Arsenal v Norwich Saturday 30 April 2016 – The Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw

As I write this on Wednesday there are no new published Referee reviews so both the Table of Shame and the Wall of Shame are unchanged from last week

Table of Shame

Wrong Important Decisions	Favouring Arsenal	Favouring Opponents
2nd Yellow Cards	1	44
Red Cards	2	16
Penalties	3	29
Goals	1	11
Total	7	100
Possible Cost in Points	0	27

Wall of Shame

Ref	Game			Weighted Score	Bias against (h/a)	Link to Ref Review
Craig Pawson	Stoke	v	Arsenal	34	5/95	Stoke v Arsenal
Lee Mason	Arsenal	v	Southampton	34	80/20	Arsenal v Southampton
Robert Madley	Arsenal	v	Swansea	38	93/7	Arsenal – Swansea
Mike Dean	Chelsea	v	Arsenal	41	5/95	Chelsea – Arsenal
Martin Atkinson	Arsenal	v	Spurs	41	82/18	Arsenal – Tottenham
Craig Pawson	West Ham	v	Arsenal	42	23/77	West Ham v Arsenal
Mark Clattenburg	West Brom	v	Arsenal	42	9/91	West Brom v Arsenal
Mark Clattenburg	Everton		Arsenal	43	6/94	Everton v Arsenal
Anthony Taylor	Arsenal	v	Newcastle	48	9/91	Arsenal – Newcastle
Jonathan Moss	Southampton	v	Arsenal	49	22/78	Southampton v Arsenal

Before I move on to our game, Chelsea will have Mark Clattenburg in charge of their game on Monday Night, this will be the sixth time this year (three home and three away).  This is the first six this season; absolutely incredible!

Our Officials for this game are :-

• Referee – Mike Jones
• Assistants – R West and M Scholes
• Fourth Official – K Friend

Mike Jones has been in charge of 25 games this year, he is 48 and his home association is Cheshire.  His first Premier League game was in Aug 2008 (Hulll v Wigan).  This will be his third game for both Arsenal and Norwich this season.

Ref Review : Watford – Arsenal

68% Weighted score, bias against the two teams 10/90 and two wrong Important Decisions (second yellow cards, red cards, penalties and goals).  In Min 3 Arsenal should have had a penalty (Prodl holding Mertesacker’s shirt) and in Min 36 Capoue should have been sent off for a slap to Sanchez’s face.  We won the game three nil so these decisions didn’t cost us any points.

Ref Review : Liverpool – Arsenal and the push in the back

59% weighted score, bias against the two teams 6/94 and, again, two wrong Important Decisions.  Minute 33 a not given penalty to Arsenal when Moreno was pulling Campbell from behind and Minute 70 Clyne should have had a second yellow card for a kick to Campbell’s knee (foul was given but no card).  This was a game which we drew three all, and the wrong Important Decisions probably cost us two points.

This year Mr Jones has been in charge of the following Norwich matches, regrettably I have no referee reviews for either of them.  If any Norwich supporters read this piece, please add recollections of his performances in the comments.

Norwich (2) v West Ham (2) 13 Feb 2016

Spurs (3) v Norwich (0) 26 December 2-015

Last Season 2014-15 we also had Mr Jones on three occasions :-

Ref Review Aston Villa – Arsenal

82% overall score (weighted), bias against the two teams 20/80, one wrong Important Decision when Clark should have had a straight red card for a tackle on Podolski.  Other than that a pretty good performance

Ref Review : Arsenal – Leicester

54% overall score (weighted), bias against the two teams 90/10, three wrong Important Decisions, in Minute 18 Upson should have been dismissed for a two footed frontal tackle on Alexis (he should have had a first yellow card in Min 18 for pulling back the same player), in Min 88 Simpson should have had a second yellow card for blocking Özil (his first yellow card should have come in Min 45 for deliberate handball in the penalty area, his second should have come in min 85 for a foul on Özil – take your pick of a second yellow Minute 85 or 88)

Ref Review : Newcastle – Arsenal: an overwhelming bias

58% overall score (weighted), bias against the two teams 5/95, three wrong Important Decisions.  Two sending off offences both second yellow cards for Cabella,  In Minute 13 he should have had a first yellow card for a challenge from behind on Coquelin, he should have had a second in Minute 62 for a forearm to Coquelin’s forehead and a further opportunity to dismiss him occurred in Min81 when he dived trying to win a penalty.  The third wrong decision was a not given penalty to Newcastle when Chambers handled in the penalty area.  I counted two points incorrectly gained by Arsenal.

One decent and two very bad performances, opposition players not being sent off in all three games.  Awful bias figures in the last two.  No points lost as we managed to win all three games.

Going back further we find:-

2013-14 – No formal reviews from these games but I have linked Walter’s post game pieces for context.  Two games, one home and one away (as it should be) one win one loss both one nil.

01 Mar 2014 – Stoke v Arsenal (1 – 0)

Home referee as predicted, bad day at the office not as predicted  Adam treading/stamping on Giroud when he was on the ground, not seen/ignored by the referee and a very soft penalty awarded to Stoke for handball, Walters kicking the ball against Kos from half a meter away, a home referee and Arsenal as the away team easy decision.  Two points robbed.

04 May 2014 – Arsenal v West Brom (1 – 0)

Arsenal – WBA, where to begin….

Arsenal – WBA, after the beginning now on to the match…

A rather pedestrian match which we won one-nil, one eye on the up-coming cup-final.  No mention of the referee so I guess he had one of his better games – or maybe because Arsenal were the home team.

2012-13 – Another year when we had Mr Jones twice, both at home and we won both games.

Match Review: Michael Jones – Arsenal Vs West Bromwich Albion (2 – 0) [08/12/2012]

69% overall (weighted) score, bias against both teams 52/48 and two wrong Important Decisions both arising from an incident in Minute 24 where Cazorla dived to win a penalty from which we scored

Match Review: Michael Jones – Arsenal Vs Norwich City (3 – 1) [13/04/2013]

60% overall (weighted), bias against the two teams 73/27 and 4 wrong Important Decisions.  In Minute 45+1 Turner should have had red card for elbowing Ramsey, Minute 55 Norwich player dived to win free kick from which they scored, Min 64 Arsenal should have had penalty for a foul by Snodgrass on Walcott, Min 90+1 Arsenal goal should have been ruled out for offside.

Summary

1. Mr Jones is predominantly a ‘Home’ referee.  It will be up to our crowd to be our twelfth man, support the team and forget about protesting till after the 90 minutes is up.
2. Most of the time Mr Jones isn’t a particularly good referee, he has an occasional high score but generally is less than spectacular.  Typically he makes two wrong Important Decisions against Arsenal per game despite which we generally manage to win games.
3. Like all PGMO employees he is most unlikely to give us a penalty (so far this season we have had two I think, both away from home, out of 31).  He is also unlikely to send off an opposition player.
4. Despite being a ‘home’ referee the balance of decisions will almost certainly be against Arsenal, probably by 80/20 or higher.  Norwich will be allowed more physicality in challenges.  They are also likely to benefit from ‘phantom fouls’ allowing them time to regroup defensively or to have a chance to attack our penalty area.

I won’t be at the game due to family reasons, I hope that all who are are treated to a good Arsenal performance and that somehow the ‘blue funk’ that has descended on the team is lifted and we return to our incisive free-flowing style.

COYG

• Change? Time to change the protest
• Memories of a true tragedy
• Manning the barricades
• What was it like to train with the Invincibles?

And elsewhere… 29 April 1885:  In a dramatic move the University of Oxford allowed women to take its exams.  However it was decided that it would be too distracting to allow them to gain degrees.  On the other hand, by 1910 one third of all degrees awarded by the rather more progressive University of London were awarded to women.