The Untold ref review: Tottenham – Manchester City

14 Replies to “The Untold ref review: Tottenham – Manchester City”

1. It seems all of our refs have been working hard over the summer. Some much higher scores coming out this season already. Hopefully this will continue and we will have a much fairer league this season.
   Perhaps Man U feel they’re strong enough to not bother paying the refs this year, or maybe they were just gazumped by City.

2. I was very shocked to see Webb giving a penalty against Man U at the weekend, particularly at Old Trafford. Can anybody tell me if this has ever happened before?

3. WOW!! Phil Dowd? Even in the second half a very good score.. Maybe the incompetence that is often mentioned shows only in Arsenal matches? Though we shall wait and see. But interesting nonetheless.

4. Shard,
   that is really an interesting remark you made and something that crossed my mind when reading the report and having seen the game for large parts myself.

   This was not the same Phil Dowd I have seen in the Arsenal games last season. I think he got cloned during the summer.. 😉

5. Maybe he has been reading the ref reviews over here and well just realised his faults and wanted to do better. 🙂

   We will keep an eye on this during the season

6. Despite the Tottenham goal, still a good score for Dowd. I especially liked the moment where Savic got a yellow for entering the field of play too soon. I can imagine many referees would just tell them to go back without any warning.
   Also, the correct calls and wrong calls are quite even, with only a slight (home?) advantage for Tottenham for the wrong call.s

7. Kentetsu,
   I think a score of around or less than 60% in favor of the home team is what I would call “human” acceptable.
   Every ref knows he will be influenced (or tried to be) by the home crowd so you have to watch yourself.

   So when praise is due, we should praise. Even when it is Phil Dowd

8. I agree Walter. And in absolute terms, the difference is only one call: 3 against City, 2 against Tottenham. All in all, 5 wrong calls (out of 40 in total) in a game is acceptable.

9. If we believe in a ref conspiracy, we must also accept that the need to fix games is more present in the later part of the season. It’s too early in the season, and refs must protect their image, so they can do what they need to do when needed. This only shows to me that refs can do proper job, when they choose to do.

10. Sammy The Snake,

    yes you are absolutely right about that.

    That is why we can only draw final conclusions at the end of the season.

    But I must say that I have a feeling that most refs started very well for the moment

11. Studious work once again. It can’t be easy to analyse other teams games and I hope the sheer weight of evidence UA amasses over the season will help to fully expose the bias many of us believe exists within the EPL.

    Sammy The Snake makes a very relevant point though, we cannot expect obvious ref bias so early into the season. We must assume that we are dealing with very strategic methods.

    It looks as though Man City have become the main threat to Utd’s dominance, confirmation of this can be gained with a closer inspection of the early season fixtures. The EPL has somehow managed to throw up all 6(six) home games for Utd after a midweek CL group game and therefore all 6(six) EPL away games for Man City after a sometimes arduous midweek CL game.

    It would appear there are plenty of strings to the archers bows at castle Fergus.

12. Tasos,
    Kastle Fergus is surely gearing up for Rednose XX. Mark my words, the ref-shite will be in evidence it there is any scintilla of threat to Lord Football’s planned-for Coronation and elevation to the House of Lords for his service to the nation. And the media archers (I like your term here!, archers) will do their arch work as spirit snipers (that term shamelessly sampled from Chuck D). This is The Script, just as Wayne Rooney is the face of the League internationally. When it’s closer to crunch time, let us compare notes? Cheers.

13. And Tasos if I may add the dates of the CL games are known to the people who make up the calender….
    They should be able to make it 3 home and 3 away fixtures for each CL playing team

14. Walter, all,
    The schedule-making has been noted in passing by a number of comments, with knowing grunts and snarls, etc. I think it would make very good and important reading to have a full comparative look at the English sides in the CL competition and their home/away schedule; and anything more that you/anyone’s research can shed on who (or which department(s)?) within the domains of Scudamore, Bladder, and Platini might be responsible for scheduling. It must be a super-secret or, god forbid, if this were transparent and public knowledge, it might result in something other than a random process. Has any analytic or journalistic work been done on trying to tease this stuff out?