by Andrew Crawshaw
So far this year these are the referees that we have had
Week | Date | Opponents | h/a | Referee | Score | Weighted score | Bias against h/a |
1 | 9 Aug 2015 | West Ham | H | Martin Atkinson | 0 – 2 | 54 | 100/0 |
2 | 16 Aug 2015 | C Palace | A | Lee Mason | 1 – 2 | 66 | 10/90 |
3 | 24 Aug 2015 | Liverpool | H | Michael Oliver | 0 – 0 | 67 | 90/10 |
4 | 29 Aug 2015 | Newcastle | A | Andre Marriner | 0 – 1 | 76 | 33/67 |
5 | 12 Sep 2015 | Stoke | H | Jonathan Moss | 2 – 0 | 71 | 100/0 |
6 | 19 Sep 2015 | Chelsea | A | Mike Dean | 2 – 0 | 41 | 5/95 |
7 | 26 Sep 2015 | Leicester | A | Craig Pawson |
2 – 5 |
84 |
20/80 |
8 | 4 Oct 2015 | Man U | H | Anthony Taylor | 3 – 0 | 59 | 97/3 |
9 | 17 Oct 2015 | Watford | A | Mike Jones | 0 – 3 | 68 | 10/90 |
10 | 24 Oct 2015 | Everton | H | Lee Mason | 2 – 1 | 58 | 72/28 |
11 | 31 Oct 2015 | Swansea | A | Kevin Friend | 0 – 3 | 74 | 40/60 |
12 | 8 Nov 2015 | Spurs | H | Martin Atkinson | 1 – 1 | 41 | 82/18 |
13 | 21 Nov 2015 | West Brom | A | Mark Clattenburg | 2 – 1 | 42 | 9/91 |
14 | 29 Nov 2015 | Norwich | A | Jonathan Moss | 1 – 1 | 57 | 8/92 |
15 | 5 Dec 2015 | Sunderland | H | Robert Madley | 3 – 1 | 90 | 100/0 * |
16 | 13 Dec 2015 | Villa | A | Kevin Friend | 0 – 2 | 72 | 30/70 |
17 | 21 Dec 2015 | Man C | H | Andre Marriner | 2 – 1 | 58 | 87/13 |
18 | 26 Dec 2015 | Southampton | A | Jonathan Moss | 4 – 0 | 49 | 22/78 |
19 | 28 Dec 2015 | Bournemouth | H | Roger East | 2 – 0 | 67 | 69/31 |
20 | 2 Jan 2016 | Newcastle | H | Anthony Taylor | 1 – 0 | 48 | 9/91 |
21 | 13 Jan 2016 | Liverpool | A | Mike Jones | 3 – 3 | 59 | 6/94 |
22 | 17 Jan 2016 | Stoke | A | Craig Pawson | 0 – 0 | 34 | 5/95 |
23 | 24 Jan 2016 | Chelsea | H | Mark Clattenburg | 0 – 1 | 76 | 35/65 |
24 | 2 Feb 2016 | Southampton | H | Lee Mason | 0 – 0 | 34 | 80/20 |
25 | 7 Feb 2016 | Bournemouth | A | Kevin Friend | 0 – 2 | 72 | 18/82 |
26 | 14 Feb 2016 | Leicester | H | Martin Atkinson | 2 – 1 |
* In the Arsenal v Sunderland game Mr Madley only made two wrong decisions in the entire game, both against Arsenal – this figure can effectively be ignored
So far this year we have two conspicuously good examples of refereeing. Craig Pawson in week 7 and Robert Madley in week 15.
Mr Pawson was clearly taken in hand by his PGMO masters and allowed to return back for an Arsenal game in week 22 (15 weeks later) but only with the proviso that he listened to the fourth official appointed to guide him. He duly did what he was told by Mr Dean and emerged with a score of 34, rather than his earlier 84. That game has been Mr Dean’s only appearance as a fourth official this year.
If we see Mr Madley again this year I’m sure it will be under similar circumstances with a similar trusted official as his mentor.
We have had four referees three times so far this year.
Martin Atkinson in weeks 1, 12 and 26, just over 10 weeks gap each time, his scores 54, 41 and not yet available from the Leicester game (but my expectation is another low 40. I’m sure we will see him again at least once.
Jonathan Moss in weeks 5, 14 and 18, his scores being 71, 57 and 49. I suspect that he was spoken to after the first game as he has been significantly worse in his subsequent visits. Another we are bound to see again, especially at a game on BT Sport associated by the Football is fixed blog with dodgy betting patterns.
Kevin Friend in weeks 11, 16 and 25. His scores 74, 72 and 72. At the moment his name of the appointments board fills me with least dread. We tend to get him in games with opponents who we should beat and normally do. I hope we see him again but I wouldn’t be surprised if we don’t.
Clattenburg, Taylor, Pawson, Jones and Marriner have all done two matches this year. Expect to see them all again
Dean, Madley, Oliver and East have all done one game. Expect another from Dean at least, Madley only if he is prepared to do as he is told. Oliver and East both got identical scores of 67, not bad enough to be guaranteed another game.
The six ‘makeweight’ referees (included to massage the PGMO books for referee numbers) haven’t yet been given an Arsenal Game. Swarbrick, Attwell, Tierney, Scott, Stroud and Hooper are unlikely to get a chance. Swarbrick has been the busiest of the six and might just get a look in with an experienced Fourth Official against a lower mid-table team but even that is unlikely I think. The six between them have 23 games this year, one fewer than Atkinson who has done 24.
The one remarkably constant statistic in the above table is that relating to bias. Only one game out of 26 has a bias in favour of Arsenal. Mark Clattenberg achieving that in the Chelsea game, there were 10 wrong decisions, five against each team the figure quoted comes once weighting has been applied. In 25 games out of 26 the bias is against Arsenal. Moss and Atkinson have achieved the difficult achievement of getting every single wrong decision in a game against Arsenal. The rest normally achieve an 80/20 split.
Looking back to 2014-15 the table is :-
Week | Date | Opponents | h/a | Referee | Score | Weighted score | Bias against h/a |
1 | 16 Aug 2014 | Palace | H | Jonathan Moss | 2 – 1 | 81 | 100/0 |
2 | 23 Aug 2014 | Everton | A | Kevin Friend | 2 – 2 | 60 | 11/89 |
3 | 31 Aug 2014 | Leicester | A | Anthony Taylor | 1 – 1 | 61 | 7/93 |
4 | 13 Sep 2014 | Man C | H | Mark Clattenburg | 2 – 2 | 71 | 73/27 |
5 | 20 Sep 2014 | Villa | A | Mike Jones | 0 – 3 | 82 | 20/80 |
6 | 27 Sep 2014 | Spurs | H | Michael Oliver | 1 – 1 | 66 | 85/15 |
7 | 5 Oct 2014 | Chelsea | A | Martin Atkinson | 2 – 0 | 45 | 14/86 |
8 | 18 Oct 2014 | Hull | H | Roger East | 2 – 2 | 62 | 82/18 |
9 | 25 Oct 2014 | Sunderland | A | Kevin Friend | 0 – 2 | 65 | 25/75 |
10 | 1 Nov 2014 | Burnley | H | Craig Pawson | 3 – 0 | 72 | 86/14 |
11 | 9 Nov 2014 | Swansea | A | Phil Dowd | 2 – 1 | 73 | 88/12 |
12 | 22 Nov 2014 | Man U | H | Mike Dean | 1 – 2 | 53 | 80/20 |
13 | 29 Nov 2014 | West Brom | A | Chris Foy | 0 – 1 | 70 | 22/78 |
14 | 3 Dec 2014 | Southampton | H | Andre Marriner | 1 – 0 | 59 | 23/77 |
15 | 6 Dec 2014 | Stoke | A | Anthony Taylor | 3 – 2 | 59 | 0/100 |
16 | 13 Dec 2014 | Newcastle | H | Lee Mason | 4 – 1 | 76 | 100/0 |
17 | 21 Dec 2014 | Liverpool | A | Michael Oliver | 2 – 2 | 67 | 0/100 |
18 | 26 Dec 2014 | QPR | H | Martin Atkinson | 2 – 1 | 70 | 87/13 |
19 | 28 Dec 2014 | West Ham | A | Neil Swarbrick | 1 – 2 | 80 | 11/89 |
20 | 1 Jan 2015 | Southampton | A | Craig Pawson | 2 – 0 | 78 | 14/86 |
21 | 11 Jan 2015 | Stoke | H | Jonathan Moss | 3 – 0 | 72 | 90/10 |
22 | 18 Jan 2015 | Man C | A | Mike Dean | 0 – 2 | 64 | 27/73 |
23 | 1 Feb 2015 | Villa | H | Anthony Taylor | 5 – 0 | 85 | 100/0 |
24 | 7 Feb 2015 | Spurs | A | Martin Atkinson | 2 – 1 | 61 | 10/90 |
25 | 10 Feb 2015 | Leicester | H | Mike Jones | 2 – 1 | 54 | 90/10 |
26 | 21 Feb 2015 | Palace | A | Mark Clattenburg | 1 – 2 | 80 | 18/82 |
27 | 1 Mar 2015 | Everton | H | Andre Marriner | 2 – 0 | 69 | 25/75 |
28 | 4 Mar 2015 | QPR | A | Kevin Friend | 1 – 2 | 69 | 20/80 |
29 | 14 Mar 2015 | West Ham | H | Anthony Taylor | 3 – 0 | 73 | 83/17 |
29 | 14 Mar 2015 | West Ham | H | Chris Foy | 3 – 0 | 77 | 100/0 |
30 | 21 Mar 2015 | Newcastle | A | Mike Jones | 1 – 2 | 58 | 5/95 |
31 | 4 Apr 2015 | Liverpool | H | Anthony Taylor | 4 – 1 | ||
32 | 11 Apr 2015 | Burnley | A | Mike Dean | 0 – 1 | ||
34 | 26 Apr 2015 | Chelsea | H | Michael Oliver | 0 – 0 | ||
35 | 4 May 2015 | Hull | A | Lee Mason | 1 – 3 | ||
36 | 11 May 2015 | Swansea | H | Kevin Friend | 0 – 1 | ||
37 | 17 May 2015 | Man U | A | Mike Dean | 1 – 1 | ||
38 | 20 May 2015 | Sunderland | H | Anthony Taylor | 0 – 0 | ||
38 | 24 May 2015 | West Brom | H | Robert Madley | 4 – 1 |
NB Games after week 30 were not reviewed. In the West Ham game in week 29 the referee was injured so the analysis is split reflecting the individual performances of the two officials.
At first glance the scores are better than this year, this may not be the case as it is quite possible that this year’s analysis includes a greater number of parameters.
The good performances (arbitrarily better than 80%) are from Mr Taylor week 23 85%, Mr Jones 82% in week 5 and Mr Moss 81% in week 1.
Mr Moss (81% in week 1) got one other Arsenal game in the year in week 21 when he scored an adequate 72%.
Mr Jones (82% in week 5) seems to have had a stern talking to before he was assigned another Arsenal game in week 25 and responded with a far more suitable score of 54, he was then rewarded with a third game only 5 weeks later with a score of 58.
Mr Taylor was our most frequent visitor with no fewer than 6 games. He was reviewed in the first 4 with scores of 61 (week 3), 59 (week 15), his season high 85 (week 23) and 73 (week 29)
Two referees did four games – Mr Friend and Mr Dean
Mr Friend got scores of 60 (week 2), 65 (week 9) and 69 (week 28), his fourth game in week 36 wasn’t reviewed.
Mr Dean had scores of 53 in week 12 and 64 in week 22, his other two games in weeks 32 and 37 weren’t reviewed. The games were home and away against Man U, away against Man City and away at Burnley – all Lancashire teams.
Mr Oliver had three games, 53% in week 6, 64% in week 17 and a final game in week 34 not analysed.
Mssrs. Marriner, Foy, Pawson, Mason, Clattenburg, each had two games and Swarbrick (80 in week 19), Dowd (73 in week 11), Madley (not reviewed) and East (62 in week 8) each had one.
Mr Swarbrick, despite (or perhaps because of his 80% score) has only been used as a make-weight this year. Perhaps he is a slow learner?
Again it is interesting to see the near perfect uniformity of bias figures against Arsenal. Six games with a 100% bias, Mr Taylor week 15 v Stoke, and week 23 v Villa, Mr Oliver week 17 v Liverpool, Mr Foy week 29 v West Ham, Mr Moss week 1 v Palace and Mr Mason week 16 v Newcastle. Not one game was in my ‘acceptable’ range of 60/40. Three games were called in our favour – Mr Dowd week 11 against Swansea 88/12, Mr Marriner week 14 v Southampton 23/77 and again in week 27 against Everton 25/75.
Mr Marriner didn’t get another Arsenal game in 2014-15. In his only appearance this season he was nearly back on ‘song’ with a bias of 67% against Arsenal (under the watchful eye of Mr Taylor).
Conclusions
- There is no definite link between a high performance in an Arsenal game and not getting another game. Getting a poor score certainly helps though.
- There is sufficient to suggest that those referees who do get high scores, get a degree of re-education or fourth official guidance in their next Arsenal game (whenever that happens).
- In the last two years no referee has had more than one high score (greater than 80) in Arsenal games.
- In the same period many referees have consistently low scores.
- In both years the bias of wrong decisions is overwhelmingly against Arsenal, 27 out of 30 in 2014-15 and 24 out of 25 so far this year.
- In the last two years eight games have been found with every single wrong decision being against Arsenal.
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- For years the international press has called for the end of Fifa. Only now are the English media picking up the story.
- The Dirty Dozen “Gentlemen”
- “Journalists make it up? Why would we?”
So according to the selection of officials by the pgMOB looking at it their selections there are only about four or five people in the UK or England who are good enough to referee a top flight game of football.
Following comments on Untold yesterday of those just two have refereed approximately half of all AFC’s games against top rivals in recent years.
If an engineer designs a structure for failure chances are they will lose their insurance and end up in court on a manslaughter charge. Fairly obvious.
What excuses are people out there prepared to make for this small clique of blatant Rotters?
Disgraceful!why hasn’t this evidence been forwarded to uefa for investigation?are the pgmol immune from them & only accoutable to prem/fa?
Mind boggling!!
outsmarting these professional cheats to win a thing will be to make our players play a single game at the combined pace and intensity of two. impossible! yet somehow we do well. I wonder who takes all the favors. i may think city were hard done to assist a lousing team keep in distance of top 4.
I worry for our next three games. looks like they will work hard enough to slow down those at the top as the lousing ones play catch up.
It looks as though a really good score earns a long absence from our games, and being adjudged to have missed an opportunity to do us leads to at least a week off, then a quick chance to prove yourself on your return.
We all know about Mason’s long break, then getting us 2nd game back. What I hadn’t realised was that the same thing may have happened with Friend.
After our Swansea game, when if you remember he could easily have disallowed one of our goals, he didn’t appear for nearly a full month (international break in there,I think, so maybe just the two game weeks missed), then a comeback game, another week off, then us again. Very similar pattern to Mason just not as severe.
That game was Villa, where he acted bizarrely for the pen call and seemed to only give it because the linesman said something. In fairness, there have been other points this season when Friend has missed a week or more, but it nevertheless fits the pattern of at least a week off if you are perceived to have been…too kind to us. Pawson also missed a week after the Leicester game.
After Bournemouth, Friend was of course stood down for last week, no cup game for him this week either. Atkinson has one , of course, so maybe Flamini’s was the more dangerous tackle than Drinkwater’s.
Just like maybe Mason made far more of a hash of it with Coquelin than Dean did in the Chelsea game.
I have left a message on the Premier League web site, protesting the appointment of Dean for this weekend’s game, citing his poor performance in the September game against Chelsea. I asked for a reply – so far I haven’t had one. Perhaps they are waiting to see if they get any more complaints (as if 106k signatures on a petition is not enough).
The link is here:
http://www.premierleague.com/content/premierleague/en-gb/contact-us.html
select “send us a message”, then in the drop down list select “referees”.
Then select the radio button “Continue and contact us”
This is what I wrote:
I wish to lodge a protest at the appointment of Mike Dean as the referee for the Arsenal FA Cup game against Hull City on February 20, 2016.
My argument is that Mike Dean was not consistent in his handling of previous Arsenal games, most recently in the game against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge on September 19, 2015.
I hope to receive an acknowledgement of my comments.
Finally, before hitting send, select “I have read the FAQ’s and they were not helpful”
Excellent work, Andrew.
Currently, Paddy Power are offering 11/2 on a Hull win, and they have a massive 60/1 on us to be in front at half time, but Hull to go on and win.
I HATE to bet against The Gunners, but if we are able to create “irregular betting patterns” then there will need to be an investigation as to why.
@rich
Friend is an interesting case, we had him twice in 2012-13 Arsenal v Southampton 6 – 1 and he got a score of 89 with a 50/50 bias. his second game that year was Arsenal v Liverpool 2 – 2 and his score was 94, too few mistakes (only 2 I think) for bias to be a significant number. We didn’t do ref reviews in 2013/14 which was a pity. In 2014/15 his three games were with scores of 65, 69 and 60. This year he has 74, 72 and 72 nothing if not consistent.
He has gone from excellent, to unacceptable and back to barely adequate. Was he spoken to between the end of 2013 and the start of the 2014/15 season? My bet is that he certainly was. There can be no other explanation for a referee going from an 90% one to a 60% one.
English Premier League, probably the only league in the world where the refs are asked to work in a poor manner to earn a promotion or possible merit from their bosses. Unbelievable
@Andrew Crawshaw
February 18, 2016 at 3:23 pm
Refereeing several games involving Arsenal must be the only occupation where a person transforms backwards; starts off being very good…and as they get more games involving Arsenal they become POOR!!
This must be a phenomenon.
2 on topic points and one off topic coming up:
1) Is it me or have Arsenal’s most convincing and complete results and performances in the last 2 seasons come when referees have scored 70% or more? All the more evidence as to how referees can influence matches by fair means or foul;
2) The myth of the Arsenal ‘spring collapse’ – from 18th January to 26th April 2015, this ‘collapse’ consisted of 11 wins, 1 draw and 1 defeat! Title-winning form in many seasons!
3) The difference in officiating between Sunday’s game at the Emirates and PSG-Chelsea on Tuesday is remarkable! I thought that the latter game was excellently refereed – any chance this may have been because when players from BOTH teams committed yellow card fouls, they were carded at the first time of asking and regardless of when they occurred in the game?! Just a thought…
@Andrew,
Excellent work as usual! In the article you highlighted how six ‘makeweight’ referees Swarbrick, Attwell, Tierney, Scott, Stroud and Hooper have not officiated an Arsenal game and how the 6 combined to officiate 1 game less than Atkinson’s 24 games!
The stats are mind boggling especially when compared to other leagues from statbunker!
1) Spain’s La Liga has 19 referees that officiated between 11-13 games this year (13 highest)!
2) Italy’s Serie A has 21 referees that officieated between 10-12 games (12 highest now)!
3) Germany had 13 refs that officiated between 9-12 matches (12 max) and another 7 refs did between 6-8 matches!
4) French Ligue 1 had 15 refs officiate between 12-14 matches (14 max) and another 6 between 9-11 matches!
The PL has 7 referees that officiated between 18-24 matches. Atkinson’s 24 is almost double other leagues and 3 more than the next highest amount of games officiated of 21 by Dean and Clattenburg.
A change needs to happen at the top to spread the amount of games officiated evenly between referees and to reduce the chance of corruption with the officials.
Vikrant
Agree that the refereeing was outstanding in PSG-Chelsea. There was a big contrast between the spirit of the game and last year’s games between the same teams, which I put down purely to the departure of the Stinking one, but even so it was a challenging enough game for the ref.
He was near flawless, and at the same time as being impressed and appreciating what he did for a good game of football it was a bit heartbreaking to think what we are denied almost every week by average, poor or downright terrible refereeing.
I think our most impressive performance last year might have been that Monaco away tie. If I remember right the ref was weak on tactical fouls in terms of bookings but at least was calling them as free kicks, but, anyway, loved how we played and had the distinct feeling that the rhythm and tempo we established would be hard to replicate in the prem, purely because of our friends from the north- not only letting us be kicked too much but by giving weak free kicks for the opposition.
Similar story this year in the Olympiakos away game. After a slightly shaky first 20, we played very well, and again our performance had a different look to league games. I think a lot of that was simply down to competent to good refereeing. Another thought from that day was that the crucial and deserved pen we got was one it’s very hard to imagine us getting when our need is great in the league.
It’s a different, much better sport when the man in the middle is trustworthy and competent, let alone excellent.
There are some things that need to be done by us – the supporter. If there is a Drinkwater type challenge, an email to the FA must be sent formally asking for a review & permissio to publish the response on world wide media. The email must be copied to the 2 clubs concerned & must be done within 2 days of the incident.
I will not comment on the PGMO. They are the most consistent set of performers in English football & deserve the Nobel Prize for innovation in sport.
I’m pretty sure other referees can see how Atkinson is favoured despite being absolute shite. They must also be aware of the pressure they’re subjected to to perform in a certain way that puts other teams at a huge disadvantage and their reputations at stake, just to please one or two persons and guarantee promotion. But I can’t understand why noone breaks ranks and say I’ll not let this continue any longer. Is it a collective lack of spine or what? I don’t get it!
What is happening with the FA? Are they part of the chicken on the ball at the lane or are they Football arbiters? Is the Drinkwater challenge going to face the referee panel or are the FA scared of the Foxes?
What is certain the lot are going to end up in Chinese chicken & sweet corn soup.
Zzzzzzz
Excellent work, Andrew.
Atkinson earns more than British PM. Think about it.
Al
Fair bit more at stake for them now if they were to break ranks. It’d be the end of their career unless they fancied they could bring the house down.
In the past, their footballing income was less and they had another career to support themselves with. Now it’d mean losing 80 grand per year or whatever it is ,and having no other job to fall back on.
Plus, from the inside they’ll know a lot more than us of the appetite for change within the media and footballing infrastructure itself. From the outside it appears there is none and that it’d be a massive risk to test the matter.
Scudamore for instance has apparently just earned a 6 million bonus from the new deal. Sky themselves are presumably still earning good money from football. Who knows where the real power lies exactly, but ,given the money involved now, going against it must be a scary prospect.
AI, according to the commentator of our game against Leicester, Atkinson earns 8.000 pounds per month.
Josif,
That may well be the case for his PGMO work, add on what he earns for international matches, and the major club competitions plus his off-field activities and I’m sure that he is probably above the PM salary.
OT: Head Injuries (Concussions)
A day or two ago, the CBC (like the BBC, except Canadian) were talking about concussions. The context was adults, and the increased chance of suicide post concussion. In general, one symptom of having been concussed was depression. Today, they had another university researcher on, talking about concussions in teenagers and younger. More or less the same observation, after a concussion a person should expect the person to exhibit depression.
While rest is helpful for those in recovering from a concussion, you don’t want extensive rest. As soon as is possible, you want to start trying to get the person on a regular schedule (same as before concussion). It is expected that they will fatigue more rapidly than before, and how fast they fatigue depends on the task in question. For example, for school age children, some subjects may lead to fatigue more often than others. And this is dependent on the person (you can’t just expect math to be hard for everyone).
I assume that when they can carry out their pre-concussion daily duties again, they would be eligible to play football again.
—
The above probably doesn’t apply to PGMO referees. They are bloody depressing all the time, and no amount of rest will make them less depressing.
Now, it is unsure whether concussing Mike Riley 😈 will help or not in this regard.
Excellent work again Andrew.
I have not worked out the average scores for this season to compare to last season, but my impression is that with some extremely low scores this season the PGMO seem to be more and more desperate to really damage our title challenge. The score attained by a ref on a particular occcasion seems to be directly related to just how far a ref is prepared to go to deliberately tilt the game – this factor rather than the application of the rules fairly to the events of the match.
If the theory is correct, why the increased desperation to screw us this season?
Is it a hatred of Arsenal as a club? – after all Arsenal stands out as a club that tries to do things properly, fairly and with integrity – something which many clubs and elements within the FA do not display.
Is it a hatred of Wenger? – after all he exudes integrity – something which many in the English game seem not to understand.
Are outside influences taking advantage of various anti Arsenal factions, exemplified by the brain dead aaaa, media and some officials – such outside influences generally being fairly well heeled and seeking to legally or illegally increase their personal treasure at the expense of Arsenal’s circumstances?
Are some of these factors having an unwarrented influence in what should be fair and competent refereeing?
Disgraceful.
From a pool of refs 4 are singled out for the “big games”? The others having to make do with “small games” and assistant refs. How are they supposed to get experience in so called big games?
This thing about big and small games is stupid. 20 teams all having to play one another twice for PL and the refs are not chosen at random(?) like the selection of fixtures, but 4 refs are given the games one after the other while the other refs can be assists or used in other supposedly unimportant games.
It is time that all the teams in PL get together and make them sort this ref business out. After all, to all teams, their next game is always a BIG game.
And i’m pretty sure that the newer refs would do a better job, but we see that if any of them does a really good job, they do not get another “big game”.
This is unacceptable and needs to be sorted.
How about a massive program where all supporters at all matches for the rest of the season carry home made banners to highlight the ref problems, after all it affects all of the teams.
I’m sure that we could come up with some good slogans on the banners.
Gord:
On the subject of “Head Injuries” I always thought that the only reason a referee should stop the game instantly was for a head injury. Yet we’ve had players with teeth knocked out, broken noses, and elbows in the head, yet many referee’s continue. Apparent serious injuries can also warrant the game being stopped, or by having the ball kicked out of play. Other serious injuries go “unfettered” by officials – the one to MD’s shoulder at the hands of the Stoke Astronaut, being the most memorable.
Therefore, ANY head injury that occurs and the referee fails to stop the game immediately, should be reported to the FA, and perhaps even to the Sports Health & Safety body.
There’s far too much serious stuff goes on unpunished, whilst bookings are handed out with amazing speed, for petty offences, such as jumping into the crowd in celebration of a last second winning goal.
Para:
Another point, as there are so few “elite” – why impose them on the Championship’s so-called “big matches”? As far as I have seen, the FL have a far better set of referees than the PL, and maybe, we should be looking at getting some of those “promoted” or whatever Riley likes to call it!
norman14 is there such a thing as the Sports Health & Safety Board? If there is they are answerable for Alexis injuries after being pushed into an unguarded camera pit.
Menace – Surely Norwich’s own H&S would be responsible for their ground.