Untold Ref Review: Aston Villa 1 – Arsenal 2

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

Follow us on Twitter @Untold Arsenal

By Ref Reviewer 02

For the game at Aston Villa we had a ref for the First time. Ref John Moss was in charge and let’s have a look at how his performance was.

Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment points weight

2

 Foul Warnock Coquelin

C

1

1

8

 Foul Agbonlahor Coquelin

C

1

1

12

 Foul Nzogbia Coquelin

C

1

1

15

 Penalty Clarke Walcott

C

 An easy one as Walcott is pulled back

1

3

16

 Goal RVP

1

3

23

 Foul Metersacker Agbonlahor

N/C

 The big man took the ball cleanly

0

0

26

 Foul Hutton RVP

N/C

 Ref misses a push in the air as they both jump

0

0

31

 Offside Agbonlahor

C

1

1

37

 Foul Clarke Arteta

C

1

1

37

 Yellow Clarke

C

 run his studs down the shins

1

2

43

 Foul Metersacker Nzogbia

C

1

1

43

 Yellow Metersacker

C

Took it for the team

1

2

45

 Foul Vermaelen Allbrighton

C

I am going with the ref

1

1
Half time

11

17
CORRECT

84,62%

89,47%
YELLOW

2

2

100,00
RED
PENALTY

1

1

100,00
GOAL

1

1

100,00
OTHER

2

2

100,00
Total

6

6

100,00
OFFSIDE

1

1

100,00
Second half

48

 Foul Petrov Arteta

C

1

1

49

 Foul Petrov Ramsey

C

1

1

51

 Foul Petrov Ramsey

C

 I am going with Ref, I suspect McCleish had a go at Petrov at h/t, Ref has a chat to calm him down, well done!

1

1

53

 Goal Allbrighton

C

1

3

59

 Offside Warnock

C

1

1

59

 Foul Frimpong Bannon

C

1

1

61

 Foul Frimpong Nzogbia

C

1

1

63

 Other Agbonlahor

C

 Handball

1

1

70

 Foul Vermaelen Allbrighton

C

1

1

78

 Penalty RVP Warnock

N/C

 RVP is taken out by Warnock just inside the box

0

0

78

 Yellow RVP

N/C

 Ref has spoilt what was an outstanding performance

0

0

78

 Foul Ramsey Nzogbia

C

1

1

86

 Goal Benayoun

C

 Yossi!!

1

3

91

 Foul Hutton RVP

C

 RVP must have said something, this came from nowhere

1

1

91

 Yellow Hutton

C

 He looses the plot and starts pushing players around

1

2

93

 Foul Hutton Vermaelen

C

 Silly challenge

1

1

93

 Yellow/Red Hutton

C

 Hutton displays his intelligence

1

3
TOTAL

15

22
% CORRECT

88,24%

81,48%
YELLOW

2

3

66,67
RED

1

1

100,00
PENALTY

0

1

0,00
GOAL

2

2

100,00
OTHER

2

2

100,00
Total

7

9

77,78
OFFSIDE

1

1

100,00
TOTAL SCORE
TOTAL

26

39
% CORRECT

86,67%

84,78%
YELLOW

4

5

80,00
RED

1

1

100,00
PENALTY

1

2

50,00
GOAL

3

3

100,00
OTHER

4

4

100,00
Total

13

15

86,67
OFFSIDE

2

2

100,00
Correct calls For Villa

8

30,77%
For Arsenal

18

69,23%
Total correct calls

26
Wrong calls Favour Villa

4

100,00%
Favour Arsenal

0

0,00%
Total

4
Total fouls made by Villa

12

63,16%
Arsenal

7

36,84%
Total

19

 

The first time I have seen John Moss and I like him very much. Villa put in a energetic performance not allowing Arsenal to settle on the ball, it was busy and annoying but fair, a typical British performance by a team trying to knock a technically better team out of their stride. Moss allowed Villa to be in Arsenal faces, but kept it clean. On more than one occasion I saw incidents other Refs would have pulled up, but Moss allowed play to continue with no protest from the players.

The only blot on his performance was the decision to book RVP. There was much discussion amongst the other reviewing refs, and I must have looked at the incident 30 times, we concluded it should have been a penalty, and certainly no booking. However the penalty decision was a tough one and my initial (incorrect) thought was that the ref got it right. The yellow however was very harsh.

Despite this I would like to see more of John Moss, a good performance in a high tempo game.

Recent Posts

28 Replies to “Untold Ref Review: Aston Villa 1 – Arsenal 2”

  1. Christmas or not, our ref reviewers do their work every day of the week.

    Let me send my best Christmas wishes to all our reviewers and thank them for their great effort and spending lots of time to keep this up during all those months.

  2. Yes i agree with reviewer 02 …the incident involving RVP was a definite penalty. I am not sure if the refs position at the time of the incident had a part to play in his decision not to award the penalty. G. Lineker on MOTD thought it was a stone wall penalty.

  3. I certainly don’t wanna see Mr Moss any longer, but then, who do i wanna see amongst them referees? They are all crap.

    We should stop hiding under ‘typical British game’, fact is, he got many a decisions wrong and should have scored much lower.

  4. refs always making more wrong calls against arsenal means they’re all crap. sorry, but i don’t wanna mr moss again!

  6. Apart from the not giving penalty on RVP I thought the ref was fine. In fact if he would have given the penalty then he would only have made 2 (two) wrong calls during this game.
    Now we had to count 4 wrong calls but this is very low in fact.

  7. I’m not sure that I agree that the ref was so good, but I’m willing to be persuaded. In addition to PM wrong call (23rd min) which lead to a free kick from a dangerous position, I had the ref not giving us a free kick for a foul on Theo in the first minute and a penalty for a foul on Theo near the end of the match.

    I would appreciate it if you tell me that I’ve lost the plot!

  8. @Cape Gooner

    I agree with you about the foul on Walcott towards the end of the game.

    Regarding the foul on RVP in the 78th minute, it was disappointing that the ref twisted the event to accuse RVP of diving. This was such an obvious mistate the ref should apologise to RVP!

  9. gunner fan but totally disagree on rvp penalty accident, he started diving before even touched. he was looking for that one. good call from ref. sorry guys

  10. To me the quality of his wrong calls were too high for him dor a good ref performance. A stone wall penalty turned into a yellow card to the offended, a dangerous free kick rewarded for a clean tackle etc. these errors could have cost THREE big points and a record for Van Persie who could have had 2 more goals from the spot to equal Shearer’s record.

  11. To me the quality of his wrong calls were too high for him to get a good ref performance. A stone wall penalty turned into a yellow card to the offended, a dangerous free kick rewarded for a clean tackle etc. these errors could have cost THREE big points for us and may cost a record for Van Persie who could have had 2 more goals from the spot to equal Shearer’s record.

  12. our dear friend phil dowd striked once again…how are he and dean allowed to referee matches? that was not a red

  13. well you can add webb to that as he just GIFTED everton a penalty…i wonder what dean will come up to gain an edge on them 😛

  15. Dowd did the United-Wigan game.
    He gave a red card to a wigan player for a hand in the face, thinking it was an elbow in the face.

  17. @Ibrahima, re the quality of his calls, the refs score is so high because he had so few bad calls.

    @marchand, re the penalty, we looked at this any times, and discussed many reasons for the refs decision, but it simply comes down to the fact that RVP was taken out by the challenge.

    @CapeGooner, I looked at the Theo incident in the first half many times, i felt the ref was entitled to allow play on as it appeared the Villa player took the ball cleanly, looking at the reaction of other Arsenal players they did not appeal for anything. We work on the principle that if in doubt, or pictures are inconclusive, we go with the ref.

    @9jagunnerdoc, the typical British game, the tempo it is played at, the fact that teams never give up and even though inferior will run till they drop is why the EPL is the most watched league in the world. It is a legitimate way of playing the game, to work hard and press when not in possession of the ball is also what FCBarca do.

    Villa did it fairly and apart from Hutton i do not recall any dangerous challenges. We have to respect Villas right to play the game as they see fit so long as it is within the laws, the review shows that they did that.

    re the foul on Theo late in the game, provide me with the minute and i will look at it again, but if it is a challenge with Dunn forget it, Dunn was outstanding in the second half and I thought his timing in the tackle was OK.

  19. I’m amazed by the ref’s score, I’ll need to watch that match again to be sure. During the match, I thought he was pathetic. But I’m not a ref, so…

  20. I am coming to the conclusion dowd really really needs looking at, probably a conclusion most on here came to long ago. He is not as high profile as Webb, but in his own way, is he even worse? That was not a red card today. Utd would have won any way but he was poor.
    Still if you can’t beat him, join him, there must be money to be made on what we know about dowd, maybe we can put it to some good cause? A dowdathon? If he is reffing utd, citeh, Liverpool or Newcastle against teams not in that list, worth a small punt for charity? Or laying arsenal if he is ref? Sorry should not be encouraging safe bets!

  21. Thanks and a HAPPY NEW YEAR to Walter and the reviwers. Send Dowd and Dean to the Sunday League where their unconventional anti-Arsenal agenda would be irrelevant and promote totally fair refs, like Mr Moss, who seem not to have an agaenda. That is all fans ask.

  22. dowd did the united game while webb did the everton one…heard webb gave a penalty when the player miskicked the ball and fell lol and they call them the best

  23. @ Reviewer02 December 26, 2011 at 6:32 pm

    Theo – third minute. I hate to disagree about matters of fact, but I have reviewed the tackle half a dozen times in super slow motion and this is what I see.

    • Theo receives ball with back to goal and Warnock goalside and outside of Theo
    • Theo slices the ball gently with the outside of his right boot, causing the ball to describe an arc towards the goal
    • Theo turns after the ball and is between the ball and Warnock
    • Warnock aborts what was going to be an unsuccessful attempt to get the ball with his right foot
    • He then uses his left foot to go through Theo from behind, bringing him down.
    • It doesn’t appear that he touched the ball

    Even if he did touch the ball, isn’t the tackle from behind that takes out the man illegal?

    Theo – eighty ninth minute.

    • Theo takes the ball from the our half into the AV penalty box
    • Warnock comes across to tackle
    • Theo pushes the ball past him, still 100% in control
    • Warnock’s knee goes into (or just in front of) Theo’s left leg
    • Theo loses balance and stumbles, but keeps his feet
    • Theo chases the ball and manages a cut back before the ball crosses the goal line

    Theo didn’t go down, but if he was unimpeded he would have had a goal scoring opportunity

  24. Whoever that is who has written that RvP dived, doesn’t it strike you as strange that MOTD and the barking pundits didnt give it much thought, coz i assure you had there been even a hint of a dive, every journalistic space available would have been utilised in a smear campaign to label him as a foreign ‘cheat’ who is on a mission to ruin the incredibly beautiful and fair English game! They would have milked the incident dry, you can be certain of that (remember the Eduardo case? How they unfairly, relentlessly hounded poor Dudu?). Concerning Webb’s penalty decision on Everton, you should see it, coz it was a most embarrasing piece of refereeing i tell you! Giving a Penalty to Osman for miskicking the ball! Lol. Then came Phil Dowd (oh how i hate him!) giving the harshest of straight reds for an incident that didn’t even deserve a yellow! And this when the game was redeemable at only 1-0, with depleted ManUre fielding a cobbled backline (Dowd saw this and decided to do his buddy sir alex a big favour). And that wasn’t the end of the story, coz Dowd was quick to gift Man U a fifth goal by giving a penalty for an outside the box foul! So he decides to help with the goal difference as well! Wow, great! Just great, considering the see-no-evil Dowd of a couple of games earlier when he denied us a penalty against Man City. I can atleast stand Webb for a second, but oh how i hate Dean, oh how i absolutely throw up when i catch a glimpse of Dowd’s fat face!

  25. I am pretty sure media will paint this victory as a great performance by manu like they did their win against chelsea as they did not mention their first two goals were offside. Coming back to arsenal, i am happy that our game was postponed and now i can watch it on espn.

  26. @ Cape Gooner
    Thanks for the information I have looked at both again and I conclude the following
    The Walcott free kick incident was a clean tackle like I said, the momentum of the tackle took Theo down, it was certainly not reckless, the only player to be hurt was the tackler, and the ball was subsequently kicked out of play. The Ref set the tempo for the game here saying yes you can tackle, but keep it clean!!
    The 88th minute run by Theo was simply good defending taking a player wide, Theo rode the challenge as all good players do. There may have been some contact but nothing that impeded Theo, had it done so he would have let the ref know as he did in the first half for the penalty, and as he felt should have happened with the incident above.
    Sadly on the Arsenal player I do not have the advantage of super slow mo, blowing up bits, cut bits etc., looking for the tiniest bit of contact everywhere, and neither does the Ref but, what I do know is that had I been reffing game, I would have given neither of the decisions you highlighted above.

  27. Thanks Reviewer 2. I agree that the ref doesn’t have super slo mo, but he does have the advantage of being much closer. I cannot tell what is a foul from just watching the TV, but in super slo mo it becomes fairly obvious.

  28. I didn’t review this, thanks go to Reviewer 2 for a job well done. However we did vote on whether we thought RVP’s penalty decision and booking were correct or not.
    After looking at it again in slow motion, I believe that Warnock stuck his foot in and Robin stepped on the Villa defender’s foot, turning his left ankle a bit and causing him to trip just before Warnock’s momentum carried him into Robin taking him out.
    Arsenal should have won a penalty and the card was ridiculous but I could see how the ref may have been tricked into thinking that Robin had started going down a fraction of a second before the main contact.. The thing is that it was because Robin had tripped on Warnock’s foot.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *