By Walter Broeckx
So Taylor it is again. Only 7 matches since his last match in charge of Arsenal the evil face of the PGMO is back.
Let us look at his stats up to now and compare them with the overall record from Arsenal in the PL.
| Total | WIN | DRAW | LOST | |
| Arsenal | 174 | 96 | 41 | 37 |
| % | 55% | 23,5% | 21% | |
| Taylor | 8 | 3 | 3 | 2 |
| % | 37,5% | 37,5% | 25% |
So our win % drops from an average of 55% to 37,5%. A big drop. Our draws % rises in a big was also to 37.5% and we usually only draw 23,5% of our matches. Our losing % is higher but not that high.
But the worrying point is that in the matches and we will talk about them later on, it was almost all the time against ‘smaller’ teams. Matches that you would expect Arsenal to win 9 out of 10 times and the one other time would be a draw. Here a short resume of these matches.
Sunderland 0-0
A match I was at the Emirates myself in 2011. Disgusting in the way how he and his assistants cheated in this match. A clear goal was disallowed for offside when Arshavin was meters onside. And a bit later the same Arshavin was pushed in the back just when he was going to score being one on one with the keeper and Taylor completely ignored the blatant foul and refused to give us a penalty.
This was a match that while sitting in the Emirates I got text messages on my phone from my son who is also a referee letting me know how we were screwed.
Arsenal – Norwich 3-3
Taylor is back and so was I for this match. A crazy match where Taylor again made me raise my eyebrows. And again a completely, unbalanced and unfair performance. Giving ghost fouls to Norwich from which they scored. Ignoring a studs on the leg of Sagna while on the floor that resulted in a broken leg for Sagna. No Arsenal player is safe on the field while he is around.
And on top of that he again ignored a blatant foul that should have given us a penalty. This time it was Van Persie who was standing a few meters from the goal line ready to tap the ball home when a Norwich defender threw himself in the back of Van Persie. Van Persie ended up in the net but the ball didn’t. Rather hilarious in a way if it were not so sad.
Arsenal – QPR 1-0
A win for Arsenal and he even send-off Mbia from QPR in that match. But by no means a comfortable win. Oh and again in this match we lost a player with an injury as this time Gervinho had to be stretchered off. QPR got a player dismissed when one of their players kicked out at Vermaelen long after the ball had gone out. The assistant doing his job there.
Reading – Arsenal 2-5
This time Taylor could do nothing to stop Arsenal and Cazorla. Santi scored a hattrick in this match and was unstoppable. Let us hope for a repeat of his performance this weekend. One memory stood out from this match. After the final whistle Sagna went over to confront Taylor for allowing Reading to kick the shit out of Arsenal players near the end of the match. He had to be pulled away from Taylor. Of course Sagna wasn’t happy about Taylor after he allowed the Norwich player to break his leg a few months earlier.
Sunderland – Arsenal 0-1
After two wins in a row the ref seemed determined to not let it go to 3 wins in a row. So he employed a new tactic. Make sure that Arsenal go a man down. But his effort to send Jenkinson off didn’t result in Arsenal dropping points. Oh and the tactics are to book players as a second yellow card causes less rumbles than a straight red card. Another strange moment was when Fletcher from Sunderland controlled the ball clearly with his hand but he was allowed to carry on and could almost score from that. Cazorla again our saviour against Taylor just as against Reading.
Arsenal – Aston Villa 1-3
A disgraceful and one sided performance if ever seen one. Again an Arsenal player send off with two laughable yellow cards. Koscielny this time the victim of Taylor his antics. Aston Villa players could kick and smash Arsenal players without getting a second yellow or even a first yellow. Two penalties against Arsenal and certainly the second one was a clear gift from Taylor. Of course on the other side of the field a clear pull on Wilshere was ignored so Arsenal didn’t get the penalty they deserved.
I think behind the scenes Arsenal did make a complaint about him as the didn’t get Taylor again for the rest of the season. And this match was the opening match of that season!
Leicester – Arsenal 1-1
A new season, a new chance. For the full report on this match you can find it here on this site. http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/37896
Again not giving a penalty for Arsenal and again some strange and bizarre decisions in this match. 14 wrong decisions in total and only 1 favoured Arsenal. But at least Arsenal didn’t give him the chance to sent an Arsenal player off. Oh and a few of the Leicester players managed to kick around unpunished for the whole 90 minutes. A potential leg breaker ignored by Taylor once again. As usual Arsenal players are not safe when he is the ref on the field.
Stoke – Arsenal 3-2
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/39892 is the ref review: shockingly bad was in the title. And we also showed a few video clips of strange and bizarre decisions once again from this match. http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/39458 where we invited you to be the PGMO ref yourself. And a review of our preview http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/39424 that was once again spot on. For those who say: but he gave us a penalty I want to correct them as it was the assistant who signalled it and so he couldn’t back out of it. But as soon as a great comeback was on the cards ref Taylor made sure we went down to 10 man. Chambers making two little fouls in the match being sent-off while thugs like Crouch could elbow our defenders unpunished and stay on the pitch. And then I didn’t mention the Adams assault on Alexis that went unpunished.
- The chance of an Arsenal playing being sent-off for nothing is very big.
- The chance of Arsenal getting a laughable penalty against them is very big.
- The chance of Arsenal getting a clear penalty is very small unless one of the assistants does his job and steps in.
- The chance of an Arsenal player being seriously injured is very big.
And this man is who we get for the replay of last season’s Arsenal – Aston Villa match in which he made a complete mess of refereeing for the umpteenth time in an Arsenal match. And the question on how on earth he got a Fifa badge is one of the big mysteries in football.
Come on, Mr. Riley do you really have no shame at all? Guess not.
All we can do is to be on his back from the first second in the match. As Andrew said in his preview before the Stoke match: this ref makes Dean look like an Arsenal supporter.
Coming next: The three ways that referees fix matches in England.
Anniversary of the day
30 January 1984 Tony Adams signed his first professional contract. He went on to become captain and control the defence of Arsenal into the Wenger era.
Excellent work, Walter, as usual. Many thanks for putting the time and effort in.
We will have to have him for some games, and if I had to choose I would prefer to get him for Sundays game over the one the following week.
There are too few good refs in the PL, that’s the real issue
The appointment of Taylor,is absolutely unacceptable,knowing his past appointments of Arsenal games,and I can’t beleive why you cannot PROTEST FOR HAVING SUCH A POOR REFEREE to say the least
I am moraly convint that this appointment is done on purpose
Taylor was suspended for a week after the villa loss if I remember correctly. He was suspended a second time that season too I think. Apart from being biased he’s clearly inept. He made a mess of the match after the villa one. It was a Cardiff game I think.
When we showed the numbers of the big difference between wins from Arsenal in general and Dean some argued that this was just because Dean did lots of top matches. That remark itself wasn’t completely correct as Dean also did matches against small teams.
But with Taylor we only got matches against smaller teams. So you could say that Taylor is in a way a small team Dean ref.
Goonermichael, if I remember correct he was 4th ref the next week. Not suspended at all. A task they all do almost every other week and sometimes do a match on Saturday and then be 4th ref on Sunday or the other way round. Phil Dowd did this two matchdays ago. A result of having not enough refs in the PL of course…
They are out there ?
Q. What do competent PGMO refs and UFOs have in common?
A. You always hear about them, but you never see them.
We we should put our money on a Villa win?
Let us all be confident of the Gunners victory over the Villans on Sunday lunch time kickoff match. Despite our suspicions of the Ref for this our Emirates stadium game with the visiting Aston Villa team, I believe the Gunners will come top over the Villans and collect all the 3 points at stake.
Arsenal supporters at the match – we need to get ready to shout as soon as Taylor starts his dirty tricks.
Thanks, Walter, for putting his crimes all together like this. Especially the reminder of what happened to Sagna.
I agree. 50k of fans shouting CHEAT CHEAT CHEAT and You can’t cheat us anymore need to be so loud the media need to report on it.
That Stoke match was one of the very worst refereeing performances I have ever seen. The number of blatantly wrong decisions was astounding. And now we have him for a third time this season.
You wonder how Taylor has not been demoted to Conference football, and then you remember he is only following in the foot-steps of his master.
And it may not look like a big increase, but going from 21% losing record to 25% is an increase of roughly 20%.
I fear for Chambers and Sanchez if they play this match. Well, Sanchez may be on the bench, so I wonder if Taylor/Villa will target Ozil or perhaps Walcott. We just know someone is going to bear the brunt of Taylor’s incompetence/thuggery.
Antony Taylor is not fit to referee.
The first game, that Sunderland game was enough to make that reasonable and fair conclusion. Interesting comments by A.Arshavin made in the aftermath of that blatant bungle. It was, what it was.
It’s not really fair on referees from other sports or those in the game who don’t conform to the PGMO MO (“game management”) to describe these performers as referees. These crows are certainly no Dickie Bird*
They are the official representatives of the PGMO and PGMO Rules Football, but they are not referees.
*the one call that famous gritty old norvaner Dickie Bird got wrong was on video replay – it’s only helped the officials & umpires and improved the respect that they have in his sport. These past twenty years…*coughs*. Not to forget protection from the groomers and fixers that exist in sport today as acknowledged by the ECBs advice given with the aid of security consultants to every pro.cricketer who plays in the UK.
Firstly amazing website. Read it almost daily. Secondly what about just singing ” same old referee always cheating ” ? Surely will catch on.
Thanks for the article Walter. If Taylor does as he did last season then the 15-1 bet I placed on Arsenal having someone sent off should earn me a *very* small fortune.
It has been possible to earn a tidy sum with the aid of Andrew and Walter’s referee previews, if only I was a punter! For myself I prefer the footy to the punts
🙂
Thanks Walter. We all know all about this ref, but reading this is still shocking.
I highly rate his replacements, but I miss Sagna, if people higher in the club took on these refs..in their own way, but with his spirit, maybe things would improve.
The fans will give Taylor hell unless he is fair, but it seems a few of our players will have to be very careful
I wonder how many Taylor performances it needs before the club say something…even if it is behind the scenes.
Can see why you say he is the new Mike Dean, but I do not think Taylor has the intelligence or ability of Dean, for all the latters faults. Think this ref from the confines of Greater Manchester is more Mike Riley, a puppet with a grudge.
Agree Mandy. Dean is a smart person. Very smart. Taylor is more like an elephant in a glass house
Walter or Andrew. Are we going to get Taylor again this season? Someone else?
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/40686#comment-830593
Pat, Mandy,
And that leg break and other such stompings (some in full sight of the reshite) are why Sagna should have gotten the raise that perhaps would have kept him here. He is quality and deserved a serious raise for loyalty, for accepting less than full value without complaint for several seasons, for being stomped and for having great hair! Really missing his spirit and skills. A true gooner gunner. In a way, his not playing but collecting his bigger paycheck is reparations for the damages endured. I regret he’s landed where he did, but he deserves his money and I only wish it were here where he would also have played for that better payday. Miss you Bac.
Red cards to the Ems and show ’em to Taylor every time he lets ’em do the Neville on us. Every time. Half time greetings with red cards waving. The fans need to represent!