Aston Villa v Arsenal 20 September 2014 – The Match Officials
by Andrew Crawshaw
Here is the wrong Important Decisions Table updated following Walter’s reviews of the Leicester City and Manchester City games so the numbers are for all four games played so far.
In the Leicester game there were three wrong Important decisions; yellow cards not given to Moore in minutes 35, 58 and 90; a straight red card to Hammond in minute 84 and a penalty to Arsenal for the push on Cazorla in minute 50. Two points added in the Opponents column.
In the Man City game there were two wrong key decisions, Milner should have had yellow cards in minutes 18 and 45 giving Arsenal a one man advantage for the whole of the second half. In the second half in minute 76, Wilshere handled the ball in the penalty area and a spot kick should have been given. These two decisions could have affected the result in favour of both teams so I have added two points in both columns.
| Wrong Important Decisions | Favouring Arsenal | Favouring Opponents |
| 2nd Yellow Cards | 2 | |
| Red Cards | 1 | 3 |
| Penalties | 1 | 3 |
| Goals | 1 | |
| Total | 2 | 9 |
| Possible Cost in Points | 2 | 6 |
The preview for Saturday
- Referee – Mike Jones
- Assistants – M Scholes and I Hussin
- Fourth Official – K Friend
Mike Jones was born in 1968, his home FA is Cheshire and has been a referee in the premier league since August 2008 when he started with Hull City v Wigan. Prior to that he was a Football League referee for 11 years. Coincidentally his first Football League game in August 1997 also featured Hull City who were away to Mansfield Town. To date he has been in charge of 128 matches issuing 17 red and 414 yellow cards (a red card every 7.5 games and 3.2 yellow cards a game on average).
This will be his third game this season and he will have had five assistants, only Mr Scholes has been with him before this year. Last year he did 19 games being partnered with Mr Scholes seven times and Mr Hussin four times.
Mr Scholes was one of the assistants for the season opener against Crystal Palace, Walter’s review of that game made no mention of his performance, so I’ll give him an OK for that game.
What of Mr Jones recent history with Arsenal?
In 2012/13 he was in charge of
| Match Review: Michael Jones – Arsenal Vs West Bromwich Albion (2 – 0) [08/12/2012] |
He scored 69% overall, Bias against 52/48 and two wrong Important Decisions (second yellow, red cards, penalty and goal) when he wrongly awarded Arsenal a penalty in the 24th minute following a dive from Cazorla. The penalty conversion shouldn’t have counted either.
| Match Review: Michael Jones – Arsenal Vs Norwich City (3 – 1) [13/04/2013] |
60% overall, bias against 73/27 and four wrong key decisions. In Min 45+1 Turner should have been sent off for elbowing Ramsey, In Minute 55 there was a dive from a Norwich player to win a free kick from which they scored, the Norwich player should have had a yellow card and the free kick should have been given to Arsenal. In min 64 Snodgrass fouled Walcott in the penalty area but no penalty was awarded and in Min 90+1 Theo scored a goal but was offside in the buildup so the goal shouldn’t have counted. Not Mr Jones finest game as a referee.
Overall for the year he had 15 wrong key decisions in the 9 games he was reviewed, of these 7 were penalties, 3 were sending offs and 5 were incorrect goal decisions. None of these errors are acceptable His overall scores were 70% or less in four games and 80% or better in three. A strong home bias in two games, neutral bias in 5 games and a strong away bias in the other two games. Not really up to scratch overall, could do better
In 2013/14 Mr Jones was in charge of 19 games in total, 11 home wins, three draws and 5 away wins. Two games involved Arsenal:-
Stoke v Arsenal 1st Mar 2014 (1-0) A one sided piece of refereeing by Mr Jones, Adams should have been sent off in the middle of the second half for a clear stamp on Giroud who was on the floor at the time (see the second link below). He then gave a very soft penalty in favour of Stoke, Walters kicked the ball Kos was about a metre away and the ball hit his hand as he was jumping to attempt to block it. The assistant who was close didn’t move but Mr Jones was convinced.
Home referee as predicted, bad day at the office not as predicted
FA charges Adam, Riley phones Wenger… or did he?
Arsenal v West Brom 4 May 2014 (1-0) This time we were at home – did the referee perform any better? Here is Walter’s post match article, he was at the game. We scored the only goal in the first half and never looked like conceding. From my recollection the ref was OK and West Brom were not good.
Arsenal – WBA, after the beginning now on to the match…
Not a mention of Mr Jones so again an OK performance.
So dreadful in our away game at Stoke, OK for our home game, broadly in line with our expectations.
What of Mr Jones and Aston Villa?
Match Review: Michael Jones – Everton Vs Aston Villa (3 – 3) [02/02/2013]
77% overall, bias against 57/63 but three wrong key decisions, Everton who should have had two penalties in Minute 9 and 46 and Osman should have been sent off on Minute 88 for a studs up challenge in the back of a villa player. Apart from those Important decisions not too bad a performance.
Aston Villa v Man City 28 September 2013 (3-2)
Sunderland v Villa, 01 January 2014 (0-1) – I Hussin was one of the assistants that day.
I have no review of either game, they seem to be in line with him usually favouring the home team, if there are any Villa followers reading , perhaps they could be kind enough to post something in the comments?
In summary
- Mr Jones tends to be a home referee
- Mr Jones is not that good overall
- Mr Jones is particularly poor in judging penalties
- Mr Jones is also poor at disciplinary offences, both yellow and red cards
- As Walter said “Give me Jones any day of the week in a home match and I don’t fear him. Give him an away game against a footballing team and I don’t fear him. Give him in an away game against a kick the shit team and expect the worst. Remember this for the future.”
- Lets just hope that Villa aren’t a ‘kick the shit’ team.
COYG
There is an index to recent posts, a guide to today’s anniversaries, and details of our other sites on the Untold Arsenal home page
Villa look to be (now also) trying to play football too, but that said they may well revert to a tried and proven tactic of “kicking the shit” on sat.
The lads are certainly up for it i would think.
Thanks Andrew.
Regarding point number 6, Villa this season are just that.
Hope someone at the club is reading these reviews, and communicating some of this stuff.
Expect Jack, Ozil and Ramsey to take a kicking, Arteta booked first tackle
With the way Untold has been so accurate with their predictions, I’m not hopeful we will get anything at Villa.
Agree, Mandy. Every match we have had so far in the PL we have had one player from the other team who kicks us from start to finish, and this will be no exception at Villa. Even players who are not known for tough tackling (Chamakh) will be given free rein to kick us off the park.
Good to raise awareness of this but I am worried a draw or a loss here will see the bloodhound gang go crazy like a woof on a full moon.
Arsenal record here is good , Villa not that good esp at home we need to start playing better, everyone stop being so negative Arsenal have enough quality to win this if they turn up that is .
It will probably be a tighter match than it should, but we have the quality to get this done. A 1-0 will do it for me. And I hope I’m pessimistic:)
Hope the guys respond from midweek…….a good result, and no trolls from Le Bridge after the game
Maybe a 1-4 score eh?
Would boost confidence quite a lot, but i settle for 0-1 as Florian said.
I do hope that the players do their very best and win this one . This season Villa have impressed with their attacking play and lets hope they play the ‘proper’ way and not revert to the rough stuff.
Up the Gunners !
Do us proud !
Villa are a counter attacking side, and I’m expecting park the bus stuff from them and some fouls to break our attacks. The reason they may not have such a good record at home is because their fans don’t want to see them use defensive tactics against sides like Southampton, Newcastle, etc, at home. They’re forced to come out more, conceding space and goals. But against a side like us their fans will expect them to park the bus and they’ll be ok with that, so it won’t be easy, especially with a compliant ref.
Just hope we won’t come back with another serious injury, from all the kicking we will undoubtedly receive. That’s been the story so far this season; vicious kicking against our players that we lose a player to a long term injury after each match.
For those who wonder if our training methods are responsible for all the injuries I say look no further than the treatment handed out by the likes of Chamakh, Naismith, Hammond, Milner… Sure there’ll be a fifth name to that list by the end of the day.
Yes Al this filth needs to be cut out! I am constantly swearing when watching us play at some of the atrocious hard grit English football
Thank you for the preview as always. Interesting reading.
Come on the Arsenal!
To my untutored eye the official appeared quite even handed and consistent in his decision making today, a good performance from the official?
Looking forward to the review as always.
Will await the ref review….he did seem to give a few strange fouls against us when their players seemed to collide into ours, but nothing too major. But fortunately, even if he was up to any pgmol tricks, our boys did not give him any real chance, wrapping up the game in a short spell. If would have taken a Dowdesque performance for today’s ref to let them come back from that.