Everton v Arsenal, 22 October – The Match Officials. Evidence suggests blatant bias.

by Andrew Crawshaw

For this Sunday our Officials are :-

  • Referee – Craig Pawson  38 years old from South Yorkshire and FIFA accredited
  • Assistant Referee 1 – Lee Betts  From Norfolk and FIFA accredited
  • Assistant Referee 2 – Eddie Smart  From the West Midlands
  • Fourth Official – Robert (Bobby) Madley  31 years old from West Yorkshire and FIFA accredited

The question on my mind – can we possible expect a respite from the onslaught by one eyed PGMO employees this coming weekend?

The obvious answer is the officials appointed for this week are higher ranked than those we had for the Watford game, three have FIFA accreditation.  Unfortunately as we have often seen in the past FIFA accreditation has little impact of competence on the field in an Arsenal game.

Looking deeper into past performances may give us a better indication.

Last season 2016-17 we had the pleasure of Mr Pawson on two occasions

  1. Burnley v Arsenal 2/10/16 (0 – 1)  38% overall rating, bias against the two teams 14/86 and three wrong Important Decisions.  Min 72 Keane should have given away a penalty for handball, Min 86 Vokes should have had a red card for an elbow on Mustafi and Min 90 Keake should have been penalised with a second penalty again for handball.  No points lost this time but another terrible exhibition of refereeing.
  2. West Ham v Arsenal 3/12/16 (1 – 5)  73% overall rating, bias against the two teams of 41/59.  There was one wrong Important Decision Sanchez’s third goal in Min 86 should have been ruled out for offside.  This would have made no difference to the result as Arsenal were 4 – 1 up at the time.

In 2015-16 we had Mr Pawson in charge for no less than four games all of them away from home :-

  1. Leicester v Arsenal 26/9/15 (2 – 5).  Overall rating 84%, bias against the two teams 20/80 and no wrong Important Decisions – if only it was always this good!
  2. Stoke v Arsenal 17/1/16 (0 – 0)  Overall rating 34% YES 34%!, bias against the two teams of 5/95 and  eight wrong Important Decisions.  Minute 51 Woolscheid should have had a second yellow card and conceded a penalty for a foul on Giroud, Min 52 Woolscheid should have conceded another penalty for a foul on Walcott, Min 58 Shawcross should have had a second yellow card for a professional foul on Giroud, Min 62 Pieters should have had a second yellow card for a dive to gain a free kick off Bellerin, Min 71 Pieters should have had a third yellow card for a foul on Campbell, Min 80 Pieters should have had a fifth yellow card for a foul on Campbell and Min 90+1 Pieters should have had a sixth yellow card for yet another foul on Campbell.  Scandalously bad refereeing costing Arsenal points.  Mike Dean was fourth official for this match and was clearly giving instructions over the correct approach to take.  Rating went from 84% to 34% and number of wrong Important Decisions to 8
  3. Man United v Arsenal 28/2/16 (3 – 2) Overall rating 64%, bias against the two teams of 3/97 and four wrong Important Decisions.  In Min 45+2 Rashford should have conceded a penalty and been dismissed for deliberate handball (needless to say neither happened), Min 70 Herrera was given a yellow card for unsporting conduce but it should have been his second as he should have had a first for persistent fouling in Min 43.  Min 75 Herrera (again) should have had another yellow card for a two footed lunge on Sanchez (Mr Pawson only awarded a foul).  Poor refereeing costing Arsenal points
  4. West Ham v Arsenal 9/4/16 (3 – 3)  42% overall, bias against the two teams of 23/77 and nine wrong Important Decisions (mostly involving Andy Carroll).  Min 4 Andy Carroll should have had a straight red card for a foul on Koscielny (he was wrongly given a yellow), Min 14 Lanzini scored but was wrongly judged offside – the goal should have stood, Min 22 Lanzini should have had a red card for a two footed stamp on Bellerin, Min 47 Carroll should have had a second yellow card for an elbow to the face of Gabriel, Min 54 Noble should have had a second yellow card for deliberately preventing Arsenal taking a free kick, Min 63 Carroll should have had a second red card for a foul on Ospina, Min 71 Carroll should have had a third red card for a foul on Gabriel, Gabriel should also have been dismissed for his retaliation, Min 90+2 Reid should have had a second yellow card for a foul on Sanchez.  Another game where Mr Pawson showed that he had learned his lessons from Mr Dean and another two points denied to Arsenal.

So there is little in his past six performances to give us any hope for unbiased refereeing on Sunday. 

Since his lesson from Mike Dean in the delicate art of refereeing Arsenal matches our referee this weekend has only once achieved an acceptable score of 70% in our reviews and in 5 games has made no fewer than 25 wrong Important Decisions costing Arsenal seven points.

Clearly from his performance in out 5 – 2 win against Leicester at the beginning of the 2015/16 season he can be a good referee, equally he seems to know how to please his paymasters.

I think that the ‘powers that be’ will have given instructions that if at all possible Arsenal aren’t to be allowed points in this game as Everton clearly need help to kickstart their season so I think that we should look out for the following :-

  • Non awarded penalties to Arsenal even for quite blatant offences
  • Everton players being allowed to ‘kick, elbow, or push the shit’ out of Arsenal players without fear of redress.  After all everyone knows that Arsenal have no spine and fold when bullied.
  • Should any Arsenal player have the temerity to react to such treatment then they will of course be punished to the maximum allowed in the rules.
  • The old ‘phantom foul’ routine allowing an easy opportunity for a long ball into our box or time for Everton to regroup if Arsenal are attacking.

Of course we could get a repeat of the Leicester performance and have absolutely nothing to worry about.

In any case we should maximise our chances and start quickly – if we get a couple of early goals then we are quite capable of being in full control of the match to the e xtent that no referee will be able to affect the outcome of the game.  A single goal advantage doesn’t remove the referee from the equation.

COYG

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10 Replies to “Everton v Arsenal, 22 October – The Match Officials. Evidence suggests blatant bias.”

  1. At least the main officials are from Yorkshire: might have been Merseyside!

    My feeling is that Everton are probably due a favour from football officialdom, to make up for their recent bad times. (like the lenient referee last night, in only awarding a yellow for the Ashley Williams assault on the goalkeeper)

  2. Whatever be the anti-Arsenal referring referee Graig Pawson and his two assistants may have in their apt to referred or been ordered by the PGMO to officiate against Arsenal in the week nine Premier League match between Everton and Arsenal at the Goodison Park on Sunday, the Gunners must not allow a repeat of the Vicarage Road episode where they threw away one golden opportunity to but victory in the match to bed to happen to them on Sunday.

    Rather, to debunk Everton manager, Ronald Koeman’s claim that the Everton board are solidly behind him and will not consider sacking him despite his Toffees dismal start to the season after Koeman spending millions and millions of pounds to recruit many new players, the 18 man match day Gunners Le Prof will select to play this crucial match must be fully up and doing in their game by adhering strictly to composure in front of goal and sense of positional awareness discipline in this match. So that they won’t be missing their goal scoring chances or get caught in offside position during the playing of the match. Any golden opportunity to score a goal or goals in the match to kill off the Everton game resistant during the match which comes the way of any attacking Gunner must be seized with both hands and buried during the playing of the match to sink Everton.

    This match will undoubtedly be a difficult match to play in for the Gunners because the desperate to come out from the relegation zone Ronald Koeman’s Toffees side will make every aspect of playing this match difficult for the Gunners. Therefore, all match starting and substitutes Gunners who will be brought on during the game must mentally, physically and tactically prepared themselves fully to deal with all what the desperate Toffees will throw at them during the playing of the match. And successfully cope with them without getting hurt but pounce and pound heavily on the would be Wayne Rooney’s captained Toffees team and hammer them thoroughly with unrelenting vigour to beat them by 3 away goals to nil.

    My 11 Gunners 3-4-2-1 starts and 7 Gunners substitutes for this match.

    Starts:
    Cech
    Koscielny Mertesacker Monreal
    Bellerin Ramsey Xhaka Kolasinac
    Iwobi Lacazette Sanchez.

    Macey Holding Debuchy ElNeny Coquelin Ozil Giroud.

    Because of their being to quality, I’ve decided have 5 of the Gunners that played in the Red Star Belgrade match last night despite they have likely become game fatigued. But being top professionals that they are, I believe any of them can still cope with coming on as a substitute for 20 minutes game time for this match and be efficient in the game for Arsenal. Should I drop Iwobi for Ozil to start this match? My instinct is telling me NO! And that is because Ozil’s knee may not have healed properly yet. I don’t want to see him take another feeble shot at goal again that saw him missing a sitter for Arsenal against Watford last Saturday.

  3. there we go again. I ‘m loosing my appetite in the premiere league because of this sh*** refereeing. Watford really got to me. MOTD plundits justifying the blatant unjustified pen. I can’t take much more. Respect for you guys who can take this! Koeman has a good record against Arsene, he really wil prep his boys! Bet Everton will come flying out of their lockerroom to kick the shit out of our side, and the ref will allow it. Then Everton will go into zombie mode again till the derby. COYG go against the odds, the medjah, the refs, the haters, COYG you can do it!!!!

  4. The mention of Andy Carroll reminds me that after his recent red card he was heavily criticised by one of his own team mates basically for his repeated blatant fouling. Maybe that will cause him to ponder a moment.

    We have been on the end of that too many times, mostly with him getting away with it. Referees again. The trouble is when the referees let him get away with it, it encourages him to do it again.

  5. After the blatant and undeniable rigging at Stoke and Watford I’m going to make a bold prediction:

    The officials will be mildly competent today.

    After all, Grandmaster Riley and his squawking crows squawk with predictable frequency.

    We shall (all of us who are watching) see…

  6. Scratch that:

    Keeper just cleans out Sanchez. Pushes and fouls not being called.
    It’s another shower from the pgMOB.

    Shameless rigging.

  7. Yep that call against Bellerin on 23:40 just after the Everton player had also lunged in is a clinging reference example.

    The official is rigging this football match.

    There’s no doubt about it.

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