Arsenal v Tottenham FA Cup Third Round 4th January 2014 The match Officials
Andrew Crawshaw
- Referee – Mark Clattenburg
- Assistant Referees – Peter Kirkup & Simon Bennett
- Fourth Official – Martin Atkinson
I’m not sure how the referee performance in a FA Cup game will compare with that in a league game but on the basis that it may bear some similarities here goes. And given the strong allegations publicised in the Daily Mail as being made against Clattenburg today there is a chance he made be pulled at the last minute
Last year he was in charge of :-
Match Review: Mark Clattenburg – Arsenal Vs Swansea City (0 – 2) [01/12/2012] – 72% overall bias against 93/7 but no wrong Important Decisions (second yellow cards, red cards, penalties and goals)
Match Review: Mark Clattenburg – Tottenham Hotspur Vs Arsenal (2 – 1) [03/03/2013] – 85% overall, bias against 15/85 again with no wrong Important Decisions
Match Review: Mark Clattenburg – Aston Villa Vs Tottenham Hotspur (0 – 4) [26/12/2012] – 82% overall, bias against 64/36 and again no wrong Important Decisions
Match Review: Mark Clattenburg – West Bromwich Albion Vs Tottenham Hotspur (0 – 1) [03/02/2013] – 88% overall, bias against 47/53 and yet again no wrong Important Decisions.
Two games for Arsenal with the usual terrible bias against Arsenal 97% at home and 85% away, both games we lost. Compared with three games for Spurs with bias in their favour 85%, 64% and an evenly balanced game with 53% to Spurs. A bit of a contrast there.
The consistent thing was that he made no wrong Important Decisions in those four games which is positive for both teams.
This year he has been in charge of
- Crystal Palace v Spurs on 18 Aug (0-1);
- Swansea v Arsenal on 28 September (1-2);
- Arsenal v Southampton on 23 November (2-0) and
- Fulham v Spurs on 4 December (1-2)…
One thing different for this game will be the Assistant Referees – Mr Clattenberg usually operates with S Beck and S Child (together for 9 of his 13 Premier League games and he has had one or other of them in the other four games). he has also not had Atkinson as Fourth Official this year.
So what can we expect?
Based on the last two years he is unlikely to do Arsenal any favours, expect the usual licence for Spurs players to get away with far more force in challenges than Arsenal are permitted. Also look out for ‘phantom fouls’ and other tricks allowing Spurs to regroup when under pressure.
With the increased spotlight on recent refereeing decisions, I would hope that all referees have been told to get the important decisions right, something he managed last year so more of the same please.
But please, ref, be consistent for both teams, 85 and 94% of wrong decisions against one team may be said to be consistent but is hardly in accordance with the rules of the game. If you call a foul for one team and the other commits a similar offence then we expect you to give the same penalty – simples.
Previous articles on referees…
- The bias that teams can get from playing at home
- Wrong second yellow cards
- Wrong red card decisions
- Wrong PENALTY decisions, a closer look.
- Wrong goal decisions
- It doesn’t all even out in the end
- Extrapolating important decisions
The earlier series of reviews:
- 1. Who reviewed the games
- 2. What we did and what next
- 3. All the decisions in numbers
- 4. The first, at times astonishing, numbers
- 5. Home and away bias
- 6. It all evens out in the end – Wigan last season
- 7. West Ham: Life with a positive bias
- 8. West Brom and the Referees
- 9. Tottenham, penalties and some amusing comments
- 10. Swansea City and a change this year
- 11. Sunderland, a positive bias
- 12. Stoke, where refereeing is different.
- 13. Southampton – how did they ever survive?
- 14. QPR – a strange case
- 15. Norwich – more errors than acceptable
- 16. Newcastle United – again, more errors than there should be.
- 17. Manchester United: 70% of wrong decisions in their favour.
- 18. Manchester City: unlike their neighbours a very small bias.
- 19: Liverpool: you should blame the refs
- 20: Fulham – it all evens out in the end
- 21: Everton: a slight bias in favour
- 22: Chelsea: an occasional bias against
- 23: Aston Villa: a huge bias in favour
- 24: Refs give opposition freedom to kick Arsenal off the park.
- 25. The complete league bias table
- 26. Untold has said it for a long while, others follow
- 27. Andre Marriner; a good ref but 10% of his goal decisions are wrong!
- 28: Anthony Taylor: Disastrous when it comes to penalties
- 29. Chris Foy: Very bad on cards and fouls
- 30. Howard Webb, an amazing score
- 31: Jonathon Moss: Over 90% right.
- 32: Lee Mason, the ref with penalty area fever
- 33: Kevin Friend: the red card disaster
- 34: Lee Probert: This is not acceptable
- 35: Mark Clattenburg: good on red, poor on yellow
- 36: Mark Halsey: under half his penalty decisions were correct
- 37: Martin Atkinson. This is not a Fifa ref
- 38: Michael Jones: Poor discipline
- 39: Michael Oliver: This doesn’t look too clever
- 40: Mike Dean – an unacceptable bias.
- 41: Neil Swarbrick. Every goal right but oh the bias
- 42: Phil Dowd: After a good year, a year in decline
- 43: Roger East a short term solution
- 44: The Referee Competency League Table
- 45. The most unbiased referee in the PL
- 46 The best ref of the season 2012/13
- 47. Wigan and the bias of the ref
- 48. West Ham and the bias of the refs
- 49. WBA and the bias of the refs
- 50. Tottenham Hotspur and the bias of the refs
- 51. Swansea and the bias of the refs
- 52. Sunderland and the bias of the refs
- 53. Stoke: Three unbiased refs
- 54: Southampton, an extraordinary mix
- 55: Reading, which two refs helped them the most?
- 56. QPR and the bias of the refs
- 57. Norwich and the bias of the refs
- 58. Newcastle and the bias of the refs
- 59. Manchester United and the bias of the refs
- 60. Manchester City and the bias of the refs
- 61. Liverpool and the bias of the refs
- 62. Fulham and the bias of the refs
- 63. Everton and the bias of the refs
- 64. Chelsea and the bias of the refs
- 65. Aston Villa and the bias of the refs
- 66: Arsenal – and the total bias of the refs
Refs biased against Arsenal instead of the fact that they are always biased for Arsenal and Mark “I didn’t give a goal when the ball was at the back of the net and I didn’t give a free kick when Nani handled” Clattenburg being biased towards Spurs?
Hahahaha
Thanks for the laugh
Off topic:
What’s with Frimpong, i always see him in training, but no news of him starting a game again?
Anyway, hope we treat this game as a must win.
Forward gunners.
I am very interested in comments on both Mark Clattenburg and the referees of the games involving both Arsenal and Spurs. Is the writer a referee? Was he a Referee? or is he just a Arsenal fan who sees every decision given against them as wrong. As an ex Referee I find the comments strange and very bias towards Arsenal, if I am honest.
Fatboy,
The writer of this article is not a referee.
But the reviews (see links) were all done by qualified referees and by referees who supported other teams than Arsenal most of the time. In fact the majority of the referees involved didn’t support Arsenal.
Fatboy,
To add to what Walter said, the same decisions have been successfully used to predict what and how the referee would behave in the matches before, like it is done in this article.
Also just reading the first para or two of the Ref Review articles. http://www.refereedecisions.co.uk/ – This would be a good place to start.
Why does anybody take this nonsense seriously? Over 40% of the panel used identify themselves as arsenal fans. There is no check whether they actually are qualified refs or not. The results are based on the submissions of those panel members who choose to submit. So the arsenal fans are far more likely to comment on arsenal and spurs games than neutral panel members are. You only have to look at the quality of their opinions……for example not one of the panel considered Flaminis foul on Rose in the league game to be worthy of a red. So it wasnt a wrong decision. Every time arteta flings himself to the ground when breathed upon is viewed as a foul so a ref is biased if he doesnt give it. Nobody objects to fans being biased……its what makes us fans…..but please dont dress up bias as fact. Its paranoid, silly and totally unscientific.
There is very little objective truth in refereeing. Refs have to make instant decisions based on what they think they have seen. So your self-selected panel of amateur or even unqualified refs are so superior to refs who have officiated in world cups and european championships that they can see a wrong decision which these professionals have missed. Wow! It must be great to be so objectively right so often when the rest of us have to make do with subjective opinion!
Why take this “nonsense” seriously?
Because we have eyes and see the ref decisions, bias or tilting of the game…
Why take this “nonsense” seriously?
Gary, you have the cart before the horse.
Many of us have come to this site because we see something wrong with the game.
Game after game after game referees getting decisions wrong – we KNOW from that that something was wrong.
The sterling effort of the ref reviews has been to quantify these anomalies.
Please take the time to study the evidence.
gary fox,
What checks have you made to back up your first comment? Clearly none!
For the lost spuds, here you will find the facts presented & summarised for last season.
http://www.refereedecisions.co.uk/ref-review-201213-were-refs-biased-in-tottenhams-favour-last-season-the-ref-review-continues/
Lost spuds don’t want facts they just want to have a go at Arsenal fans and there blogs.
Walter, now I believe without any doubt that some referees are reading this blog. And please can you invite a Spurs fans who might be referees to join the reviews? I feel by the time they review two or more games themselves, a lot of these misguided arguments will cease.