Untold Ref Review: MC 1 – Arsenal 0 including picture evidence

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal

By Ref Reviewer 04

We had Ref Dowd to do the game ManchesterCity– Arsenal. Did he continued his fine form of this season?

Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment points weight
2 OTHER NC Throw to Arsenal given to City by the ref 0 0
5 OTHER Toure RVP NC Climbs on his back, advantage signaled because Arsenal keep possession. Possesion is not the same as advantage 0 0
6 OTHER Arteta Balotelli C Trip, ref tells Arteta not to react even though the reaction itself was not really aimed at the ref 1 1
9 OTHER Song Silva C Advantage played after Song bumps in the back of Silva 1 1
10 YELLOW Song NC He was a bit late but he didn’t kick just put his body against the City player. Very soft 0 0
13 OTHER Song Yaya C Advantage given after Song fouls the striker. City ask a second yellow card but even for Dowd this is a bridge too far. He didn’t book Barry who came to ask a card though. 1 1
17 OTHER Aguero C Handball 1 1
18 OFFSIDE Arsenal NC not given by assistant. Walcott lifted his foot to let the ball pass so was interfering 0 0
20 OTHER Ramsey Yaya C I wondered who was holding who but as no replays where shown I cannot but agree with the ruling on the field 1 1
23 OTHER Nasri Arteta NC High foot not given 0 0
24 OTHER YAYA Arteta C Trip 1 1
26 OTHER Nasri Gervinho C Holding, pushing, trip finally the ref blows. Ref has nothing against the reaction from Nasri this time 1 1
28 OTHER RVP C Handball 1 1
32 OTHER Kompany RVP C Push in the back advantage given 1 1
34 OTHER Ramsey Yaya C Again not sure so have to stick with the decision but it looked that Yaya held his arm to block Ramsey first 1 1
34 OTHER YAYA Ramsey C 1 1
38 OTHER Barry Arteta C Sliding tackle from behind 1 1
38 YELLOW Barry C Clamped his legs around the legs of Arteta coming in from behind 1 2
43 OTHER Zabaleta RVP NC Got the ball with one foot, got RVP with the other, nothing given. Blasphemy as RVP refused the hand of Dowd who wants to help him on his feet. A booking any minute now? 0 0
43 YELLOW Zabaleta NC Tackle from behind on the ankle should be a yellow 0 0
43 OTHER Toure Gervinho C assistant signals the foul from behind 1 1
44 OTHER Koscielny Aguero C Trip with the arm 1 1
44 YELLOW Koscielny C There was a possible break on so it could be justified 1 2
47 OTHER YAYA Ramsey C High foot and again Dowd doesn’t react to the arm waiving City player 1 1
Half time 17 19
CORRECT 73,91% 67,86%
YELLOW 2 4 50,00
RED 0 0
PENALTY 0 0
GOAL 0 0
OTHER 3 4 75,00
Total 5 8 62,50
OFFSIDE 0 1 0,00
Second half
46 OTHER Richards Gervinho NC Trip 0 0
46 OTHER Barry Song C First the ref wants to play advantage but then comes back to the foul 1 1
46 YELLOW Barry NC Stretched leg, studs showing, frontal tackle, caught him on the ankle. What do you want more for a yellow card? 0 0
46 RED Barry NC Would have been his second yellow card 0 0
51 OFFSIDE MC C 1 1
52 OTHER Koscielny Balotelli NC Holding not given 0 0
53 GOAL MC C Despite the fact that Silva looked offside when the first shot came in, he only became active when Aguero headed the ball and then he was on side. So a valid goal 1 3
55 OFFSIDE Arsenal C No replay given so assumd correct 1 1
56 OFFSIDE Arsenal NC RVP was onside 0 0
56 GOAL Arsenal NC The goal is cancelled but the replay on MOTD clearly showed RVP was on side when the ball was played to him 0 0
57 OTHER Aguero Mertesacker C Trip 1 1
58 OTHER Koscielny Aguero NC Didn’t see much wrong 0 0
60 OFFSIDE MC C No replay given so assumed correct 1 1
65 OTHER Miquel Silva C Trip 1 1
67 OFFSIDE Arsenal NC Again the assistant has it wrong 0 0
67 OTHER NC Should have been a corner to Arsenal 0 0
69 OTHER Yaya Ramsey C Trip 1 1
69 OTHER Barry Arteta C Trip 1 1
72 OTHER Aguero Vermaelen C Came in late 1 1
72 YELLOW Aguero C He came in with his foot and hit the defender on his ankle 1 2
74 OTHER Arteta Yaya C Held him 1 1
74 YELLOW Arteta NC If he would have done the same in the first half with Yaya Toure who made the same gesture it would be fine. But now inconsistency rules 0 0
74 OTHER Arteta Barry C Trip 1 1
77 PENALTY Richards NC Handball, the ball flies some 20 meters in the air from the cross and Richards stops the ball with his arm. He should have taken his arm out of the way 0 0
78 OTHER Barry RVP NC climbs all over him, nothing given 0 0
84 OTHER Arshavin Kompany C Trip 1 1
85 OFFSIDE MC NC Richards comes back some 4 meters offside and takes a shot that goes wide; the assistant signals nothing. 0 0
88 OTHER Aguero Vermaelen C Came in late 1 1
90 OTHER Richards Chamakh C Blocked his run with his arm. Again the ref makes nothing of the arm gestures of the City player 1 1
92 OTHER Song Aguero C Put his foot in 1 1
2nd half score
TOTAL 17 20
% CORRECT 56,67% 48,78%
YELLOW 1 3 33,33
RED 0 1 0,00
PENALTY 0 1 0,00
GOAL 1 2 50,00
OTHER 3 4 75,00
Total 5 11 45,45
OFFSIDE 3 5 60,00
TOTAL SCORE
TOTAL 34 39
% CORRECT 64,15% 56,52%
YELLOW 3 7 42,86
RED 0 1
PENALTY 0 1 0,00
GOAL 1 2 50,00
OTHER 6 8 75,00
Total 10 19 52,63
OFFSIDE 3 6 50,00
Correct calls For MC 15 46,88%
For Arsenal 17 53,13%
Total correct calls 32
Wrong calls Against MC 2 11,76%
Against Arsenal 15 88,24%
Total 17
Total fouls made by MC 22 57,89%
Arsenal 16 42,11%
Total 38

Well the answer is no I’m afraid. This was more the Dowd we have seen of last season. Often far away from the action and thus it is more difficult to get your decisions correct.

After the booking of Song very early on for a minor foul I started fearing the worst. But I had the impression he didn’t want to expose him like he did at Newcastle unless it was really needed. So he didn’t send an Arsenal player off. I wonder if Dowd knew that booking Song would get him banned for the next game?

The City goal was a valid one. If Silva was offside or not on the moment Balotelli made his shot doesn’t matter. He was onside when Aguero headed it and then he scored from an onside position.

Minutes late we should have been level. I got suspicious about the disallowed goal when they didn’t put the line on the screen when showing it. And later yesterday evening MOTD2 did put the line there and RVP was clearly onside when he got the pass from which he scored. Thanks to a link I could lay my hands on a clear picture

Both linesman did all they could to help City. A few minutes later RVP was again ruled offside and when Hart scrambled in to a corner we didn’t get it for an offside that was not even close to being offside. The assistants where terrible today with only half of the decisions  correct. And the other ones couldn’t be checked because of no replays.

A terrible one was when Richards could walk back from almost the goal line without the flag being raised at all. Lucky he didn’t score but those were really terrible mistakes by the assistants.

Finally the penalty. Koscielny made a cross and the ball was long in the air and it was stopped by the arm of Richards. His arm was close but not against his body. But even then if you stop the ball with your arm, a ball that has been flying in the air for a while you must make sure that you stop it with your chest, leg, head or whatever but not your arm. I’ve seen penalties given against Arsenal where the ball didn’t travel that far in the air before ending up at the arm of an Arsenal player.

Notice the high amount of wrong calls and this is really unusual for Dowd this season. So it wasn’t the Dowd he can be but the Dowd some of us feared he might be. The ref and his assistant cost us one point today. And one could argue for 3 points even.

The ongoing saga Dowd-Song continues and I really would not put Song on a field where Dowd is in charge as he will book him if he possibly can.

And a final note: it was amazing what a low score he got in this game to be honest.

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55 Replies to “Untold Ref Review: MC 1 – Arsenal 0 including picture evidence”

  1. I wonder how the players actually feel about the total crookedness of the EPL?

    VP not allowing Dowd to pick him up; Saw Ramsey instructing Dowd at the end on the definition of handball.

    We have no idea what the ruckus was last summer, but Wenger said it was the worst he’d ever experienced, with “half the squad wanting to leave’.

    Imagine you are RVP; you know that you probably won’t get a decent shot at anything being an AFC player; you know that they’ll stop you beating Barca, and as for the EPL, lol…

    Would you say: ‘Ok, this is bollocks, I’ll double my salary and go and “win” competitions that they hand us anyway?’

    the trouble is, and I don’t mean this to sound condescending to other players, but RVP strikes me as highly intelligent… (Zidane had an IQ of 165)

    I wonder if he might just say stuff football at the end of this year…

  3. Wish it was only dowd doing this to us, but we seem to get him, dean or Webb most games, especially the big games.
    I think our management should be doing what kenny d did and pay mike riley a visit

  4. Correct me if I am wrong but seem to remember dowd being rested after the newcastle game, maybe that was too much even for the pgmol! If true, I guess he has his revenge.
    Sometimes think this sort of thing is one of the best reasons for getting dein back on board, he seems to have influences our current management team does not, he may be able to get his son off our case as well.
    I mean, this season alone, dodgy offside against Liverpool, handball goal against us by spurs, a ref completely taken in by joey Barton of all people at newcastle, then this. Quite amazing we are even in the top half of the table when you thing about it.
    Look out for more when we play Milan, and then some should we get through that when we will no doubt face barca or real.

  5. @mandy that really gets to me too..why is it that we cant have anyone apart from dowd,dean or webb in big matches? i think we can bank on webb being our ref in our next big match..im 90% sure its going to be him or dean which is kinda sad as there are other refs out there who should be given these matches apart from the unholy trinity..i could say its only when clattenburg referees one of our big matches when im not worried of getting screwed totally…yes he has his weaknesses but atleast he is not a complete biased twat as dean or dowd or webb for that matter

  6. Thanks reviewer 4. Please look again at the Song yellow. As I saw it Silva had the ball while pretty much stationary. He played the ball with his left foot, past Song who was approaching at a canter from his left. He immediately jumped into the air towards Song. Song came to a halt 2 or 3 feet short of where Silva used to be standing, but because Silva had jumped towards Song, they collided.

    I don’t think it was a foul, let alone a card!

  8. At the risk of going against the spirit of Christmas goodwill,
    I continue to question the value of these surveys into the actions of referees at Arsenal matches. Invariably, the results are the same. We are being denied fair treatment at virtually every game by the officials, either deliberately or by incompetence.
    But the real result of these surveys is the inevitable conveyance of grievance to all who support our great Club, without any means of redress.
    The reviewers carry out their tasks with great care and expertise and are to be congratulated.
    At the end of the day, though, what have they achieved? The raising of the blood pressures of all right-minded Gooners and
    (sadly) little else.

  9. I think that PHIL DOWD should be put out to pasture he is unfit to referee matches always wellbehind the play.ALL he is is a fat lazy pig scumbag of a referee.

  10. See where you are coming from nicky, but there is a lot going on out there, corruption allegations on almost a daily basis throughout sport, just saw this a couple mins ago in fact

    http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/19122011/58/serie-doni-among-17-arrested-italian-scandal.html

    Only my own opinion but the more some of this stuff is publicised, the more chance of one day something being done about it, hopefully before it kills the game. I am not saying dowd is corrupt however these reviews over time seem to demonstrate he has a case to answer at the very least. Corrupt, inept or bias, who knows, but we get these same certain refs week in week out, there are clear patterns to be seen with some of them, and yes, you are correct, it does raise my blood pressure!

  11. @mandydodd I feel some of our players are backstabbing arsenal. I have no evidence but i feel djourou is on the take. Mysterious injuries,downturn in performances. Mistakes and injuries in key loses. Remember the shoulder injury.Look at his face yesterday just after he felt like he pulled something. Also dont get me started with phil dowd. patting nasri on the back because he almost punished us with a through ball . Thats what a teammate would do.Im loosing faith in football as this bullshit product. Dont get me wrong arsenal didnt help themselves with wrong choices, but we are expecting the players to be more than human and letting the officials get away with things by saying they are just human. Funny really.

  12. @Phil Gregory

    December 19, 2011 at 4:31 pm

    Cape Gooner – unless I’m reading it wrong, the reviewer has marked it down as wrongly given

    No, he says the card was wrongly given – I am saying it wasn’t a foul at all.

  13. I disagree I think the dowd this season is the dowd of every season ref well in other games and stick it to arsenal ….the trends for him on other games dont matter they probably equal his trend on those games last season.

    Ive been waiting for someone to mention song for awhile theres certainly something off with him for a year and a half now but I dont think its anything like what your saying meditation.
    I think he views been at arsenal as the achievemnt rather than winning with arsenal as an achievement ala bendtner and a few others.

  14. The more I think about it someone should do an article on that do our young players vela bendtener song and many others who didnt make the grade …View been at aarsenal as the goal rather than winning when you get to arsenal as the goal they should have set.

  15. Redgooner, an interesting remark I think.
    The problem with your remark is that until this season we didn’t do games of other teams with Dowd.
    Something to keep at the back of our mind when we analyse things more deeply when we have done more games

  18. @ Walter, thanks for this article and appreciate your efforts.

    Makes me want to find out what some of those journalists involved in the Leveson enquiry charge. I am sure they could find out Dowd’s dirty secrets.

  19. Pls walter, i’ll like to know. Can someone be able to use this evidence and challenge the powers of epl legally?

  20. This is an excellent review and very accurate. I agree the Song booking was very soft and almost contrived by Silva/Dowd.

    I found it disgusting the way some of the city players tried to get ours booked by appealing to the ref and then went unpunished for their antics.

    Dowd successfully screwed us yesterday – once again. Each time he does this he seems totally unrepentant and happy at the thought of more of the same next time. I cannot decide if he is Dowd the Dork or Dowd the Diabolical!

    But, I am proud of our team and they way they played. Keep it going guys!

  21. (For Mr Leveson: to the tune of Private Investigations)

    Soho Square Allegations:

    It’s a piss-take to me – the game commences
    for the usual fee – plus expenses
    unaccountable decisions – it’s not a public inquiry

    I don’t fill in any reports – rigging up the games
    You get to cheat all sorts in this line of work
    Treachery and treason – there’s always an excuse for it
    and at the end of the season – I can’t get traduced for it

    And what have you got on Match of the Day?
    What have they got to actually say?
    a BBC pension and a new set of lies
    Edited highlights, something to rationalize

    Scarred for life – nocompensation
    Soho square allegations

  22. Dowd may be an average Ref in general but he is a lousy disgrace when he refs Arsenal games. What is the total now– 100 bad calls against Arsenal to 22 bad calls against the opponents in the last 7 games? How can a man be allowed on a football pitch with those figures? Any jury would convict on such evidence. What do the assessors and Mother Riley get paid for? Another totally unfair 3 points up the spout. The bastards have cost us 14 to 16 so far this season– again.

  25. Marcus,
    You just made my day. I wish that I had written that. MK and Dire Straits one of my favourites 🙂

  26. I think the performance of Foy from Lancashire in the Stoke V Spurs game, and the Dowd from Staffordshire last Sunday, confirms for me the problem clubs from the South face when travelling to the North.

    It does not matter if it is Old Trafford, St James Park, Anfield, or the DW. Clubs from the south do not get decisions in the north. It is a kind of institutionalised bias we are fighting. The invincibles overcame it despite the system because they were just too good. Chelsea managed it because of the England connection and because Mourinho understands you have to play the bastards at their own game, and cheat (he did this brilliantly at Porto, Chelsea, and Inter)

    Our team has a bit more savvy about it now, and we could have got something on Sunday despite Dowds attempts. The fact is that the Northern Bias built into the system means that we don’t only have to be better than the rest, we also have to overcome the loading.
    The review is a very good one, is as I saw the game, and is a sad reflection on the EPL

  27. @Laundryender – pretty good analysis of the situation, although I think that there is a bit more to it than that.

    I did like this comment from the site that meditation quoted though “09:34 Rumours that Manchester City are trying to buy Mike Dean are wide of the mark. Tottenham are refusing to sell”.

  28. i just took a look at the referee appointments for our next 4 games and i think we are in for a rough ride during the busy january/feb period..in our next 4 games we have moss,attwell,atkinson and probert which means we will be getting the likes of webb,dean,dowd and mason after that…and im pretty sure its going to be howard webb when we face united on 22/1/2012

  29. Just read that Meditation – interesting?
    Take it we will have Moss as our ref against West Brom then?

  30. Dogface, could you find who were the assistants that did the game MU-Chelsea this season. I know Dowd was in charge and Chelsea lost to two offside goals that day. So would be interesting to see if it was the same assistants who were so bad about the offside calls that day and today.
    If they are the same: what on earth are they still doing in the EPL because this was terrible??
    If they are not the same: how on earth is it possible that Dowd always ends up with incapable assistants????

    Strange pattern either way you look at it…

  31. Interesting I know a couple Chelsea fans and they view Dowd in exactly the same way we do – maybe some northern bias, although Spurs under Arry seem to be escaping all this sort of thing, wonder why?
    Strange – some refs widely suspected of favouring certain teams, Webb – Utd , Dean – Spurs, Atkinson – Chelsea, Dowd – maybe anyone other than Arsenal or Chelsea? and from the above, Moss – West Brom?

    Strange how ofter we at least seem to get Webb against Utd, Dean against the Spuds, Dowd …the less said the better.
    I know what Fergie has to say when Utd get Akinson against Chelsea, I would imagine the result being he would very rarely ref Utd Chelsea games. Maybe we should be making more of an issue? Or do we not have the clout? Or do we have too much class to get involved.

    I know I have mentioned this before but I am really intrigued to know what Kenny said on his meeting with Mike Riley this year. Nothing against Kenny’s integity but any internet search will reveal he has at times hooked up with some pretty unsavory characters, it must be said mainly through agents, my point, if something has been going on, he will know about it, added of course to his vast experience in the game. Was his talk with Riley in a friendly, cordial atmosphere where the two got their respective points across?, or did he threaten to expose a few things. All speculation, but the result, Liverpool,certainly seemed to get the rub of the green with refs in subsequent games, Suarez seems to continue to do so!

  32. @mandy he will be the ref against villa..attwell for wolves,atkinson for QPR and “poor”bet for fulham

  33. @mandy i just read the article from meditation and now i understand what you meant…looks like we have to worry about him too…*sighs* its not like we dont have enough of them to worry about

  34. Glad you liked it Walter…we try to humour you Dogface and the other refs for all the incredible work you are doing.

    It was a quick draft, feel free to make it better…

  35. Four game changing errors in one match!

    • Song yellow
    • Barry second yellow
    • RvP goal
    • Richards penalty

    What has to happen for the club to do something?

    I have a question about the penalty. If Richards had moved his arm so as not to handle the ball, AA would have had a clear goal scoring opportunity. Does that mean if he gives the penalty it would also be a red card?

  37. Thanks Mahdain, will be looking out for this ref when we do play West Brom though.
    That link from Meditation contains really damning allegations – wish I had the info they seem to get hold of!

  38. Manu-Chelsea 20110918

    Manchester United v Chelsea (kick off 16.00)

    Referee: P Dowd. Assistants: G Turner,A Watts
    Fourth Official – P Walton
    Match Delegate – J Duncan
    PGMO – D Horlick

    Some of these seem to have the title “Match Officials Appointments” and some seem to have “Referees Assignments”. But visiting Google and doing

    site:premierleague.com match officials assignments

    seems to find the games reliably. There seems to be old results online as well (I see some from April 2010 for example.

    Who are the Match Delegate and PGMO?

  40. No Mandy – Moss is the ref Vs Villa – but we have West Brom after that… so expect one of our key players to take a straight red!

  42. “A high-profile Chinese referee has confessed in court to receiving bribes to fix two international friendlies – one of them involving Manchester United – as well as six Chinese club matches between 2005 and 2009.”

    That’s a quote taken from the Manchester Grunt, apologies but I don’t like to drop links to their site.

  43. Thanks Dogface.

    So why does Dowd always seem to get assistants who make a lot of mistakes?

    In fact I just checked the numbers and … amazing… does lightning strikes twice?

  44. Well, I guess referees have a little more work to do now. Suarez gets 8 games and a 40,000 Pound Stirling fine for racially abusing Evra.

  45. It is a real shame that Arsenal has to play against teams with such magnificent midfields. Their players carry whistles. Both the Manchester teams had this type of midfielder this weekend. The shame of it all is that corruption is so blatant yet it goes on unchecked.
    How can the BBC allow this to occur in its homeland? The same BBC that helped rid apartheid and terrorism in many countries.

    On racism front, there seems to be an unusual delay in the John Terry case. I wonder if the FA will see any reason to investigate its own behaviour with Arsene over the past seasons? There is also a case for the media to answer, with their constant harping on his Nationality.

  48. Dogface,
    I know you say they’re robots, but the refs can’t keep up and see everything; and even though the ref can overrule, the assistant’s mis-call can give the ref to simply go with it and have the cover that it’s the assistant’s call. In any case, it brings up again, imo, the need to tracking which assistants are working which matches of ours. That is to say, if you took say our 10-20 most “tilted” matches over the last 3 years, would there be any notable correlations with repeat offenders among the noble flagmen? Don’t you have the names of the assistants from your match previews?

  49. Walter,
    I concur with your desire to look into who are assistants and what really goes on between refs and assistants. In your experience, when do refs tend to overrule assistants or tend to defer to assistants? Wouldn’t we love to listen in on those headphones when the Unholy Trinity (Dowd, Dean, Webb) are our overseers.

  50. What would it take to have a bevvy of Untolds to show up at the Emirates next time we are EnDowd and hand out leaflets and show a large placard. There needs to be some modicum of whistle blowing off the pitch in order to get more of it on the pitch. This to say that, yet again, nothing will change without a demand – a petition – that begins and asks, on behalf of all footballers, for their to be any number of reforms put into place, starting with video replay, or whatever. This reminds me of a great old Steve Bell cartoon in the Guardian with an irate family on its couch screaming this at the boob tube: “Why Don’t They Do Something!” Well…

  51. @bob

    I had never inquired or sought that information before. Unfortunately, TheFA can’t keep all their links working, so all I could find was a 2008 copy of their Disciplinary Procedures (77 pages). On page 8 it talks about players that get far too many “penalty points” in a season, and who are brought up for charges at the end of the season. In the Premier League, the maximum fine under this section of the procedures is 100,000 Pounds Stirling. It is my guess that if any fine is extracted from Suarez, it would be treated the same way this occurrence is.

    In any event, the Disciplinary Procedures say “(e) Proceeds of fines imposed under this Section of the Disciplinary Procedures shall be disbursed as decided by The Association.”.

    So, my guess is that TheFA can do with the money whatever it pleases.

    I didn’t look for other disbursement rules in the document.

  52. Gord,
    Cheers, for looking…
    Perhaps any fine money will go to Riley as Xmas bonuses to
    the Unholy Trinity (Dowd, Dean, Webb) for $ervice$ rendered?

  53. I think they hold a big party for the “insiders” at the end of the (each) season with that money….

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