Ref Review: MU – Arsenal: again no penalty for Arsenal

19 Replies to “Ref Review: MU – Arsenal: again no penalty for Arsenal”

1. It is so consistent there has to be intention behind it. This kind of poor and biased officiating is by design. In many ways the refs are getting better at reffing like this. They are consistently able to spot all the fouls that Arsenal commit and none of the fouls the other team commits.

   Late in the game Ozil commits a foul because he is frustrated. Sometime an Arsenal player is going to snap due to this biased style of reffing.

2. Mark, and the day an Arsenal player will take justice in his own hands (or feet) the media will be all over him and brand Arsenal as a dirty team.

3. Don’t feel like thinking too deeply about this one, yet glad to see the review for it.

   I felt on the day the ref was a fair bit better than the worst we receive, but ultimately that isn’t saying too much in a ref’s favour.

   Apart from the pen call, the thing I wondered about was whether I’d missed, in my disappointment, anyone escaping bookings for persistent fouling. Seems that was the case with Herrera and he was the one I had in mind at the time.

   Also yet another day,then, when the ref appears to have decided there is no such thing as a foul for pushes on Ozil. A clear and worrying trend and one I can only hope we factor into our play : i.e never expect free kicks for it and be prepared for the opposition to break dangerously on us in those situations.

   The main theme,though, you are absolutely correct to finish with this ‘It’s not because Arsenal have a poor day that we should accept the ref having a poor day and costing us’

   I was so disappointed with the performance that I struggled to keep that in perspective, yet that call for the pen encapsulates the extra difficulty for us in pursuing a title relative to other top teams, and especially to Utd over the years.

   In a similar situation, there is every reason to believe Utd would have got the pen and the sending off; and from there they would be in a great position to go on and win, with everyone forgetting the poor performance beforehand and labelling it afterwards as the stuff of champions to come back.

   I remember a period a few years back (Ferguson’s final year?) when for two weeks in a row at the season’s end their games turned on penalties for Ashley Young dives, one of which saw a QPR defender sent off, maybe in the first half.

   So it amounts to a big extra obstacle for us and I’m glad you guys can keep doing what you do even on those sort of days.

4. Good time also to dish up one of the more interesting ref quotes I’ve seen over the years. From Vialli’s excellent book which has a section dedicated to the subject.

   Graham Poll:

   ‘we worked with a sports psychologist who talks about the conscious mind and the subconscious mind. The conscious mind is what we can control. You’re not going to say “ I’m going to give this penalty because it’s manchester United and not give it because it’s Southampton” That would compromise your independence. But what happens in your subconscious mind is not something you can control. In fact, it’s something you seldom control. So we try to deal with it by acknowledging that this is a real danger and because it’s a danger we put it to the front of our mind. We have to acknowledge it. There is a very real possibility it can happen. Because of the way the media report things, it’s far more newsworthy if Manchester united are denied a penalty’

   Lot of food for thought in there, and a reminder that it is quite amazing that despite the incredible increase in football coverage and talk, no one is interested in these topics whatsoever. Though, on reflection, I guess it makes sense that the media aren’t. Only if the media was a healthy place would they be willing and interested in discussing these things.

   You can see why Poll fell out with that crowd and also why they pay the hush money.

5. Completely OT, but I felt important.

   Have checked the UEFA club coefficient points and it looks as if, barring an unlikely recovery by Juventus against Bayern, or a long run by Lazio in the Europa League, that English teams have just about done enough to stay ahead of Italy this season and therefore retain 4 CL places at end of 2016/17 season.

   http://www.uefa.com/memberassociations/uefarankings/country/index.html

   But no publicity for this anywhere – so belongs with Untold – repository of important but widely ignored news about football.

6. Not surprising that fouls on Ozil aren’t getting called, even when committed blatantly right in front of the ref. We have had at least one in each of our last recent matches. The same thing was happening with Sanchez last season, to the point we all started wondering does another player have to take Sanchez out with a physical weapon before they get cautioned. It shows one pattern though, our in-form player will be targeted by the other team for the obvious reasons that he’ll be the danger man. And the pgmol abets by just being mere bystanders. It’s no coincidence that this seems to happen to any of our in-form player more than others; teams do their homework and will know you can foul Arsenal players with no chance of getting booked.

7. After you Utd win the PL that year without a midfield fair to say that thereafter anything is possible in the House of Riley.

   They had Carrick who was playing as well as Arteta at that time when we saw the Arteta-Rambo combo. But at least that was a combo, a central midfield that played consistently well. Unfortunately Arteta’s career came to end with the uncalled unpunished stamp from former Gazprom hack Ba.

   After seeing that squad win a title it is fair to conclude that anything is possible in the House of Riley. Except maybe a successful national football (association football not Rugger) team.

8. As the entire Arsenal home crowd saw last month Rotters like Atkinson are not restricted to the PL, the reaction of many inside the ground after fifteen minutes of the barca game says more then I ever could.

   You can dress up a turd with bells and whistles but at the end of the day there’ll still be a bad smell. 🙂

9. Looks like the Newcastle supporters trust have got their wish: to be living the dream after getting rid of Pardeaú.

10. In the news. TH apparently now has his A license. Whether this will make his muppeting more accurate, I doubt it.

    Benitez has moved back to England. Bye-bye McLaren.

11. This shows what is really wrong with English football (and refereeing who never actd against it.
    Paul (can’t tackle) Scholes said yesterday on BT Sport about Lallana showing technical skills : “It’s the quality and lack of fight. I see Lallana stud-rolling after an hour, he’s almost taking the mickey. Someone go and tackle him, smash him!”

    This neanderthaler approach to football would not be allowed to say in most countries without raising a storm of protest from the football authorities. In England they find this normal and nod in agreement.

12. Another fine review.

    The Pawson/Dean combo has twice resulted in indefensibly poor refereeing against Arsenal – surpassed in incompetence/bias only by Dean on his own.

    A wrong decision ratio of 21:1 could be described as incompetence – but it would be hard for the PGMO to argue that it was not deliberate bias.

    I noted a lot of fouls against Ozil – the playmaker – and also against Coquelin – as if the latter was deliberately being provoked & the Manure plan was to get him sent off.

    A very difficult match for us, at the time I felt we did not play well – but the Pawson/Dean combo really tilted the game against us.

    Dean, as we are aware, made the transition from being a reasonable referee to being a total prat not long after Riley was promoted – unfortunately this anti Arsenal prat is now being used to corrupt the new generation of refs.

13. Who is behind this anti Arsenal conspiracy ? Is it some Asian betting syndicate or is it Ferguson working behind the scenes ? Im not much bothered and like to stick to the facts, they beat us that day largely because we didnt turn up for the umpteenth time.

14. Thanks for the hard work that has gone into this excellent review…..but they make depressing reading these days.
    I know things on the ref front have not been great all season, but since we beat City and became favourites, they seem to live up to the idea in my head….the more Arsenal threaten for the title, the more they get screwed.
    I am slowly coming to the conclusion that senior figures at the club, and I do not mean Wenger in this, are some how acquiescent in what is going on. Maybe they know there is something in it for them if they accept it…..perhaps something that brings in thirty to fourth million a year and the odd shiny thing. To a hard nosed business man, that may appeal.
    That is the only way I can rationalise a very influential CEO and a rich, and in terms of assets, pretty powerful owner clearly not rocking the boat behind the scenes.
    It seems to me that the people who control the refs have a plan A, a plan B, then, if they fail, an oiler to win the league. We are not in these plans, making it very difficult to compete…..I dread to think what these refs do to player morale…or even to chances of attracting the top players…..the world is seeing this, the world saw what Dean did to us, what Atkinson tried to do against Leicester before he changed at half time. I would love to know what changed him

15. I am still amuzed dat d ref did not make a call on d delibrate pulling on Olivier’s top almost tearing it off his body in d last match against Hall City- replay; dis PGMO people are really destroying d league nd as sum1 commented, I hope heavens will nt fall wen an arsenal player reacts out of frustration, anger nd petulance nt too long from now bcos its building up in every match ,I hope Riley or watever d head of PGMO is called does sumtin urgently to halt d trend; its quite disgusting nd nervy? Wats arsenal’s offence? D bias is just too glaring.

16. I’m looking at the anniversaries and the 1997/98 season.
    That Wimbledon replay. To me, sitting in a pub in a cold and foggy rural Herefordshire in that Christmas period, that was how it came later to feel – a replay. The Christmas game was a real game of attrition. We could easily have lost points on that night and I secretly wonder if a goober pulled the plug… Arsenal just couldn’t make their technical skill count for anything… and then the lights went out. I’d been staying with the in laws in Hereford (Liverpool supporters in the main plus one Sunderland) and they were surprised to see my early return to Stoke Edith. Did they chuckle… At least we had the last laugh. But my, it was hard work in those days…
    Keep up the good work.
    Your blog offers insightful and evidence-based opinions and is so much the better for so doing.

17. Bard, there is only an anti-Arsenal conspiracy to reveal that someone is behind, if you think there is.

    On the other hand if you perceive the only referee organisation that is as secretive as PGMO, and which is one that uses very few referees and puts gagging orders on refs, you might instead ask why the organisation is behaving in this way.

    Or you might care to read any of the articles on this site about Type III match fixing – the sort of thing that happened in Italy and over which there were all the court cases, removal of trophies and bans. But we’ve covered that so often it is getting a bit of a dull subject.

18. Bard

    You said…
    ‘Im not much bothered and like to stick to the facts,’

    In that case do you agree that the ‘fact’ of a not given penalty and red card for the goal preventing handball played a major part in determining the final result, irrespective of how well or poorly we played.

19. Al; I’m afraid the reason behind Özil not getting all the calls are still due to his lack of physical strength. He’s certainly no diver, but nevertheless guite easily off his feet and therefore it’s hard to judge the nature of each challenge he faces.

    Walter; Although tv replays failed to attest it I’ve seen several photos (and a poor-quality home video) showing clear contact by Gabriel on Rashford. Not that it matters much.

    As for Herrera, I couldn’t agree more. He is a serial fouler like Fellaini, only with less elbows.