Arsenal v Crystal Palace 01 January 2017 – The Match Officials. Expect major errors and bias.

by Andrew Crawshaw

This match marks the halfway point of the season it is the 19th with another 19 to go.

• Referee – Andre Marriner  45 from West Yorkshire and FIFA Accredited
• First assistant – Simon Beck From Bedfordshire and FIFA Accredited
• Second Assistant -Andy Garratt  from the West Midlands
• Fourth Official – Michael Oliver  age 31 from Northumberland and FIFA Accredited

An experienced group of officials who you would expect to be able to cope with this match with no problems but Andre Marriner certainly didn’t cover himself in glory on his first game in charge of Arsenal this season.  But then he is averaging nearly 2 wrong decisions per game across his first 10 games this season.  To be fair to him he also gets 1.6 per game correct but his overall percentage is less than 50%

Manchester United v Arsenal 19/11/16 (1 – 1)

Ref Review: MU – Arsenal

67.5% overall weighted score, bias against the two teams of 16/84 and almost certainly costing Arsenal two points.  There were three wrong Important decisions (second yellow cards, red cards, penalties and goals).  Darmian should have been sent off twice, in Minute 25 for a second yellow card and again in Min 30 for a straight red card and in time added on at the end of the game Rooney should have had two yellow cards for dissent.  The game ended one all but against a ten man United team I think Arsenal should have had a fairly comfortable win.

2015-16 Last Season we had him in two games

Newcastle v Arsenal 29 August (0 – 1)

Ref Review : Newcastle – Arsenal

76% overall weighted score, bias against the two teams of 33/67 and 2 wrong Important Decisions.  Min 12 Thauvin fouls Bellerin in the penalty area but no penalty to Arsenal or yellow card for Thauvin and Min 26 Thauvin correctly gets a yellow card for a foul against Coquelin but this should have been his second.  Arsenal won the game but should have had a far easier time had the penalty been given and Newcastle reduced to 10 men for 60 minutes.

Arsenal v Man City 21 December (2 – 1)

Ref Review: Arsenal – Man City

58% overall weighted score, bias against the two teams 87/13 and two wrong Important Decisions, both not given second yellow cards against Fernandinho.  In Min 31 he fouled Campbell, Mr Marriner noted the foul and played a correct advantage but failed to return and issue a card at the next break in play.  Min 59: he should have had a second yellow card for a foul on Bellerin and a third in Min 61 for another foul on Campbell.  As Arsenal won the game these incorrect decisions didn’t affect the outcome of the game but we would probably have had an easier time against 10 men for the last 30 minutes.

2014-15 Again we had him in two matches

Arsenal v Southampton 3 Dec 2014 (1 – 0)

REF REVIEW Arsenal – Southampton

59% overall weighted score, bias against the two teams of 77/23 and two wrong Important Drecisions Min 87 Southampton Player punches the ball away in their penalty area – no penalty given and Mr Marriner didn’t look as though he was at all interested in awarding one but luckily Giroud scored from the rebound and Min 90+2 Alexis fouled in the penalty area with no penalty given.

Arsenal v Everton 1 Mar 2015 (2 – 0)

Ref Review : Arsenal – Everton: a first half to cherish.

69% overall weighted score, bias against the two teams of 75/25 and one wrong Important Decision when in Min 53 Jagielka used his arm to block a Giroud shot in the penalty area resulting in a corner kick instead of the expected and deserved penalty.

Summary

Mr Marriner is a referee who if you only look at the match scores would seem to be quite a good referee for Arsenal; we tend to win with him in charge.  Dig a little deeper however and you can start to see his spots emerge.

His scores over the past couple of years have rarely reached the 70% minimum competence level and he has made wrong Important Decisions in all 5 recent games which has resulted in the games being far more problematic than they should have been.

He is not good at judging penalties in Arsenal games (but he is better at judging them in other games with 15 out of 21 correct this season).

With Disciplinary offences he has correctly issued one red card this year but should have issued a further 12 so he is about on a par with the rest of the PGMO.

Don’t expect an Arsenal penalty this weekend.

He will probably not send off a Palace player who should be but may well take the opportunity of a cheeky red card for an Arsenal player.

Hopefully this will be another game where we will win despite his efforts but I’m not expecting it to be in any shape or form a ‘walk in the park’.

COYG