Arsenal v Crystal Palace 16 August 2014 – The Match Officials
By Andrew Crawshaw
Referee – Jonathan Moss
Assistants – L Betts & M Scholes
Fourth Official – R Madley
Welcome to the first Preview of the match officials for the 2014/15 season in which I look at past performance of the referee (and his team) and try to identify any points that supporters and club officials (if they check out this site) need to be aware of.
Jonathan Moss was born in 1970, his home County FA is West Riding (Yorkshire) and has been in the select group of referees since the 2011/12 season.
Prior to that he was an official in the Northern Counties and Northern Premier Leagues from 1999 to 2005 before coming into the football league as a referee in 2005. His day job is headmaster of a primary school in Halifax. To date he has refereed 59 matches in the Premier League, has issued 6 red and 180 yellow cards.
Last Year Mr Betts was assistant to Mr Moss on 5 occasions but neither of Mr Scholes or Mr Madley was paired with Mr Moss. In 2012/13, Mr Betts was with him once and Mr Scholes twice, again I can find no indications of Mr Madley with Mr Moss.
In 2013/14 he was in charge of 23 games resulting in 12 home wins, 7 away wins and 4 draws, so something of a “home” referee.
Arsenal Games last season – Mr Moss was involved in three Arsenal games; two home games against Cardiff on 01 January 2014 (2 – 0) and against Crystal Palace on 02 February ((2 – 0) and our away game against Hull on 20 April which we won 3 – 0. So three wins, seven goals scored and none conceded. Not bad – BUT…
Against Cardiff, Mr Moss missed a clear trip on Wilshere mid-way through the first half which was an obvious penalty and a foul on Walcott in the second half which should have been a second penalty.
Against Crystal Palace, Mr Moss allowed a blatant foul on Giroud in our penalty area which nearly caused problems, otherwise he had a reasonable game.
Against Hull, Mr Moss did call a foul for a studs up kick to Arteta’s head but failed to give any card at all let alone the supposedly mandatory red for a reckless high challenge that could have caused a serious head injury. He then missed a penalty for Arsenal when Özil was brought down from behind in the penalty area.
Three games, three not given penalties, a red card not awarded to our opponents and fouls on our players not given to the advantage of the opposition. I would say three victories despite Mr Moss and his officials
Crystal Palace games last season – Two games, the 2-0 loss at the Emirates and their 2-0 loss to United on 14 September when the match hinged on a contentious decision in Minute 41 when Mr Moss sent off Dikgakoi and awarded a penalty for a perceived foul from behind on Ashley Young; the Dutch Skunk scored from the spot.
Rooney scored directly from a free kick in minute 81 to complete the scoring. I am quite convinced that the theatrical tumble by Young and the crowd “baying for blood” had something to do with the sending-off decision.
In the 2012/13 Season Mr Moss was in charge of 20 games, 10 resulting in home wins, 7 away wins and 3 draws. As Palace weren’t in the Premier League there is only Arsenal Data available for that season. Here are links to the full referee reviews to those games.
Match Review: Jonathan Moss – Swansea City Vs Arsenal (0 – 2) [16/03/2013]
Mr Moss had an excellent game, missed nothing of any great importance and was even-handed in his decisions, just what you want from a referee.
Match Review: Jonathan Moss – Queens Park Rangers Vs Arsenal (0 – 1) [04/05/2013]
A good first half, poorer in the second, 13 wrong calls in the game out of 106 total, two benefiting Arsenal, 11 benefiting QPR so hardly balanced. On the positive side he did correctly turn down a QPR penalty appeal by Taraabt following body to body contact with Koscielny.
Going back one more year to 2011/12 there was one game reviewed featuring Arsenal Untold Ref Review: Aston Villa 1 – Arsenal 2.
Arsenal given that rarity of a penalty in the first half but (wrongly) not a second later in the match. Hutton rightly sent off for being stupid in the 93rd minute.
In summary
- Mr Moss is historically one of the most benign referees for Arsenal, in the last three years we haven’t lost a game with him in charge. Not a referee for us to fear.
- However, he seems to have got worse in his big decisions relating to Arsenal with each year of being a referee (is he being influenced perhaps?)
- Palace likely to be less pleased by his appointment following his game changing decisions when they played United last year.
- Whilst he has awarded a penalty to Arsenal (in 2011/12), he has failed to do so since, incorrectly denying three last season. So don’t put money on him giving us one on Saturday.
- He is, in common with all referees, likely to give more leeway to opposition players in challenges.
- He does tend to be a “home” referee so the crowd need to be our twelfth man. Make a stack of noise and give him verbals if he makes a mistake against Arsenal. He is influenceable.
- Both of the assistants have featured with Mr Moss in the last two years but never together so there is no excuse for lack of communications within the team.
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15 August – the anniversary of one of the greatest ever starts to the season…
…and the start of the Unbeaten Season
A small point, I wouldn’t say:
Home 12 wins
Away 7 Wins
Draws 4
Suggests a ‘homer’ as that is probably about the ratio of Home to Away victories throughout the season so I’m not expecting any particular favours from Mr Moss.
The penalty issue is a bit of a worry, but given our recent (even not so recent) history on penalties from all Referees he’s hardly the exception.
If we play well and put away our chances we should be okay.
If we are having an off day and need a close call to go our way to make the breakthrough I wouldn’t be too hopeful of getting it.
One can only hope that Mr Moss does not act like Andre Villa in our opener last season. That game was in credible for its blatant cheating and was clearly orchestrated to ensure Arsenal got off to a bad start. To be honest he CANT POSSIBLY be any worse than the ‘referee’ last year!
As for the penalties – quite simply there is an instruction from the PGMOL NOT to give Arsenal penalties. Having a blatant penalty completely ignored is par for the course now for Arsenal … we get so much possession and so many incidents in the box that it pretty much happens every game. Of course the slightest opportunity to give a penalty AGAINT Arsenal or send one of our players off is grasped eon GLEE.
Excellent piece. Key point : the crowd tomorrow need to get at the referee for any and all poor decisions. Let’s start the season off as we mean to continue. No more will we take the corruption and cheating behind the coordinated efforts to thwart our progression as a club.
Thanks Andrew for this first referee preview of the PL season.
As a ref I have no real problem with Mr. Moss so far. Apart from him not giving penalties when he should have in favour of Arsenal in the past seasons. But we could overcome that each time. So we should not count on any penalties and do the job ourselves.
Moss was voted as one of the best referees in the 2012/2013 season. http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/31756 and
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/31803
Having a high correct decision score of over 90% http://www.refereedecisions.co.uk/ref-review-201213-jonathon-moss-over-90-right/
Scoring best in the bias index overall also http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/31839
Used to like Alan Wiley. Always (might be wrong) felt that whenever he refereed our game, we would likely to emerge as the winning team. Disliked Mike Riley, Mike Dean and Howard Webb. Was over the moon when Webb retired. When is Mike Dean going to retire from refereeing the game?
jayramfootball
Andre Villa?
It looks like my posting all the referee assignments a few days ago didn’t interfere with Andrews plans, for which I am grateful. Thanks Walter for posting some URLs back into previous articles.
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OT: Our Germans
Not referee related, but Walter might be interested. A different report I seen a couple of hours ago, said that our 3 German’s would not be playing until Everton (next weekend), so we will have a “make-do” squad for Crystal Palace and the first game against Besiktas (sp?). But, apparently Mertesacker is considering retiring from the national team.
http://metro.co.uk/2014/08/15/great-news-for-arsenal-as-per-mertesacker-is-set-to-retire-from-german-national-team-4833525/
Can a person trust articles from the press on this topic?
Gord
August 15, 2014 at 3:41 pm
To answer your question.
An Arsenal person – No.
If you are a non Arsenal person – Of course you should.
Gord
Yes, next week for the Germans will be about right, but as it will be seven weeks since they last played, (longer for Per & Poldi) expect them to be a little short on match fitness.
I read that about Mertesaker retiring and thought it a bit odd, as he’s not really all that old for a central defender. He obviously sees no future for himself with the German team, so we benefit from that.
Krt
I think Dean’s 46 now, so under the old scheme he’d be retiring in two years time, but European employment law allows him to play on as for as long as he’s fit enough, and he always looks a bit of a whippet, so quite a long time I’d say.
I presume arsenal should have any problem with the referees.
All the team needs is to play their usual clean and good football
I trust in arsenal.
It is good to know that worries about officiating is out of the way for tomorrow’s game. I hope that the boys exploit the confusion in the Crystal Palace ranks and use them to send a clear message of intent to the rest of the league.
The great countdown is almost over: 24 hours to go!
Come on ARSENAL!!!!
Good ref, hope we take maximum advantage of this.
Kurt,
It won’t matter if dean retired tomorrow, whoever replaces him will just be as bad. Seems the recruitment policy of the pgmob is based on how much you hate Arsenal. They’re all terrible, apart from tomorrow’s ref.
Wenger, after being asked if he’s hoping to make one more big signing;
“Look at the players we have up front. We have unbelievable strength. What is a big signing? For you, it’s the size of the fee. For me it’s the quality of the player. I don’t think it will take Alexis Sanchez long to adapt. He has all the ingredients to be a very good Premier League player.”
Classy.
Yes, i hope we get back to our goal scoring ways, and have pity on no one when it comes to scoring.
Let the season begin.
A Pro Arsenal Media Article – From the Washington Post
http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/storyline/wp/2014/08/15/pocket-economist-should-money-change-how-i-watch-soccer/
It sounds like the most supported team at the Washington Post, is Arsenal. But, I think the author is wrong, some AAA will be chanting for Wenger to spend money tomorrow.
Some Chelsea and Tottenham content.
Gord
I really hope the money spending thing doesn’t start up again as it would suggest we’ve had a bad match.
Gord
August 15, 2014 at 7:40 pm
From the link you supplied comes this link.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/worldviews/wp/2014/08/15/20-historical-empires-that-explain-the-english-premier-league/#
The key word in your post, Andrew, is “despite”.
In many a win in every season by Arsenal, it is achieved “despite” the referee.
One day we will have mechanical help to ensure that human error is removed.
Thanks Andrew. Good to see the ref reviews back. I always thought Moss was fair, but maybe recent performances…..and stuff I have read on another blog that is highly dubious of him makes me worry a bit…Can’t see us getting many pens this season from any of them
Colario
Interesting pairings of teams and empires. It would be nice to see more work to expand that, but I don’t think that would pay bills.
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With respect to transfer market, how I interpret the last thing I know of that Wenger said, is that he is looking for one center back, but suspects he won’t find one. Where all these midfield and striker stories are coming from, is beyond me.
And it is always a joy to see former Arsenal players not standing behind the manager.
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In other news, apparently last night (before that?) a young spud (wearing the colours) was skateboarding at the Emirates. He decided the “A” was something to go over, and fell and broke his arm.
PGMO and its officials are devoid of honesty. I don’t care who they appoint to officiate our matches. I can promise you selective dishonest interpretation of the Laws. PGMO know what they do and do it without any recourse to correction. They are appointed by the corrupt FA as a monopoly without competition. Officials are not selected by any random process but are chosen to manipulate the game. I have no faith in any of the PGMO officials or for that matter the FA.
Arsenal have to win with ruthless effort despite the officiating and score as many goals over the period of each match. There should never be any pity for teams unable to cope with our quality.
I am looking forward to seeing Arsenal play the beautiful Wenger interpretation of the game.
COYG I love you.