Arsenal v Burnley 01 November 2014 – The Match Officials
By Andrew Crawshaw
Firstly, here is the ongoing table of wrong Important Decisions for the season – still no signs of anything “evening out in the end”; four in Arsenal’s favour, 17 against.
| Wrong Important Decisions | Favouring Arsenal | Favouring Opponents |
| 2nd Yellow Cards | 0 | 4 |
| Red Cards | 3 | 6 |
| Penalties | 1 | 5 |
| Goals | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 4 | 17 |
| Possible Cost in Points | 2 | 13 |
Not a lot of change to this table following the Sunderland game, one not given red card against Rodwell in Minute 19 being the only wrong Important Decision but no change in the points score as we won the game.
The Officials for Burnley are
- Referee – Craig Pawson
- Assistants – D Bryan and D Eaton
- Fourth Official – J Moss
Craig Pawson, is another of the relatively new referees to the Premier League. He is 35 years old and has been a referee since 1993 (at the age of 14) working his way up via Yorkshire leagues to regularly officiating in the Football League in the 2012/13 season.
Since then his rise has been very rapid, he took charge of his first Premier League match in March 2013 (Swansea v Newcastle) and was formally appointed to the Select Group for the 2013/14 season. This will be his seventh game in charge this year out of a maximum of ten so he is clearly not being treated as a ‘makeweight’.
His full list of Premier League games is :-
| Season | Date | Home | Away | Result |
| 2014/15 | 16 Aug 2014 | QPR | Hull | 0 – 1 |
| 23 Aug 2014 | Swansea | Burnley | 1 – 0 | |
| 13 Sep 2014 | Sunderland | Spurs | 2 – 2 | |
| 20 Sept 2014 | West Ham | Liverpool | 3 – 1 | |
| 29 Sept 2014 | Stoke | Newcastle | 1 – 0 | |
| 18 Oct 2014 | Crystal Palace | Chelsea | 1 – 2 | |
| 2013/14 | 28/09/2013 | Fulham | Cardiff | 1 – 2 |
| 19/10/2013 | Swansea | Sunderland | 4 – 0 | |
| 09/11/2013 | Crystal Palace | Everton | 0 – 0 | |
| 21/12/2013 | Stoke | Aston Villa | 2 – 1 | |
| 01/01/2014 | Liverpool | Hull | 2 – 0 | |
| 28/01/2014 | Man United | Cardiff | 2 – 0 | |
| 08/02/2014 | Southampton | Stoke | 2 – 2 | |
| 23/02/2014 | Norwich | Spurs | 1 – 0 | |
| 15/03/2014 | Stoke | West Ham | 3 – 1 | |
| 06/05/2014 | Man United | Hull | 3 – 1 | |
| 2012/13 | 02/03/2013 | Swansea | Newcastle | 1 – 0 |
17 Games, 2 red cards, 53 yellow cards, 11 home wins, 3 away wins and 3 draws. There have been no formal reviews of any of his performances from Walter and his team and he has not yet been in charge of an Arsenal game there is therefore very little to go on.
Mr Pawson has done one Burnley Game this year, I have studied the game and here are my thoughts (as you know I am not a referee so this is not a full referee review, just my thoughts on the game) :
| Minute | Comment |
| 0-11 | No video for this part of the game |
| 23 | Correct goal from Dyer |
| 30 | Good refereeing, tried to play advantage, none forthcoming so pulled play back for free kick to Burnley |
| 41 | Good advantage played to Swansea |
| 45 | One minute of extra time added – No injuries or yellow cards, Ball out of play for 8 min 54 secs of which 60 seconds was due to the goal. Good timekeeping |
| 49 | Wrong call Ref gave Goal kick should have been corner |
| 50 | Burnley claim for handball, correct non decision |
| 62 | Wrong call ref gave free kick to Burnley for handball but initial foul looked to be by Burnley player |
| 73 | Shelvey rightly given yellow card |
| 79 | Duff (Burnley) correct yellow card for breaking up promising attack |
| 83 | Looked like handball by Swansea defender near corner flag, Scott Ledger (Assistant) right by incident gave nothing. |
| 85 | Sigurdsson, correct yellow card for late challenge |
| 89 | Foul by Gomis long after ball had gone possible yellow card but not given |
| 90 | Three minutes extra time, looked a little light, no injuries but I had over 3 min 30 sec for substitutions |
| 90min 40 sec | Game Over. I counted 25 min 18 sec of lost time, of which the ref gave back 4 min 40 secs so actual playing time 69 min 22 secs (and there was no video for the first 11 minutes of the game) |
This was a very easy game to referee, neither side were out to kick the other, so it is difficult to learn too much about Mr Pawson based on this single performance. His refereeing seemed balanced, there were very few wrong decisions and nothing major. It was an early season game with neither team particularly fluent in their passing which reflected in the considerable time lost to stoppages, mostly throws and free kicks.
Moving to the Assistants :-
D Bryan – Was with Mr Pawson for the Swansea v Burnley Game, hasn’t been to Arsenal this season, he had 24 Premier Leagus games last year of which his only Arsenal game was our 3-0 away loss at Everton.
D Eaton – This will be his first Premier Game this season, he had 14 premier games last year, none involving Arsenal
Fourth Official :-
Jonathan Moss
Well known to Arsenal – refereed three arsenal games last season Arsenal v Cardiff (2 – 0) on 01/01/2014;Arsenal v Palace (2-0) on 02/02/2014 and Hull v Arsenal (0-3) on 20/04/2014. He was also Fourth official for W Brom v Arsenal (1-1) on 06/10/2014 and Arsenal v Chelsea (0-0) on 23 Dec 2013. This Year he refereed our season opener v Palace (2-1) and has been fourth official twice, out home game v City (2-2) and our away loss at Chelsea (0-2).
In Summary
- This is a difficult game to predict as there are no proper statistics to analyse. Mr Pawson and Mr Eaton are both first timers to Arsenal and Mr Bryan was only glimpsed once last year.
- I have looked at his one game involving Burnley – Swansea v Burnley and, in truth, he had very little to do, both teams played good football, there were no stand-out bad tackles, the three cards he awarded were fair and he was balanced. In short he looked like a good referee.
- Our supporters need to welcome the officials openly but be willing to give them verbals is they start to tilt the pitch.
Walter is over for the game, with a squad of 13 Belgian supporters so that is normally a good omen for a solid win to The Arsenal and we should be capable of bettering anything that Burnley can throw at us.
COYG
This hopefully will be a nightmare first visit for Burnley, time for a bet on
5- nil I think
AB, it is going to be Arsenal 6-0 Burnley at full time. The Gunners MUST totally beat the Clarets to submission on the Emirates Stadium field tomorrow. The Gunners should dazzle the Clarets with unbelievable penetrating amassing possession football. Which the Clarets will not be able to contain. Welbeck must wake up from him goals sleeping acts and stop leaving Sanchez alone in the front line to be doing all the labouring to get goals for Arsenal. He Welbeck too must join hands with him to score goals against Burnley. He should please stop his unnecessary passing the ball backwards when he is put on goal and expected to take-on the defenses. He mustn’t give us that his weak performance he gave us at Sunderland last Saturday. Welbeck should bear it in mind that, Arsenal want to increase their goal difference to plus ten (+10) at the end of tomorrow’s game. Because who knows, goals aggregate could decided this title race.
Let’s just hope our boys turn up to play (and there is no reason why they shouldn’t) and we have an injury free outing at home tomorrow. For me a win, any win, would do. It will be nice to better our goal-difference, but three points first. Anything else will only be a bonus. Let the boys have an injury-free day, and any win will do just fine.
Absolutely !
Stan is indeed as they say, The Man.
Maybe a run out for Theo would be the icing on the cake .
Allez les Gunners.
Thanks Andrew. Hard to predict…as you say with a new ref. But Burnley will have done their homework, they know time wasting, rotational fouling are permitted against us. They know if any of ours retaliate in any way, the cards come out.
This ref may be the most honest decent ref on the planet, but he is probably ambitious and also answers to his boss, a Utd supporter, who is a puppet for the likes of the brand conscious scudamore, the EPL, TV companies and the media in general. And there will be moves to get Utd into the top four this season….we are a threat to that.
Expect more of the same against Burnley……an early goal for us, without the events against Hull would be very useful,as this team hopefully begin to get a run together.
I expect nothing from this ref despite knowing nothing about him. The team should think in the same way.
Burnley they are a good team.That is what the manager said and I second to that.
Highly likely a draw for me not a win.If I have to speak my mind.
I think it will be a frustrating afternoon and anything that we get out of the match (apart from cards and injuries) will be a bonus. My pessimism is nothing to do with my opinion of our players or manager, but rather due to a feeling of prophetic gloom with regard to the officiating. I feel as if Bachman Turner Overdrive had just responded to the Anthony Taylor Villa travesty.
Please stop referring to ‘possible points cost’ as it’s a complete guess. If Cahill had been sent off would MaureenO have swapped hazard (who’d been quite quiet up until then) or oscar or fabregas for another defender????? The few times I’ve seen them in that situation it’s hazard or Oscar but no one knows and no one knows what the result would have been for certain. Although it’s likely the result would have been different.
Well you guys have got the card count about right Arsenal 6 Burnley 0. I will be satisfied if we get 3 points.
Remember these officials are Rileys boys and have to satisfy magical masters in Peking, Wanking or some other such exotic place.
Samuel Akinsola Adebosin, i like your style, man
@Andy Mack, good point. So despite a wrong decision, according to the main piece, (in the Sunderland game, the red card not given), we still won so doesn’t that rather undermine your belief in always attributing losses to wrong decisions. Football isn’t something you can calculate on a chart based on wrong or right ref decisions. After all if we’d lost to Sunderland would you immediately blame the ref for not giving the Sunderland player a red card? Not possible to know these things.
I really expect us to win against Burnley, they are relegation candidates and if we can’t beat them at home we’re really below par.
I think Arsenal are well above the Burnley level of football and we should win. A score of 2 or 3 is not beyond us.
However, I have seen the PGMOL boys do their stuff and it is not easy for any team to defeat a team supported by the officials. Cards get issued against our players in very devious situations to ensure a reduction of effort and probability of suspension.
Walcott might play some part if we are in a reasonable position. I just hope nothing untoward happens as I wouldn’t put anything past the PGMOL.
@Menace
November 1, 2014 at 11:12 am
PGMOB will most certainly try their best to make up for last weeks’ lost ground.
The wonder of Untold. I was sitting in my seat and a young man sat next to me. We got chatting and I asked him if he read Untold. Well to cut a long story short – it was Finsbury. We enjoyed the game despite PGMOL’s poor showing yet again. Our boys were magnificent.
A good day; good result and great coincidence meeting of Menace & Finsbury.
Menace and Finsbury….a formidable combination!
Interesting about Dave Bryan being the linesman at Arsenal’s 3-0 loss at Everton last season because in that match Sanogo scored a legitimate goal that was wrongly flagged offside. Not sure if it was Mr. Bryan who made the bad decision or if it was the other assistant.
Dave Bryan also was suspended after gifting Chelsea two offside goals against Wigan in August of 2012.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2127156/Dave-Bryan-dropped-offside-double-blunder-Chelsea.html
In Saturday’s match against Burnley, Dave Bryan made 3 key wrong calls:
1) He wrongly called Gibbs offside after he broke the offside trap.
2) He failed to spot Boyd’s blatant handball in the area which should have resulted in a penalty and 2nd yellow.
3) He failed to spot a clear foul on big Per in which Burnley nearly scored.
Ref did fine.
Handball abit poor, to say the least.
But generally was OK, a lot better than most this season.
And at least it wasn’t a kicking match with even more players injured. Thanks to Burnley for that.
@bob mac – I beg to differ about the ref & his assistants. They cheated the Game of honest officiating. I was at the game – didn’t see the handball from the North Bank. Did see several fouls not called and assistant calling off side when it wasn’t. The time wasting is such a poor sham that the officials allow – particularly after the impeccable minutes silence – the only bit of timing the cheat got right!!
A bit off topic Andrew, but thanks again for all of your help to Arsenal Belgium. New members of our club, attending a game at the Emirates for the first time (and there were a few yesterday) were quite impressed by your welcome. The street map you prepared, the underground map… it was appreciated to its full value by all of us. And I got a good lunch! Thanks and until we come again!