Newcastle v Arsenal 29 December 2013 – The match officials
- Referee – Lee Probert
- Assistants – I Hussin and M Scholes
- Fourth Official – A Marriner
Second time this year for Mr Probert – he was in charge for our 4-1 win over Norwich on 19 October. Here is Walter’s post match report.
The fastest but incomplete match report : Arsenal – Norwich 4-1
Probert up to his usual tricks in not giving obvious fouls to Arsenal even when well placed to see them. None so blind as those who won’t see I think is the expression that possibly covers his officiating.
Last year we had him for the away game at Norwich on 20 Oct 2012, and away at Southampton on 1st January 2013.
He has a reputation as a home ref that seems to be borne out by his numbers, 13 games reviewed, six away teams with bias over 60% with only two home teams at 60% plus. The other five games were within the 60/40 split. Something to be aware of.
Match Review: Lee Probert – Norwich City Vs Arsenal (1 – 0) [20/10/2012] 73% overall, bias against 6/94 but no wrong Important Decisions (second yellow, red cards, penalties and goals).
Match Review: Lee Probert – Southampton Vs Arsenal (1 – 1) [01/01/2013] 68% overall, bias against 23/77 and one wrong Important Decision.
I covered the main talking points for both of these games in my preview of the Norwich game and so don’t propose to do so again here. If you want to get depressed then follow the links to the full reviews and see just how bad he can be for Arsenal. Appalling overall scores for a FIFA Referee and completely one sided bias. I wouldn’t have him in charge of a kindergarden game let alone one in the premier league. In both of these games his decisions cost Arsenal points.
Newcastle had him for their home game v Villa on 02 Sep,
Match Review: Lee Probert – Newcastle United Vs Aston Villa (1 – 1) [02/09/2012] 65% overall, bias against 51/49 and one wrong Important Decision. Key incidents were:-
- Minute 17 – Ireland pushes Cabaye over, ref has a clear view but gives nothing.
- Minute 21 – Clark scores for Villa (0-1)
- Minute 26 – Ahmadi rightly gets a yellow card
- Minute 27 – Santon fouls Weimann – nothing given
- Minute 51 – Clark jumps on Ba’s back, nothing given
- Minute 58 – Ben Arfa scores (1-1)
- Minute 83 – Lowton should get straight red for tackle with both feet off the ground. A tackle straight out of the 70s Ref gives a throw in! Wrong Important Decision.
- Minute 84 – Gutierrez rightly gets yellow card
- Minute 89 – Lichaj rightly gets a yellow card
- Minute 90+1 – Guzan rightly gets a yellow card for time wasting
- Minute 90+3 – Holman rightly gets a yellow card
- Minute 90+5 – Bannan rightly gets a yellow card for time wasting
Twenty five wrong decisions in the game – outrageous but they were evenly divided between both teams. The wrong Important Decision meant that Newcastle were denied playing against ten men for twelve minutes. Perhaps that might have altered the score, no way of telling really.
To sum up – this will be a very difficult game for Arsenal to get points from, Newcastle are starting to play well, particularly at home. Mr Probert seems to have a general bias in favour of home teams and a complete and utter phobia against Arsenal. Given these I believe that a draw will be a good result and a win superb for the Arsenal.
COYG
Barcodes 0-3 arsenal
Worried about Tiote, he’s been a little heavy handed against our players in recent matches. He might just decide to let the likes of Ozil/Arteta know that he’s around in an illegal sort of way
Just curious, is there any official you like?
Be sure that Tiote will be the Ramirez/Lucas type of serial fouler, that our favourite refs like to give leeway to. I’d like to see Scissorman Flamini keep Tiote in his sights. I expect a red card from ‘make your own rules up’ Probert – obviously an Arsenal victim. We can still beat the toon and probert. COYG!
Let’s keep the average goal record and score a 2-1 win.
@AL & Norm,
Well, if you expect those dirty Arsenal players’ legs to keep attacking the boots of Tiote and his chums…and expect to get away with it….you’ve got another think coming.
nicky
Sadly, I agree with you; Tiote will kick out, harass and stamp on our players but it’s us that’ll get punished.
An ideal scenario is to get to halftime with honours even, then a quick salvo in the second half to give us a comfortable lead. That might not leave much room for manipulation.
Slightly off topic but saw this in the Mirror (Brian Reade’s annual awards)…
“…But the most unexpected farewell came when Manchester United knocked West Ham out of the FA Cup and Sam Allardyce blamed it on biased refereeing.
“You see it time and time again at Old Trafford,” he whined. And a shocked world realised his head had finally left Fergie’s backside.”
Ha!
Here’s is a statistical view on why a player is better off fouling early on in the game. Its interesting.
http://www.statsbomb.com/2013/12/can-you-get-away-with-a-foul-early-in-the-match/
3-1 to the arsenal,they cant stop us now
Having Probert at home is bad enough, having him away from home is criminal.
We had him a few seasons ago at Wigan (in the Christmas period) when he gave a ghost penalty in favour of Wigan for a dive outside the penalty area. And refused to give a penalty for Arsenal on two occasions (one a foul on Theo and one a blatant handball in the wall – sticking his hand way above his head – he did gave a corner….sigh… so he had seen it)
For what happened at Fulham 2 seasons ago and again in the Christmas period… it was a referee travesty. Djourou got fouled 3 times in the space of seconds and he still refused to call a foul. Later on he was happy to send Djourou off for two yellow cards and did he had been waiting for that.
After the game Wenger said something like : We knew him and we know what to expect when he is around.
So the PGMOL is sending him out to ruin our Christmas period each and every year it seems….
Yes Ben, we prefer most European FIFA referees (CL) because they actually display impartiality….what kind of referees do you like? Those who visibly favour one team over another, who permit serial and rotational fouling and ignore serious foul play that leads to injuries or expulsions, those who award spurious penalties, allow offside goals, ignore their linesmen, fail to equitably apply the important Laws of the Game? Please let us know your officiating credentials and pedigree related to officiating so we can better understand your question and your implied depth of understanding for the Beautiful Game.
In order to win any game don’t expect favors from Ref but rather play your game,stop looking for referee in every faul or off side coz that’s where you will be punished waiting for ref to blow the whistle and he ignores by the time you wants to recover its too late,you have been beaten either in counter attack or offside trap. When you know what to expect from ref then be careful to trust him to play fair and square. GOOD LUCK MY GUNNERS.
Ben, I am a big fan of the assistant referee Sian Massey, unfortunately the PGMOL have not seen fit to allocate her to one of our games this year. As for referees, they all shafted us to some degree last year, some more so than others and Probert is one of the worst – he is a complete disgrace more often than not. I wouldn’t be surprised at one or more Arsenal players being sent off coupled with clear penalties not being given against Newcastle.
Great quote from Brian reade Pete. This game will be more of the same rotational fouling phantom offsides arteta sent off if he breathes on someone and jack banished if the crowd gets at his kids. But we have theo and the pod. To win we will have to beat twelve yet again be careful giroud
Noone is as useless as Phil Dowd,remember those two penalties and the red to Diaby.Biased no but seriously incompetent.
My the force be with us today. Keeping calm is the number one priority.
The worst part about Probert ,is his stupid “NAILED IT ! ” grin while he’s strolling about, blowing calls all over the park ,which reminds of another imbecil with a ” nailed it! ” grin – George Bush. 🙂
We all know how the latter got his job ,but for the life of me , I can’t figure out how Probert pulled it off. He must have some serious “dirt ” on powers that be.
If I start a paragraph with a octothorpe, does that help in not jinxing things? I sure hope so.
# My wishes. Now that BR has gotten the FA to investigate something about referees, I wish that the FA actually does investigate things. And shortly after, I hope to see a news article about the FA charging Mike Riley with bringing the game into disrepute. I wish Arsenal the best in both the EPL and Champions League this year. I would to see Arsenal come in second in the EPL (Tottenham and ManU out of the top 6) and I would like to see them win the Champions League. And for 2014/15, I would like to see Arsenal have the perfect season (all wins). After clearing out all the crap about Riley, to have a season with no intentional bias, it would be just perfect to have Arsenal have the perfect season to go with the Invincible season for Wenger.
But, today for you (tomorrow for me) I would hope that Arsenal wins.
COYG!
All the refs are biased against Arsenal,
Yet we have acheived more than we Deserve, season after season.
Off topic –
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sport/football/article-2530377/West-Brom-coach-Downing-claims-Anelka-paying-homage-comedian-controversial-celebration.html
I think Jack should say the middle finger was a dedicated gesture to his friend, Luke Skywalker.
Yet again, so much pre-match discussion about the failings of the appointed main official.
Assuming referees are human beings and can read, I wonder whether, having perused this edition of Untold, an irritated Probert will have decided to give us the “treatment” this afternoon.
Nicky,
History shows us he doesn’t need to rad untold to produce biased, hopeless, incompetent performances against us. I thought that was clear from the above.
@Clockendrider,
You miss my point. ANY chance of Probert mending his ways would probably be adversely affected by his reading the character assassination on this site.
That could be a possibility nicky, though I doubt they get swayed by what they may read on here. Maybe if it was coming from some site like the BBC perhaps they would, but sure these refs get more abuse from the stands and if they were going to react it’d be more likely towards that than what’s being said on blogs. Not dismissing it as a possibility but just trying to point out the likelihood of him getting irked by what’s being said here to the point of taking his revenge on the team is slim.
@nicky,
Hi and good morning. Even if referees were to look at this site, their reaction could break either way – and I have suspected for some time that secretly Tony, Walter and Andrew hope to shame them into being more on their mettle against accusations of bias or incompetence.
However, Tony, Walter et al, I think you may have missed a trick by focussing so vehemently on our team’s hard luck stories. I suggest that your excellent referee analyses would have carried more weight if you had explicitly excluded all Arsenal games from analysis. After all, the accusations of special pleading that have frequently accompanied the articles, are perfectly reasonable. Likewise, when it is suggested that we are just whining/looking for excuses, it’s an argument that’s difficult to refute.
What we all want, I presume, is for refereeing standards to be uniformly good, if not excellent, no matter which match is being officiated. That way, Arsenal benefits along with everyone.
Slightly off topic but utd now on 76 league games without conceding a penalty
https://mobile.twitter.com/OptaJoe/status/416978326629007360
Amazing what are the chances and where do their nearest rivals sit? I am sure the pgmol will help them through the magic 100. Mind you they have such clean players like vidic and Rooney may explain things
Or are the pgmol just a national disgrace?
@Mannix says it exactly.
Don’t give the ref any reason to card us, we know how he is. Just be a better football team and play them off the field, all of them.
Leave out the unnecessary tackles, and keep them closed down, as they will try to do to us.
May the ref be impartial for once.
Except for some really obvious ref intervention, i say we will win, 1-3 or so.
Mandy Dodd,
That’s an amazing stat. Surely it goes beyond merely defying statistical odds. Let’s compare that with how many penalty chances we’ve been awarded…
nicky,
Even if it antagonized Probert, there’s been gradually increasing scrutiny of the refshite; and as UA has recently shown, some of it actually drip-drip seeping into the medja. Probert may or may not be personally antagonized, but he can’t go willy-nilly crazy on us in this climate without damaging his team’s legitimacy. And that team would be PGMOL. I think he’s a full-blown (in any sense) Riley-ite and knows where his bread is buttered. Somehow I think he’ll be a bit less reckless. Of course the best ensurance is to score early and often. COYG!
Good start.
With so many French pllayers on the field (in a WC year) the game is being played in a competitive but fair spirit so far. Hopefully they are not looking to take advantage of the Probert factor.
Was trying to give the benefit of the doubt but the non-calls are totting up and there are only twenty on the clock!
Mis-timed tackle halfway up OG’s shin. Not a foul (nothing more).
I guess the ref must have missed it. It happens 😉
Koscielny’s reading of crosses is phenomenal.
Even I can tell that the ref is killing us!
Half way the match… Probert is his usual himself: useless and biased. He seems to be afraid to blow the whistle for fouls…. certainly when they are done by Newcastle players…
They couldnt reach our goals and were confused up in the beginning, and then they reached with two attempts which were fouls on our players while it was we attacking.
This referee is simply confused! probably bribed not to give Tiote a card.
What AL said last night:
nicky
Sadly, I agree with you; Tiote will kick out, harass and stamp on our players but it’s us that’ll get punished.
An ideal scenario is to get to halftime with honours even, then a quick salvo in the second half to give us a comfortable lead. That might not leave much room for manipulation.
Does anyone know what the refs in the championship are like this season?
Remember the scene in the Untouchables movie , when the Judge changes the Jury before the trial?
Can’t the FA do that?