Ref Review : Man City – Arsenal: what exactly did Madley and Atkinson say to each other at half time?

27 Replies to “Ref Review : Man City – Arsenal: what exactly did Madley and Atkinson say to each other at half time?”

1. Well, English refs at their best-at least when officiating games involving arsenal. Sick of the incompetent lot.

2. As many have said, Atkinson should not be refereeing Arsenal games.
   Anyone else notice a difference in the refereeing we get, and that handed out to our neighbours?

3. I’ll wager that had either of the City goals been Arsenal they would both have been flagged offside.

4. Re the incident at 34:33: There is indeed no close-up replay on the TV stream. I replayed my recording, and the best I can see is Bellerin embracing de Bruyne indeed, but the the City player falls down without any sign of shirt being pulled, so my vote goes to the correct non-penalty decision.

   Alexis seems to have a habit of mistiming his aerial jumps, in an attempt to outmaneuver his opponents. Apparently the incompetents at the whistle think this is incorrect on the basis that it keeps the opponent from playing the ball. Hello PiGMOB, Alexis is focused on the ball. Compare that to Sterling’s flailing arms.

5. How embarrassing for you. A proper Rafa Benitez moment if ever there was one. You missed the biggest stat of all. You were outclassed for 80 minutes. You were lucky you only lost by one. City scored two perfectly good goals. Everybody thinks so except you bitter gooners. That photo of Sane’s toe being miles off would have more credence if we could actually see the ball being passed in the same frame.
   If the ref had sent De Bruyne, Sterling, Toure and Fernandinho off, City would still have won. You were that bad.

6. Whilst on the subject of refs, Clattenburg wins award as worlds best.

   http://www.telegraph.co.uk/football/2016/12/28/mark-clattenburg-named-best-referee-world/

   No it isn’t April fools day.

7. Maybe Clattenburg is best in the world at something (else), and just happens to be a referee?

8. Nice story about a 94 year old Gooner, who has long been unable to watch games in person due to too many stairs to climb (and possibly falling). And she thinks Arsenal pass the ball too much. 🙂

   http://www.islingtongazette.co.uk/news/lifelong_arsenal_fan_phyllis_96_finally_sees_her_team_in_action_and_wins_her_bet_1_4833327

   I’m glad she enjoyed the game, and Giroud scoring the winner.

9. mm, outclassed by City for 45 minutes in which they could hardly manage to get a shot on goal in the first 45 minutes?
   We were only outclassed after City scored the first goal. That was a turning point as it gave City believe and after that you were the better team. Before that you were toothless. We defended without conceding chances. I think against Chelsea you had more and better chances than against us.

   And as we do this kind of reviewing for 6 or 7 seasons (lost count) we know what we are talking about. You clearly don’t.

   And offside is offside. With a toe or with the whole body. And if you would take your blinkers off you should have noticed that we also mention decisions where Arsenal was getting lucky with the bad refereeing.

   And in fact how we played has nothing to do with the referee performance.

10. mm,

    “If the ref had sent De Bruyne, Sterling, Toure and Fernandinho off, City would still have won.” I challenge you to prove your assertion.

    “City scored two perfectly good goals. Everybody thinks so except you bitter gooners.” Actually, it’s us and NBC Sports too. Or Sky, or whoever drew that line that demonstrated that Sane was offside when the ball got passed to him. Or are you going to tell us that the offside rules have been modified at half time? And I really don’t understand what you mean by “in the same frame”. Which part of the ball is obscured in the videos linked in the review? I can clearly see the offside and the ball in the third clip. I’d suggest you quit being selectively blind – to give you the benefit of the doubt over you thinking we’re all stupid here.

11. mm, the picture is taken from the video on which you could see the moment of the pass and the line drawn at that time
    have you ever thought that maybe someone would appear to be outclassed when the ref is playing against them?

12. As I was working on the Everton referee review also I had mixed up some names in the title but corrected it now. That is for those who saw the first headline.

13. The competence of referees is not the issue. The real concern is their bias.

14. When the crowd sing “” you don’t know what your doing “”it’s potentially as far wrong as they can get . I am convinced that they know precisely what they are up to.
    What bothers me is why ,

15. They (refs and co)also have no shame at being discovered and shown up because the decisions will not be reversed.

    We really need a Ref league table that demotes and promotes refs like teams, depending on the end of season results. In fact i cannot innerstand why there is none, seems a good idea to me.

    Arsenal seem to have no power or ability to ask questions about the refs(i know the penalty is fines; for the most silly things) but enough has to be enough.

    I will dare to say that “PL is supposedly the best league” but only because the football is manipulated through the refs by people unknown and the video editing hardly resembles all events on the field.

    TV and betting and the PGMO; 3 birds of a feather here!

16. porter – I usually chant ‘cheating lying bastard’ when the ‘you don’t know what you’re doing’ chant is on. The pictures shows a very important PGMOL assistant in the wrong place because he is not keeping up with last defender. The assistant should raise his flag for ‘offside position’ & the referee makes the active call. The assistant cannot evade his responsibilities of ‘offside position’. The flag is only an indicator not as final as the whistle. When the flag has not been raised for a player more than a meter off side, it beggars the question of what makes him ‘select’.

17. The picture (above in Walter’s report) is really inconclusive and proves nothing on it’s own.Where’s the ball? Has it just been released by de Bruyne?
    I didn’t see this match but did see some pictures elsewhere which showed a much larger overall view of this moment and although none that I’ve seen has been able to provide one from exactly in line with Mane while also showing the pass, they do suggest that he was just offside but not by very much (less than it looks in Walter’s picture). Still, as they say: “an inch is as good as a mile.”
    This looks to me like a situation where the officials gave advantage to the attacking player.

18. Sane, not Mane

19. “Then Alexis was punished for going in an aerial duel and it seems to be an unwritten rule that when Alexis jumps for a header anywhere on the field a foul should be given against him.”

    This seems to be the theme. Alexis jumps. The opponents stay on their feet and bow down. Alexis falls down and a foul is called against him. Wonder how these referees give it. If at all a player is in danger it will be Alexis.

20. Leon – officials? Look at the assistant referees position. His flag should have gone up were he in line with the last defender on both occasions.

    Arsenal 13 – our view in India must be different as the time lag warps the TV image!

21. Menace—-I don’t see any officials in the picture on the review above, just three Arsenal defenders & two City forwards.You must be using another one, probably the expanded one that I’ve seen somewhere else (Arseblog?) which shows the ball (essential) and the position of the lino. I’m sure that Sane was less offside than he looks in Walter & Usama’s picture, but offside none the less.
    I still think that Silva made a definite attempt to play the ball on the second goal even though he was about ten feet away, which makes him offside for me, but I’ll defer to Walters expertise on that one.

22. Fantastic trolling!
    Comment on a blow up whilst ignoring the three gif links!!

    Genius is an understatement!!!

23. Unfortunately when we saw the appointments for this match it was possible for me to publish a comment elsewhere before kick off anticipating an offside goal for City.

    pgMOB Rules (ok?) football.
    It’s football, just not association football as you know it. As testified by England’s recent performances against Iceland, Costa Rica, Ecuador etc.

24. I don’t see how anyone can argue that Sane was not offside, only idiots or trolls could try that one. In real time the offside was very clear – for reasons unknown the flag was not raised.

    I agree Atkinson was appalling – unfortunately “appalling” is as good as he gets – this particular bandit in black, along with most of his colleagues, are not fit for purpose.

    Having said that, our performance was not good, if we want to win the league we need to do a lot better!

25. What is amazing is an individual caught with his hands in the cookie jar ( agreed terms to part ways 😉 😉 ) is immediately employed. Is there no moral code in football? I guess not. The PGMOL are not touched by anyone yet. They have a selection system that choose the chocolates from the Quality Street – only hard toffee accepted.

26. Ah! The links! Didn’t see the links. Much clearer now. Still very close call.

27. The Clattenbugger says the ONLY mistake he made when we played Everton, was a corner.

    http://www.express.co.uk/sport/football/748856/Mark-Clattenburg-Arsenal-Everton-Referee-Arsene-Wenger-Mesut-Ozil-Premier-League-News