By Tony Attwood
- Arsenal and Chelsea en route for over 100 yellow cards each this season
- How Arsenal kept their yellow card total under control last seeason
I suppose the real issue is why nothing is ever done about it. And by “it” I mean, players, who at club level are already playing a very high number of games, and who are then taken away on international “duty”, and get injured. The club’s season is then derailed as the country in question generally tells the club to ensure the player is ready for the next round of internationals.
Of course, we have covered this over the years. In 2014 for example, our companion site “The History of Arsenal” looked at the programme for Arsenal v Manchester United on Saturday 28 February 1959 which ran an article that started, “Three times fighting against odds. That sums up the three matches.
“At Sheffield we lost Jack Kelsey [he broke his arm] and with the loss went out Cup hopes for 1959. We then finished the League match against West Bromwich Albion with Henderson and Groves limping passengers…
“The problems which confronted our Manager before the Leeds game on Tuesday were probably as great as any faced by an Arsenal Manager when picking a team for one match. The following players were unavailable for selection:-
“Kelsey, Standen (who had played so well at The Hawthorns), Clapton, Groves, Julians, Bloomfield, Henderson, Ward, Nutt and Skirton.”
If we now leap forward to 24 October 2014 and Untold ran the headline, “Injuries start to wreck Arsenal’s season before it really gets going.”
And today we are full of the knowledge that “Norway’s Martin Ødegaard forced off with injury” Except of course he is not “Norway’s” because Norway don’t pay his salary. Arsenal does.
So now have seven players out, as in addition to the captain we are missing Merino, Tomiyasu, Rice, Jesus, Calafiori and Tierney – although admittedly one of those (Declan Rice) was a referee decision, not an injury. So six players now out through injury and one through suspension. However, we are not quite top of the league as Brighton and Newcastle each have seven players out through injury.
And I guess we also notice this particularly because last season was quite good for Arsenal in terms of injuries. For in that whole season, we had 23 separate injuries during the course of the whole campaign – and only Fulham had fewer. At the other end of the table Manchester United 45 injuries in the campaign, while Chelsea had 43 and below them were Newcastle and Brighton each with 41.
What we should also notice, as an article on the BBC website pointed out, is that “The total number of injuries [last] season rose by 11% on last season.” That season had a World Cup in the middle, and those words “World Cup” give us the clue as to why “hamstring injuries were up 18% year on year” for that year.
Last season, “almost all of Tottenham’s 26-man first team squad were injured at some point” which sounds a bit careless, especially as at the other end of the scale Manchester City had the fewest number of players injured. Indeed the website quotes Ben Dinnery of the Premier League Injuries website as saying, “It shows Pep Guardiola’s experience in dealing with elite level players and how to rotate your squad to get the best out of them.”
There has in fact been a lot of criticism of Arteta not rotating, and in the light of injuries being sustained that will probably come up again, but who is to say how well the team would have done last season if there had been greater rotation?
Another way of looking at this is through the number of individual players who are injured in a season. Here Tottenham ran away with the title with 22 players injured. Manchester United had 21. Arsenal and Manchester City at the foot of that table each had 14. So maybe rotation makes no difference.
I wish more of our players would follow Ben White’s example.
Gillett will referee the TLD… WTF !!!!!
Are Arsenal distributing miles or other things to referees ?!?!?
Gillettt to ref the Arsenal match.WTF is going on? PGMOL out to wreck our season before the 5th match?we have form with this guy.Who has done us no favours whatsoever in any matches I can recall.The exact opposite.I was of the opinion,wrongly or rightly that there was a time limit on how often or regular a particular referee can officiate one club over a specific period.? This smells of a rat.
And I see the KMI panel agree with Rices red card stating “Rice knows what he’s doing, it’s a gentle touch but once the referee sees it, he has no choice.” Which is an absolute crock of shit.
The ball was moving and in the wrong place. It would of had to of ben retaken in any event, so whatever Rice did was irrelevant.
We are being well and truly screwed this season and we are 3 games in.
Absolute joke.
I have almost given up completely with watching top flight football due to the appalling standard of refereeing. I could not stand more than about 10 minutes of Euro 24 after I mistakenly turned on Austria v France. What a shit show of officiating. At least 10 errors per half. Players on the pitch looked bewildered with most of the decisions. After this game I decided that it is just not worth the effort watching any game. From what I read on this page it appears that the PIGMOB are not good enough to referee children’s games on a Sunday
I am certainly thinking that UEFA are either incompetent and/or corrupt. Every game at UEFA level seems to have so many errors by referees it is hardly worth watching. I know the game is fast but why when I watched the AFCON finals earlier this year the refs looked about 400% better than European officials. VAR was normally sorted in 20 seconds and not many things were missed.
I gave up on the “champions League” about 2 years ago. The winners appear to me to be accidental. The amount of errors by referees make the whole tournament a joke.
I know there is a lot of money involved but please UEFA don’t make it so obvious that that is all you care about. Sport and fairness are something they do not seem to care about.
Forgot to mention FIFA are just as bad. The last world cup looked rigged to me, again error upon error by referees.
I know there are some games that the referees actually do a good job but they so rare as to be non existent.
Maybe this is why lots of people i know are losing interest in football.
I watched the Rice incident – how he got a yellow card is a mystery to me – no it isn’t because the ref could tilt the pitch by sending him off.
Les Williams
It seems you are mistaken as the KMI panel also found:
“Of the 23 on-field incidents looked into from the third weekend of the Premier League of the season, only one was deemed to be incorrect”.
And read this and weep:
“So far this season there has been little real controversy in the Premier League, with only one VAR decision ruled to be incorrect — when Tim Robinson intervened to disallow Dango Ouattara’s injury time “winner” for handball in AFC Bournemouth’s game against Newcastle United on Aug. 25.
While there have been no other VAR errors, the panel has ruled there were two penalties situations which were wrong on the pitch but didn’t meet the threshold for a clear and obvious error for an intervention: Referee Tony Harrington should not have given West Ham United a spot kick against Aston Villa, while Ipswich Town should have been awarded a penalty at Manchester City.
Across 84 key match incidents looked at by the VAR across the first three matchdays, only nine votes out of a possible 420 have said the video assistant made a mistake — and five of those came in the unanimous judgement that Bournemouth’s goal should have stood.
According to the BBC, “the KMI panel is independent and made up of three former players or coaches, one Premier League representative and one from the Professional Game Match Officials Board, the referees’ body.” I can see at least two problems with the use of the word “independent” here.
Is the BBC “journalist” expressing an opinion, or has he failed to check the facts.
Dale Gordon of ESPN fame was triumphantly tweeting about this decision earlier today. He is known for always supporting decisions against Arsenal.
After the Tottenham match Gillette will have refereed 50% of the Arsenal matches in the PL this season.
After the Tottenham match 67% of the matches Gillett will have refereed will have involved Arsenal.
Gillett supports one of our rivals in the title race. It is very odd that he is being sent to so many Arsenal matches.
Just to rub our faces in it, Attwell is on VAR duties.
I have just heard that PGMOL have said that Arsenal will not be allowed to wear the red kit for the NLD due to a kit clash with Tottenham.
This could go a long way towards explaining some of the recent refereeing decisions in Arsenal games.
We have already over the years have seen that BIGMOB was always out to get us . Their hatred towards us goes a long way . From the time a Frenchman schooled them , and they did not like it one bit ! I was hoping that things would improve , or that we could nullify their influence , but I was wrong .
As for our injured players , it was very annoying on what happened . The players should respond as they see fit . I am not going to preach to them about on who butters their bread. I still think that we have the backup to replace those injured , and hope that we carry on our winning ways .
Up the Gunners !
@Nitram
I stand corrected!
Its just that the evidence of my own eyes sometimes…….
Seeing as the KMI panel are really “independent” I should bow to their arrogance.
@Brickfields Gunners – As a neutral supporter I find it quite alarming how many players are injured playing for their countries in international matches.
I think the KMI “independent” panel have dug themselves and PGMOL into a very large hole.
From the BBC:-
“The panel, which unanimously backed the decision, wrote: “Rice knows what he’s doing – it’s a gentle touch, but once the referee sees it he has no choice.”
Just like all the other similar incidents where the same (or worse) happened and no action was taken. Joao Pedro, anyone?
They are making up anti-Arsenal “rules” as they go along. PGMOL, KMI panel, commentators, pundits. And they call it sport.