The refs and Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal

By Walter Broeckx

Did the big decisions go against Newcastle last season?

As you all should now by now it is important to get the big decisions going in your favour. But it also is important to get the small fouls on the field in your favour.  Because that is the way you can have an influence on the field as a ref without people noticing you. When you blow 3 imaginary penalties you expose yourself to the public as a cheat. So it is not the way to do it.

Did Tottenham get a lot of undeserved yellow cards last season?

Getting undeserved yellow cards can undermine a team in a game. If you are already on a yellow card you can play with some restriction in your game. And that is something that can cost you your natural game and become costly for your team. So refs can influence a game with handing out yellow cards that are not fully deserved. Or they can do it the other way round by not giving yellow cards against your opponents when they fully deserve them. The players of the other team can then subconscious feel that they can get away with some things and go in even dirtier than before. So it is important to give the correct cards in a game.

Surely it is a myth that the refs help Manchester United?

Is it a myth or is it reality? Does Manchester United get a lot of help from the refs at times. Or do they sometimes also have to live with bad decisions? Is there a difference for United when playing at Old Trafford or playing away? It sure would be interesting to see if we can find a difference in how the refs make mistakes in the games when Manchester United is involved.

Did the sheikh from Manchester City also bought the whole PGMOL together with Nasri?

If a sheikh who bought (or could buy) every football player in the world for any fee as they are all for sale for the right plrice. You then could start thinking: what if he would get it in to his head to not just buy the player but also the refs? If he would have bought a few refs would this become visible in their numbers? Or is it visible that Manchester City bought the whole PGMOL? Or did they do nothing of that kind?

Surely it will have evened out for Arsenal at the end of the season?

It must. Because otherwise the pundits will look rather stupid with their mantra.  And don’t we rely on the pundits for their wisdom? So if they are going to remain any credibility they numbers must show that the decisions around Arsenal were balanced at the end of the season.

Questions a fan of those teams might ask themselves at times. But where to find the answer. And not just to those questions but to many more questions when it comes to referees and your favourite football team.

For the answer to those questions you can come to Untold Arsenal in the next days or weeks. Of course we will not be able to give you the smoking gun if there is any. But based on our findings in our referee reviews we will be able to shed a light in to the darkness of the referee world.

Untold Arsenal is an Arsenal supporters blog but we have started a search to find answers to those questions not just for Arsenal games but for as many games as possible for all teams in the EPL.

We have a small team of referees who review as many games as possible each match day. And as a result we have reviewed 40% of all games in the PL last season.

And our reviewers do this by looking at the games from the first till the last second and review each incident that involves the ref. And we have judged each incident and gave points to the refs.

We now have a database of over 7000 decisions in the PL that we can link to the referees and the teams involved.

So why don’t you take a look in the next days and keep your eyes open to see if your  team has been screwed by the refs or did they enjoy an easy ride from the refs?

 

 

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15 Replies to “The refs and Newcastle, Tottenham Hotspur, Manchester United, Manchester City and Arsenal”

  1. A little addition to my own article (sounds a bit silly doesn’t it)

    For those who didn’t like these questions articles: they are over now.

    The next thing is that we will start with the review itself. For the numbers part you must wait till Monday.
    There are a few reasons for this: technical, tactical, workload of the people involved behind the scenes who have to make sure that their wife and kids get something to eat next month.

    But to fill the gap between now and Monday we will have other articles about Arsenal, other teams, world football, the euro’s and most of all from my point of view I will be starting with the EPL REFEREE REVIEW 2012.

    Between now and Monday I will start with an introduction. For the 700.000 readers who know us some things will not be new. But we hope to attract a lot of new readers to this site with this year review. So when they come for the first time we can show them how it started, how it was done, how it is done and how we hope it will go in the future.

    And a little bit of a look behind the scenes will be there for the regular readers who already know us and our work.

    Enjoy the rest of the weekend, don’t try to be too impatient about the numbers (they will come), read the other interesting stuff on this site (there is plenty of it), watch some football (I heard there is a final somewhere around this weekend), and enjoy life.

  2. Sorry but the person who has put this together is a typical illiterate and irrational Arsenal fan as big a glory hunter as any plastic United fan. Apart from the fact its barely in English the assumptions and logic are those of a child.

  3. @Sir Cecil

    Walter is Belgian. I’d say that his English is pretty good as a non-native speaker. Would you care to write your reply in Flemish and let Walter critique it?

  4. Very interesting article. As football supporters, regardless of what club you support, it affects us all.

    @Sir Cecil, you are an idiot. No tolerance for somebody who cannot write ‘perfect’ English. Perhaps you ought to take a look at the next generation of British students who are far more illiterate than this guy and he isn’t even a native.

  5. @Sir Cecil

    This work has taken a whole season to compile, your comment probably 5 seconds, I suggest you hang on in there and then perhaps, if you are capable, you will understand the magnitude of what has been compiled. Any regular to this forum knows that Walter is an absolute legend, and i doff my cap to him. was that English enough for you!!

  6. I’m not quite sure how Arsenal fans can be glory supporters anyway…

    Andy – I’d like to see him attempt a reply in English, judging from his comment that’d be struggle enough.

  7. Has anyone ever seen anything meaningful written by this ‘Sir’ (Dumb Ass) Cecil except for the crass comment up there? Why not take up the challenge Cecil, and write something that shows your adult logic?

  8. I am often impressed at how Walter can write such lengthy and entertaining articles outside of his native tongue.

    Congratulations Walter on undertaking this massive achievement which is now coming to fruition. We are eagerly looking forward to it.

  9. @Walter: Don’t let those who don’t matter hurt you. If someone who is a regular here says that, then yes maybe you have a right to feel aggrieved. If morons like Sir Cecil come along, who haven’t a clue and on the wind up, they don’t matter.

  10. Sir Cecil..sounds like a name right out of a Wodehouse novel, and fittingly, is just as dumb.. If you are going to attack someone’s English (not that there’s any reason to do that anyway)you might at least want to check that your three line post has correct punctuation.

  11. Don’t worry, I am ref so used to get some abuse. But really a foreign Gooner since 1979(!!!!) after seeing us lose my first live game at Highbury 0-1 to Wolverhamton is beyond words. 😉

    Not that I will be lying in my bed tonight twisting and turning and ask myself: why?….Why???….WHY?????

    🙂 🙂

    Anyway thanks for sticking up for me

  12. I found it very funny Dogface.
    Maybe I’m just in a very good mood because we finally got the ball rolling 😉

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