By Bulldog Drummond
As noted in the last article the referee for this game is Josh Smith. He is a referee who is tentatively being given a chance to move from the rough and tumble of the Championship into the Premier League.
Now as anyone who watches matches outside the Premier League as well as PL games will know, the approach to refereeing further down the leagues is quite different with the referees seemingly making allowances for a lack of pace, lack of skill and occasional clumsiness in the lower leagues, in order to try and keep the 22 players on the pitch. So a referee moving between the two leagues has to adjust considerably from game to game.
It is a far from adequate way of developing referees, but of course, it cannot be questioned because the Secret Society (also known as PGMO, the organisation with no press office and no website) won’t tell us what it does. Apart from announcing that it has run out of money now its employees are wanting more because they can’t referee in Saudi any more.
So here we look at Mr Smith’s four Premier League games last season, and from this season his four Championship games and his one Premier League game.
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Tackle/ Foul | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Josh Smith PL2023/4 | 4 | 23.25 | 1.29 | 3.75 |
| Josh Smith Champ 2024/5 | 4 | 23.00 | 1.33 | 5.00 |
| Josh Smith PL 2024/25 | 1 | 17.00 | 1.89 | 3.00 |
| Average PL 2024/25 | 23.80 | 1.58 | 3.60 |
As we can see, Josh Smith in the Premier League is seeing fouls far less often than his compatriots in this league, and is allowing a significantly higher number of tackles go through before handing out a yellow card. As such he is handing out fewer yellow cards that the average Premier League referee this season.
But of course we are only looking at one game this season. If we look at his Championship record this season he is handing out many more yellow cards, while his Premier League work this season is close to the average.
Thus we find something very undesirable is happening here. The experience of handling both Premier League and Championship games means that he is getting his Premier League performance at close to the average for yellow cards, but when called upon to work in the Championship he is now judging the Championship players by Premier League standards.
Of course this can be argued as being right – there are the same rules for PL players as for Championship players. But the norm has been to make allowances lower down the pyramid because basically players in the lower leagues are less skillful. If one waves cards at every bad tackle as one might do for Premier League players, then half the team could be on cards at the end of each game, which would be ludicrous.
So this is a referee who is coming to terms with the different standards of Premier League and lower league teams.
Which is fine until a match turns up pitching a highly skilled fast moving Premier League team against a League One team with a reputation that one might say is the opposite. Does he judge each team by Premier League standards or by League One standards, or does he judge each team in a different way?
I fear the latter is going to be the approach.
But let’s move on and round this up with a look at Arsenal v Bolton across the centuries. In the first 25 games between the two clubs Arsenal won just two matches. After 50 games Arsenal had totalled just 10 wins. But of course things turned around over time and you will not be surprised to know that in the last 13 games between the two, Arsenal won 11, drew one and lost one.
And the difference between the clubs can be seen by a comparison of the current positions of the teams. Bolton are in the third tier.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 19 | Bolton Wanderers | 6 | 2 | 1 | 3 | 7 | 11 | -4 | 7 |
| 4 | Arsenal | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 11 |
So what went wrong for the team we used to call Notlob?
Basically they used to get away with an approach to football that was closer to rugby that football as we know it, and we used to hate playing them because of their style and approach was fundamentally physical and the refs let them get away with it, for fear that otherwise they would end up with only half a team on the pitch.
Bolton stayed in the Premier League for 12 years last time around and for most of the time without a single player who could get into double figures when it came to scoring. Although amazingly Nic Anelka through his long period of “lost” years did play for them for two seasons (it is hard to imagine I know, but he did) and even he couldn’t really turn it on for a team who seemed to think that most of the rules of rugby league applied to association football. He scored 21 goals in 53 games for them, before having enough and moving on to Chelsea where his goal scoring deserted him. He was last heard of as a player, playing for Mumbai City.
And should you be interested we las heard of Nic in January this year when he was appointed president of the Turkish club Ümraniyespor. He resigned in under six months. For Nic it was ever thus.
Shots fired by Arteta when asked about the dark arts!!
Ben
I’m trying to avoid all media today because I am absolutely sick of this agenda to attack us for anything and everything.
There are stats out there that clearly show we are far more harshly treated than just about everybody, yet it is completely ignored.
My biggest fear is the the PGMOL and referees will be emboldened by this unrelenting support of everything they do against us. Things are just going to get worse and worse.
We will get nothing, and it will be ‘You cant complain after what you’ve been getting away with’
Every thing we do will be highlighted as time wasting, gamesmanship and the Dark Arts. As harsh as it will be, all we will get is ‘Payback is a bitch’. Etc. Etc. Etc.
We’ve put up with rotational fouling and time wasting against us for years and been told ‘What do you expect’, ‘Deal with it’.
Arsenal FC have to do something about this and quick.
Suing Silva for slander/deformation of character, after accusing Partey of deliberately injuring Rodri would be a start.
He said: ““His teammate, Bernardo Silva went further, accusing Arsenal of spoiling the game, time-wasting and deliberately injuring City midfielder Rodri, who suffered a serious knee injury in an off the ball incident.”
How about Stones. Is he allowed to accuse Arsenal of being Dirty. That’s effectively calling us cheats?
That’s slander as well isn’t it?
How about Guardiola, who said the following:
Pep Guardiola has warned his Manchester City players not to get dragged into the dark arts of their rivals after Arsenal tried to get under their skin in their latest meeting.
Dictionary definition of Dark Arts is:
“a mysterious or secret skill or method, especially one that is considered bad or unfair or that may be against the law.
So again accusing Arsenal of cheating.
They should all be asked to explain exactly what they mean when they say:
Deliberately injured
Employ dirty tactics
Use the ‘Dark Arts’
We need to grow some balls and at the very least get them to explain themselves. Failing that SUE.
Back on the 11th of September in an article entitled:
How referee bias will affect the Tottenham v Arsenal game https://untold-arsenal.com/archives/108674
I concluded a comment about the Rice incident with:
Nitram says:
11 September 2024 at 10:09 AM
“It is beyond a joke and I simply cannot understand why Arsenal have not said a word, after all they can hardly make things any worse because I think we can all already see where this season is heading with regards to how we are going to be refereed.”
Wrong on point 1: Things have got worse. A lot worse.
Correct on point 2: I think we can all already see where this season is heading with regards to how we are going to be refereed.
It was so obvious. So so obvious. It would be laughable if it wasn’t for the fact it WILL stop any chance we had of winning the title, and as a result our club Millions of pounds. If they don’t wise up and realise the shit storm that’s coming our way we will never be allowed to win another thing, I fear it is getting that bad.
Nitram – Untold Arsenal does not count as “the media” as it is run from my spare bedroom which has been converted into an office.
Tony
I know, which is why I am here. A haven against the storm.