenal v Reading
In fact just looking at the weighted percentage scores Dean was probably the best referee we had last year and that is not something I ever expected to say! With the exception of the home game to City the other three games were all at 80% or above – United v Arsenal 80%, City v Arsenal 83% and Arsenal v Wigan at 90%.
How were his legendary bias figures and missed wrong decisions? Going from highest to lowest overall scores.
Arsenal v Wigan (4-1) 14 May 2013 – every wrong decision was in favour of Wigan (but there weren’t too many and none were key (second yellows, reds, penalties or goals).
City v Arsenal (1-1) 23/09/2012 bias 71 against City yes in Arsenal’s favour again with no wrong key decisions.
United v Arsenal (2-1) 03/11/12 Bias 15% against United, 85% against Arsenal; two wrong key decisions – the penalty against Arsenal in minute 44 and Cleverly should have been sent off for a reckless challenge and a second yellow card in minute 58 (this was ten minutes before Wilshere was sent off and may well have been a game changer!).
Arsenal v City (0-2) 31/01/13 84% bias against Arsenal with one key wrong decision when in minute 82 Dzeko should have received a second yellow card. NB the Koscielny red card in minute 8, and the Kompany red card in minute 74 were both deemed to be correct (even though the Kompany one was rescinded on appeal). Of the four Dean Games last year this was the only one that was really true to type. In the others he was really quite good.
This resulted in a total bias against Arsenal that was the third highest of all the teams he did. Only West Ham and Fulham were worse. And this was an improvement compared to the season before when he was the most biased against Arsenal. And even his numbers were lower than that year. Was he trying to cover up his acts? Or got a text to not overdo it?
So what can we expect to see on Sunday and how should we react?
He knows the rules – no doubt about that. If he has instructions to he will rely on very literal interpretation of the rules against Arsenal players and be very liberal for Stoke infractions.
All supporters must call him out over every perceived wrong call – be heard and embarrass him every time he is wrong.
Our players mustn’t give him an excuse to issue a yellow or red card because he will take it at the first opportunity. Kos, Jack, TV5 are you listening!
I did, however see signs last year that he is capable of being honest in our games and truly hope that we can look forward to a comfortable win (I’m not sure that I expect that though).
COYG
Recent posts
- What have the board and Wenger ever done for us?
- Halsey v Manchester United. Everton and Liverpool has cause for complaint.
- How good are our players now, and how good can they become?
- The Caerphilly Messi: or the fall and rise of Aaron Ramsey
As you say, if he tries to do us, the fans need to call him out , I am sure they will.
He may want to do us for his own reasons, and to help his beloved Liverpool however just hope all the negative publicity over refs this week makes them think a bit. Walter has commented he believes Dean to be a bit of a clever schemer, if there is anything clever about him, he may want to stay below the redar this week, or at least I hope so.
If he is up to his old tricks, I would add our magnificent man of the moment to the players on the danger list, maybe Ches as well.
Best case scenario – his and his organisations public opinion antenna inspires him to just do his job properly
Worst case, another Taylor Villa performance against a team managed by one of Fergies fledglings given the green light to be over physical with our finest paying the price for the slightest retaliation under provocation
Prediction – despite Dean, Arsenal 2 Stoke
off topic but about officials : I think 4th ref John Moss has just taken over as the second assistant ref in the game Liverpool – Southampton
typical mistake from ref Moss doing the line with not waiting long enough with the wait and see when Shaw picks up a loose ball for Southampton there. 😉
rather than the team with the fewest options “up front”- I’d say no options up front if Giroud gets injured. Some people suggest Walcott can play there which is nonsense- he’s clueless in that position as he has demonstrated previously. He doesn’t know where to run, how to lay the ball off, when to pass and when to shoot; as for his heading ability we saw that on Saturday. Wenger leaving the team with one striker is criminally negligent, a club of our stature should not be scrabbling around for a last minute loan cast-off like Ba, or in desperation looking to the unfit, injured, Bendtner, who hasn’t kicked a ball for what seems like years. This is not the first time he’s let us down- remember when we had strikers injured a few seasons ago and we had Arshavin leading the attack?! Wenger’s response was thaat he didn’t want to bring in anyone “who wasn’t better than what we had” ( although they were all injured), so he did nothing. This man will yet again undermine our team by ignoring the basics- one striker fit and how many games can he be expected to play? January is a long way away- appalling management.
Nice win from Southampton against a very poor Liverpool team (at least based on the second half)
So a win tomorrow will see us 2 points ahead Liverpool
yeah yeah Harry just feel miserable before anything bad happens. If that makes you feel better.
BTw I have seen a very sharp looking Bendtner on the pictures of the first team training. So we do have another option.
sing with me…”8-0 to the Arsenal, 8-0 to the Arsenal..”
*Dances to celebrates Pool’s lose today*
“Criminally negligent” eh? Oh I say!
Tony, I don’t want to cast aspersions, but do you and Walter sit down for a giggle and make up these ‘outraged of Islington’ posts?
I do hope we put out a team that on paper are able to dish it back in equal measure but show restrain and not allow any chance of being booked or worse .
Make it difficult for Dean to run riot .Maybe even expose his bias by avoiding getting embroiled in any ‘controversial incidents ‘.
Liverpool’s loss may have worsened things for us .Do really hope we don’t get pegged back .
Poor depressed, idiotic Harry. We have lost one game since beating Bayern away all those months ago, imagine what a state he would be in had we only won one? Suicidal I would guess. Clueless Walcott only got 21 goals last season. You couldn’t make it up could you.
If I ran a clinic for Bi-Polar disorder, I would definitely be scouting new clients on Arsenal blogs. However as you point out Mick, there might be some strong competition from a few Swiss one-way clinics
Notice Mr Webb in charge of the Manc derby, should please the city fans!
@ Mick
“You couldn’t make it up could you.”
Well, Harry just did.
I don’t like this appointment, especially when we are threatening to go top and put some distance between us and the chasing pack. The Daily Mail said yesterday that we have won only one game since 2009/2010 with Dean in charge, so hopefully that will add to the pressure a little if everyone is now talking about it.
Thing is as Walter has pointed out, Dean is very clever and knows how to act in ways beneficial to his career. He knows there is a spotlight on him whenever he refs our matches and hence why i think he managed to fly a bit under the radar last season. Make no mistake about it though if he has received his orders we are going to see the anti Arsenal cheating Mike Dean with his usual tricks i.e let stoke rough us up as much as they want but give an Arsenal player the first booking of the match, Flamini wont finish the match and he will give a penalty against Kos that isnt even a pen.
I really hope the crowd gets on his back at the 1st sign of him cheating us out and i am hopeful he will. You see Dean wont have the advantage of “Arsenal are useless and utter shambles” cover that Anthony Taylor had. The mood is much more positive even from among of the AAA and seeing this will be Özil’s home debut, i am sure that the Ems will be rocking. Add Stoke to the equation and how much we cant stand them and you have a very difficult setting for Dean to get away unnoticed with his usual tricks. I am hopeful for a 2-0 win even with Dean in charge.
*hopeful they will
Was predicting a win for us but with ref Stoke should be happy.
As much as the Liverpool loss may look like an opportunity to us, there was a clear penalty that was not given, and a 1-1 draw would have been fair.
On the other hand, Chelsea played a lot like Mourinho wanted them to play: boring, defensively sound, and able to win without any drama.
Liverpool was never a threat, especially having lost Coutinho for several weeks, and they did look disjointed, but Chelsea will be there all the way to the end of the season.
The Barkley challenge in the WHU-Everton game would have been a red card in any other country. Putting your foot on an opponent like that is extremely dangerous. Oh but as Mason is the ref…so no sympathy for their opponents and Noble gets (deservedly) sent off with two yellow cards.
I think Dogface would have predicted that one if we would do ref previews about WHU 😉
I’m more worried facing a lowly premiership side at home than facing a champions league side away from home. Tells you all you need to know really about the state of refereeing at home.
I suggest we all find some time to place a bet on an Arsenal player getting sent off, and conceding a penalty too. Maybe the bookies will notice a pattern and possibly raise ‘alarm’.
Well if he is indeed a spuds fan, i see trouble ahead. He is the one ref i do not particularly like since a long long time.
Come on Arsenal, you must be aware by now of his rep, so you have to be at your BEST today, and win with conviction.
@Al
“I’m more worried facing a lowly premiership side at home than facing a champions league side away from home. Tells you all you need to know really about the state of refereeing at home.”
Astute and quite a scary thought there Al.
Wow, its almost kick-off time!