- Sunderland v Arsenal: what Pires once said, and a result prediction
- Sunderland v Arsenal. The ref is John Brooks, and stats suggest that’s going to be a problem.
By Tony Attwood
One of the benefits of the refereeing in the Premier League is that it can always rely on the media to cover its back. A club complaint about a referee is always “sour grapes”, and they note the complaints only come from the losing side.
But one of the weaknesses of an organisation that always gets its own way is that in the end it is so used to getting its own way, it stops noticing what is going on around it. And that is very much the case of refereeing in the Premier League.
So bad was the refereeing in this match that Mikel Arteta now risks being banned from the touchline and sent to the PGMO equivalent of The Tower over his annoyance about the refereeing last night. Even the knowledge of what the league table looks like was not enough to stop him.
| Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 4 | 4 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 1 | 7 | 12 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 3 | 3 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 2 | 5 | 9 |
| 3 | Hull City | 4 | 2 | 2 | 0 | 5 | 2 | 3 | 8 |
| 4 | Chelsea | 4 | 2 | 1 | 1 | 10 | 9 | 1 | 7 |
| 5 | Brenttford | 4 | 1 | 3 | 0 | 7 | 4 | 3 | 6 |
Sunderland were given a penalty which they couldn’t take advantage of, on the basis that Konsa had fouled Ballard. But you know these referees, there is no telling them, and if they are faced with a physical team, they’ll just say “that’s what it is like up north, don’t be London softies,” or something like that.
As a result what every PL club will know from now on, even if they have behaved so far, is that they can be as physical as they like against Arsenal and they will get away with it. Yes the odd foul will be penalized just for show, but basically, go and get into them.
And how right that was. A player rolls about a bit and gets a penalty. And the worst of it is that other PGMO officials will see the film of that and think “OK that’s the way we treat Arsenal.”
Of course it is the speed and originality of the Arsenal approach that has the referees in a muddle and they can’t really keep up with any of this, so they revert to the old tactic, and make what maybe one day might be admitted as a “mistake”.
The only thing we have going for us now is the fact that because the games are televised they are limited as to how far even some of these referees will go, and hence Sunderland did have a player sent off for a second bookable offence. If we reach the day when that doesn’t happen, then it will be time for Arsenal to leave the Premier League and seek a European competition to play in all through the season.
Just how far this has gone was shown by the fact that the Sunderland manager after the game called his team “a bit reserved” although he did have the grace to say Raya was absolutely impressive.
And so today we have Manchester United against Manchester City at 4.30 today and we can see just how the referee let these two clubs get on with things. It will be an interesting watch.
As for the penalty was given to Sunderland for Konsa holding Ballard, that is the sort of thing we have seen before but this time we had the VAR ref saying, “It’s a holding offence. The foul is confirmed.” And of course that is all we get.
But still Arsenal know this is the sort of thing that is going to happen and so these days they come prepared for the fact that such decisions are gong to be made. There was a time when the players would have given up at such a point and effectively say, “What can you do when you have a referee who gives something like that,” but now they know they will get this in almost every match, so they are ready for it. The opposition expect the Arsenal players to give up once they see just what lengths the referee will go to for the other side, but when that doesn’t happen and Arsenal push onward, they can be taken by surprise.
The old “the ref will he;p us out” tactic is still there, it is just that Arsenal players expect it, and are ready to work around it. Plus the refes know there are only so many highly dodgy decisions they can take before they start being reigned in by PGMO for fear of being spotted. The only problem for PGMO is that we spotted that tactic years ago.
Our match preview said, “Sunderland v Arsenal. The ref is John Brooks, and stats suggest that’s going to be a problem.
