Arsenal v Villa: It’s that ref that Arsenal should never have to face again

• Arsenal v Aston Villa: the utterly unexpected tactics
• Some very good reasons why Arsenal will beat Villa on Sunday

By Sir Hardly Anyone

And by “That referee” I mean David Coote.   The man who was the “referee” (I use the word lightly) for the game with Crystal Palace on 21 August 2023.  A man who has just about the worst reputation of any referee in Premier League football.  And beyond.  A man who is even criticised by the English media, despite their constant love affair with PGMO and their refusal to criticise anything PGMO does. 

If the refereeing situation in the Premier League was at all reasonable and well-founded, David Coote would, after his last bash at Arsenal, been sent on a prolonged (maybe two or three year) re-training course.  Then if allowed back at all, he should have been given work in non-league football for a year or two before being allowed even into the Football League, let alone the Premier League. And he should also never be allowed to referee an Arsenal game.

But no, he is still in the group of 15 top referees used by PGMO and has overseen 13 games this season showing particular home team bias with 53.8% home wins, 30.8% away wins and 15.4% draws (figures from WhoScored).

He particularly came to our attention on 23 August last year when he “controlled” Crystal Palace v Arsenal.  In this game he sent off Takehiro Tomiyasu after initially giving him a yellow card in utterly insane circumstances.

In that game Kai Havertz went to take a throw in and delayed taking it as often happens, before passing the ball to Tomiyasu for him to take it.

This is something we see all the time in football.  The nearest player to the ball measures up to take the throw in, but then as the regular taker of throw-ins comes up, and is passed the ball to the other player.

On this occasion, Havertz had been looking for someone to throw to for maybe five seconds before he passed the ball to Tomiyasu, who then took around five seconds (a perfectly reasonable amount of time, and that used up by many players in taking a throw in) to complete the throw.

The referee then waved a yellow card at Tomiyasu and we were given to understand this was for time wasting.  Yet Tomiyasu had only had the ball for around five seconds.  So he was penalised for the accumulated time that he had Havertz took to complete the throw in.  That is not something that is within the rule book, and there’s a report from the occasion here, if you are interested.

Now although The International Football Association Board last summer ordered referees to deal with time-wasting and add on the exact time taken for goal celebrations, substitutions, injuries, red cards, penalties and VAR check, there was absolutely no mention of throw-ins in that directive either.  The idea of giving Tomiyasu a yellow card for this was invented totally by David Coote.

Of course PGMO could have sent Coote for retraining, but no, so now, ludicrously, he is in charge of an Arsenal match again.  The man who arbitrarily decided that cumulative time-wasting should be an offence, and that he could arbitrarily give a yellow to the last person with the ball where he feels his invented offence has happened.

Thus this was the only recorded occasion in which a referee added the amount of time he deemed to have been used by the two players over a thrown in, and then penalised the second player for the “crime” of the first. 

But at least we have gone through this season with the thought that this referee was being kept right away from Arsenal.   Until now.

And we are not the only people who are worried about his competence.   Consider, for example a piece from This is Anfield in which they wrote of “the latest shocker from referee David Coote”   noting that “When the officials for Liverpool vs. Brighton were confirmed earlier in the week, there was almost a resignation among fans over those given the duties.”

The Star also noted that his dubious performance in the Manchester City and Manchester United match.  

Indeed negatives about him are everywhere.  Consider “he was awful yesterday had the whistle glued to his lips, card happy.”

Of course many referees get criticised by fans, but none get as much as this man.  Consider again this from the Mail: “Former Premier League referees’ chief blasts David Coote…”

The suggestion here and in multiple other places is not that Coote is biased, but that he is incompetent, and by implication that PGMO are inept by not dealing with this.

Even Football London has called his work “incoherent”.  Of course, we can hope he might have been for retraining, which is why he has only overseen 13 games, but I am not holding my breath.