Arsenal v Liverpool 4 April 2015 – The Match Officials
by Andrew Crawshaw
Here is the updated “Table of Shame” following Walter’s three recent referee reviews :-
Kevin Friend Ref Review : QPR – Arsenal – another sub 70% showing with two wrong Important Decisions (second yellow, red cards, penalties and goals) where at the start of the second half Henry should have been sent off and a penalty awarded for a last man foul in the penalty area.
Mark Clattenberg Ref Review: Crystal Palace – Arsenal – a better performance with one of the rare events – a wrong Important Decision in favour of Arsenal when Coquelin really should have been sent off in the third minute. Mind you Özil had the ball in the net in the second minute after wrongly being flagged for offside. The ‘goal’ has to be discounted as the keeper probably stopped with the flag. After that Mr Clattenberg had a pretty good game – 80% overall and bias against both teams of 18/82. I have added three points in the “favouring Arsenal column” as the result might have been different if Coquelin had got his marching orders in the third minute of the game.
Chris Foy (first 59 minutes) and Anthony Taylor (last 31 minutes)
Ref Review(s) : Arsenal – West Ham, two for the price of one.
Chris Foy bottling a penalty and sending off in the Fourth minute (no change there), then doing little else wrong, Taylor not making any wrong Important Decisions but getting six routine calls wrong in his half our in the centre (five against Arsenal) again no great surprises.
| Wrong Important Decisions | Favouring Arsenal | Favouring Opponents |
| 2nd Yellow Cards | 0 | 17 |
| Red Cards | 4 | 16 |
| Penalties | 3 | 17 |
| Goals | 1 | 7 |
| Total | 8 | 57 |
| Possible Cost in Points | 5 | 23 |
Wrong important decisions still over seven to one against Arsenal and over two a game (28 reviewed to date) – it isn’t evening out yet. The only good thing is that we seem to have found a way of coping with it as it hasn’t cost us points recently.
The Match Officials
- Referee – Anthony Taylor
- Assistants – D Cann and M Perry
- Fourth Official – M Oliver
It was a good job that Pauline was out of the house when I saw the appointment list on Monday afternoon as I let out some choice expletives very loudly. Mr Taylor is totally incapable of refereeing an Arsenal game in an even handed manner as well as being totally incompetent to referee a football match at any level and his appointment is an affront to all Arsenal fans worldwide.
This will be the fourth time this year that he will have disgraced Arsenal, plus his substitute appearance when he took over from Chris Foy for the last 31 minutes of the West Ham game. The only time he could be said to have been OK was our 5 – 0 demolition of Aston Villa where we gave him no opportunity for any shenanigans (he still was 100% biased in favour of Villa for all of his wrong calls though).
In his three and a third games so far this year he has been biased against Arsenal to the tune of :-
| Type of error | Number against Arsenal |
| Yellow cards | 8 |
| Second Yellow Cards | 3 |
| Red Cards | 2 |
| Penalties | 1 |
| Goals | 1 |
| Points | 5 |
The numbers show either the number wrongly awarded against Arsenal or wrongly not awarded against opposition players. If there were any favouring Arsenal I would have included them but there weren’t.
Walter’s Reviews for the four games can be found here
| Ref review Leicester – Arsenal |
| Untold ref Review: Stoke – Arsenal, the Anthony Taylor horror show. “Shockingly bad”. |
| Ref Review : Arsenal – Aston Villa. Arsenal commit two fouls in 45 minutes. |
Ref Review(s) : Arsenal – West Ham, two for the price of one
Liverpool will, most likely, not be particular fans of his either this year. He has officiated in the following games
- Liverpool (1) v Chelsea (2), 8 Nov 2014
- Burnley (0) v Liverpool (1), 26 Dec 2014
- Everton (0) v Liverpool (0), 7 Feb 2015
2013/14 Season – We only had him once on 17 August for the season opener against Aston Villa where his complete inability to apply the rules of the game equally to both teams resulted in Villa winning three one.
As we didn’t have him again the Club must have made representations at the highest level (they should have done so this year after the Leicester game)! Koscielny in that game earning Mr Taylor’s wrath and two invented yellow cards and a penalty for a perfectly timed tackle. Villa allowed ‘Carte Blanche’ to do whatever they wished.
2012/13 Season
Match Review: Anthony Taylor – Reading Vs Arsenal (2 – 5) [17/12/2012] – 70% overall, bias against both teams 16/84 and no wrong Important Decisions, I noted that he had a good first half but missed many decisions in the second half.
Match Review: Anthony Taylor – Sunderland Vs Arsenal (0 – 1) [09/02/2013] – 58% overall, bias against both teams 11/89 and two wrong important decisions – Min 24 Cattermole should have been sent off with a straight red card and in Min 62 Larsson should have had a second yellow card and also left the field. This was, by far, the lowest score he was given all season and it set the standard he has followed in all Arsenal games since.
Conclusions
Mr Taylor will make mistakes, probably serious ones. So far this year he has made 7 wrong Important Decisions (five sendings off, one penalty and one goal) against Arsenal, almost certainly costing us five points in the process.
We can expect the vast majority of his wrong decisions to be against Arsenal, in the last five games this figure was noted his bias has been 84, 89, 93, 100, 100 and 81% against Arsenal.
Liverpool infringements will not be noticed – they will get free kicks if they dive, will not be penalised for anything short of murder. Things got that bad in the Stoke game that both linesmen started calling offences correctly in such a manner that he couldn’t ignore (needless to say neither of those two are on duty this weekend).
The Emirates crowd have to be Arsenal’s twelfth man and provide vocal support throughout the game as well as calling Taylor out for every bad call he makes.
The Arsenal players will have to be super careful, they will be carded for any possible infringement. Arsene will also have to be prepared to make substitutions to keep eleven players on the pitch.
Against Liverpool this is an appointment that fills me with dread, we will have to play very well to get our just desserts in this one and there is a real risk of players being sent off for minor infringements, thereby missing future games, which would present a big blow to our chances of coming third or higher this year.
COYG
Follow us on Twitter @UntoldArsenal
I genuinely think, with Anthony Taylor in charge of this game, that Wenger oddly be better off resting all his top players and just accepting this is a no win situation. Liverpool are probably the worst team I have ever seen for cheating via diving and they will be given at least one penalty, especially if they are losing and just dive in the box to get level. I know that throwing the game is a drastic idea, but the alternatives are red cards and injuries from uncontrolled and unpunished late tackles by Liverpool players. Better to save the players and aim at winning the remaining 8 matches. I can tell you now that an Arsenal win will simply NOT be allowed as it will effectively end Liverpool’s CL chances, putting them 9 points behind Arsenal and probably 8 behind Utd.
Seeing that table at the top makes my blood boil; we should be top of the league if it wasn’t for these cheating scumbags. And I worry tomorrow the pgmob rep will try and ensure we don’t get 3 points, as he has always tried to do each time he’s involved in any of our matches. Hope the boys can overcome the biased officiating, but with cheats like sterling it’ll be hard.
On a different note congratulations to Wenger and Giroud for winning manager and player of the month respectively, well done.
AS much as want Arsene to be awarded ‘Manager of the month’ I fear for us in our next game as the award winner usually sees his team lose the next match.
Colario – thats a load of bollocks. Arsenal will win this game despite the cheating. Liverpool will be rodgered by their own deeds. Arsenal are an in form team & hopefully the international break has not changed that.
I know thi ref, he has cheated us before. I hope Arsene’s team talk includes the words that even if we draw, we are in a presentable position for CL next year. Lets not risk much.
I saw the Rodgers pre-match interview on Sky & thought he looked rather smug – I suppose he should, he has one of the most anti Arsenal creeps from the PGMO to help him on Saturday and … Oh yes…two of his players who were withdrawn from the England squad, and who initially appeared to be out for 4 weeks or so have made miraculous recoveries and are odds on to play tomorrow.
The Dippers wouldn’t be economical with the truth would they?
quotes from article:
“The Emirates crowd have to be Arsenal’s twelfth man and provide vocal support throughout the game as well as calling Taylor out for every bad call he makes.
(Those who tweet, hash and twitter and what ever plz transmit that to all arsenal fans. 🙂 )
The Arsenal players will have to be super careful, they will be carded for any possible infringement. AW will also have to be prepared to make substitutions to keep eleven players on the pitch.”
AW is well aware of the situation by now, and will have a plan to counter it, but it will not be giving up, no way. They may well be a change in the team, but the lads all know what is at stake and will not want to slip. This is WAR now.
No settling for a draw either. We have to blow pool away tomorrow and prepare mentally for those others.
@bjtgooner
I actually thought he looked a little uncomfortable. Sometimes too much said only highlights the issue. He gave too much info to the interviewer’s question.
Think we will win but this ref will not make it easy, and any result for us may be at a cost.
Keren Barratt has been mysteriously removed from selecting refs, Riley’s right hand man and fellow Manc sympathiser Howard Webb has taken over, looks like no change then.
I have thought from the beginning of the season that if there is an agenda, it is getting Utd back into the top four, this ref appointment for this game , and the fact we see him so often would certainly fit that agenda.
Fully expecting Atkinson for Chelsea as well.
We will have to be good to win this fixture, but this team, if allowed to be, are good, very good.
Agree with that, Mandy. This team if allowed is very good. One just needs look at the possible number of points stolen and it’s to see we should be at least 8 or 10 points ahead at the top. With all the injuries this team has had this year, that’s quite an amazing feat. But people forget. In my book this team won the league last season, and are due to win it again this year, if we factor the cheating out.
….It’s easy** to see we should be 8 or 10 points ahead..
Any comments after the match? Still some dodgy decisions but would be interesting to see the bias score.