The Untold ref review : Arsenal – Aston Villa

64 Replies to “The Untold ref review : Arsenal – Aston Villa”

1. the fact that …

   #Sorry but there is a rule here that we comment on articles – not on anything else you want to comment on.

   There are plenty of articles on the site, and you just have to wander around a bit and see that there are plenty of places to comment, no matter what your view.

   This article, in case it is not clear, is about refereeing.

   Tony

2. He had a shocker. Did you not see the tug on RvP’s shorts from the lino as he went to take a corner?

   Never seen that before.

3. Dogface, could you give me an idea when this was?

   I haven’t seen it to be honest. But I admit that when the ball is out of play for a corner to be taken my eyes are not always glued to my TV screen.

   But I sure would like to check it

4. any problems about the ref review for the rest livestrong?

5. He did it as he was kicking the ball and he also shouted at him… I think it was about 2/3rds of the way through the second half.

6. I feel the banhammer is coming for livestrong – FYI, for anyone else reading this – that was a deliberate attempt to distract you from the article above.

   I would ask yourselves what motives or agenda are behind this sort of thing.

7. I dont want to feed the troll but this sentence from Livestrong says it all: “look at chelsea they still have a relitively small stadium yet they have won 5+ trophies since we moved to this shit hole”

   Have you ever heard of Roman Abramovich????? If not go and do some research Livestrong and then try to think for yourself and see the difference.

   And now on to the ref review and let us comment on this.

8. Thanks dogface will look for it.

9. Don’t get sidetracked on the troll Walter – it’s what he wants.

10. To clarify – I have deleted the first comment, it had nothing to do with the article posted. Tony

11. Great read Mr B. Interesting to see the wrong calls so one sided, at home as well. For me the Dunne challenge was a straight red regardless of the goal scoring opportunity, Studs up uncontrolled full weight behind a lunge(not a good way to challenge yet still acceptable in the EPL). Its heart breaking to say this, however, I must admit to losing interest in football as I question the integrity of the sport. Mistakes are understandable even the odd omission, But when put on paper for all to see, This shows so much more.

12. ohhh strong boys lets blame the ref shall we – boo hoo. When will you get it? Its not the ref or the squirrel in the ground but its the viallge idiot of a manager.

13. Ahh.. and there it is, the agenda laid bare – haters gonna hate.

14. @Walter

    I am surprised you did not mention anything about added time. The ref gave 4 minutes. But there was a substitution, numerous free kicks in which the wall took time to set up, and for 20 secs Friedel was lying on the floor after a foul from an Arsenal player. But in the end what was played was 4 mins and 40 secs. Contrast that with Liverpool where people where talking about the free kick taking time etc etc. Where was the extra extra time we needed to try and get a goal?

15. I do beleive there is more than one village idiot in Totteridge, but Wenger is not among them. Live long, Live strong, Go in peace.

16. livestrong

    If only life where so simple as a right and a wrong. Having one choice or the other. It being either the refs fault or the managers.. But try and get out of your fantasy and look at the real world. Perhaps the degree of complexity of choices and alternatives of real life prove to much for you? You may livestrong, but I shall call you weakbrain.. Weakbrain the troll. Has a nice ring to it, and I guess this site could do with a mascot, even if it is annoying.

17. Shard, after hanging the ref I thought I give his body in one piece back to the PGMOL and not quarter him any more.

18. @Walter

    You are too kind to undeserving souls.

19. Can we keep him as a pet please Tony if we promise not to feed him?

    Anyway – back to the RefReview; I also noticed that a villa player took a throw in and threw the ball straight out – the same lino let him take it again – this chap:

    http://refworld.com/referee/38/2/ron-ganfield

20. So Mr Oliver is the fourth official for Fulham away. Do they hope Wenger gets the message.

21. And he was the 4th official at Stoke also?????? What the fuck is going on???? Why always the same ones?

    I do think they want someone from Arsenal to grab an official by the throat at some point…..

    Oh yeah right if you have no one else you must always send the same refs…

22. On the throw in subject, if the ball failed to enter the field of play then it was the correct call, retake.

    I think they must have spoken on radio, words to the effect off

    “did it enter the field”
    “Not sure”
    “Ok we will have a retake, throw to Villa”

    That would be the correct procedure, and i think it is above suspicion

    @Dogface, you did warn me about Squilaci, you have a habit of doing these things

23. The REFS have vertianly shown a huge amoun of bias towards us and the pity of it all is I do not see this changing anytime soon…it was refreshing to see bbc pick up on one of the articles written by Dogface – here’s to hoping the summer sees some decent arrivals and some deadwood bootedd out

24. @Walter a thought to further broaden your review, and on something we discussed on Sunday.

    The application of the laws

    What about if you have a 1 for application and a -1 for failure to apply for every decision, at the end of the game you have a score that for 45 incidents should read 45.

    However if the score is 0 the ref has applied the laws only 50% of the time

    God forbid we ever see a negative score.

    On the subject of consistent reviews, and moving this thing outside UA. We need a spreadsheet with some formulas that cannot be altered, and saved as templates.

    Is this how you work, do you use excel and do you have formulas grouping the cells?

25. I use excel to review the games.
    Most things work (semi)automatic like the total decisions and the weighted decisions. But even then as every game is different I still have to change the numbers because in one game you can have 30 decisions you have to make and them sometimes 45.
    So I have a basic frame I use but at the end of the game it looks different as a result of the different decisions to be taken.
    About the +1/-1 I think the general score gives this information. In this case a general decision score was 65,31 %. Meaning that he applied the laws around 6 times out of 10.

26. You are right- our fans are so pissed off- they have overlooked how biased the officials were-again in the Villa game. In the cauldron of the EPL- the refs lack both the judgement and the courage and maybe even the integrity to make fair judgements in our favour.
    We are not getting any reasonable ref decisions at all-and have not been for a while- and it IS a factor contributing to our rock bottom confidence. It is not THE factor- that is poor defending and a rubbish back up team but for christ’s sake when are we going to get a decision in our favour?Ever?
    The one semi sensible thing Hill-Wood has said recently is that there is no point in criticising refs because they don’t listen.
    I have to say that I am fed up with this victim mentality. We are a big club- we make things happen-we are a leader- supposedly.
    Does make you think that Arsenal should employ a referee a full on English ref on their staff to referee full blown practice matches and prepare the players more fully for the English interpretation of the rules- which I personally abhor.
    How ever incompetent the refs are – ever thought that this the EPL and we have to adapt to them- even if they are wrong? want to play in Spain/ Do you think Spanish refs will be fair when you are playing Barcelona or Madrid? Where is fair and competent refereeing?

27. It’s hard to love football when you see statistics like this. And it makes no sense to me. Why does the refs hate Arsenal? I would like tie Phil Dowd to a chair and give him a shot of sodium pentothal to get the truth out of him. There has to be a conspiracy, right? Perhaps it could be Wenger’s poor sideline behaviour, he’s not making new friends when he’s yelling at the fourth officials. I wish Wenger could cool down a bit.

28. Hello, I discovered your site earlier this season and have become a regular reader. You’ve done some great work this season. Thank you for all the effort Walter & Dogface that you’ve put into your analysis of refereeing.

    I’ve felt that the Prem been bent for years now and I think you guys have proved it.

29. I still can’t understand how that penalty was not given. Even I could see clearly from block 32 that it was a clear pen. Gary McAllister knew it was a pen and red card as well because he turned round and smiled to the bench when it wasn’t given.

30. @Robbie

    It’s funny how Wenger is a complete contrast in different fans eyes. Many criticise him for sitting in his seat when he should be prowling the touchline shouting at anything that moves, or doesn’t. Some say he’s yelling or gesticulating too much, and should calm down. He’s supposed to be behaving poorly by shouting at referees, but at the same time he should learn from Alex Ferguson.

    I just don’t get it. These are intangible things and impossible to know what effect they have on performance if any. I think people read too much into it, just as they try and analyse every word at a press conference, or every substitution as a sign of someone leaving the club, no substitution made being a sign of overindulging a player. It’s meaningless and entirely speculative and more often than not is only used to reinforce a pre formed notion.

    Wenger’s sideline behaviour (which to me isn’t markedly poor compared to other managers) in any case will not be the cause of the refs performance, but the effect.

31. Frank, believe me I still cant get it. I was behin the goal in block 122 and I couldn’t believe that the ref gave nothing.

32. This is a great article to read about corruption that interlinks with your article walter. Referees are influencing games not just monitoring them. http://football.thestar.com.my/story.asp?file=/2011/5/18/football_latest/20110518071405&sec=football_latest

33. Once again great work Walter.

    I really appreciate your insatiable appetite and knowledgeable insight in this arena.

    How much more can this team take, how often can the players endure such obvious wrongdoings being applied to them before complete despair sets in. Maybe it already has, witnessing the body language recently its clear that our players are well aware what’s been going on, they’re not fools and yet remain completely powerless to do anything about it.

    I do fear what kind of irrepressible psychological damage this could cause. The repeated and continual inequity must effect the individual players and ultimately the team as a whole. How can Wenger convince his players to ignore this repeated bias?

    It saddens Me to say this but I am fast falling out of love with the English game. Its no longer a sport where the best team can win, where fairness can prevail, as each week has passed I have witnessed more and more evidence that Arsenal are just not being allowed to win the EPL without overcoming so many enforced obstacles.

34. Its wrong, its unfair, its unjust……..it has to be corrupt.

35. Thanks for the writeup Walter. You might like this link… to think he’s a FIFA ref…. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raM8JhakBLQ&feature=player_embedded

36. do you think we’ll make it to the CL groups stages?

37. Livestrong is an ijit – go back to spu*s lovin boy!! great ref review and sums up our season really – we have no chance with the ref system and maybe we should just move to spain?

38. @Phil

    That video from the link you gave is sickening. That guy’s lucky to be alive. I’m quite serious. that could have proved fatal. And what does the perpetrator get. A yellow card. And what the hell was the linesman doing?

39. Hi
    Dog Face is correct. God knows what the assistant was doing after about 25 minutes in the second half when he tried to stop RVP taking a corner. Bizarre.

    I agree with your article that against WBA, this ref had a very good game. On Sunday he was poor. Not as poor as us, but poor. There is no referee who is continually performing to high connsitently high level on the EPL. Quite worrying and as I have said before, their supremo, Old Mother Riley, does nothing. There is a crises in officiating at this level.

40. Love the reviews, but I did have an issue with the pushing thing. I agree with the assertion that Chamack’s goal should have stood. But you are saying that Chamack pushing is not a foul but was called, so this is incorrect. Then the next statement you say villa’s pushing was a foul but was not called so ithis is incorrect. Either both should be called, or neither should be called, so the ref got one of the two wrong, not both.
    The ref was inconsistant with his reffing, but here you are being inconsistant with your evaluation. I think for these evaluations to be widely recognized this consistancy needs to be closely watched. I would also think both teams needs a ref evaluator so the bias is better understood.

41. Todd, the difference between the call that was not made in favour of Walcott was not a push but obstructing the player by sticking out his arm.
    This was something different imo.

42. Phil,
    as it was the final game ofthe playoffs in Belgium I have seen the images.
    De Bleeckere who was the ref should have give him a red card. This could have killed the Standard player. Disgusting kick.
    I think if Laundryender has a look he will know that this is something we have discussed.
    The injured player has a broken cheeckbone, a broken nose, 5 teeth missing and a concussion. He could have been dead.

43. Meditation,

    I do thank you for this link. And a few lines of this article will be enough to write a whole article on its own. Thanks.

    It is saying what I have been saying here for a year if you read it very carefully.

44. Walter should there be 4 goals 3 correct and 1 not correct (disallowed one)? or did you put that somewhere else…

    Match was not shown live here either so I watched it with internet stream, it wasn’t good and I missed some replay’s but I had feeling that Arsenal should have got 3 goals that ref ruined (penalty, RvP and Dunn and that disallowed one).

    I think there were two things in match that really showed what this season has been: 1) Jack Wilshere asking the ref “was that a foul?” after his tackle (I think it was after Petrof one). 2) After scoring a goal RvP instead of celebrating turns to referee to see if the goal is allowed or not. Our players really have notice you need to ask ref how things go instead of what rules say…

45. Yes Finngooner you are right. It should have been 3/4 goals and not 3/3. My mistake.
    So the points of the ref should go down even more.

    And yes you are right you can see on some players that they know what is going on. Like I said even Theo Walcott went up to the ref in a way that I was thinking: Oh no he is going to grab him by his neck in a second. But he just said a few (I think) strong words, told the ref what he thought of him and then turned away from him.

    Sad but I can see the feeling of having no power on this on the faces of some players….

46. I don’t think this just a problem in the English League. Corruption seems everywhere. Is anyone watching the Europa League Final?

47. I’ve been a little sceptical regarding this websites exposure of refereeing bias feeling it is somewhat sour grapes. We should be blaming our lack of trophies on the many inept performances thrown in by the team. However what I saw from Mr Oliver was blatant bias against Arsenal. How Dunn stayed on the field and even at the end was uprooting our players in front of Mr Oliver telling him to f…k off when he gave a free kick against him. The Ramsey incident was a clear penalty right in front of Oliver, Chamack’s goal was perfectly alright and the foul he gave against Van Persie when he tangled with Dunn was just ridiculous.

48. A note about RVP’s disallowed goal, while I know that since SKY didn’t give us a replay, us normal folk can’t be sure who played the ball towards goal, however after the flag was raised, Theo did motion that the ball came off the defending player.

49. Walter, thanks again for your tireless efforts. Every time you do this you add valuable data to the pot – one day econometricians will be able to “prove” the bias even at the 95 per cent level.

    However I would have one suggested alteration for the future. Sometimes I do not agree with your use of “error carried forward”. By this I mean, as above, if a player dodges a yellow card you deduct 2 pts from the ref, which is fine. But if the same player then dodges another yellow you have sometimes argued this season along the lines of “but the player should have already been on a yellow, so this should be a red”, and proceed to deduct points more punitively. But just as a young mathematics student sitting an exam may forget to carry a 1 quite early on in a 12 mark question, even if they follow the exact steps needed for the rest of the question, the final answer will be completely wrong, but examiners must recognise that each subsequent step was in itself correct and only deduct points for the first slip up.

    So what I am saying is if a player escapes 2 yellows, each should be treated separately, like when Vidic got away with the red card handball, and if he had gone on to score you could not have fairly given zero points for the goal just because he shouldn’t have been on the pitch. Otherwise, theoretically, one wrong call which continually impacts the game would yield a score of zero for the ref.

    Does that make sense at all?

50. Phoenix Gunner, I understand what you point at.
    I think this has been discussed in the early days of my ref review. If you have the time you should check my first review and compare it to now…. amazing the path we have gone since then.
    And many changes came from remarks from readers.

    But back to your point in the beginning we had this discussion but then the general concensus was that when it comes to two yellow cards the first mistake from the ref adds to the other. Football is not a mathematical sport and because of the impact of one decision on another and then on maybe another decision I should look at each decision and give or deduct points for it.
    I think I hav been doing this for 90% of the games so I will continue to do this for the one game remaining. Then we have a long summer to go and see how we can adjust it and if it is needed.

51. Great review Walter, I have been looking forward to reading it. Mr Oliver certainly had a shocker. He did cost us the game although we were half asleep for the first 20 minutes or so, we gave away 2 very soft goals and provided Mr Oliver with the perfect opportunity to ensure that we lost.

    On the occasions when a referee is biased against us I get the impression that the opposing team seems to catch on very quickly that they can get away with more fouls or bad tackles than normal.

    The bias from referees against Arsenal seems to have started last season when many refs appeared to have an unwritten agreement not to give us penalties – after poor Eduardo was persecuted following the Celtic match. It would appear that whatever agreement was reached last year has been deliberately expanded upon and used to deny Arsenal any chance of winning the EPL. If we add up the points that ref decisions have cost us this season it is not hard to see that with fair decisions we probably would have won the title. Also, team morale and fighting spirit would have been maintained through to the season end. I am not making excuses – at times we have played badly – however the manures also played badly but unlike us they benefited from many dubious decisions.

    To win next season we need to play well enough to consistently beat the opposition and the ref! The one hope is that these reviews will make life too hot for those who have encouraged the refs to rig games.

52. A fair and balanced appraisal Walter. It is getting embarassing listening to Smudge Smith trying to whitewash the daylight robbery that is clearly going in front of our eyes. And I long ago stopped reading newspapers because of the way they avoid the real issues. Monday’s papers should have said- ‘Arsenal lost again because of two bad goals and a very bad and biased ref. How the Assessors will manage to wash over this performance and allow this man to continue in the Premier League will be as astonishing as the game itself. But they will somehow manage it and for the umpteenth time this season, in an Arsenal game, fair play will have exited the arena– and nothing will be done. Sadly, when fair play goes, the game is not worth a candle. And those who are bringing the game into disrepute will continue? The system is rotten. We need a new system with more refs, a transparent selection system and Assessors who are named and who publish their reports. A league table of refs would then be available with severe demotions for bad and biased performances. Let anyone try and corrupt that I hear you say. And you would be right.’

53. Regarding my earlier comment about RVP’s disallowed goal, I finally got to see it again, and it was actually Ramsey and not Theo who challenged for the ball. The replay I saw wasn’t the clearest due to camera motion, but I’d say it did look more likely that Ramsey was the one who played the ball back.

54. Great review as always. Thanks Walter!
    What surprises me is that we still get so many decisions against us now that ManU has won the title. I would have expected the officiating of our matches to improve as soon as it became clear Arsenal was mathematically out of it. Perhaps you can give us a graph in your season review how the ref score relates to our position in the league over the year?

55. @Walter:

    I absolutely agree w/ this ref review. Compared to what I’ve seen in the rest of the season, Ref Oliver’s performance wasn’t so bad. But on the other hand, his [bad] decisions determined the ultimate scoreline of the game. It’s just so unfair!

    I suppose the only other way to look at the outcome is to view it as a means of quanitifying the ultimate power that a ref fix has to determine the outcome of a game. If Arsenal hadn’t been testing a virtually untested (in this season, at least) back line, and they hadn’t let in those two early goals, there would have been nothing the Ref could have done to prevent them from winning.

    So long as Arsenal maintains their integrity, I think they can still win, despite the referee issue. I don’t know…I guess I just think greatness is theirs for the taking…so long as they’re willing to reach out and take it, and withstand the criticism in the meantime.

56. It is a great review Walter and confirms what i thought at the game, I was not sure about the pen shout, but I was at the other end unlike Oliver and the assistant who both had good views. Some of the decisions that have gone against us since Everton at home do demand explanation. It is 2008 all over again!!

    On The De Bleckeere incident, he failed to apply law 12, in respect of serious foul play, if that was not serious what the hell is?

    Here is some night time reading for us all, perhaps we should send Oliver and Dowd a copy, the have clearly forgotten most of it

    http://www.thefa.com/TheFA/RulesandRegulations/~/media/Files/PDF/Get%20into%20Football/Referees/LOTG201011.ashx/LOTG201011.pdf

57. Laundryender,
    On De Bleeckere incident: I was thinking of you when I saw it and said to my son that this was a perfect example of what we were trying to say.

    I have two sons who are also refs but only one at home for the moment and we both agreed that this should always be punished with a red card.

    I’m not a Standard supporter at all (in fact I don’t like them at all) and I was hoping that Genk would win the title as they are a smaller club and I like it when the smaller club wins it but after that incident it didn’t feel right at all.

58. @walter

    And the worst part of it was the total lack of concern the perpetrator showed for the poor player who had been kicked in the head by him. He was more concerned about the card coming his way, and feigning his innocence than even the life of the player he nearly decapitated. I hope he gets a really long ban.

59. Interesting comments from Arsene Wenger in today’s press conference;

    Regarding the Aston Villa game Wenger said “Its unbelievable, some decisions are unexplainable to Me in that game, for Me we won this game 100 per cent. But we have to accept that and deal with it and come back even stronger”.

60. I have read the RVP interview today both in the Sun and the Daily Star during lunch. Basically the Sun did print RVP saying that the game was unfair, Arsenal were supposed to win, they had a penalty and goal dissalowed and that Dunne has fouled RVP, but the foul was given against him. He concluded with basically it not always down to bad luck, but sometimes it is just down to bad decisions. As for the Daily Star, they only mentioned RVP saying that Arsenal are first in the small league table (sometimes I do thing that people from Arsenal are reading articles on Untold), but nothing really apart from that. So well done Sun newspaper, at least they printed his opionion of the game. I have seen a couple of poor refering against Arsenal, but starting with 2008 and then 2009 they just starting to be too common. This season however has been the worst ever, so many games completely ruined, now what can it be? Coincidence? Hatred? Conspiracy? Before I have always seen games even out, but this season I just see things going against Arsenal straight into Manure’s pocket!

61. Sorry for the miestakes, I’m so not used to the keyboard at work 🙂

62. Tasos and Paul,
    Wait till Robin, Wenger and all of you have read my season review…. 😉
    A few articles coming up from next week and with some interesting and strange numbers… very intriguing….

63. haha, can’t wait to read them Walter! 🙂

64. Here is what RVP said:

    “I am the first person to say when something isn’t good enough and I’m not trying to hide from our results. But we should have won against Villa.”

    “We had a Marouane Chamakh goal disallowed and it was a clear goal.And Aaron Ramsey had a clear, 100 per cent penalty that wasn’t given.”

    “Just before that, someone passed the ball to me and Richard Dunne basically kicked me. I didn’t do anything, I went past him, one against one, passed to Ramsey and the ref awarded a foul against me.”

    “What I’m saying is that it’s not just down to bad luck, it’s sometimes bad decisions as well.”