by Andrew Crawshaw
Our Officials for Wednesday night are :-
- Referee – Graham Scott age 49 from Oxfordshire
- Assistant Referee 1 – Peter Kirkup from Northamptonshire
- Assistant Referee 2 – Constantine Hatzidikis from Kent
- Fourth Official – Kevin Friend age 46 from Leicestershire
None of them from too far away (which I guess makes sense given a mid-week game and evening kick-off) and none have FIFA accreditation.
Graham Scott refereed his first match in the Premier League in November 2014 (Burnley v Aston Villa – 1 – 1) and was formally added to the Select List at the start of the 2015-16 season. To date he has refereed 19 PL matches, none involving Arsenal. In those 19 matches he has issued 4 red and 55 yellow cards which is pretty much in line with the all referee averages.
In 2015/16 he refereed 4 matches – Sunderland v Watford (0 – 1), Norwich v Aston Villa (2 – 0), Swansea v Sunderland (2 – 4) and Bournemouth v Stoke (1 – 3)
In 2016/17 he was allocated eight matches – Middlesbrough v Spurs (1 – 2), Hull v Southampton (2 – 1), West Brom v Watford (3 – 1), Burnley v Sunderland (4 – 1), Southampton v West Ham (1 – 3), Everton v West Brom (3 – 0), Leicester v Sunderland (2 – 0) and Bournemouth v Middlesbrough (4 – 0)
The first three of these games were included in our review of the first 160 games of the season so might give us some clues as to how he compared with other referees :-
- Matches refereed – 3
- Wrong second yellow cards – 0
- Wrong red cards – 4 (1 week 6, 1 week 11 and 2 week 14)
- Wrong penalties – 3 (1 week 6, 1 week 12 and 1 week 14)
- Wrong Goals – 1(week 14)
My notes were that :-
- In the Middlesbrough v Spurs game Alli should have had a red card in Min 28 but Spurs should have had a handball penalty in Min 41 (Gibson). I considered the match result valid.
- In the Hull v Southampton game Tadic (Southampton) should have had a red card in Min 29 and in Min 90+6 Hull should have had a penalty – as they won the game anyway the result wasn’t affected by the poor decisions.
- In the West Brom v Watford match Mr Scott had a bit of a ‘mare’ – Min 15 McAuley should have had a red card for a last man foul, Min 16 the West Brom goal shouldn’t have stood as there was a foul on the Watford goalkeeper, Min 25 Rondon (Watford) should have had a red card, Min 53 West Brom should have had a penalty (Kabasele on Rondon). I assumed that the wrong decisions in Min 15 and 16 ‘cancelled out’ but that with a two man advantage for 65 minutes Watford would probably been able to get a draw rather than losing the match.
So a total of 8 wrong Important Decisions in his three games or 2 7 per game which was actually the second worst of all the 17 referees used in those matches. The best with 0.9 wrong Important Decisions per game was Neil Swarbrick. Roger East was worst with 15 wrong in his 5 games. Other referees with 2 or more wrong per game were Andre Marriner (2.0), Craig Pawson (2.4), Mark Clattenburg (2.1), Michael Oliver (2.0), Mike Dean (2.17) and Bobby Madley (2.5)
This season he has blown his whistle in 6 matches (Wednesday will be his seventh). Watford v Brighton (0 – 0), Everton v Spurs (0 – 3), Bournemouth v Leicester (0 – 0), Southampton v West Brom (1 – 0), Everton v Watford (3 – 2) and Leicester v Man City 0 – 2)
Conclusions
- There are no detailed statistics as this will be the first time that Graham Scott will have refereed an Arsenal game.
- The only facts and figures we have are from the first 160 games from last season and show that he was not that good with 2.7 wrong Important Decisions per game, only Roger East had a worse record.
- Of those wrong decisions, four were red cards, three were penalties and one was a wrong goal.
- We will need to look out for not given red cards for bad fouls and non awarded penalties so nothing out of the ordinary there just the usual kind of referee crap.
As ever a fast start and early goal or two should be sufficient to ensure a good performance from Mr Scott.
COYG
Looking at broader refereeing matters
This is Matchweek 14 of the Premier League season so we are now definitely into the middle third . Who is now suffering from PGMO “repeatitis” i.e excessive visits from the same faces?
Burnley have had Roger East for three away games – not really fair especially when you realise that Mr East has only refereed 6 games this season so half of his games have involved Burnley. It is probably fair to say that his first two games probably haven’t favoured Burnley as they have been their 1 – 1 draw at Liverpool and their 3 – 0 defeat at Man City. The third game is this week’s match against Bournemouth.
Chelsea have had Jonathan Moss on three occasions – Home games against Everton (2 – 0) and Watford (4 – 2) and an away game at West Brom which they won 4 – 0.
Crystal Palace have had Andre Marriner three times – Home games against Chelsea (1 – 2) and Swansea (0 – 2) and an away game this week against Brighton.
Man United have had Jonathan Moss for two away (Swansea v United 0 – 4; and this week’s game at Watford) and their 1 – 0 home win against Spurs.
Newcastle have had Craig Pawson three times – their 1 – 1 draw at home against Liverpool and two away losses 1 – 0 at Huddersfield and 4 – 1 at Man United.
Southampton have had Mike Jones three times once at home and twice away. Now Mr Jones has only been allowed a whistle in six PL matches this season so it is somewhat strange that Southampton have had him in half of his games. These games have been Southampton v Swansea (0 – 0), Stoke v Southampton (2 – 1) and Liverpool v Southampton (3 – 0).
West Ham have had Martin Atkinson three times – twice at home and once away. Man U v West Ham (4 – 0), West Ham v Brighton (0 – 3) and West Ham v Leicester (1 – 1).
Interestingly, to me at least, there seems to be a difference between the allocation of referees for Manchester City matches as compared with the other ‘top six’. So far City have been allocated 12 referees and have only had Michael Oliver and Craig Pawson on two occasions.
| Referees employed for number of matches | ||||
| Club | Total | One | Two | Three |
| Man City | 12 | Mike Dean
Jonathan Moss Neil Swarbrick Bobby Madley Martin Atkinson Graham Scott Roger East Mike Jones Paul Tierney |
Michael Oliver
Craig Pawson |
|
| Man United | 9 | Michael Oliver
Mike Dean Andre Marriner Anthony Taylor Lee Mason |
Craig Pawson
Neil Swarbrick Martin Atkinson |
Jonathan Moss |
| Chelsea | 9 | Mike Dean
Andre Marriner Neil Swarbrick Martin Atkinson Lee Mason |
Michael Oliver
Craig Pawson Anthony Taylor |
Jonathan Moss |
| Arsenal | 10 | Andre Marriner
Neil Swarbrick Anthony Taylor Bobby Madley Lee Mason Graham Scott |
Michael Oliver
Craig Pawson Mike Dean Lee Mason |
|
| Spurs | 11 | Michael Oliver
Jonathan Moss Neil Swarbrick Bobby Madley Lee Mason Kevin Friend Graham Scott Mike Jones |
Mike Dean
Andre Marriner Anthony Taylor |
|
| Liverpool | 10 | Michael Oliver
Jonathan Moss Andre Marriner Neil Swarbrick Roger East Mike Jones |
Craig Pawson
Anthony Taylor Martin Atkinson Kevin Friend |
|
City have had fewest repeat visits of all of the top clubs, have had the widest choice of referees and have had most visits from the referees with the fewest total games of the entire referee pool – Paul Tierney for example has done a City match in his four games this season but hasn’t appeared at any of the other top six. Jonathan Moss has refereed three games involving both Manchester United and Chelsea, one at Manchester City, Spurs and Liverpool and none at Arsenal. So far only Liverpool and Spurs have failed to win under his whistle – Man City v Liverpool (5 – 0, and Man United v Spurs (1 – 0).
- Huddersfield at home: what the facts and figures tell us
- Why do football pundits wear jackets and ties?
- “It probably is a penalty but it was never not going to be given.”
“This will be the first time that Graham Scott will have refereed an Arsenal game”. Graham Scott has never refereed an Arsenal game in the Premier League. According to worldfootball.net he refereed Arsenal two times in the League Cup: October 25, 2016 Arsenal-Reading 2-0 and October 27 (no yellow cards to Arsenal players), 2015 Sheffield Wednesday-Arsenal 3-0 (yellow card to Mathieu Debuchy and Joel Campbell).
Let’s hope that his bad decisions are only “mistakes”, after all he has to learn.
Refs usually have someone in the “ear”(headphones and mic) to help them?
Anyway, we have to be extra careful v Huddersfield and not take them too lightly. We must be well prepared, although the team selection may surprise us as we have ManU on Sat.
So be prepared for a draw or even loss.
Interesting to see Assistant 2 is from Kent. Someone from the south east at last. Let’s hope he proves to be good and rises up the rankings.
Marcel,
We haven’t reviewed cup games as they have little relevance to League matches. This is especially true of League Cup games where our teams typically bear little relevance to those put out in the league. I am not expecting him to be the best referee in the world.
Kevin Friend who will be the voice in his ear is one of the referees I regard as being without an ‘axe to grind’ in Arsenal matches, so I’m hoping that there won’t be too many issues. I’ve got more to say about fourth official interference in the preview for Saturday!
Since the game of football has to be refereed and linesmened by the referees and linesmen who are the approved officiating officials for the game, referees and linesmen who if are perversed in their sense of judgement can cock-up the true result of a football match by substituting it with a fake one through delibrate action of unfair officiating in the game to advantage a particular team in the game to the disadvantage of the other team as we’d sometimes been seen happening in the Premier Leagues games.
Nevertheless, I believe referee Graham Scott will not dare the Gunners to their faces by jeopardizing the result of the Arsenal home PL match against Huddersfield at the Emirates Stadium tomorow evening to delibrately disadvantaged the Gunners in the match. For, any attempts by referee Graham Scott and his 2 match assistants to carry out the well known anti-Arsenal whistling and flagging orders to referees and linesmen in the PL by the PGMO will in this match not be tolerated by Arsenal and their teaming supporters who will not tolerate it but outrightly opposed it and negated it through the Gunners in their counter anti-Arsenal referring playing on the field of play.
Arsenal who have for sometimes now not massacred any team in the PL at the Ems are poised to wallop Huddersfield to the tone of 4-0 5-0 0r 6-0 nil so as to improved on their current +7 goals difference in the table. For, goals difference counts. Threrefore, the Gunners wil not ignore this important aspect of the positive result they will get in the Huddersfield game but will seriously hit the Terriers from West Yorkshire hard below their belts.
My familiar Arsenal 1 team but one change 3-4-2-1 starts for the Huddersfield game.
Starts:
Cech
Koscielny Mustafi Monreal
Bellerin Ramsey Xhaka Kolasinac
Wilshere* Sanchez
Lacazette.
Bench:
Ospina BFG Holding ElNeny Coquelin Maitland-Niles Giroud.
Would Le Prof wants to start Welbeck for the Man Utd game in PL at the Ems on Saturday if he can start the match? That’s why I’ve dropped him for the Huddesfield game so that he can fully prepared for the match.
Thanks Andrew.
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I seen a blurb about this somewhere yesterday, but it is on the Arsenal website now.
> We are delighted to announce that Raul Sanllehi is joining us as head of football relations.
https://www.arsenal.com/news/head-football-relations-joins-barcelona
Andrew, you say “Min 25 Rondon (Watford) should have had a red card,”.
I think you may want to change the club (or do you know some transfer news that no one else does?) 😀
The pattern of officials being used does throw up some obvious questions about the PGMO system. When corruption has been such an issue in other leagues and sports, it does seem odd that the PMGO should have systems which have such potential for abuse.
Wishes for the games tonight.
In the two earlier games, I am hoping for CPalace to get a miracle win and Leicester to beat the Tottenspud. For the two later games, I am hoping for both to be draws.
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I believe it has been reported (in the Arsenal interviews) that Mesut did not have a virus. To me, that would suggest food poisoning. But other possibilities exist. Hopefully he gets well soon.
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Question to the Express, how do two fans riot?
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OT: Corruption News
I’ve no idea what football is like in Gambia, but it seems they have bigger cojones than even Troy Deeeeeeeeneeeey.
http://www.insideworldfootball.com/2017/11/28/gambia-casts-doubt-fifas-integrity-saying-will-deal-financial-corruption-fa/
> “The Gambia will not allow any individual or group to flout the financial rules and regulations of this land without being dealt with impunity.
(the original has lots of opening double quotes, and no closing double quotes, so a bad cut and paste?)
Perhaps this is an example for the (sweet) FA?
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Australia butting heads with FIFA?
https://theworldgame.sbs.com.au/article/2017/11/28/government-risks-fifa-ire-after-stepping-football-war
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More bribes stories involving Qatar in the news.
Former Greece FA president charged with corruption (a couple of days ago).
FIFA is busy telling the world that there is no doping in Russian football, while at the same time the IOC is continuing to remove medals from Russian athletes and banning them for life. Do you think the septic blatterbird is going to be getting any paper bags when he attends the 2018 World Cupin Russia? (I’m clean, I’m clean)
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In the news, seems to be a story about how Wenger has assisted a rugby team? (Harlequins is rugby, isn’t it?)
https://www.standard.co.uk/sport/rugby/how-arsenal-boss-arsene-wenger-helped-form-harlequins-disciplinary-code-a3704166.html
Gord, the foxes beat the spuddies who’ve now got an away game against Watford followed by a few games at Wembley. This may be when they really notice the affect of not having their own ground this season…
Thanks Andy. I was just about to post my summary of tonight. But the results look okay. They could have better though.
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Leicester-Tottenspud. Harry Kane commits a dangerous foul on the goalkeeper, and there isn’t even a foul called (according to commentary). Fourth official calls for 4 minutes of time added on. Five minutes into time added on, a player is laying on the field. Finally the referee blows the game down, and the Tottenspud lose 2-1.
Brighton and CPalace end scoreless, oh joy!
I thought Watford was hopeless, but it became 1-3 (Deeeeeeeeeeneeeeey penalty) and then 2-3. Still hoping for the tie. Ugggh, ManUre score again.
Newcastle ties up the game against WBA. There is a disallowed goal after the game was tied. Result is still a draw.