Special referee review: Chelsea – Tottenham

46 Replies to “Special referee review: Chelsea – Tottenham”

1. I would like to thank Usama and Walter for this extra ref review.

   Clearly all credibility in terms of refereeing was lost, and we were able to see the lengths that some clubs will go to hit and kick the opposition no matter what.

   In an earlier set of notes it was pointed out that a robot giving decisions at random, first to one side then the other, would get a 50% score for decision accuracy. So the scores of this referee, as pointed out in the article here, was effectively that of a robot with no programming in relation to the laws of the game.

   How could such a thing happen?

2. Clattenburg’s reward is to be given the FA Cup Final and amazingly the Champions League Final !!

3. A good review.

   Would the Referee’s decision making be so bad if you took into account that in England ‘thug football’ is an important part of the game and is preferred to the ‘skill’ version played on mainland Europe?

4. Andy L, I can imagine Simeone licking his lips by the thought of that appointment….

5. pgMOB Rules Football. Ok?

   A remarkable contrast to the binary application observed from Mike Dean by all who were watching (the football) when the Arsenal went to Stamford bridge.

   And there it is. Bells and, yes, whistles included.

   Very. Telling.

6. Walter, I think not only Simone but a whole raft of thugs and cheats from Real Madrid as well surely? I am thinking – Ramos, Pepe, Carvajal and certainly one of the worlds best cheats – Marcelo. Ronaldo is no angel either where cheating comes into it. So I think this lot will all be licking their chops as well.

   Frankly the game is even more laughable (eg its already laughable) when Clattenburg can be awarded Champions League Final and FA Cup Final. When you think that occasionally when TV emabrarrases a ref they get demoted for a week here we are he gets a promotion to the top of the game. I know it different organisations but even so – blind leading the blind comes to mind.

   Its true to say I am embarrassed as an Englishman that he is a ref in the Euros as well and also that after more than a week (from the Chelsea/Spurs game) there has been no sanctions or follow up from the FA other than a mild – cannot control your teams. We all know that means a £10k fine – and even more laughing from us the supporters of football.

7. Usama and Walter. Please do not feel offended if I should say this special referee review is too lengthty. Thus making it cumbersome to read through the whole article.

   I’ve read the article carefully but halfway through. Then I rushed through the remaining. In future, I’ll suggest special referee report like this one should be summarized by limiting it to the main happenings of refereeing the game by the match officials as it has unfolded.

   Official.
   Arsenal have officially qualified for next season’s Ucl as a result of Man Utd losing against West Hammers last night. No club can unturn Arsenal qualification anymore.

   What remains now is, in what position will Arsenal finally finished in the table? Man Utd can still qualify by winning their last game at home but if Man City lose away to Swansea City. For the shabby way the Man City owners had treated Manuel Pelegrini, I’ll prefer if the results in these 2 games on Sunday hand Ucl qualification to Man Utd to make Pep Guardiola play in the Europa League.

8. And he is supposed to be the best referee that we have – no wonder he has two entries on our Hall of Shame. Not fit to carry a whistle.

9. Sad part is that refs seem more determined than ever not to see a big part of their job as protecting players.

   To me that’s so obviously a major part of the job and even the thinking behind the rules. You can’t do anything to save a player if someone happens to make a terrible challenge on them which causes a bad injury, but you can apply the laws all the time in a way that serves to reduce the probability of such a tackle being made.

   You do that through appropriate warnings, yellows and reds. If the temperature is clearly rising in a game, a ref should be more willing to issue a yellow. They shouldn’t make one up, but should be primed to issue one for the next bookable offence.

   That’s simply not the way of it here. Instead there seems to be the bizarre idea that in a more furious game, if there’s a lot at stake in particular, they should be more reluctant to use cards. Players never fail to pick up on the lenient approach. One clear consequence of this is that instead of minimising the prospect of bad challenges you do the exact opposite.

   I watched our u21 game last night and about 5 minutes in someone smashed Jeff in a challenge. One of those where the ball fell to allow the opposition player to get some touch on the ball before wildly connecting with the opponent.

   It couldn’t have been clearer that this was a player extremely pumped up for the game and who surely wanted to hit someone hard early. A reckless dangerous challenge. The ref was so close you could see his reaction as the challenge went in and he was totally ok with it, not a twitch, wanted play to carry on.

   If a refs job was to try offer layers protection and reduce the threat of injury he would never have done that in a million years. Maybe he wouldn’t have to book the player, though it looked a definite card to me, but you’d give a foul and warn the player to calm down.

   Once again the only conclusion was that this was a ref who did not see the game that way, who did not view protecting players as a major part of his job. Jeff was able to carry on after treatment, but that’s the third time now I’ve seen him caught by heavy challenges/fouls, and I’ve only watched him about four times plus highlights.

   We all know how these views, and the reviews, are ridiculed by rival fans and some of our own, but you can guarantee any of those people would be furious if any of their players have their legs broken by horror challenges. Well, you can”t prove those challenges are a direct result of anything that has gone before-i.e lax refereeing- but it shouldn’t be possible to deny that lax refereeing makes poor or terrible challenges much more likely.

   It’s a hard idea to get your head around that what occurred in the game in question makes it more likely some other player will get injured in some other game, or just hard to express that idea with precision, but I’m sure it’s true.

   Fabregas could have been looking at a bad injury as a result of the ref performing so badly on the day; someone else, or everyone else, is now a bit more likely to be injured as a result of that final gross failure from Clattenberg in not even booking Dier.

   Dier’s already notched up one injury this season- Cleverly early on- and the way refs have handled him all year makes it very likely he’ll get another one soon.

   Unless he’s very stupid, he’ll play a different game at the Euros, as will Clattenberg, which just leaves the old question of why.

   Why have we decided here to play, unofficially, by different rules? Who benefits?Who wants it to remain like that, or to become even more like that?

10. I wonder are we heading for a points deduction for both teams
    In the same why Arsenal and man u td had for their mass brawl (mild in comparison)gduring the 1991 season.
    I have my doubts that the fa will inflect this punishment on the darlings of the media.

11. EIGHTEEN red cards not given… wow. It is very fortunate that nobody got seriously hurt.

    Textbook example of how to lose control of a game.

12. Yes Pete and the sad thing is that if he had handed out the correct cards from the start the players would have calmed down and certainly would have when the first player was send off.
    Game management they call it… LOL…. this was a perfect example of game mismanagement.

13. Contrast the post match reaction to the Arsenal game where there was a media outcry lasting days for Mason’s decision to not give Coquelin a second yellow card for a fairly innocuous challenge with the praise that Clattenburg has received from a majority of pundits for keeping all 22 players on the pitch and keeping the red cards in his pocket.
    Talk Sport presenters in particular came out with all the old cliches, ‘it’s a man’s game’, it’s a contact sport’, ‘good old fashioned, committed tackles’, ‘it’s what the fans want to see’ etc etc in order to justify what was really a disgrace to football. Maintaining their policy of never knowingly criticizing Spurs they claimed it was Chelsea fault for winding the Spurs players up with their pre-match comments.

14. Oga Tony, permit me please to use this Untold Arsenal forum to discourage the Boss from signing Graint Xhaka from gladbach if d report on it on ESPNFC is true.

    His stats as being summarized on espnfc doesn’t worth the £33m + add ons Arsenal will pay before getting him.

    The Boss shouldn’t rush to sign any player because some Arsenal fans want him to spend the cash. Xhaka is reported to hv scored only 6 goals this season, or is it during his been at gladbach?

    The Boss should go for the big frog that can lay many eggs or have many eggs laid for Arsenal. And not go after a small frog that can only lay a few eggs or hv a few eggs laid.

    Arsenal need many goals to enabled them win titles next season. And only players who can provide these goals or have them provided in appreciable mumber should be signed.

    Apart of N’golo Kante who is being rumoured by d media for Arsenal to sign, the Boss should wholeheartedly go after Paul Pogba for steel, dynamism, attacks, goals, assists and authority at Arsenal’s midfield.

15. I think we already have a big frog up front. He did lay an egg on Saturday; which was nice!

16. Thanks for a very interesting review…two sides who get away with rather a lot, and are protected by the media and pundits.
    A damning indictment of the clubs, the ref and the English game in general.
    Clattenberg has clearly been keeping his head down, this week , we found out why.
    For the WOB who want us to play like that, ask yourselves a question, if Arsenal went out playing like that, would we escape with no red cards on the day, only 1 retrospective, and very little media scrutiny, indeed praise from some quarters.Think we all know the answer to that.
    Spurs have been getting away with this all season. What does Dier have to do to get sent off?
    The good thing, Spurs imploded in this game, I am Pulis, Big Sam, Hughes and other wind up merchants will have taken note.

17. Thank you Walter and Usama. Shocking levels of thuggery allowed to go on by one of the best refs from England.

    With these agenda-driven PL refs I fear for Atletico; this ref will approach the CL final with his mind set on which team should win, and I just can’t see him allowing Atletico to win. I don’t really care, after Atletico employed negative tactics to reach the final, but a game should never be decided by a ref.

18. I hope the pigmob read this article. I am very surprised that you used black type at all. I am also curious about point deductions in this case as mentioned above in the comments. Ultimately we must ask about player safety when a referee fails to control a game. How lucky are both clubs to be not looking at multiple serious injuries? The time for change movement could perhaps focus on the pigmob as the area where change might be most urgent.

19. You’ve missed quite a few and, notwithstanding your efforts to be objective, they seem to be ones that were against Spurs.

    For instance, and just off the top of my head, Fabregas kicked out after losing the ball on the edge of the Spurs area. He wasn’t fouled. It was quite early. It was Beckhamesque. Red card? Nothing done!

    And most obviously, you point out that a Chelsea player was fouled in the built-up to a Spurs goal, but not that Kane was very obviously fouled to initiate the attack for second!

    Also: Firstly, it is literally impossible to tell whether Lamela treads on Fabregas’ accidentally or whether it was deliberate. Literally! Secondly, just because the SKY commentary team said it looked like Dembele tried to gouge Costa’s eye and then persistently referred to it as such, it doesn’t mean every one has to parrot them. It was not an eye gouge. It was more of a clutching rake – much like the one Torres did on Vertonghen (but escaped punishment even though the FA had clear video evidence of it). Dembele deserved a three match ban – just as Torres did. But it was not an eye gouge.

    You also mention Dier gesturing at Chelsea’s reserve keeper but not that Fabregas was hurling obscenities in Spanish at the Spurs coaching staff and Erik Lamela right from the off. Or that after the match he flicked Spurs players and staff in the groin.

    The whole background to the match was wrong – and allowed to be so by the FA. The Swansea manager said he wanted Leicester to win the league and then sent out a team against them without any strikers, literally passed the ball to a Leicester player for the first goal and looked generally powder-puff – but were good enough to beat Liverpool the next week. Pulis said he wanted Leicester to win the league and then his team was feeble against Arsenal (like, maybe, they were saving themselves!?!?!), feeble against West Ham, but somehow managed to play in between those two games against Spurs like their lives depended upon it! Spurs were forced to play a day after Leicester repeatedly due to TV scheduling. And to top it all had to listen to the Chelsea manager and several of their players mouthing off for weeks before the match about who they wanted to win the league/deserved to win the league and who they were determined to stop doing so. The FA should have clamped down on that the first time anyone who had anything to do with anyone who still had to play either of the protagonists opened his mouth. It created an unbelievable tension – something I suspect the FA were happy with! And if you are tempted to think this is sour grapes, try taking the red blinkers off and look at it from the other perspective. How about if Newcastle need to win to stay up on the last day? And from here on in everyone to do with Spurs makes comments about Newcastle deserve to stay up, how Andros Townsend grew up at the club and still has many friends there, etc. And then totally fails to perform! I mean, they are totally shot mentally, as was obvious against Southampton. So it would plausible enough without anything dodgy, right??? Would that be acceptable or would Sunderland have grounds for complaint? Or, on the other hand, if they say Sunderland have plenty of ex Spurs players, and one loanee so they want them to stay up, and then they totally obliterate Newcastle. I mean it’s plausible, right, Newcastle have been pretty poor this season and Spurs are still fighting for second. There is plenty of scope for that being a natural outcome without anything untoward. So would Newcastle be right to complain and point to Tottenham’s capitulation against Southampton?

    No, the truth is that both sets of players reaction was over the top. But the FA could have drastically reduced the tension by clamping down on the first ‘involved’ person to mouth off about who they wanted or didn’t want to win the league. But folk are too busy exonerating them because facing and accepting this might mean conceding something to Spurs! Likewise, the clearly prejudicial scheduling that the footballing authorities should not so meekly allow TV to set! And thirdly Flattened for allowing the match to completely get away from him. The first two were responsible for allowing the tension, for what was always going to be a tense game, to get completely out of hand. And the last was responsible for totally failing to cope with that pressure – and they’ve rewarded him!

20. P.S. you also forgot to mention the Chelsea players surrounding and hounding the officials for every incident – when where no foul was committed.

21. Amazingly only the third worst refereeing performance we’ve analysed this year. Craig Pawson and Lee Mason have both managed 34%, Robert Madley got 38.2%.

22. Many thanks, Usama and Walter, for this extra review. Yes, what is it that leads the PGMO to think this is preferable to a skilful game of passing football? I’ve said it before, is the British working class being offered thuggery as entertainment? Is this any different in principle from the fight to the death in the Roman arena?

    It is obvious that these players were lucky to survive this match without a serious injury.

    I am very concerned to read that Jeff is going unprotected already in the youth matches.

    @Samuel
    You’re missing the point – it’s the detail that gives the ref reviews their validity.

23. After the fiasco of Clattenburg how in the world did he get the FA Cup and Champions League I will never know.
    As I put in the thread at the time he lost the game with Chelsea and Spurs inside the first 10mins and never got it back. The refereeing was a master class in all you should be doing but don’t. Inside the last month’s the EPL has been mentioned in the press and people are really starting to question them, I wonder why is this the reason he got both finals to take the heat of the PMGO and show the world how honest these men are and unbiased(nearly broke a rib laughing when I wrote that bit) if so I can tell you it’s not going to work. I bet he makes a pigs ear of the CL final, their are a lot of very aggressive should we say players who love a good leg breaking tackle and play dirty on both sides but more so Real Mad . It should be very interesting as he knows he will once AGAIN be under the spotlight.
    The real pity of all this is that he was onc a really good ref and football at the end of the day is the loser.

24. I know a Spurs fan and I pointed out this article and he dreaded reading it expecting abusive comments and a heavy bias. He was impressed in the detailed report and the restrained adult comments. In this day of people sat behind keyboards acting as they feel it’s nice to read a calm adult site. He said that he reads a Tottenham blog that gets abuse for supporting their team in a positive manner. Anyone feeling despair about modern football, there is a glimmer of hope

25. I’m surprised we are 20 comments in but haven’t had anyone round (yet) to tell us this wasn’t thuggery, but two teams ‘showing passion’ (never mind the eye-gouging) which certain teams, that shall remain nameless, lack. Passion to break legs, or maim each other, perhaps 🙂

26. Linda

    I’m not sure Uefa keep too much track of the ref performances in other competitions. They seem to base it only on how the refs perform when in their competitions.

    Atkinson and Clattenberg are always noticeably different, for the better, in Uefa competitions.

    Clattenberg probably clinched it after handling Athletico’s home tie with PSV very well. The players and crowd tried everything to get him to give decisions their way, including a number of dives in and around the box, and he stood up to it brilliantly. So well that eventually the players stopped diving and protesting as much. It was a good example of how refs can prevent injustices and force the players to improve their conduct in a game.

    That’s probably the most galling thing of all- watching these refs perform differently in other competitions. It also hurts our claims of them being useless a fair bit.

    In fact, though, it fits, because Clattenburg, Atkinson and Dean have never struck me as incompetent refs who miss a lot- their positioning,etc is all good, and when they want to they can control players well. In fact, it might be because they have all the tools to be a good referee that these leading lights are able to damage us so badly.

    They know what they can get away with, they see almost everything, including anything which they can penalise us for at critical moments. They therefore exercise enormous control over the games they ‘manage’. There seems to have been a massive change in the way they are using the advantage rule, for instance. This gives them the power to facilitate or stop promising moves and allows them to ignore countless bookable offences. Or not. Depending on how they want to play it.

    Atkinson would almost certainly send off a player in European competition for a foul like Cahill’s on Sanchez, but then in the right circumstances he wouldn’t hesitate to do so in the premier league either.

27. I think sending 12 players of might have sparked a full scale riot !

    Record in England is I believe 5

28. this game was a shocker….even if the players would have got to war with guns and tanks, the ref would have looked the other way.

29. But still Entertaining , agreed a little feisty . Definitely would not have wanted to be the Ref

30. How UEFA saw fit to appoint him to referee the Champions League final is beyond me. The only explanation i can think off is that this is his forward from Riley for finally getting in line and refereeing the English way. I really do wonder what they told him because history shows he is better than this and is one of the best referees around when not under any undue influences. They got to him which is such a shame

31. First of all, many thanks for such a brilliant effort – by watching that thug-fest directed by Clattenburg, you have already deserved a solid pension from Tony. 🙂

    I do agree with a comment that you have missed Fabregas’ red card for doing the same thing Gabriel got away with at West Ham. Regardless of that, you did a great job.

    The CL Final will be a match between a head-butt master who is one of the best players in the world of all times and a street fighter who knows all the dirty tricks from the book as he has written it.

32. Josif,

    Thanks, the live full match footage that I had in my DVR did not show any Fabregas’ incident as you mentioned. Just now I have seen that on twitter and yes it was also a red card missed by Clattenburg.

33. Next year would it be possible to do a ref review for the u21s or the women’s game?

34. Ben,

    That would be very difficult, for two reasons. 1. It would take even more time. 2. U21s or Women’s games are rarely broadcasted on TV. Even if they are broadcasted on TV in England, there are no TV channels that show those outside of England. Also the match footage of these matches are very hard to find on the net.

35. Maybe Dembele was probably just checking out Costa’s intraocular pressure , but rather slightly crudely !

36. SP you have an agenda.

    Being objective doesn’t necessarily mean you will find all problems.

    If one team is committing more fouls than the other, then it is more likely that you will miss more of the fouls committed by that team. This is certainly not an argument to show a lack of objectivity.

    To some people, “more than a few” and “many” just mean more than 1. I heard a completely unrelated topic on my radio a week or so ago, where the term “astronomical” was used to describe “more than 1”.

    Take the time (Walter and Usama did). Count how many incidents Walter and Usama found and categorize them. Now count up how many incidents you get, and categorize them the same way. Publish your findings.

37. I would like to point out that we work on the live match coverage. So yes incidents not shown will not be recorded.

38. If me recollection of the rules is of any accuracy, the match should have been abandoned in the 50th minute as Spurs would have been reduced to 6 players, and victory given to Chelsea by 3-0.

39. Rich
    I see what you mean but UEFA should have a real close look at who they get to referee such a Final. It is so sad that a man who was once a very good referee has fallen for the party line of the PMGO..
    Spurs were a disgrace and to a lesser extent Chelsea also. Children watch these matches and what a terrible example to set.
    Clattenburg should never have been given a final of any kind if their was any sort of justice at all. That one match alone should have disqualified him immediately. UEFA need to look a lot more closely at the Leauges these men referee and at the preformance but then again it is UEFA and I would not trust them as far as I could throw them nor their pals in the corrupt FIFA.

40. My first impression on reading that Clattenburg had been given UEFA-CL and FA Cup finals, is that he is being set up for retirement. That he will not be offered a refereeing position after the season concludes.

    No data to go on, just an impression.

41. Interesting that PGMOL have not yet published referee appointments for this weekend’s matches. Normally, these are published on the Monday prior.

    Could they be waiting to see what happens tonight so that they cane make sure that the right officials are in place for the weekend?

42. Norman14

    Thanks for the wake-up. Still nothing published, either at the official site, or that ZetaBoard site which often gets the data up before the official site.

    Some mention that the referee given the FA Cup final is usually put together with his team for the FA Cup in a low key game the last game of the season so that he gets a chance to better choreograph how they will “play” on Cup Final day.

    Going back to the previous weekend at Zeta Board, not a peep about Chelsea/Tottenham.

    —

    Thinking a little more (while carrying water for some of my trees) about the Clatt getting those two high profile games, I think that pretty much guarantees that he has signed the keep your mouth shut papers. And I will suggest that his problems with the “agent” earlier this year were because he was not supposed to referee this season, and only got work because that piss head couldn’t dig up enough new goofballs to manipulate into doing his will at games.

43. Thank you Waler and Usama for this additional report.

    It reinforces with detail and analysis the impression that most of us had as we watched the game – that the Spuds came out with the intention of fouling and intimidating Chelski from the outset – playing skillful football was only , at best, a secondary consideration.

    I blame Pochettino for setting up the Spuds to play in this ultra thug manner – with complete disregard for the rules of the game or player safety. (Let’s not forget Spurs have been kicking the daylights out of teams all season – with the connivence of the refs.)

    Chelski are very far from being angels – they are the masters of the push, pull, obstruction, distraction and when they think they can get away with it – the full blown two footed challenge. But, in this match they were clearly out thugged.

    Clattenburg very clearly lost his authority. Was he trying to help the Spuds close the gap with Leicester, was he under orders to so do, or was he incompetent or chicken scared – either way he is not fit to walk on a football field!

44. SP…………….now you get a faint idea of what shite the Arsenal (and other teams) face each week from horribly indifferent and at time impossibly poor officiating. Here on UA, we don’t promote the idea that it is just the Arsenal that get screwed week in and week out. We firmly believe that a poor official will damage other teams as well, even the spuds, who after all deserve the same treatment that any other EPL team gets. Owasur final attitude is that such a disaster as Chelsea – Tottenham ended up being is a disgrace to Football, brings the beautiful game into disrepute AND unarguably shows that the PIGMOB are not fit for purpose. If after watching that and a few other officials’ performances for Spuds this season, you still feel that the PIGMOB is a paradigm of justice and competence, then take up officiating (if you already haven’t) and I guarantee that you’ll do better than at least half of these yobs the PIGMOB send us every week!

45. Florian – you’re right there is a minimum limit of 7 players in a team before the Laws force the match to be abandoned (providing the national association deems different). There are association rules that award walkovers for no shows, but I don’t know how the FA do it in professional football.

46. Wow. What a match.
    Can’t say I’m surprised at the way it was reffed. There’s the history of the ref, the history of the ref re Chelsea and the history of …. ah well.

    Ta for writing the review. It’s a classic.