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Matchweek 2 – The Match Officials and news of Bobby Madley
By Andrew Crawshaw and Tony Attwood
Overnight we have heard that Premier League referee Bobby Madley, who was the ref for the Arsenal / Chelsea Community Shield game has resigned from PGMO. This brings into focus once more the dangers of the very small list of referees that PGMO runs (now just 17), which often leads to the same referee covering the same team repeatedly during a season with all the dangers that entails.
Madley is also a Fifa referee, but it is not clear if he has resigned from that list as well. Like Roger East he was not used in the opening matches of the season, but of course because of the high level of secretiveness surround PGMO it is impossible to know why.
PGMO have however confirmed he is no longer in their employ. As he was one of the younger officials on the list his departure takes the average age of officials up still further. His brother took charge of a PL match last season for the first time.
The extraordinarily low number of referees that the secretive organisation has not only becomes a deeper problem when there is a sudden departure or a referee injury, but will also increase next season with VAR, which requires additional referees to handle it. Unless of course the PGMO find further reason to delay its introduction despite the fact that most other major leagues now have it.
The last time we saw Madley was in the Liverpool v Arsenal game in March.
Here is the full list courtesy of the official Premier League website. We have the Saturday 17:30 kickoff to enable BT Sport coverage.
Kick-offs 15:00 BST unless stated.
Saturday 18 August
12:30 Cardiff City v Newcastle United
- Referee: Craig Pawson
Assistants: Eddie Smart, Andy Garratt
Fourth official: Lee Probert
- Referee: Lee Mason
Assistants: Darren Cann, Derek Eaton
Fourth official: Andre Marriner
- Referee: Mike Dean
Assistants: Ian Hussin, Mark Scholes
Fourth official: Graham Scott
- Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn
Fourth official: Simon Hooper
West Ham United v AFC Bournemouth
- Referee: Stuart Attwell
Assistants: Harry Lennard, Neil Davies
Fourth official: Kevin Friend
17:30 Chelsea v Arsenal
- Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: Lee Betts, Stephen Child
Fourth official: Jonathan Moss
The PGMO team news for Arsenal reads
“Arsenal‘s Ainsley Maitland-Niles suffered a small fracture to his left fibula and will be out for six to eight weeks, as will Carl Jenkinson (ankle).
Left-back Nacho Monreal is available but Sead Kolasinac (knee) and Laurent Koscielny (Achilles) will not be back training until October and November respectively. (Details)”
Sunday 19 August
13:30 Burnley v Watford
- Referee: Paul Tierney
Assistants: Adrian Holmes, Mick McDonough
Fourth official: Chris Kavanagh
13:30 Man City v Huddersfield Town
- Referee: Andre Marriner
Assistants: Simon Long, Richard West
Fourth official: Lee Mason
16:00 Brighton v Man Utd
- Referee: Kevin Friend
Assistants: Stuart Burt, Matthew Wilkes
Fourth official: Graham Scott
Monday 20 August
20:00 Crystal Palace v Liverpool
- Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistants: Simon Bennett, Scott Ledger
Fourth official: Chris Kavanagh
Our referee is another long standing official, Martin Atkinson, highly regarded by the PGMO and trusted by them to deliver the right result.
From our viewpoint and the benefit of past experience, we shouldn’t expect any favours and will have to work hard to get any kind of result. An away match at Chelsea has frequently resulted in a loss in recent seasons and I honestly expect that to be the same again this year.
Effectively I expect our season to start next Saturday against West Ham when, no doubt, Mike Dean will be in charge just to make life interesting.
COYG – prove us wrong and get a result despite the PGMO
Apparently, there was a video published on a social network that forced Medley to quit refereeing.
Josif, was it one where he clearly called a major decision correctly for a change? That would set a poor precedent for a PGMO man, which very few of their other members could follow!
I wonder if Atkinson will get another member of our squad a serious injury or whether our players will just be lucky whilst he’s letting CFC kick chunks out of them…
He really is an exceptionally poor ref.
@AM – let’s just say that Alexis Sanchez and Bobby Madley are good pals, if the rumours are correct.
I highly doubt it though – I found a piece of info at the referees’ forum that says Madley’s wife is from Norway and that both of them are moving there. It’s not like Norwegian football needed further decline.
Well, if the Pgmol referee Bobby Madley has decided to follow his Norwegian love soul wife to her home country – Norway to relocate there at the expense of abandoning his Pgmo job, us the Gooners wish him well as he has relocated to Norway.
But will us the Gooners miss Bobby Madley as he has stopped referring in the Premier League? I think the answer should be YES. For, referee Bobby Madley is a good and honest referee who has shown during the course of his referring Arsenal games in the PL he’s not among the anti-Arsenal referees who are many at the Pgmol including of course referee Martin Atkinson, a staunch anti-Arsenal referee at the Pgmol who will be the centre referee for our PL big game away to Chelsea tomorrow Saturday. God saves Arsenal from his anti–Arsenal referring in the match. And verily and truly, God Has saved Arsenal already from referee Martin Atkinson and the Pgmol surrogate bosses who have anti-Arsenal PL Title win inherent in them using match officiating officials as a focal point to implement their evil agenda against Arsenal ever since Mike Riley has assumed the leadership of the secretive Pgmol.
But not withstanding, whatever be the level of anti-Arsenal match referring referee Martin Atkinson may decide to carry out in the match tomorrow to fulfil his Pgmol bosses anti-Arsenal PL Title win agenda, Arsenal will still beat Chelsea at the Bridge tomorrow and beat them handsomely too. This is true because Arsenal already have the antidote to neutralise any poison in anti-Arsenal match referring referee Martin Atkinson may applied againsT Arsenal in the game through his whistle in collaboration with his 2 match assistants flag flaggers.
Atkinson at Chelsea…. wow never happened before…. NOT
That is for the 5th time in 10 seasons we will see Atkinson at Chelsea I think….
It will take a few miracles to even get a point.
And no I don’t see any changes (based on one match of course) as Oliver was the same in our match against City as he was in the 7 or 8 previous matches against them : giving us nothing. Even when blatant.
SAA, Whilst Madley certainly isn’t one of the worst refs, that doesn’t make him a good one. When the reference points are refs like Dean, Atkinson and Taylor, a very poor ref can be considered as OK-good, but that doesn’t make the OK-Good in reality.
From the LiverpooolEcho:
This statistic, is troublesome. He should not be getting that many games with one club.
Change in personal circumstances sounds to me, like one of his wife’s parents has taken ill. I have no idea what to make of the video story.
—-
https://www.arsenal.com/news/joel-campbell-joins-frosinone
Good luck in Italy Joel.
Snippet in the medja, that Roger East is unwell, so at least temporarily the PGMO are down to 16 referees.
What might force some change, is for a couple of referees to get caught up in collisions this weekend, and get hurt.
Are we honestly getting Martin Atkinson for YET another game against Chelsea? I would be interested in looking at the figures of which refs we get for certain teams, because I remember last season predicting that we would get Atkinson for our game against Chelsea in the FA cup. It is no coincidence how often we get Atkinson for Chelsea or Anthony Taylor for Man U, it just happens too many seasons in a row for it to be luck of the draw.
If you are one of the people that doesn’t believe in corruption in the PL then you have to ask yourself why certain referees are chosen for when certain teams play each other.
Atkinson was in charge:
-in 2012-13,
-in 2014-15,
-in 2016-17,
-in 2018-19.
So we get him in every other game there. We already know our ref at SB in 2020-21.
It seems the “video” story about Madley is false news.
https://www.caughtoffside.com/2018/08/17/vile-bobby-madley-dog-sex-rumour-traced-on-twitter/
Oh, Donald was NOT the person that started that story.
In the Cardiff v Newcastle game Mr Pawson missed a kick from Kennedy on Victor Camasara – should have been straight red. Incident 3m from referee. Minute 34.
Where is VAR