By Walter Broeckx, the untold ref
For our CL game against Belgrade we got the company of ref Stark from Germany. Did he have a “stark” (strong in English) performance?
A first point of attention is the fact that I cannot remember a game that was televised in such a bad way. Sometimes you got no replays from some decisions or the wrong replays from the wrong angles and this made my match report more difficult.
So if pictures prove me wrong (later on) on some of my points just let me know because I had to do with a not that good stream on the internet and even when they gave the entire match on TV later that night I still couldn’t see some of the incidents properly.
Sorry for sounding like Wenger [careful Walter – ed] but I then did what a ref should do: stay with your first opinion. And why on earth was there no cameras on the line of the penalty area????
PENALTY: Partizan player goes down but the ref gives nothing. As this was one of the worst televised games ever with no replay I can only confirm what the ref has seen: nothing. So I give him this decision. 1/1
PENALTY : Wilshere crosses against a Partizan defender. The ball hits his arm but from close range and his arm was in front of his body. So no penalty for me and thus a correct decisions from the ref. 1/1
GOAL: 1-0 ARSENAL nothing to report apart from some very nice footwork from Wilshere all within the rules. 1/1
OTHER/CARD : chance for Arshavin and foul on Wilshere. Great from the ref to give the advantage but when the chance is missed and then he stops play in midfield. He should have given a yellow card then. It was a dangerous tackle on Wilshere and deserved a yellow card. 1/1 and 0/1
PENALTY: On arsenal.com this line came on the site: “Denilson handles in the area after a cross from the left and the penalty is given! That looked harsh.” And at first sight it looked harsh. But when I saw the replay (some 15 minutes later) I could see that Denilson had his arm not next to his body. And as the cross travelled some 15 meters in the air before getting to Denilson he had the time to get his arm out of the way. So yes a penalty. 1/1
OTHER/CARD: Tackle from behind on Wilshere. The ref gives no foul and no card. He points that the ball has been played. Sorry ref, he came in with two feet from behind and hits the player and then gets the ball. Always foul and should have been a yellow card. Losing points here. 0/1 and 0/1
PENALTY/CARD: And thanks to who ever invented all those high tech things so one can freeze images on his TV. Chamakh goes on goal with the defender in his back and goes down. Ref gives a penalty and a red card. From the moment he gives the foul he has to send him off. And then the major talking point: was he fouled? Well on the replay it showed that the defender hit Chamakh on his calf (got it freeze framed on my big TV screen) and then Chamakh fell over. The defender did touch him in an illegal way so it was a foul. But was it a penalty? No it wasn’t. Because when I freeze the picture on the moment that the defender hits Chamakh both players their feet were outside the penalty area. So the bottom line: it was a red card foul on a player going on goal as the last defender. But the foul was just outside the penalty area so the penalty decision was wrong. O/1 for the penalty and 1/1 for the card. So Arshavin missing the penalty saves the ref because it would have been a not correct goal.
CARD: Booking for a cynical tackle from behind on Chamakh. Correct decision. 1/1
GOAL : Chamakh makes our second goal and all well within the rules. 1/1
GOAL: Squillaci scores his first for Arsenal and nothing to report about this goal. 1/1
PENALTY: Gibbs brings a Partizan player down on the edge of the penalty area. Again when I freeze the image the foul is outside the area. It was a foul but again like with Chamakh it was outside the penalty area. 0/1
PENALTY: 3/5
GOAL: 4/4
CARD: 2/4
OTHER:1/2
TOTAL: 10/15 (67%)
I must say that the ref had a bit of bad luck with some of his decisions in the penalty area or not in and this of course reflects in his total points. You hardly get this “on the line decisions” once in a game but to have it twice in a game is a bit of bad luck for the ref.
In fact he was a bit lucky that both the penalties were missed. He could have felt let down by his assistants on both occasions. It is normally up to them to decide if it was in or out the penalty area. But like I said it is a matter of team work.
I also had the feeling that he was a bit soft in punishing some tackles like the tackle from behind on Wilshere I mentioned. I had on another few occasions the same feeling that he wasn’t strong enough to get rid of those tackles. And there were other examples where he missed some dangerous tackles.
This is something that he has in his own hands. So I must admit that I’m not totally satisfied with his performance on the night.
So not the best game of his life I think or hope for him. But also not the worst performance I have ever seen.
——————
Would you like to write for Untold Arsenal? You can – just click here
Does the Champions League affect EPL results?
Partizan vs Arsenal – an Untold Prediction
Partizan vs Arsenal – the injury index
- Arsenal History: currently telling the stories of all XI players who played in our first league game.
- Untold Arsenal on Facebook here
- Untold Arsenal Index: silly stuff, serious stuff, and stuff
- Making the Arsenal: the only book about the foundation of the modern club in 1910
- Arsenal Worldwide: supporting Arsenal from outside the UK
- Arsenal Independent Supporters Association
I thought you would like that joke, Tony. 😉 I just couldn’t resist it.
wtf is happening to vermaelaen???he was supposed to be back within 2 weeks and had supposedly minor injury…
You are so right about the TV coverage Walter – it was truly awful. Watching, as I do, games with the sound turned down so that I don’t have to listen to the mindless babble that passes for commentary, it brings home to you just how poor coverage is sometimes. Long, lingering shots of managers looking worried or individuals in the crowd or (as with last night) of failing floodlights – all shown while the ball is in play – are very annoying.
Thanks again for your patience in delivering your verdict on the ref despite it all!
As much as I like Wenger I really get all wind up when I see images of Wenger when the ball is in play. Or who ever they show: other managers, spectators, …
At a moment I remember the ball going out for a goal kick by the keeper. Images of Wenger, images of the other manager, images of the ref, images of a player and then we got the field back and the ball was up the other end…. It drives me mad at times.
terrible TV coverage, failed to show in any detail any of the incidents, even at half time when they showed the Denilson hadnball, the quality of camera work was so poor that you could hardly make out what actually happened. and as for Sky sports commontary, how anti Arsenal were those guys, they spent the whole game saying how terrible we were and how crap we’ve been this season, they must have been Spud fans, terrible TV. however great result, let’s move on, bring on the Chavs.
@ walter,great post 🙂
Tony: c’mon you can let walter get away with it.I thought it was a well timed joke!
I watched the match on Sky Sports4 and my God it was dreadful coverage.
replays of the Denilson penalty incident were not shown until later in the coverage. The commentators looked to find fault with Chamakh’s penalty with paul merson declaring that it was “a dive and a half” in the studio.
It would seem that the broadcasting powers that be and the retarded element of the league manager’s association object to the number of penalties we have been winning and got together to promote the idea that all our penalties are the result of diving.
Pulis jumped on redknap’s bandwagon last week and SKY ran with the ball giving hime coverage with comments from his inbred sympathisers.
the status Quo of little englander managers slating the cheating foreigner whilst ignoring the regular bone-breaking assaults by committed robust challenges from English “not that kind of” players on players from beyong their domestic borders.
The latest victim though isenglish. Kyle Bartley has a broken cheekbone from a late headed challenge. It is ok though because Gary speed who manages the assualting party said it was late and that he is ….you guessed it….”NOT THAT KIND OF PLAYER”.
Partizan supporters were awesome last night. We should hire them to train our listless Emirates crowd.
I had the game streamed online last night, so the picture quality was pretty bad, which meant unfortunately I had to listen to the commentary to find out what was happening. I can honestly say I was really peed off by the end of the game… After a tremendous away win in a fixture we would probably have lost in the past, there was no congratulatory comments from either commentator (Smudger… what’s going on there???). When Arsenal scored, there was a real disappointment from the two idiots but where Partizan scored/were awarded a pen, there was delight! I can’t for the life of me understand why this is. Would it happen to Man IOU, Liverpoo etc. NO! Even the dangerous tackles on Jack were described as a bit of rough & tumble. Shocking. On a positive note, it was a great win for us, a great response to the weekends game and a strong team performance from the reserves. 9-1 so far, looking good!
Terence, we are not listless. The volume is building, and increasingly the crowd at the Ems is staying with the side.
As others have noted, most of us stayed on saturday, and there was applause not booing for the team at the end, even with an unexpected home defeat.
Tony
Walter thanks for the post. I think you did not mention one the worst decisions by the ref of not issuing a yellow (at least) for petrovic’s blatnat elbow to Jack’s face (which had Wenger flipping his water bottle). That was just Kung Fu.
Tommie I really did miss that one to be honest. The stream wasn’t high quality and when the game was given in delay on my tv I used my “play” buttons a lot to analyze some things and to go back and so I did not see it.
I will try to see it tonight if it is still on the harddisk.
I think it is for everyone to see that the other teams fear Jack Wilshere a lot. Against Tottenham he was getting kicks like Cesc usually does and now again he was the main target of the opponents.
Tony:
Ok, listless might be a tad harsh but in terms of noise and vocal support, we have a long way to go in comparison to other stadia. Whilst is is true that the partizan crowd last night had almost a dark quality to them, the chanting was amazing. I know that this wont be replicated by us anytime soon but I suppose that the point that I am trying to make is that with some organisation, a better co-ordinated vocal support could be delivered. We don’t sound like 60,000 strong crowd.
Of course when the club made a big effort to address this for the CL match against Utd the performance on the pitch went south but further efforts of this kind could generate significant results and should probably be one of the focuses of the “arsenalisation” process.
I am not complaining by any means but I doubt if anybody will deny that there is significant room for improvement in that area. Chanting and singing are infectious and it might only take some directed effort to generate a tangible change in atmosphere to encourage our lads and intimidate visitors.
I would be interested to hear what any attending away-fan thought of the atmosphere in Belgrade last night. it must have been creepily electric eh.
Spot on TG, but worse was the silly Irishman Tommy Smiths comment on the tackle/tackles against JW “he playing in a man’s game now. What a t.at.
I’m worried for Wilshere’s future. He is constantly fouled in every game he plays. He may soon get injured. Look at the game against Spurs, it almost looked like they took turns in fouling him.
Walter – as always, good commentary.
Is it just me, or are we seeing a return of the tackle from behind to football? It seems that referees have forgotten that a tackle from behind is automatically a foul and yellow card. Or has that edict been changed? Walter – can you confirm whether the tackle from behind is still supposed to be a foul and booking?
Paul C,
yes you have noticed this just like I did.
That dreadful tackle is on his way back. Secretly it is crawling back from the gutter where it was burried in the last decade to show its evil and dangerous head again.
I think I have explained over here a few weeks/months ago how you can make a tackle from behind that is not a foul. But most of the tackles from behind are always a foul from the moment you take more than just the ball. Going through a player and then play the ball is a foul and is dangerous and should be a yellow card at least and on many occasions it just is a red card when you really jump in with both feet.
I can tell you that the rules hasn’t been changed on this. Only the refs are getting too lenient and the pundits (oooh what a surprise) they think it is okay to do such tackles.
T2T yes you are right.
In the Tottenham game I had the impression that someone (arry??) had told them to kick him whenever they could. The ref gave a few yellows and punished the tackles rather good.
But at Partizan it was the same tune again. I don’t know if it was told to them before the game to have a go at him or that it was just the players realising that Wilshere was the man pulling the strings again in our midfield and the man who created the danger. This time the ref didn’t do enough to stop it. That is the reason why I took away one point of his performance. That tackle from behind just past the half hour mark was a disgrace for the ref to let it go.
So yes when will the next Shawcross or Taylor stand in his way? I hope he never will but the protection skilful players get is very low and in this case even in the CL.