Arsenal v Southampton: how will ref Clattenberg treat to the Arsenal?

Arsenal v Southampton – 23 November The Match Officials

by Andrew Crawshaw

 

• Referee – Mark Clattenberg
• Assistants – S Beck, A Holmes
• Fourth Official – A D’Urso

A game between First and Third in the league, and also between the two teams least favoured by all of the referees.

Second time this year for Clattenberg, interestingly in all of his 6 previous Premier League games his assistants have been S Beck and S Child, so the usual crew have been split up slightly for this game with A Holmes coming in for S Child.  I have no idea what that means, just thought it worth commenting on.

It is also the second time this year for A D’Urso as fourth official (50% of his appointments).  He lives in Essex so, I suppose is local and normally referees in the Championship, or lower leagues.

Anyway, coming back to the main man Mark Clattenberg.  Not normally a referee to strike fear into Arsenal Supporters, two years ago he was Untold’s Referee of the Year but last year was disappointing, quite probably due to the after effects of the shenanigans in the Chelsea game where he was accused (falsely) of making racist comments to one on the Chelsea players.  That seemed to knock the wind out of him and he took some time to regain his former presence.

This year he was in charge of our away game at Swansea which we won 1-2 (A D’Urso was the 4th official on that day).  The game was memorable for Gnabry’s first premier league goal capping off a great performance and another goal for Ramsey.  Swansea scored a well worked late goal.  It was a good game of football, fairly open and Mr Clattenberg allowed the game to flow without getting in the way too much – a good performance overall.

Going back to last year, Mr Clattenberg’s bias table is reproduced here.  No great surprises that Arsenal are the least favoured team, but the numbers are nowhere near as extreme as with many other referees.  The surprise is that the bias against Southampton is nearly as big so nothing really between the teams.

I covered the two games Mr Clattenberg did for us last year in my preview of the Swansea game Swansea v Arsenal 28 September 2013. The referee preview so I won’t repeat myself here.  In summary there was the 0-2 defeat at home to Swansea where most of the bias in the above table arose and the 2-1 defeat away to Spurs where the refereeing was much better.  In neither game did the refereeing have any impact on the score.

For Southampton he refereed two games

Match Review: Mark Clattenburg – Southampton Vs Fulham (2 – 2) [07/10/2012]

75% overall score, bias against 70/30 and one key wrong decision (second yellow, red card, penalty or goal).  The most notable incidents were :-

• Minute 3 – Fonte scored a goal (0-1)
• Minute 23 – Hooiveld wrongly gets a yellow card for handball. Not much he could have done to get out of the way, was a foul but not a card.
• Minute 45+3 – Rodriguez kicks Baird high on the leg, foul given but it should also have been a yellow card.
• Minute 47 – Schneiderlin correctly given yellow card
• Minute 64 – Yoshida correctly given yellow card
• Minute 68 – Hooiveld scores an own goal (1-1)
• Minute 77 – Schneiderlin slides into a Fulham player nowhere near the ball, should have been a second yellow card for him.  The wrong decision was hardly likely to have cost Southampton points.
• Minute 87 – Richardson scores goal (2-1)
• Minute 89 – Richardson stamps on Davis’s foot, foul given but should be a yellow card.
• Minute 89 – Fonte scores a goal (2-2) he is also correctly booked for an excessive goal celebration.

The key decision (Minute 77) favoured Southampton when they should have had a player sent off with the score at one each.  Had the player been sent off and they were forced to play with 10 men for the last quarter on an hour, the result might have been different but probably in Fulham’s favour – potentially a loss instead of a draw.

Match Review: Mark Clattenburg – Tottenham Hotspur Vs Southampton (1 – 0) [04/05/2013]

82% overall score, bias against 19/81 and no wrong key decisions.  The most notable incidents were :

• Minute 18 – Luke Shaw penalised for foul but replay showed it was a clear dive from Walker who should have been booked.
• Minute 25 – Lallana given offside but Assou Ekoto was playing him onside – a terrible miss by the assistant as Lallana would have been one on one with the keeper.
• Minute 55 – Huddlestone holding for a long time, foul given but should also have been booked.
• Minute 70 – Assou-Ekotto correctly booked for handball
• Minute 72 – Stephen Davis correctly booked for foul
• Minute 85 – Gareth Bale scores (1-0)

The incident in minute 25 cost Southampton a goal scoring opportunity which potentially cost them a draw.

So last year both teams were on the wrong side of Mr Clattenberg’s decision making, but it didn’t obviously cost either any points – no evidence of an “agenda” against either team.

Do your job on Saturday fairly please Mr Clattenberg and make sure your assistants are awake.

First versus Third in the table, both teams playing great football.  Should be a good game between two form teams.  The BFG had no particular problems with the “Southampton three” playing for England on Tuesday night – hope that continues on Saturday.

Let’s all get behind the Arsenal and make some noise.

• Injuries diminish, media talk positively, something’s not right.
• Someone has to stop Fifa. Now!
• What’s the point of going on loan – is this the end of youth policy?
• Pundits and their simple world image; Per Mertesacker and his total brilliance.
• Ref Review 2012/13: Arsenal. If you think football in England is not biased, best not to read this.

COYG