Untold Ref Review: Arsenal 1 – Wolves 1

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

By Ref Reviewer 04

 

Ref Attwell came over to do the game between Arsenal and Wolves. What was his score in this game?

 

Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment points weight
3 OTHER Jarvis Benayoun C Push 1 1
7 OTHER Rosicky Hunt C I had the impression Rosicky played the ball but the replay was not conclusive so have to stick with the decision on the field. 1 1
8 GOAL Arsenal C Gervinho was on side when the ball was played to him 1 3
16 OTHER RVP Berra NC Berra headed the ball and ran in to the back of RVP. How on earth can this be a foul?? 0 0
19 OFFSIDE Wolves C No replay shown 1 1
21 OFFSIDE Wolves C No replay shown 1 1
26 OTHER Koscielny Zubar NC Koscielny touched Zubar on his hip when he tried to kick the ball away. Foul was meters out of the penalty area but Zubar went down in the area. Should have been a free kick to Wolves 0 0
31 OFFSIDE Arsenal C 1 1
32 OTHER Johnson RVP C Not clear from the replays if there was no contact so go with the ref for a tripping foul 1 1
32 YELLOW Johnson C Promising attack, foul just outside the penalty area, correct card 1 2
35 Hunt Mertesacker C Clipped his foot 1 1
38 GOAL Wolves C Fletcher was onside when the shot came in 1 3
40 OTHER Milijas Rosicky C Push 1 1
42 OTHER Ward Benayoun C Trip 1 1
43 OTHER Milijas Benayoun C Came in with studs showing and a high foot towards his opponent. 1 1
43 YELLOW Milijas NC Ref warns him to not go in a duel like that, but should have given a yellow for endangering his opponent. 0 0
43 OTHER Berra RVP NC Held him, ref gave advantage which was lost immediately. Should have gone back to the first foul 0 0
Half time 13 18
CORRECT 76,47% 78,26%
YELLOW 1 2 50,00
RED
PENALTY
GOAL 2 2 100,00
OTHER 2 2 100,00
Total 5 6 83,33
OFFSIDE 3 3 100,00
Second half
46 OTHER Zubar Gervinho C Tackle from behind 1 1
48 OFFSIDE Arsenal C 1 1
49 OTHER NC Almost 1 minute is lost because of the Zubar substitution as the player was not ready at the center of the field. If the player is not there you don’t wait but let the game restart. 0 0
49 YELLOW Johnson NC When a team is not ready for a substitution but demands one the captain can/should be booked. Would have been his second by the way 0 0
53 OTHER RVP C Touched his upper arm 1 1
53 YELLOW RVP NC Shows his frustration and gets spoken to. Could have been a yellow card 0 0
57 PENALTY Stearman C On the one replay shown it looked that the ball hit the arm that was in front of his body and not the outstretched 1 3
57 YELLOW Vermaelen C If you go and protest a decision like that you should get a yellow 1 2
60 OTHER Vermaelen C Handball 1 1
65 OTHER Henry Gervinho C Held his arms around him 1 1
66 OTHER NC The ref builds an extra wall and goes in to the path of Van Persie who wants to take the free kick. Amazing,,,and now Hennessey knows who will take the free kick 0 0
68 OTHER Henry Song NC Henry comes in with his studs towards the stomach of Song, nothing given 0 0
68 OTHER Song Fletcher NC Song is clearly angry with this attack and swings his leg at Fletcher to whom the ball had gone. The ref should have stopped the game after the Henry foul 1 1
68 OTHER Song Hunt NC The ball bounces between Song and Hunt and Song touches him also. This all in the space of a second and because of the ref not giving the first foul 1 1
68 YELLOW Song C Song gets a yellow card and this is totally down to the ref for not recognising the first foul on Song. It was correct if you take away the Henry foul. It was as if Song wanted to show to the ref that is what happens if you don’t call the fouls 0 0
68 YELLOW Henry NC Henry who started the mess comes away with nothing 0 0
70 OTHER C Bad temper is rising and Johnson and Vermaelen (both on a yellow) confront each other when the ball is out of play. Ref tries to talk things down a bit 1 1
73 OTHER Guediora Mertesacker C Got his hand in his face when jumping for the ball 1 1
73 YELLOW Guediora C Mertesacker came from behind so a yellow was correct as he couldn’t see him 1 2
75 OTHER Milijas Arteta C Studs showing frontal tackle, doesn’t matter if you play the ball or not always a foul 1 1
75 RED Milijas NC came in with one outstretched leg but sliding on the ground. A yellow would have been enough in this case. This would have been his second so he should have been send off anyway. The end result was good, but not the card 0 2
76 OTHER Stearman Ramsey NC Ramsey was caught late after shooting at goal just outside the penalty area. The ref gives a corner but a free kick should have been given 0 0
82 OTHER Hunt Djourou NC I didn’t see contact 0 0
85 OTHER NC A Wolves substitution takes just under 1 minute because the player was not ready and the paperwork was not done before. As a ref you don’t wait for this but let the game continue. 0 0
85 YELLOW Johnson NC Should have gotten a yellow card for time wasting 0 0
85 RED Johnson NC Would have been his second 0 0
92 YELLOW Hennessey C Time wasting, this was not the first time 1 2
94 OTHER Doyle Gervinho C Trip 1 1
2nd half score
TOTAL

15

22
% CORRECT

53,57%

52,38%
YELLOW

3

9

33,33
RED

0

2

0,00
PENALTY

1

1

100,00
GOAL
OTHER

5

9

55,56
Total

9

21

42,86
OFFSIDE

1

1

100,00
TOTAL SCORE
TOTAL

28

40
% CORRECT

62,22%

61,54%
YELLOW

4

11

36,36
RED

0

2
PENALTY

1

1

100,00
GOAL

2

2

100,00
OTHER

7

11

63,64
Total

14

27

51,85
OFFSIDE

4

4

100,00
Correct calls For Arsenal

18

66,67%
For Wolves

9

33,33%
Total correct calls

27
Wrong calls Against Arsenal

11

78,57%
Against Wolves

3

21,43%
Total

14
Total fouls made by Arsenal

6

26,09%
Wolves

17

73,91%
Total

23

 

Well a game with lots of incidents to talk about. Let us start with the first half. And this was a rather good half for the ref. A few “mistakes” like giving a foul against Van Persie when the defender that headed the ball away bumps in to Van Persie. What on earth was the ref thinking when giving a foul for that.

In the second half you could see, well at home with two refs we came to the same conclusion sitting in a different rooms, that the ref started to lose control.

First the penalty shout for Arsenal. The defender had one arm stretched away from his body but on the one replay they showed it wasn’t clear if the ball hit that arm or the one in front of his body. So I have to go with the ref on this one. Booking Vermaelen was correct by the way.

The ref then placing himself in front of a possible player going to take a free kick would have been a nice joke if it wasn’t such a bloody serious game. This is pub league stuff, with all respect for the pub league. A total lack of awareness.

The Song-Henry incident was also down to the ref not reaction quick enough to the situation. With tempers rising on the field you should keep it strict and punish the smallest foul at once. Not punishing Henry when he came in with a high foot and studs showing was completely wrong. You could see Song getting up with his brain switched off thinking: if they can kick, so can I. This is how you lose control of a game as a ref by not punishing the fouls that happen. It gave me a headache on how I should count the points for this but as the first wrong call that started the events in the next second was wrong I couldn’t give the ref any points for this.

Let us move on to the time wasting. Twice Wolves took a minute to make a substitution. But the instructions are clear on this. Unless a player is standing ready at the halfway line you don’t stop the game and you don’t wait to restart the game. You just get on with the game. Wolves did this twice in this game. The first time you could say okay a misunderstanding, but a second time… this is again pub league stuff.

And the worst part is that there are some instructions to handle with this. Because the captain is responsible for substitutions in his team he should be booked if they do it like that and are clearly using this as a time wasting tactic. And certainly when it happens twice the ref should have taken action. The captain of Wolves was Johnson who then should have received his second yellow card.

The Milijas red card. In the first half Milijas escaped a yellow card for a high foot studs showing against Benayoun. The ref then warned him (should have give a yellow at the time) and I think this entered the ref’s mind when he gave the red card.

It was a frontal tackle so always a foul and a yellow card but as he was sliding over the ground with his foot not above the ball a yellow card would have been enough. But I think the ref, who by then had lost it completely, wanted to clean up the game a bit. If he would have booked Milijas in the first half as he should have done it would have been a second yellow and he would have been off anyway. So the final outcome was correct but not the right way things happened.

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28 Replies to “Untold Ref Review: Arsenal 1 – Wolves 1”

  1. Love how they book a player for time wasting during extra time.. then don’t bother adding on extra time for that time he wasted plus the time for the yellow card… idiots..

  2. Also ref gives Hennesey a yellow card for time wasting during the 6 mins of extra time, and it takes time for him to give the yellow card. Hennesey continues to waste time and yet ref only plays the 6 mins exactly (not 6.5 or 7 mins). Laughable really.
    All of this nonsense including time wasting from early in the game is really killing the game. Who wants to pay money to see this.

  4. I was looking forward to this review – I didn’t think the red card was a straight red either. Do you think they will get it rescinded on appeal?

  5. i dont like tackles going frontal through the man on all costs. i want good players to play and i enjoy watching them not reading injury and recovery reports. really love the red card

  6. @marchand, I agree with you. He went in leg extended, studs up, got the ball but continued through on the ankle of Arteta. Red card was justified in my opinion.

  7. As well as the time wasting in injury time that wasn’t added on, but was worthy of a booking, there seemed to be a lot of time wasting during the game by the referee. Whenever Arsenal got a free kick, he would stand on the ball for (what seemed like) ages. After a while he would finally go and move the wall back, and then he would come back to the place of the free kick, and remain in the way for a while.

  8. Atwell comes across as when a kid the other kids thought he was rubbish at playing football and nobody wanted him on their side so they made him the ref. Not because he was good at it, just because he was rubbish at playing football.

  9. Was I the only one who has seen on rather too many occasions the ref joking with the Wolves players, tapping them on the back, and being on very friendly terms with them??

    To give any credit to the ref: he didn’t hesitate (well just a bit) to get his red card out when it was absolutely needed to get the game back to a game of football.

  11. If in our reviewer’s opinion Milijas should have been given a yellow on the first tackle with studs showing, it may be that the straight red would have been more properly treated as a second yellow (and a red), which tends to be treated differently than a straight red.

    If the tackler goes into a tackle with their tackling leg bent more than 20 degrees at the knee, in the event of a “collision” (for example, the person they are tackling has that foot planted when contact is made) there is some possibility of absorbing contact energy by further bending of the knee. But, to go into a tackle with the knee nearly straight, the result is little or no chance to absorb energy in any way other than breaking bone. Few people playing football are physicists or engineers, they have little reason to know collision physics. But you would think that coaches would have pointed this out at some point in their education. By definition, a nearly straight knee shows the “intent” to injure. The mind state of the tackler is irrelevant.

  12. Just listened to the BBC interview with Arsene – interesting bit at 1:30 “We know what we expect HERE IN LONDON.” Seems AW is aware of the North-South bias from Ref’s.

  13. Although Atwell by the sounds of it is just somewhat incompetent, I wouldn’t be surprised if before long some major scandal hits the EPL….

    Its been brewing a long time, and I wouldn’t be remotely suprised to hear one morning on the BBC news that Interpol have raided the houses of a load of footballing luminaries.

    I am also wondering how the Economic rules will play out over the next year.

    What is to stop Man City offering 130 million in January for Man United’s 4 best players…say Smalling, Jones, Nani, and Evra……and then doubling their salaries?

    I would be interested to see the fall-out if Man City did this, winning the league by all possible means, including driving an economic tank through Man U….

  14. Attwell was a total joke in the second half and the crowd let him know. The handball was clear and right in front of the linesman – they [Wolves] repeatedly got in Attwells face and he would waste even more time by chatting to each and everyone of them – what happened to ‘captain only’ – when Verminator complains for a bullshit call it’s a yellow – no consistancy whatsoever from Attwell and the game degenerated into a farce where he lost it utterly and couldn’t bring himself to make any ballsy calls whatsoever – this played well for wolves who were defendign out a draw and got away with a lot. The red card was another example of zero consistancy but it didn’t really have much of an effect on a team who were sticking everyone behind the ball. There was no point in the late bookings – espesh for timewasting – when the damage to the game has already been done. Is this really the best the PGMOL have to offer?

  15. The Milijas tackle I suppose was “orange”, debatable as to whether it was yellow or straight red. What i truly love is McCarthy’s comments justifying the tackle, “Somebody said to me, ‘He’s got his studs up’. Well, you generally do if you tackle with your foot sliding in.” NO NO NO NO! Any youth coach will tell you that you should try to strike the ball with your laces in a sweeping motion in a properly executed slide tackle. The idea that going in with a straight leg, studs showing, at speed is not at the very least careless, if not reckless and dangerous, is ludicrous. The fact that his foot wasn’t off the ground merely means that if he hits Arteta’s standing leg, Mikel gets a severe ankle sprain or ruptured ankle ligaments rather than a broken tibia. As Gord eloquently points out, it’s the straight leg that is the problem. For me, any tackle performed by launching yourself in the air with one or both legs straight is by definition, reckless or using excessive force.

  16. Arsene is aware of the deep seated corruption in the game, make no mistake.

    That is why he made his Gates Of Heaven comment…

    “What will you say to St Peter?” “I will say I tried to win football matches…nothing more”

    Nothing more. Arsene speaks in riddles….but if you listen carefully, he speaks his mind.

  17. @ Richard Fryer

    Very interesting comment, which flew over the head of the reporter completely.

    BBC reporter “Referees have good days and bad days, probably you and Mick McCarthy are unhappy with the Referees performance today?”

    Arsene Wenger “I never speak about the performance of the Referee, WE KNOW WHAT WE EXPECT HERE IN LONDON”

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/16341524.stm

    I think Arsene Wenger realises there’s little to be gained by directly exposing the bias that exists within the EPL. Rafeal Benitez tried this with his infamous “FACTS RANT” at Alex Ferguson a few season ago only to be routinely ridiculed by the media whilst in charge of Liverpool.

    http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport1/hi/football/eng_prem/7820615.stm

  18. I thought there were a couple of occasions where Atwell should have booked their players for preventing attacking opportunities with blatant fouls. I think it was Berra who mugged Van Persie after he got past two players and tried to go on goal. The ref played advantage but he should have booked the Wolverhampton player when play stopped. I think the other was a tackle from behind on Arteta when he was heading on goal with a dangerous attack.

  19. Walter, a red card is given if the player uses “excessive force”. Milijas could not have used more force. He was going as fast as he could and then extended his leg to the maximum. Why is that not “excessive force”?

    Milijas hit the ball around the centre with his studs. Then he brilliantly forced his leg down onto the ground. Gord will tell us about the physics, but his foot bounced and his studs hit Arteta on the instep or front of the ankle – probably both. Arteta saw him coming and jumped, otherwise…………………

  20. @DogFace:

    I agree with you that the plot had already been lost at the point where potential time-wasting bookings came into play. And thanks for that Asianbookie.com link.

  21. @Walter
    I was commenting on exactly the same thing to my Gooner mate who I was watching the game with. It’s likelthe ref was mates with the Wolves boys, no bookings for them when they crowded him, just happy, smiley discussions and pats on the back. For us, it was yellow cards. That really irked me, I was furious about how blatant this cheating has become, and yet people still refuse to even consider the possibility that the game is bent. I’m not a body language expert, but even for me, it was pretty f%&@ing obvious he was biased towards Wolves. This league needs to be investigated, big time.

  22. This was avery poor performance from Attwell and it allowed Wolves to degenerate into rugby club/”kick them off the park” tactics.

    @Cape Gooner

    the Daily Mail (Wed 28 Dec) carried a large photo on page 84 showing the studs up tackle from Milijas on Arteta – with a pained Arteta in mid air following impact. Milijas’s left foot was also in mid air. On page 85 – a short article under the headline “REF CRACKED UNDER PRESSURE” gave the McCarthy view – in which he blames the fans for putting pressure on the ref – hence the red card, (rather than a yellow or no card at all). McCarthy is also reported as stating that Milijas’s foot never left the ground. This is not what the still photo shows. What a plonker.

  23. @DogFace
    The stats from the RefWatch and ref review series’ can be used to get an idea which teams are constantly being screwed over, right? Maybe at the end of the season, we can identify these teams, point their fans’ blogs to the data and give them a quantified idea of just how they’ve been screwed. This should help create better awareness among the fanbase of not just Arsenal, but all the other teams being screwed over. Naturally this means we can’t expect any manures, shitty’s, liverpoodles, tiny totts, etc to join the revolution, because they’re the beneficiaries of this corruption. So no point trying to visit their blogs. Might help us recruit ref reviewers from other teams for next season, and help pile the pressure on these b@stards.

  24. The FA agrees with the UntoldArsenal reviewers. The red card to Milijas was upheld, and he serves a 3 game ban with immediate effect.

  26. Ref review said Red was incorrect, but the red card was upheld. Does that mean we should review decisions that are reviewed on appeal?

  27. How I interpretted the ref review, was that that particular incident should have been his second yellow. If Attwell would learn to do things properly, then Milijas would have received the 2 yellows, and probably less of a penalty then with Attwell trying to play catchup and just given the straight red on the second occurance. But maybe I need English comprehension lessons. 🙂

    I don’t watch the games, I just follow the text streams at the BBC.

  28. I knew we were in trouble with Atwell before the game, there are 2 central midland based refs in the league and we got one of them for this game, with a midlland team fighting relegation. Wolves made the game difficult to Ref in the second half, they did so knowing that Atwell is easy to manipulate.

    However the reason we dropped points was not the ref, it was our failure to make good decisions in front of goal, we had so many chances to be decisive, and too often were not. The keeper had a blinder true, but we aided him with a poor performance.

    Lets hope QPR suffer our frustration!!

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