Untold Ref Review: Swansea 3 – Arsenal 2

42 Replies to “Untold Ref Review: Swansea 3 – Arsenal 2”

1. Yet another case of high score but a wrong call to change the result of the game continuing in line with manure-wigan game

2. I think the penalty call could have gone either way so I am not complaining too much, BUT when is one of these 50/50 calls going to come down in our favour. Law of averages and all that!!!

3. There was also the issue of Swansea making a substitution in injury time. It took 45 seconds to make the substitution so that time should have been added on to the 4 minutes shown on the board.

   So Oliver should have played to 94:45, or at least to an absolute minimum of 94:30 (time of a normal substitution). However Oliver blew the whistle at only 94:11 right when Arsenal gained possession of the ball.

   A ref who doesn’t account for time lost for substitutions during injury time says to me the ref is bringing the integrity of the game into question.

4. Not sure I feel the ref deserved such a high score. He did give us a good advantage, but early on it felt like Benny was going to get nothing from the ref, either for or against him. The linesman in the first half was very poor – there was no good excuse for getting the Dyer call wrong. I’ve run the line at u12, so I know how hard the job can be, but the game was slow at that time and the player was just next to him.

5. Johnny is dead on with the injury time call. The ref waited until we looked to attack, then blew the whistle a good 20 seconds early, at the very least.

6. My initial impression in real time was that it wasn’t a foul. But looking at the replay I felt it was an ok call. I can understand why people feel aggrieved, but I still think if the teams were reversed, I’d want a penalty for that. (Even though WE won’t have gotten one for that). There was contact, and it’s not clear (to me at least) that the contact was engineered by Dyer purposely. He did go down easy, but that is neither here nor there. I would side with the ref here, which is rare. Plus, I know almost everyone thinks it was the wrong call. Still, I wouldnt count that as a wrong call, and I think Ramsey shouldn’t have stretched his leg out if he wasn’t going to go for the ball.

   I looked at it again, and it looks like a penalty to me, even if a soft one.

   For the rest, I’m not surprised Oliver scored high for this game. The 2 non calls on the edge of the Swansea box did upset me, but if the ref was unsighted on the first one, the high boot is one refs in England are reluctant to give. Basically, I never got the impression the referee was trying to tilt the game, and I guess that is because I don’t feel aggrieved by the penalty call.

7. The only way to make refs insignificant is

   1. Take our chances and score as many as possible…bcos it is clear that protecting a 1 nil score line is dangerous and refs are bound to conjure penalty decisions against us for any perceived contact in the box.

   2. Not make as many mistakes as the players have in the last couple of games.

   I know the players do not set out to deliberately make mistakes….

   Unfortunately, the wingers i.e. Theo, Arshavin & Gervihno and to a lesser extent Ramsey have not contributed as many goals as Wenger has expected. This has made us look like a 1-man team.

8. i quite agree with AW that it was an imaginative call from the ref. Although i blame AW for sticking to a group of very average players when he can get real world class players ready to play for Arsenal but the truth must be said that refs have had too much influence in the games conerning Arsenal and the influence av always been negative and adverse ones. Sometimes i feel Ref Association is out to ensure Arsenal dont make top four not to talk of winning the League

9. The review is fair and Oliver had a good game.
   The pen decision was very difficult and, though wrong, I would have given it too from that split second viewing! Only video-replay challenges of such big calls can correct these mistakes and educate referees at the same time!
   @ Kodjo, Swansea more than deserved their win, as many have agreed, and I wish them best for the rest of the season so we can play them again next season!

10. I only hope that such a poor team performance doesn’t happen again against a good “footballing” side!

11. @ Ref Reviewer 02
    On 83 minutes TH12 played a ball through to Theo who was on a diagonal run. I thought the defender firstly barged him in the back, secondly put his hand in Theo’s back and pushed him and finally slowed Theo down enough so that he could get a toe to the ball, following through on Theo with his hand in the back and his shin against Theo’s calf.

    I would have called all three as fouls – what do I have wrong?

12. We had put Swansea on the back foot in the opening period and i have to say that the wrong call by the ref brought them back to the game there are many questions and what ifs but that was the turning point they upped their game and pinned us back. The decision to start Benayoun and Arshavin was totally completely annoying Arshavin left Miquel on his own considering that he is a rookie Benayoun was anonymous his positioning pathetic his movements disgusting Per was not fit this left Song and Kos the bulk work of moping up things they were doing work of 5 people thus Song could not help in attack. It was a horror show

13. The decisive moment of the game was when Arsenal lined up unprofesionally after equalising for 2-2. I hope all who read this site heard Lee Dixon’s fairly coruscating assessment of it. He does have some experience in how to defend in trophy winning sides, after all……

    Do stop blaming referees when the Arsenal team committed professional suicide……..

14. @Rhys

    Who is blaming the referee?

15. @Rhys Jaggar,
    I agree that that was the true decisive moment in the match; although the equaliser was probably not deserved on the balance of play!
    I doubt that any other top-flight team concedes more goals within 5 minutes of having scored than Arsenal?! Those outcomes from momentary losses of concentration are the real morale and confidence killers to any side! Nigel Winterburn has also alluded to this problem and he’s a regularly measured and pro Arsene and Arsenal commentator!

16. Rhys Jaggar,
    Would it be too big an ask for you to give us a link to Lee Dixon’s coruscating indictment of our unprofessional line-up?

17. DC,
    Would you give us a link to Winterburn’s allusion to our concentration losses?

18. Not sure why Rhys feels the need to defend the referee here?

    No one is blaming him for this defeat.

19. How come Dyer did not get as much stick in the media for his dive, or certainly thats how I saw it..as Eduardo did in his situation? Not a word about Dyer cheating?
    A lot of pundits wanted Eduardo hung, drawn and subjected to a tackle from a clogger

20. @bob,
    Here is the link to a transcript of the main points of Winterburn’s interview and critique of the match and Arsenal’s on-field concerns.

    http://www.footballfancast.com/2012/01/football-news/winterburn-slams-gunners-defence#blog_item_142871

    The full interview is available as a podcast which I have listened to fully and authenticated with the transcript; and I have to say that I don’t usually listen to Talks**te when such an AAA wank-fest is going on post-Swansea but I do when he and Ray Parlour speak. They tend to be the few regularly measured and humble gents left from the triumphant Arsenal past that do not seem to have sold their true morals, soul and love for the club & Arsene!

21. @bob,
    Here is another link on the official club website where Arsene himself is critical of the lads’ focus and concentration!

    http://www.arsenal.com/news/reserves-news/wenger-we-have-to-wake-up-and-focus

    I hope you find them both helpful?!

22. at 19 minutes the foul on song, the decision says correct however the description suggests the ref missed it, don’t know if this will change the overall score. Great job as always anyhow.

23. Sorry Shard, how? You’re right there was contact: Dyer’s studs going into Ramseys leg! Not a penalty. Not a soft penalty. If anything, a freekick.

24. @Cape Gooner

    I remember the incident well, watched it a few times, I simply did not feel that the defender did enough to impede Theo. On this occasion I decided to go with the Ref. It is important that for the integrity of the reviews, any calls we are not absolutely clear about that we go with the refs decision.

    As an ex player, must say I wish Theo had stopped, and used his body to shield the ball, then he may have won a penalty, alas by chasing after the ball he made the Referees decision easier.

25. @Reviewer 02 – I agree. The defender was doing just enough to throw Theo off while at the same time not doing enough to get a whistle.

26. @jayjay

    Sorry jay, you are right it says correct, which is an error, but it is marked incorrect so has no affect on the score, when we do these things the spread sheet is very large, and we do from time to time make silly mistakes. The review does record it correcly, 0-0-1 so no affect on the score.

27. T Ross

    I don’t think it’s clear that Dyer intended to stamp on him. Even if he was looking to go down easy after manufacturing contact, what made the penalty possible was that Ramsey stuck his leg out. Something he should not have done in the penalty box without actually going for the ball. At that speed, when Dyer has control of the ball and there is contact while he is turning, it isn’t wrong for the ref to give a foul in my opinion. I know I’m in a huge minority over that, but really, I don’t mind that call, and I would want a penalty for that if it were an Arsenal player. That’s how I ultimately judge if I’m being fair. I don’t blame the referee for that. I also don’t think you can conclude either way what Dyer meant to do. He did go down easy, but that isn’t the same as diving. Again.. Just my opinion. No big deal.

28. I see the ref scored particularly well, but I can’t help but think that in the first 15 minutes of the game it felt as though the ref were calling fouls very differently between the two sides. There’s a grey area in reffing where consistancy is the key, and I felt he was coming down on the two sides very inconsistantly. Fouls called against arsenal wouldn’t be called the otehr way. They weren’t “wrong”, just inconsistant if that makes sense. Watching the game it felt to me like the players were very impacted by this.

29. Todd,
    if you look at the wrong decisions you will see that what you noticed is hidden in the review

30. Good review- thanks. My take on the penalty incident was that he was waiting for it. He was too quick to point to the spot. How many penalties have we had this year? Where was Quick Draw Mcgraw when WE needed him? How ironic that Ramsey has been creamed a couple of times in the box this season and got nothing— then he gets stamped on half way up his leg– and concedes a pen!!! Oliver may be the best ref we have got– but if he refs- even if it only once in a game- to the same dodgy agenda as the others– he is worse than useless. We shall see.

31. @ Reviewer 02 and Walter
    Would it not be more fair and correct to minus points for the offside decisions call against Arsenal as being Not correct if SKY Sports do not show a replay of the incident. Reason being that, the amount of times that Arsenal player where called offside a replay was never shown but was always shown for the Swansea calls as if to show that Swansea had been hard done but not the same for Arsenal.
    This makes me to think that calls were incorrect!! So unless you are able to see and review incident, then why go with the ref?
    It has been mentioned here before that the new tactics by SKY sport is not to show replays of Arsenal incorrect calls so as to make it hard to judge if correct or what happened. The Dyer & Ramsey incident was repeated at half time because it was Ramsey, any other Arsenal player would not have got the same treatment unless it was Walcott or Wilshere. The Gevinho penalty call in the Fulham game was shown because Sky sport where hoping to accuse him of diving but you could hear the shock in their voices when they realised he had been fouled.

32. Em

    I agree with you about Sky. But there is nothing NEW about these tactics. I’ve been seeing that pattern for at least 4 years. The calls against us, no replay is shown. Calls FOR ManU, no replays are shown. With such regularity so that if, for example, there is a handball appeal against ManU in the penalty box, and a replay starts to be shown, I can safely predict it was not a handball. Other times there will be no replay shown, which means it was handball.

    In 2008 I think it was when Cristiano Ronaldo scored a solitary goal to give ManU a crucial victory in the title race. It was offside. At least possibly. The angle they showed on the replay was from behind the ManU goal, instead of the sideline. Utter bullshit, been going on for YEARS. What it does is, the sheer amount of calls that go in ManU’s favour (and against us) is not even noted in anyone’s memory.

33. Em,
    I can understand your remark and agree with what Shard said about it.
    I also have noticed that on some occasions when a replay is shown or not you can get an indication on how the decision worked out for or against us.

    However to get as much credibility in our reviewing system we must make sure we don’t go overboard too much. In our system we give the benefit of the doubt to the refs.
    In fact the way we do it means that in fact the numbers we come up with are the absolute maximum numbers a ref deserves. If we would have better angles and replays the score can only go down.
    I think this is important to keep in the back of our head when people question what we do.

34. @Em

    On offside decisions i always look at them a few times. Replays are generally run, but we dont need them because we can replay as many times as we like. The difficult ones are from long balls, because the play is so stretched that the cameras can not always pick up the timing of the pass and the players movement. The players reaction is often a good indicator. you pick up whatever clues you can from the pictures, starting point of defenders, direction of their movement, position of Assistant or even the type of signal the Assistant gives to the Ref. They will often indicate came from behind to retrieve ball. If in doubt, you go with the Ref, like Walter said it is important that we always give the Ref the benefit of the doubt.

35. I get the feeling that the —-s in concert with —-s , when they are rigging the games, have periods where they knock the stuffing out of Arsenal.

    So you’ll have a little 3 game period where they ++++ on us from a great height.

    At the start of the season they hit us really hard. Normally at the 3/4’s point in the season they crank up the cheating, to make sure we don’t bother the bookies.

    We had a little 3 games (in 6 days) kick in the balls run, ending at Fulham, and Swansea was not marked down as match for the —-s to overly manipulate.

    That’s my take on it. As it happened, the same inherent biases are still there, inconsistency, culminating in a lousy penalty decision.

    Sorry, I don’t buy the good ref review…..

36. I was watching the penalty incident on a small screen and i agree with the review in didn’t “FEEL” like a penalty…the fact is that ramsey stuck his leg out 1-2 foot, he was unlucky that dyer went all out zidane style…

    BUT compare this penalty to the van persie claim at aston villa! I wasn’t so sure that was a penalty either, but if this one with dyer was, then the on at villa – that was a 200% penalty! The bottom line is there in no consistency with human ref’s, but in Arsenal case there is a consistency to make bad calls against us it seems. Sometimes it seems to be the team crumbling under pressure, but there’s many factors involved as to WHY the mentality of the team is frail…when i’m watching a game i feel “frail”…and that’s from a tv in norway, so imagine the players on the pitch…they’re just waiting for something bad to happen, cause it so often does…

37. I’ll say that the champions league has been fair this year when it comes to refs and arsenal….maybe why we done so good.

38. Good Job again.
    There is one point i wish to discuss. While you review the game,
    you say penalty decision was NC (not that i am against it. But i felt though it was a soft one, could hv gone either way) and cut referee’s points for that. Thats understandable.

    But I don’t get it when you say their goal was incorrect. you are counting the penalty and the goal as separate events. What i am trying to say is, when you say penalty was wrong decision; say it and forget it. Concentrate on next event. Was their rule infringement in the penalty taken by sinclair? if not, you have to say THE GOAL WAS CORRECT. Yes, there is absolute correlation between these two events. But still they are separate.

    What if Sinclair had missed the penalty. Would you have counted it? I guess NO. So lets consider time period AFTER penalty was given by the referee.
    Scenario 1- Sinclair scores, referee gets negative points for that
    Scenario 2- Referee does exactly same things he did in scen 1, but sinclair misses, no negative points for ref.

    I don’t think it is logically correct as ref has reacted similarly in both the cases.

39. @Justin

    It is something I have considered, and raised the issue with Walter re free kicks, for example our home game against Stoke, a bad call by The Ref, but then defend it properly and no issue. so the decision does not have to result in a goal.

    In the matter of penalties and direct free kicks, which end up as goals, i feel that the decision is the contributing factor to the goal, so must be marked accordingly.

    But the syestem we use is far from perfect, being refined all the time, but is certainly providing a fair reflection on how the laws of the game are applied during a match.

    However Walter has instigated many ideas from readers and users of this site in his system, I am sure if you have a constructive suggestion that refines the system, it will be given consideration.

40. Walter please explain to me how they decide which caption must get replays in a EPL game broadcast, I have come to realize that every time a suspicious ref decision goes against us or not given to us, no replays are shown, if they are shown the angles make it impossible to make sound judgement, and the commentators mention how they wld love to see replay and so on

41. I meant commentators do not mention, sorry

42. @walter
    I know what you’re meaning, but I meant the reviewer shows zero incorrect calls up to the penalty decision. What I remember of the game was a distinct lack of consistancy. If you look at the total calls in the 1st half, Swans had 3 fouls called and Arsenal had 9 and they were all listed as correct except the penalty call. The difference is not in the # of calls. It was that things that Arsenal was called for, Swansea was not, and they aren’t listed at all in the review.

    At least it felt this way to me watching the game.