Untold Ref Review: West Bromwich Albion 2 – 3 Arsenal

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

This article is part of a series stretching over several seasons in which a team of referees analyse the work of refs in Premier League matches.

Our figures show that when we analyse the errors made by refs there are consistent trends which do not “even out” through the season, as some commentators would have it.    All the earlier ref reviews plus analyses of the errors made by refs, and articles relating to our campaign to have the body which organises referees activities reformed, plus an analysis of the background to this campaign, can be found on:

Although this is a site built for Arsenal supporters we welcome comments from fans of other teams, although we tend not to publish comments which are simply abusive or which are completely off topic.

Today’s referee is Michael Jones –

MATCH REVIEW DETAILS – Michael Jones (2012-05-13)
Period 1
Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment Weight
1 OTHER Cox Coquelin NC Didn’t see anything wrong 1
1 OTHER C Ref blew more to be able to stop play and to get the beach balls off the field 2
2 OTHER Vermaelen ? NC Held him not given, WBA lose the ball 1
4 GOAL Arsenal C correct goal 3
5 OTHER Long Koscielny C Jumped in the back 1
6 OFFSIDE WBA C 1
11 OTHER ? Song NC Push not given 1
11 OTHER ? RVP NC Came in late not given 1
11 OFFSIDE WBA NC Long was offside 1
11 GOAL NC It was offside 3
13 OTHER Coquelin Fortune C Trip 1
14 PENALTY Jenkinson C Jenkinson ran with his back towards the ball that fell on his upper arm, correct non decision 3
14 OTHER Olsson RVP C Push 1
15 GOAL WBA C correct goal 3
17 OTHER ? Gervinho NC Trip not given 1
19 OTHER Song ? C Trip 1
22 OFFSIDE Arsenal NC Picture clearly shows RVP was onside 1
23 OTHER Long Vermaelen C Jumped in the back 1
25 OTHER Long Song C Trip 1
25 OTHER Benayoun McAuley C Trip 1
26 OFFSIDE WBA C assumed correct 1
27 OTHER McAuley RVP C Trip 1
27 YELLOW McAuley NC Stopped a promising attack as RVP could have a shot in from 15 yards in front of goal 2
30 GOAL Arsenal C correct goal 3
32 OFFSIDE Arsenal C assumed correct 1
34 OTHER Santos Fortune C Trip 1
34 YELLOW Santos NC stopped what could be a promising attack 2
35 OTHER Olsson RVP C clear trip 1
35 YELLOW Olsson NC no chance of playing the ball, cynical trip 2
39 OTHER RVP McAuley C Trip 1
39 YELLOW RVP C came late correct card 2
42 OTHER NC bad position from the ref stops an Arsenal attack 1
43 OTHER Olsson RVP C another trip from the same defender on RVP 1
43 YELLOW Olsson NC Surely a card for persistent fouling should be given now 2
46 PENALTY Coquelin C WBA appeal for handball but the arm was as close to the body as can be, correct non call 3
Period 2
Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment Weight
46 OTHER C Ref calles Song and Long over and tells them to keep calm after some shoving 2
48 OTHER Jenkinson Morrison C There was a little hand from Jenkinson but not much on but go with the ref on this one. I think the ref got fooled because of Morrison pulling a muscle and going down from that 1
54 GOAL Arsenal C correct goal 3
57 OTHER Santos Fortune C Trip 1
62 OTHER Olsson Koscielny NC jumped in the back not given 1
65 OTHER Fortune Koscielny C Push 1
67 OTHER Benayoun Dorrans C Trip 1
68 OTHER Song ? NC obstruction, advantage given 1
69 OTHER Long Song C Trip 1
71 OFFSIDE WBA C assumed correct 1
72 OTHER Santos C Handball given 1
75 OTHER Santos ? C advantage given after a trip 1
83 OTHER Fortune Song C Held him 1
83 OFFSIDE Arsenal C assumed correct 1
87 OTHER Gibbs Odemwingie NC Gibbs put his body between the ball and the striker who grabbed Gibbs and then went down 1
90 OTHER NC Five minutes extra time???? For what? 1
93 OFFSIDE WBA C assumed correct 1
94 OTHER Ramsey Odemwingie C Push 1
94 OTHER Long Gibbs C Trip 1

As if the PGMOL got scared after we wrote that the appointments of the refs looks strange we suddenly got in our last two games a ref we didn’t have before.  So it was Jones for the first time in the league this season.

And after the first 45 minutes we maybe could be happy we didn’t see him a lot around Arsenal. Way too many poor decisions. Many fouls missed and I wonder if he was distracted by all the beach balls on the pitch and that this caused him lose some concentration early on?

The equaliser from WBA was clear offside. No argument here. Another bad decision going against Arsenal. There was no problem with the other goals when it comes to the laws of the games.

Jones only gave one yellow card but and the one he gave  was correctbecause Van Persie came in late with a typical strikers challenge. But some WBA players was given an absolute free pass to foul. Olsson made foul after foul on Van Persie and didn’t get booked.  And despite a few of them being very deliberate and cynical.  Mind you Santos also should have gotten a yellow for a deliberate foul. So very poor from this part of his job from the ref.

The second half he improved his game and he did better in the overall decision making.

COMPETENCY SUMMARY – Michael Jones (2012-05-13)
Period 1 Called Total Correct %
GOAL 3 4 75.00
OFFSIDE 3 5 60.00
OTHER 13 19 68.42
PENALTY 2 2 100.00
YELLOW 1 5 20.00
TOTAL 22 35 62.86
WEIGHTED 33 52 63.46
Period 2 Called Total Correct %
GOAL 1 1 100.00
OFFSIDE 3 3 100.00
OTHER 11 15 73.33
TOTAL 15 19 78.95
WEIGHTED 17 21 80.95
Totals Called Total Correct %
GOAL 4 5 80.00
OFFSIDE 6 8 75.00
OTHER 24 34 70.59
PENALTY 2 2 100.00
YELLOW 1 5 20.00
TOTAL 37 54 68.52
WEIGHTED 50 73 68.49

So he upped his numbers a bit in the second half to save his match a bit. But I’m not that satisfied with his performance to be honest. Could have been better. Should have been better.

BIAS SUMMARY – Michael Jones (2012-05-13)
Period 1 West Bromwich Albion % Arsenal % Total
Correct For 9 37.50 15 62.50 24
Correct For Weighted 12 33.33 24 66.67 36
Incorrect Against 2 16.67 10 83.33 12
Incorrect Against Weighted 2 11.76 15 88.24 17
Fouls Commited 13 65.00 7 35.00 20
Fouls Penalised 9 69.23 6 85.71 15
Period 2 West Bromwich Albion % Arsenal % Total
Correct For 8 50.00 8 50.00 16
Correct For Weighted 8 44.44 10 55.56 18
Incorrect Against 1 25.00 3 75.00 4
Incorrect Against Weighted 1 25.00 3 75.00 4
Fouls Commited 7 46.67 8 53.33 15
Fouls Penalised 6 85.71 7 87.50 13
Totals West Bromwich Albion % Arsenal % Total
Correct For 17 42.50 23 57.50 40
Correct For Weighted 20 37.04 34 62.96 54
Incorrect Against 3 18.75 13 81.25 16
Incorrect Against Weighted 3 14.29 18 85.71 21
Fouls Commited 20 57.14 15 42.86 35
Fouls Penalised 15 75.00 13 86.67 28

The bias table shows a big number of calls going in favour of WBA in this game. A rarity for WBA in fact if I look at the other games of them so far.

So this is it. Final station. Final Arsenal game of the season. But not the final ref review. We still have a lot of games to catch up with so we still will need some time to come up with some final numbers. However if I can I will try to give you my impression of the Arsenal games in some posts in the next weeks. But in the mean time you will be able to enjoy the articles about how refs have done in the other games involving other teams.

But now I would like to thank my ref reviewers for the great job they have done (and  still are  doing behind the scenes), thank you Dogface for putting it in a nice table each time. And thank you readers for having your say on the reviews.

 

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30 Replies to “Untold Ref Review: West Bromwich Albion 2 – 3 Arsenal”

  1. Happy St Totteringham 🙂 Enjoy it our lovely fans . Love youuuuuuuuuu Wengerrrrrrrrrrrrrr

  2. I’m sure the ref just blew because Morrison fell over with a pulled muscle and assumed it was a foul by Jenkinson. Think you might be being a bit kind to the ref there 🙂

  3. You may be right there MK
    Call it end of the season kindness. 😉

  4. @Walter
    could u tell me if the corner given to Arsenal which leads to our 3rd goal was correct? Because on TV, I think the linesman got it wrong. It should be a goal kick for WBA, instead of corner for us.

    And that’s the same linesman who gave WBA an offside goal in the first hal.

  5. They did all they could to stop/destroy us. They couldn’t. We won this great battle against evil refs 😀 Man, that makes me a lot more happy 😀

  7. While we bribed their goalkeeper, we forget to bribe the linesman, thats for sure :p.

    I don’t think this ref was biased. It’s not like Webb, Dean or Foy who let opponents kick our players and give yellow for the first foul we make. This ref was pretty consequent, but it was not in our favour because we have the better footballers.

    Anyway, this is it. Big compliments for you guys for doing such a great job. This data combined with the upcomming video-evidence will soon reach the public. Just a matter of time.

  8. Oh i have to say, Fortuné could at least claim a penalty twice if he would do an ”Ashley Young”… Jenkinson grabbed his shirt too obvious. Most teams and players would take advantage of that and the biased refs would also do that, so we have to anticipate on such things… no more shirt grabbing mr. Jenkinson.

  10. Novicegooner,
    We could not change this call as we had no clear replay of this. One of the flaws of the system.
    if so then that linesman sure had a bad day at the office.

  11. Walterke,
    Kudos to you and your team for a monster season of seasonings. Flattery (deserved) aside, please provide some kind of link so that newbies here and old timers alike can re-visit your last season’s (unassisted) final ref review. You know, the “unscientific” masterpiece, imo. It will add some degree of comparison for some of us to consider and promote the overall awareness of “the state of the pitch.”

  12. bob
    since it was Koscielny, my favorite player, who scored the goal that sends us to Champions League, I couldn’t care less about it 😀

    Walter
    thanks for the response. and hats off to you and your team’s immense effort to the Ref Review Series.

  13. Bob, I was planning to compare Arsenal games this and last season.

    A big problem is that the reviews in those days were done a bit different and also we changed during the season because of our readers asking questions and asking more numbers and more specific numbers. So we counted things sometimes in a different way.

    But I will write an article and try to compare as much as possible between the two seasons.

    It is unbelievable the size of the file I then had and the ones we are counting now. I started with a bike with wooden wheels compared to the very luxury car we have now. (shocked smiley please 😉 – don’t know the combination for that )

  15. Indeed Heci he just knew something was wrong if you look at how he reacts for a split second and they thought well just carry on then…

  16. Walter,
    I am not so sure about being kind to this referee; after all, the imaginary foul by Gibbs on Odemwingie at the 87th minute really contributed to put tons of pressure on our defense at a time when we have historically (this season anyway) been febrile on our defensive end. So, I am not too kind or lenient with this referee.
    ray.
    PS: As to the corner, it was correct; I taped the game and I saw that sequence leading to LK’s goal several times, and it was indeed a corner.

  19. I think Jones was not too bad, compared to some of the other referees.

    The only reason some people question the corner call which resulted in our 3rd goal was because the commentators had lots to say, without any clear evidence that the linesman’s call was wrong. Off course the WBA player also appealed for the decision, but they all do all the time, so that means nothing.

  20. I know this is not really related to this particular ref review, but I thought I’d post it here anyway. You did mention that it’s “as if” the ref appointment for this game had something to do with things written on this blog about referee assignment. This may be true, and if so, there is an opportunity here for Untold Arsenal to do some good.

    Up until recently, in addition to UA, I also followed the blog Football is Fixed – it has been mentioned on here before. The blog is sadly now finished. What they did, among other things, is simply list curious referee appointments, and curious timings of appointments (e.g. waiting until after the Man City – Man Utd. game to do appointments for subsequent PL games of these teams). Since the FiF blog is now defunct, this information will be no longer provided.

    However, UA already has a body of data showing possible biases of referees. UA could pick up where FiF left off, and more regularly comment on referee appointments vis-a-vis observable bias of the referees. It seems that the hardest part – the data on ref performance – is already here and will continue to be here. All that is required is to correlate it now with appointments in a more regular fashion.

    Again, I know this is unrelated to this particular ref review, but I thought I’d throw it out there.

  21. Did you listen to G.Poll on the radio yesterday maning about the state of PL Reffing this season and questioning what their cheif was upto and what he has been asking them to do this season. In Polls words(kind of) “if one or two players are having a bad game you question them but if the whole team is having a bad game dont you question the manager”

  22. It is a : (colon) -(hyphen) and a capital or a small ‘O’ (alphabet) : )

  25. what about that penalty shout on RVP when he was about to bundle it in?

  26. ahh forget about it confused with the norwich game..blame the lack of rest i had for that

  27. Baggyjohns……is this your nickname because you crap your shorts everytime RVP scores? That could explain the stench radiating from your post!
    I am sure you meant Wayne Rooney dives when he or SAF wants?

  28. Great work yet again…..

    Keep it going guys, the Powers That Be are running scared…

  29. Ray
    thanks for the clarification. I don’t remember if there was a replay for that ‘corner’ or not, but i remember the commentators kept mentioning it several times. So, I guess I just kinda ‘swallow’ it.

    Now that it’s cleared, I can be a 100% happy about Kos’ goal.
    COME.ON.ARSENAL

    ENGLISHREFS.ARE.SHITS.

  30. The thing that really annoyed me about this match was the BBC live text coverage. I remember Vs Everton they should have scored an equaliser but it was ruled out by the ref and boy did the BBC not like that. Even now on the report page you can read these lines;
    “wrongly ruled out for offside”, “erroneous assistant’s flag”
    strong definite words, the reader can be in no mistake what happened. So comparing that with West Broms clear offside goal we have “as Wenger protested furiously for an offside flag that never came” well was it offside or not you cant tell.

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