Ref Review : Arsenal – Leicester

Ref for this match was Mike Jones

Mr. Jones certainly wasn’t at his best in this match. After two early fouls not much happened till Upson pulled Alexis down with a holding offence around the neck when he could have gone one on one with the last defender in the middle of the goal was a deliberate and cynical foul and should have been punished with a yellow card. The ref just gave the foul.

Then just a few average fouls up to when Arsenal scored. Upson then launched a two footed tackle at Alexis and this time the ref didn’t even called it a foul as Upson also got some of the ball. But it was dangerous and might even be called excessive force. Alexis was in trouble after that tackle and wasn’t himself anymore. Upson should have been sent off at that time in the match.  The ref… did nothing.

Arsenal scored a second goal and nothing wrong with both goals for Arsenal. Shortly after that another dangerous foul from an Leicester player was not punished with a yellow card. On top of that the ref refused to give Arsenal a corner after the resulting free kick was diverted by a defender.

The first hals score was 63% and if we put weight on the decisions it goes down to 57%. Only looking at important decisions the score goes down to 25%.

Right from the start the big talking point was a not given penalty for Arsenal. Alexis played a ball back from the goal line and Simpson stuck out his arm and blocked the pass. A more blatant movement with the arm from in front of his body to really outside his body cannot be found that easily but the ref waved it away. Bad decision from the ref. And Simpson should have seen a yellow card for his deliberate handball.

The next bad moment for the ref was when a Leicester player had to be taken off and the sub wasn’t ready. Ok, this can happen but the instructions are clear that in case the sub is not ready the match will continue. That’s it. But now we had to wait almost a minute before the new player came on the field. A case of terrible refereeing. Not the first and not the last alas.

Comical in a way to see the ref give handballs against Arsenal all over the field. Handballs that were not as clear as the not given penalty for Arsenal. Poor.

The Leicester goal was OK. The player fell on the ball but didn’t move it with his arm. In a way you could say he blocked the ball and prevented it being played but that was from being clumsy and falling over on it and not a deliberate act.

A moment then where he let an Arsenal player off the hook. Özil tripping a Leicester player and then kicking the ball away in anger. He should have been booked there.  He didn’t let Wasyl off the hook when he barged in to Ospina to prevent him from throwing the ball to an attacker quickly. That is always a booking and rightfully given.

Late in the game Simpson committed foul after foul on Özil. Some given, some not. But the card was kept in his pocket for a long, long time. It finally came out after the umpteenth foul. Given the not given yellow with the penalty foul he should have been off also.

The last moment of note was when Giroud first wan penalised for a handball the ref couldn’t have seen and the assistant on the far side also could not see it. It wasn’t handball in fact. But the minutes later Schwarzer got the ball in his hands and Giroud ran a bit in his path. But Giroud went away from the keeper with his back to the keeper. Schwarzer then kicked the ball against Giroud who knew nothing about it and he was some 4 -5 meters away from the keeper. The ref gave a foul and a yellow card. I guess it was illegal for Giroud to be on the pitch as he was an Arsenal player? Yes you cannot attack the keeper but if you go away from the keeper the keeper has to take one step aside and then kick it out. You cannot attack him but you don’t have to throw yourself to the ground when a keeper wants to kick the ball out of his hands.

Score in the second half was 57% and 52% if we put weight on it. Only looking at important decisions the score was 36%.

The final score over the whole 90 minutes was 59% and 54% if we put weight on the decisions. Only looking at the important decisions the score was 31%.

The bias was 10% of wrong decisions against Leicester and 90% of the decisions against Arsenal. This is supposed to be a home ref most of the time…..

So a rather poor performance. Once again. Keep on dreaming Mike. Keep on dreaming….

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