Norwich v Arsenal 29 November 2015 – The Match Officials

Norwich v Arsenal 29 November 2015 – The Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw

One new referee reviews to add in to the Table of Shame which now looks like this :-

Wrong Important Decisions	Favouring Arsenal	Favouring Opponents
2nd Yellow Cards	0	14
Red Cards	0	7
Penalties	1	11
Goals	0	4
Total	1	36
Possible Cost in Points	0	9

 

Here is the link to our review of Mr Clattenberg’s dreadful performance last week.  Ref Review : WBA – Arsenal  Mr Dean managed 41% in his travesty of justice against Chelsea, Mr Clattenberg managed 42% against West Brom, along with a bias against both teams of 9/91 and 5 wrong Important Decisions (all against Arsenal).

The ‘foul’ from Arteta from which West Brom scored their first goal, wasn’t so the free kick shouldn’t have been given.  No free kick, no goal.  Two West Brom players Olsson and Morrison should have been dismissed with two yellow cards, Arsenal should have had a penalty in Min 46 for an Olsson foul on Giroud, and the penalty that we were awarded should have been re-taken as two (if not three) West Brom players were within the penalty area.

I wondered how we managed to lose the game, now I know, Mr Clattenberg didn’t give us a chance.  Three points robbed.

So far in the 12 games reviewed Craig Pawson is the only referee with a good score at 84%, Moss, Friend and Marriner are in the acceptable 70s and everyone else is a shade of rubbish leading to the slimy depths of Clattenberg and Dean in the low 40s.

On to Sunday and the Officials are :-

• Referee – Jonathan Moss
• Assistants – A Holmes and S Long
• Fourth Official – R Madley

This will be the tenth game for Mr Moss this year, and the second for both Norwich and ourselves.

Norwich had him for their 3 goal loss away at Southampton on 30 August and we had him for our 2 goal home win against Stoke on 12 September.  Here is the link to the Referee review of the Stoke game

Ref Review Arsenal – Stoke

Mr Moss with an excellent first half, only one mistake when he have Özil a yellow card, yes he made a foul but it was his first of the game and it really wasn’t anything serious.

His second half wasn’t so good, not much to do so his mistakes counting against him more than they might have done otherwise.  Arnautovic should have had a yellow card for his incident with Gabriel and Pieters should have had a red card and given away a penalty for wrestling Giroud to the ground at the end of the game.  He was pretty much in line with my expectations – here is what I wrote in my preview

1. “We have tended to win our games in recent years when Mr Moss is our referee – that probably points to us losing on Saturday.
2. Mr Moss isn’t a saint for us and whilst among the best of the bunch is still capable of making some pretty awful decisions, particularly in respect of physical assaults on our players. Pushing a player with sufficient force that he leaves the playing area and collides with the advertising boards is reckless and involves un-necessary force and should result in a red card as should a studs up challenge resulting in contact with a player’s face.
3. He also misses his fair share of penalties, three in the last two seasons.
4. Overall Mr Moss is a referee who I don’t believe has yet bought in to the complete anti-Arsenal bias and is probably about as good as they come for us.”

Point 1 – We continued our winning record under Mr Moss

Point 2  – A red card for a Stoke player not given and a Yellow card also not given.

Point 3 – He failed to award another clear cut penalty

Point 4 – He did nothing to change my opinion – he is probably about as good a referee for us as we are likely to get.

I covered his previous three years results in my preview of the Stoke game and really I don’t want to repeat myself.  Here is the link to that post Arsenal v Stoke 12 September 2015 – The Match Officials.

Southampton v Norwich 30 Aug 2015 (3 – 0)

Here is a link to the Guardian report of the game 

The key moments

Minute 28, when Whittaker (Norwich full back) got a deserved but needless booking for obstructing an attempt to take a quick throw-in

Minute 31 when the same player had a second rush of blood and dragged back Tadic and again justifiably got a second yellow card.

Min 45+1 Goal for Southampton – 1 – 0 (possibly offside) Pellè tucking the ball past Ruddy at the near post from a cross from Mané

Min 62 – not given penalty to Southampton as Bassong wrestles Pellè

Min 64 – Tadic scores for Southampton – 2 – 0 following a cross by Mané

Min 67 – Cross from Soares, Pellè header well saved by Ruddy but Tadic nips between two Norwich defenders to tap-in from 3 yards.  His second and Southampton’s third, game over!

Conclusions

1. Mr Moss is probably as good a referee as Arsenal get – that may well be faint praise but he does not generally look to penalise Arsenal out of the game.
2. Penalties for Arsenal are more often missed than given, there was a further one in our game v Stoke. He also missed one in the Southampton v Norwich game earlier this year.
3. Mr Moss is not very good at awarding opposition players cards for poor challenges or ones involving excessive force (two more against Stoke).
4. We usually win our games with him as referee (some time that record is going to come to an end, let’s hope it’s later rather than sooner).

COYG

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Derby literally took the fight to Arsenal with O’Hare at one stage punching and kicking Graham repeatedly.  As players tried to pull O’Hare off, the referee checked with the linesman and then spoke to Gemmill and Simpson.  It was that sort of display.                                            Arsenal in the 70s: part 7

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Two more anniversaries

28 November 1951: Arthur Milton’s only international appearance at football.  He played six test matches for England at cricket.  Only 12 men played for England at both cricket and football (excluding wartime games).  Three of them Andy Ducat, Wally Hardinge, Arthur Milton, were Arsenal men.

28 November 1962: Arsenal 12 Ford United 0 in FA Youth Cup.  Ford United were an early incarnation of the club now known as Redbridge FC.  Ford played in the Aetolian League which they won twice, but by 1995 the club was in serious financial difficulty, until Sky Sports was signed up as a sponsor thus rescuing the club.  

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