by Andrew Crawshaw
- Referee – Roger East
- Assistants – Simon Bennett and Marc Perry
- Fourth Official – Frederic Graham
Roger East is from Wiltshire and this will be only the third time he has refereed in an Arsenal game.
This Season His only appearance this season was at the end of December in our 2 – 0 win over Bournemouth.
His scores were 67% weighted overall score, bias of 69/31 and two wrong Important Decisions – both not given penalties. Min 45+1 Francis for manhandling Giroud and Min 59 Gabriel fouling Gosling. Not exactly setting the world on fire.
Last Season 2014-15 we had him once in our 2 – 2 draw at home to Hull. His scored were 62% weighted and bias of 82/18 with one wrong Important Decision. Min 17 Diame goal for Hull should have been ruled out for clear foul on Flamini in the buildup. Again less than stellar refereeing and there is a good argument for saying he cost us two points on the day.
I have no reviews of Mr East in a Burnley Game but here is a brief history :-
2014-15 Premier League
Southampton 2 – Burnley 0
2013-14 Championship
QPR 3 – Burnley 3 with 3 yellow cards
Burnley 3 – Blackpool 1 with 3 yellow cards
Doncaster 0 – Burnley 2 with three yellow cards and one penalty
Turning to the rest of the Refereeing Team
I have a ‘flag’ against Mr Bennett for the 0 – 0 Draw at home to Liverpool in August for wrongly flagging Ramsey offside in Minute 9, Michael Oliver was the referee. This is his only Arsenal Game in the League this year.
Mr Perry has been Assistant to Mr Madley in our 3 – 1 home win against Sunderland and with Mr Marriner in our 1 – 0 win away at Newcastle. In Both games he was ‘flag’ free.
Mr Graham, hasn’t acted as fourth Official in the Premier League in the last three seasons, so I’ll assume he is a completely new face.
He is a 52 years old Essex man and is on the National Referees List (one step down from the ‘Elite’ Premier League referees). A Warm Emirates welcome to you sir. He normally referees in the Championship of Football League one or two. This year he has taken charge of 16 games spread across The Championship, Johnson Paint Trophy, League 1, League Cup and FA Cup competitions. He has issued 69 yellow and one red card as well as giving two penalties. The biggest attendance was 24,975 for Middlesbrough v Notts Forest where 5 players got yellow cards.
In Summary
- Mr East isn’t the greatest ever referee, his numbers have been below the 70% minimum acceptable level in both his previous Arsenal games.
- He doesn’t like giving penalties so best not put a bet on there being one.
- He also has a ‘blind eye’ to fouls against Arsenal which is something to watch out for.
- Burnley are likely to be ‘up for it’ and will probably play in a physically imposing manner, particularly as they are now the home for Mr J Barton that well known wind up merchant. However they are also a decent team currently in third place in the Championship and quite capable of causing us problems so we will likely have to match their intensity. I hope Mr East stays on top of the game and prevents things getting out of hand (although I’m not sure that will happen).
COYG
I was perusing the Championship table, seeing how Burnley was doing, and I saw Birmingham just out of the playoff spots… Anyone have an idea what is going to happen with Jon Toral at the end of the year. Is he not out of contract, but doing rather well with the Blues?
@ Going
Burnley are playing good football. This is not going to be an easy game. they will I think want to win so will give the game their best shot. In the jargon ‘they will be up for it.’
They will not save players for the league because if the first team play and win it will boost their confidence for league games.
Toral was good last year too – I’ve tipped him to come back and work with Arsenal, which is usually the kiss of death for anyone unless they have the surname Coquelin
No underestimation of Burnley please, they play mostly good football and we know what happens when we play too casualy(Sheffield Wednesday 🙁 )so complete focus is required.
We’ve had 6 days to prepare the squad for 2 matches really(Southhampton to come in 2 days) and it will be interesting to see the team selection for both matches.
With everyone rearing to go and start our (usual) end of season run we should be ready for any opponent. Am i glad we have players coming back from injury? A resounding YES. 🙂
COYG
Once bitten twice shy! Let any attacking Gunner or Gunners attacking into the Clarets’ half of the field be careful not to fall into the trap of linesman Mr Bennett’s offside flagging. Who may flag a genuine Gunner’s goal offside again during the match tomorrow as he flagged Aaron Ramsey’s genuine goal against Liverpool offside early in the season. Instead of to consentrate on their promotion quest to the Premier League, Sean Dyche and his Clarets outfit may decide to be gready to go for glory against the mighty Arsenal. Thus, am in total support of the Boss not to fall to any trap to mostly start the standing Arsenal’s Premier League team for the match. With maybe Elneny starting in place of Flamini to see what caliber he’s made of. And less I forget, the Gunner De Aberu should not play any offside trap during this match as Mr Bennett may not flag any offside Claret offiside.
Corruption
Madrid’s (Real and Athletico) transfer bans have been suspended pending their appeals.
Some governance organization published a report critical of FIFA for not instituting protections for whistleblowers.
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Good luck to U21 at Stoke tomorrow.
COYYG!
Any Idea if ‘Handball’ Boyd Is in their squad?
Good luck to Mr East, hope you have a great game.
As for us, a tricky game, Burnley are doing well. A chance for some players to shine. Interesting to see Elneny
Andy
I’ve looked a few times tonight (western Canada), and the only medja article predicting line-ups was Metro. And Metro decided to start ragging on Arsenal in the very first sentence, so I didn’t bother reading the article. Hopefully that author gets food poisoning soon.
Speaking of food, I see that the spuds are visiting Colchester for the early game. Can you believe that I could find a spud recipe that has something to do with Colchester? For me, quite an upscale recipe, it has lobster in it.
http://colchesteroysterfishery.com/blogs/recipes/19135327-lobster-potato-skins
I really hope the lads from Colchester have some lobster, sun dried tomatoes and avocados brought to the game; so that they can lunch on the spuds.
Lets just play our usual game and wait for the breaks . No pressure , but a win would be a great boost after last week .
2-0 for me . Up the Gunners !