Hull v Arsenal 04 May 2015 – The Match Officials
by Andrew Crawshaw
Firstly lets start off with the ‘Table of Shame’ updated following Walter’s report on Mike Jones performance in the Newcastle game – Ref Review : Newcastle – Arsenal: an overwhelming bias.
A very poor overall performance gaining 58% overall, bias against arsenal 95% and three wrong Important Decisions (Second Yellow Cards, Red Cards, Penalties and Goal decisions). In Minute 60 Chambers should have had a penalty awarded him for handball (the one wrong decision in out favour) and either in Minute 62 Forearm to Coquelin’s head or Minute 81 Dive trying to win a penalty Cabella should have been sent off (he should have had his first booking in Minute 13.
A game made far more tight than it should have been by a referee unwilling to discipline players in accordance with the rules. I have added two points in the Favouring Arsenal column of the table for the penalty decision.
| Wrong Important Decisions | Favouring Arsenal | Favouring Opponents |
| 2nd Yellow Cards | 0 | 19 |
| Red Cards | 4 | 16 |
| Penalties | 4 | 18 |
| Goals | 1 | 7 |
| Total | 9 | 60 |
| Possible Cost in Points | 7 | 23 |
The overall totals of the wrong Important Decisions for and against us is 9/60, still nearly seven to one against – it isn’t going to even out this year again.
Onto the Hull Game
- Referee – Lee Mason
- Assistants – A Halliday and M McDonough
- Fourth Official – Lee Probert
We haven’t seen much of Mr Mason this year he was at the Emirates in December for the visit of Newcastle and this is the second time, away at Hull – exactly as it should be for all referees. One home game, one away game no more.
| Ref Review Arsenal – Newcastle |
76% Overall, bias against the two teams 100/0, and three wrong Important Decisions.
In Minute 8 Tiote planted his studs in Alexis’ chest – should have been a straight red card; In Minute 15 Wellbeck had a perfectly good goal ruled out for a non-existent foul and in Minute 87 Dummet should have had a second yellow card for bringing down Wellbeck in the penalty area (the penalty was awarded) as he also should have been booked in Minute 38 he should have been sent off.
Every single wrong decision went against Arsenal confirming a barely adequate refereeing performance. Luckily it didn’t cost us points in this instance as we were comfortable 4 – 1 winners.
How has he been for us in past years?
2013/14 – We had him four times all away from home
Arsenal – WBA, the told you so game 6 October 2013 – West Brom 1 Arsenal 1
“ Wilshere was like an outlaw on the field and I mean this as a person who was not allowed to go in to any challenge or being called back for a foul but on the other hand could be pushed, pulled, kicked without that the ref would give a foul to Arsenal. But this same Wilshere scored a vital goal for us. His shot took a slight deflection on Olsson and ended up in the back of the net.”
Cardiff 0 – Aaronsenal 3 30 November 2013 – Cardiff 0 Arsenal 3. An Inspired Aaron helped us to a fully justified three points, Cardiff played football and not rugby and thus the main threat from Mr Mason was nullified.
Southampton 2 – Arsenal 2 – Mason as predicted yet again 28 January – Southampton 2 Arsenal 2
“Now of course when you play bad it doesn’t mean that the ref should assist the other team. I have seen the “foul” from Mertesacker a dozen times now and I really cannot see what was the foul. He cleanly played the ball and then the Southampton player went down. This was never a foul. To ad insult to the injury Southampton scored from the free kick that was given.
Then we have to give credit to Mason. He made a right decision. He gave a red card against Flamini for a two footed tackle. He got the ball but it doesn’t matter. It is a reckless and dangerous tackle and a red card should be given.”
Norwich – Arsenal, what a pair of goals! 11 May 2014 Norwich 0 Arsenal 2. Another Ramsey special and a first for Jenkinson. Norwich for once playing football and not injuring our players.
2012-13 Season
Match Review: Lee Mason – Stoke City Vs Arsenal (0 – 0) [26/08/2012] 55% overall, bias against 26/74 and five wrong Important Decisions (Second Yellow, Red Cards, Penalties or Goals). In Minute 7 Wilkinson threw himself in front of a ball that was going into the goal, his arm was outstretched and prevented the goal. Should have been red card and penalty. In Min 38 Arsenal should have had a second penalty, in Minute 57 Gibbs shoved pennant in the penalty area – should have been a Stoke penalty and in Minute 63 Stoke should have been further reduced following a nasty studs up challenge. Awful refereeing and it cost us two points.
| Match Review: Lee Mason – Aston Villa Vs Arsenal (0 – 0) [24/11/2012] |
80% overall, bias against 0/100, no wrong Important Decisions. An excellent first half, one wrong call in Minute 2 Gibbs wasn’t offside. The second half wasn’t quite as good with a number of wrongly called or non called fouls and another wrong offside against Gibbs. Better this time but all eleven wrong call against Arsenal.
Ref review 2012/13: Lee Mason. The ref with penalty area fever and Arsenal phobia
Across all of his 15 reviewed games (out of 24 in total) Here is a summary of his numbers.
| Decision | Total Correct | Total Incorrect | % wrong |
| Yellow Card | 39 | 40 | 50.6% |
| Red Card | 1 | 8 | 88.9% |
| Goals | 33 | 5 | 13.2% |
| Penalties | 3 | 7 | 70% |
One correct red card out of 9, 3 correct penalties out of 10, 5 wrong goals out of 38 and yellow cards a 50/50 lottery. Unacceptable!
Previous years are no different.
In Conclusion
- Despite the fact that we haven’t lost a game with him in charge for three years he is an awful referee. His decision making is at times no better than a toss of a coin and he really has no idea at all of what constitutes a yellow, red card or penalty. He also has an unacceptable habit of wrongly allowing or disallowing goals.
- His bias numbers against Arsenal are disastrous – 100% in his only game so far this year.
- Hull are no ‘shrinking violets’ and well versed in the ‘dark arts’ of football. In the cup final last year we were denied four penalties by Mr Probert and I fully expect that total to be added to by Mr Mason on Monday night.
- On past performance, he will also allow Hull to kick the shit out of us whilst penalising our players for any minor infringements committed.
- If Hull decide to play football, we should win with little difficulty, if they do decide to rough us up then the referee’s leniency might just result in a draw.
COYG
Two cup victories in our anniversary list today
4 May 1994: Arsenal win the Cup Winners Cup for the one and only time by beating Parma 1-0 in Copenhagen. Ian Wright missed the final through suspension, Alan Smith scored the goal
4 May 2002: Arsenal won the FA cup and Ljungberg became the first player since 1961 to score in two successive cup finals and so the 3rd double was completed. Tim Lovejoy, commentating said, “Oh no, he’s got through. Oh, it’s alright. it’s only Ray Parlour.”
So Lee Mason eh?
All i know is, we have to make sure we do not lose any games, OK 1st place is gone, but we need to end on a good high, we got the FA cup to come. I hate having games in hand, it’s so nerve wrecking, but the team is a different beast now and will have learned the lessons that made us come a cropper in the last few seasons, so COME ON ARSENAL, lets finish in STYLE.
Just had to post this: AW comments on TH comments regarding Giroud.
http://www.theguardian.com/football/2015/may/03/arsene-wenger-thierry-henry-oliver-giroud-arsenal-sky
Just hope we continue the trend of being too good for the combination of opponents and the ref. An early goal will do nicely.
Handy that Probert is around for another Hull game. Two appalling excuses for officials. COYG!!
Will we seem the same standard of officiating as witnessed in other games this weekend or as usual will the AFC players be subject to far more impacts and lack of protection?
People can ignore the constant diving and rewards thereof for the Gazprom Fulham franchise, but can they ignore with any credibility the variation in the officials as witnessed in AFC games, as recorded and compiled over consecutive seasons year after year.
Henry also said the injuries were a problem. He then started to talk about hamstring strains and not impact injuries. Which was interesting. And misleading. Henry played in the 49th game. When he can be arsed to ask Gary Neville about Mike Riley’s performance that day live on Sky, their hatred of the Arsenal, that could be interesting.
But he won’t do it.
Para
I already posted those quotes and commented on them on the ’33 games’ thread at 9:33. Directly beneath your 7:51 Post.
Anyway, this was my take on it in case you missed it:
“I think he’s wrong,” said Wenger. “He’s paid for that. We know all the system now of the modern media, especially on TV. I know how it works. They push you to be controversial because they give you a lot of money.
“I can accept an opinion but the comment on Giroud was a bit more wrong, especially because I heard the same thing being said about Nicolas Anelka, about Thierry Henry himself and about Robin van Persie. And they all became world-class players themselves.”
And the most telling line from what Wenger:
“WHEN KNOW ALL THE SYSTEM NOW OF THE MODERN MEDIA, ESPECIALLY ON TV. I KNOW HOW IT WORKS. THEY PUSH YOU TO BE CONTRAVERSIAL BECAUSE THEY GIVE YOU A LOT OF MONEY.”
So there we have. Even one of our greatest ever players. One that seems/seemed to be still be ‘in love’ with the Club. A player that still seems/seemed to have extraordinarily close ties to, not only the Club, but Arsene Wenger himself. One that seemed at least to have ambitions to manage, possibly, in fact almost certainly, at Arsenal, is too weak to resist the pressure to tow the line.
Rather than show so spine and give some balanced, reasonable critique he choses to:
-Slag of a Player he almost certainly has recently worked with. Possibly mentored. Who is one of the most in form strikers in the Country, if not Europe.
-Undermine a manager he supposed to admire. A manager he must know comes under the most unreasonable, unfounded criticism from all sides, yet he sees fit to contribute to the bullshit.
-Criticise a Squad that in recent memory welcomed him back like the prodigal son.
I hope Wenger has had the balls to call him up, tell him what he thinks, and told him to keep his disloyal arse as far away from Arsenal as possible.
And all for money he almost certainly doesn’t need.
What price loyalty?
Jambug 🙂
@Andrew please keep the title of Ref reviews simple & not critical. Criticize within the post if you need to. My opinion is that there could be unnecessary animosity created prior to the match & result in worse bias. We need as much help despite the evil that is the PGMO agenda.
Lee Mason aided by Lee Probert? Expect us to be kicked to shits without either of them doing anything whatsoever. The two of them shouldnt be anywhere near the top flight but this is PGMOL the mob we are talking about. Its like they chooae the worst of the bunch and then recruit them into the select group. Mike Riley must have very powerful people backing him to be allowed to get away with it
Referee was beyond awful tonight
Predictions made predictions come to pass our players had the sh*t kicked out of them.