Referee review Leicester – Arsenal
Referee : Anthony Taylor
Date 31/08/2014
A referee we feared and he lived up to the expectations.
The good thing is he didn’t turn up to the extreme bias he showed in the Aston Villa match last season. But he sure didn’t give us anything at all. Not even the things we deserved when I look at the laws of the games.
Let me start with his (as usual) bad handling of cards. Nugent gave him the opportunity to make the game clean from the first second. He didn’t take his chance.
Hammond… He made more fouls on his own than the other 21 players on the field in the first half and then the ref waved a few times to give the advantage signal. Amazing to no see him booked for persistent fouling in the first half. And a few of them were already bookable themselves.
He then finally saw a yellow card near the end when he planted his foot on the ankle of Ramsey who was on the floor. When you do this in other countries you get a red card. This is a very dangerous foul and causes broken ankles or bones. It was how Sagna his leg was broken a few years ago…oh that’s right the ref that day was… Taylor. Who even didn’t call a foul at the time. So nothing new one would say apart from the fact that he never seems to learn from his mistakes.
Let us move on to the penalty foul on Cazorla. A push in the back is a foul and certainly when you put the player out of balance. But that is not even needed. Pushing in the back of a player is a foul. And when this foul happens in the penalty area it is a penalty. It is that simple. But not with Taylor.
Last season he saw a little contact from Koscielny that needed MOTD to enlarge it x1000 to see the studs of a Villa player making contact with the thigh of Koscielny. This time the clear push was not seen. Well we know him so if he would have given the foul that would have caught us by surprise.
The score. A poor first half performance with only 67% correct decisions and 72 % when we put weight on the decisions. When we look at the important decisions a poor 50% correct.
In the second half only 63% but when we put weight on his decisions it goes down to 50%. And when we look at the important decisions he only gets a score of 16%.
Giving him a total score of 65% and 61% when we put weight on the decisions. His important decisions end on a very poor 33%.
The bias score is again very one sided. 85 mistakes in favour of Leicester and only some 15% in favour of Arsenal. When it comes to the important decisions all the mistakes were against Arsenal.
So it was the Taylor we are used to and he is clearly trying to take the spot of Probert and Dean in who the most anti Arsenal ref in the PL.
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Walter, thanks for this, i will update my ‘running totals’ table in the next preview. Performance was even worse than I had picked up. He really blew it in the opening seconds, a yellow card then and I doubt that many of the other fouls would have been committed.
Not always right Andrew. Booking a Dortmund player last night for diving early on didn’t stop others doing it later. If it’s a fundamental part of your tactics you just can’t change.
The numbers above are unacceptable at any level of any sport.
But fortunately we have been informed by the PGMOB themselves that the PGMOB officials (with numbers like those above it would be an insult to the English language to refer to them as referees) get over 90% of their decisions correct.
I was at the game, and am far from a fan of Anthony Taylor (He’s made errors in more than one game against us), but he let a lot go for you guys too. Overall I’d say he had an OK game. Not great, but better than in the past from what I’ve seen. I wouldn’t say there was any bias either way.
To suggest the Cazorla thing should have been a penalty is ridiculous. He was barely touched, and went down without any force being needed. The only area you have a decent point on is Hammond, who does do little fouls to break up the game, and does normally go unpunished (not just against Arsenal).
I think you guys should try to enjoy the sport a bit. I’ve had to suffer watching clowns like Stuart Attwell, Gavin Ward and Darren Deadman single-handedly ruin games in the lower leagues for a decade. These guys make Anthony Taylor look like the best referee in the world, and I don’t even like Anthony Taylor!
@Walter
I have been waiting for this report and it confirms my view of Taylor – the guy cost us the match.
The Cazorla penalty was very clear – sorry LCFC Fan, you are incorrect; Hammond and Moore should have had an early bath.
While some of the LCFC players used thuggish tactics, they did so with the connivance of Taylor – one of the worst of a bad lot.
Hammond was allowed free reign to do what ever he wanted like Neismith the week before. He should of been off in the first half. Watching the Dortmund game I am surprised (as always) how the English game is called. I feel it puts every English team at a disadvantage when it comes to European competition.
Every league in every sport in the world messages the rules to protect their skill players so as to protect and sell their brand. This usually results in higher scores and more exciting competition and consequently more money. Why the FA insists on allowing “thug” football to continue is beyond me.
Naismith, Hammond……then Milner…..
Dreadful score for this ref – again!
@Mandy Dodd – agreed – every match it’s one player or another that gets off with blue murder.
Will probably be Senderos at the weekend Pat
@Pat who do you think will do the duties for Villa? Deplhi?
@Mandy oh yeah Senderos did that last game against us push and shove no card
It is interesting (although appalling) that the first foul suffered by Arsenal was an unnecessary and severe tackle on Debuchy – the same thing against City when Milner committed a vicious opening assault on Debuchy.
Is there a plan by opposition teams to injure players where there is a perception of less experienced back up – esp at the start of a match? And with the connivance of Riley’s plonkers?
More likely a plan to forcibly lower our numbers of active defenders, so the “weak link” theory gets justification.
Doesn’t look good for the weekend as we seem to have Mike Jones who did the Stoke assault on our club last year. He also gave a very dubious penalty so I think we can expect more of the same.
@ Walter
As you know I have already acknowledged just how difficult it is to even attempt a review of a refs performance.
Other than a couple of differing opinions my comments just about matched yours however when I look at my notes there are several decisions that the referee made that you don’t detail so immediately the numbers are distorted.
For instance in the first half alone on 18 ,29, 38 & 45 the referee acknowledged the foul and played advantage.
In the last minute of additional time in the first half Nugent claimed a foul which wasn’t given. Was the refs decision not to give the foul correct? .Similar incidents happened in the 40th, 70th & 75th minutes.
Also other fouls were given which I cant see them in your summary. For instance a minute into the second half Kos had a foul awarded against him.
As I have said before many of the calls by players & supporters in football don’t result in a free kick being given be it for a foul be it for offside but in deciding not to award a foul or offside a decision has been made. Most of these non decisions if you like are obvious but I would suspect in the reviews the PGMOL they do feature in the statistics