by Andrew Crawshaw
Just a quick one this week – our officials for tonight’s gamet are :-
- Referee – Robert (Bobby) Madley – age 30 from West Yorkshire and FIFA Accredited
- Assistant Referee 1 – Lee Betts, From Norfolk and FIFA Accredited
- Assistant Referee 2 – Marc Perry – from the West Midlands
- Fourth Official – Stuart Attwell Age 33 from Warwickshire
Last season we had young Mr Madley twice. The first was our 2- 1 win over Southampton in September and the second our 3 – 1 win against Liverpool in March. He got a score of 70 % in the first and 79% in the second game.
In the Southampton game there were 3 wrong Important Decisions all in Southampton’s favour (Min 45 Arter should have had a straight red card for a studs up challenge on Monreal, Min 90+1 Fonte should have had a second yellow card and Arsenal a penalty for a kick on Koscielny).
In the Liverpool game there were 2 one for each team (Can should have had yellow cards in Min 67 and 77 and in Min 56 Liverpool should have had a penalty for a Bellerin foul).
The previous season we again had him twice. The first time was against Sunderland and he was brilliant – he made 2 wrong decisions all game and scored an almost unheard of 90%.
The second time was against Swansea and he was absolutely terrible scoring a measly 38% with five wrong Important decisions –
- Min 47 Amat should have had a second yellow card for an attack breaking foul on Giroud,
- Min 73 Ayew should have had a second yellow card for a dive (it was wrongly given as a foul by Gabriel) and in
- Min 84 he again avoided a second yelllow card for another dive (this one given as a foul by Wellbeck). Both Swansea goals were incorrect…
- Min 32 Amat fouled Özil to win the ball leading to their first goal,
- Min 74 Williams was offside as he scored their second goal. Wrong decisions definitely cost us all three points in this game.
In all games over the two seasons (with the exception of the Sunderland game) his anti-arsenal bias was up to PGMO normal levels.
It is safe to assume that the usual PGMO rules will apply for this game:-
- West Brom being allowed to foul Arsenal more or less with impunity
- Watch out for the old ‘phantom foul’ routine enabling West Brom to pump in a long ball
- Any retalliation from Arsenal will be strictly punished in accordance with the written rules, anything else will be covered by sub-rule 8b “unless an Arsenal player is involved”
Of course I could be completely wrong and we could get a repeat of his Sunderland match where he only made two mistakes all game.
I hope that we will have a bright start, moving the ball quickly and purposefully with an early goal or two which should be enough to take the match officials entirely out of the picture. The longer it goes before we score the more likely the game will be decided by the men in black rather than those in red and white.
COYG
- Arsenal v WBA. Men down, and how many Arsenal games Gibbs missed through injury
- Arsenal v West Bromwich Albion; they don’t pass, they get few cards, they don’t win much at the Ems.
I am not going to be overly concerned whether referee Robert Bob Madley will do any serious anti-Arsenal referring in tonight’s PL match between Arsenal and West Brom at the Emirates Stadium. Save any of his 2 assistants or both who might want or ordered to do anti-Arsenal flagging in the game by the Pgmo, and save an unintended error in referring, I don’t think Mr Madley will go out of his ways in his referring in this match to deliberately make decisions in the game that will influence the result of the match against Arsenal as he’s not known for doing such in the Arsenal games he has referred.
Just a little correction, Andrew.
According to the ref review from our defeat (not win) against Liverpool in March, Medley made two big errors in favour of Arsenal and one in favour of Liverpool as Coquelin should have been sent off in 6th minute.
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/61267
There was a link on the Premier League site about Medley (dates back in March) where he said he is part of the referee triangle (as they work in triangles – The Bermuda Triangles, I’d say) with Stuart Atwell and notorious Martin Atkinson. I can’t recall when was the last time we had Atwell in charge and we all know what Atkinson does when he is in charge. I didn’t like the fact Medley doesn’t mind if the players call him by the first name even though he did note he draws the line by calling a player by the player’s number on the shirt. I didn’t like when Gibbs referred to Clattenburg as “Mark” after the game. It’s Mr Clattenburg for players in official correspondation.
If Medley wants to be taken seriously, he should insist on “Mr Medley” for the players. Players should respect the ref and the ref should respect the rules he is supposed to protect.
With the Arsenal top 5 PL title win rival clubs this season winning their PL games last Saturday, Arsenal will be in danger of going out of sight of the 2 top PL Manchester clubs so soon in this campaign if they fail to beat Tony Pulis’ WBA team tonight and this MUST not happen to Arsenal but a win game by them for all 3 points collection should be totally embraced by them in their playing this match comes the pack 10 behind the ball and counterattack game application Tony Pulis, the Baggies manager must has written down for his Baggies team to play against the Gunners. If Arsenal win this match tonight, they’ll go from 12th to 7th position in the table. What a 5 places climb up!
Nevertheless, I think Le Prof must have envisaged Tony Pulis game application plan which he’ll use for this match and has therefore written a counter game application plan of total fineese playing for the Gunners to use it in this game which will see the Gunners become silky and silcky to hold during playing, thus avoiding being caught by the Baggies physicality playing and hard tackling.
My 3-4-3 starts and bench for the match.
Starts:
Cech
Koscielny Mustafi Monreal
Bellerin Ramsey Xhaka Kolasinac
Walcott Lacazette Sanchez
Bench:
Ospina Holding Mertesacker Elneny Iwobi Ozil Giroud.
Yes, according to Le Prof, there is no hierarchies among the Gunners at Arsenal as any Gunner however highly placed and recognized he is in the rank and file of the Arsenal first team squad can be dropped or benched if dropping Iru benching him becomes necessary for a reason. In this regard, I’ve dropped the regular starter Ozil to the bench to allow him strengthened the healing of his troubling knee but he should be in the squad for BATE Borostov on Thursday night’s and he could start the match. Walcott who has returned to scoring way for Arsenal this season in the Carabao Cup match at the Ems against Doncaster is said can’t efficiently play in a back three. But was our Doncaster game not an Arsenal back three formation game in which he played and scored through assist by Sanchez but missed another goal for Arsenal in the same match when Giroud gave him assist? I think Le Prof should start him in his back three for WBA. Moreover, if Le Prof is not playing and starting him in his PL back three games occasionally, how can Theo be used to the new system and adapt himself to it and improves on his game quality in it? And I think Sanchez should be in good shape now to start another PL match for Arsenal this season. If so, I expect Le Prof not to bench him for Iwobi to start but start Sanchez.
@Josif,
I did have the errors as not affecting the score, I was trying to do two things at once last night – should know better by now!
@Josif
Brain still in neutral. It would have affected the score but not the result!
As we are not in any way threatening the anointed top 4 or six , I like to think that we may cop a break.
Normal PIGMOB services will resume when we do .