Arsenal v Liverpool Friday 22 December – The Match Officials. Arghhhhhh!!!

by Andrew Crawshaw

Well the PGMO have been saving him for a special occasion this season and this match is it!

Referee – Martin Atkinson  Age 46 and still FIFA accredited (but that is to lapse in January I believe due to his age).

• Assistant Referee 1 – Stephen Child  From Kent and FIFA accredited
• Assistant Referee 2 – Adam Nunn  From Wiltshire
• Fourth Official – Stuart Attwell  Age 34 from Warwickshire

This is the first time this year that we will have the “pleasure” of Mr Atkinson in charge of one of our matches.  I had hoped that we would be spared this dubious honour completely this year as I regard him as one of the least competent referees in the game as regards delivering a balanced handling of a game.  I still haven’t got over this incident from last season which wasn’t even called a foul.  Alonso leads with his arm and knocks out Bellerin.

The clearest example of a foul involving excessive force you will ever see.  Bellerin is out cold before Alonso makes any contact with the ball.  Should be a red card and the ‘goal’ shouldn’t have stood.  Mr Atkinson has a clear view of the incident and sees nothing wrong with it at all.  Not surprisingly Chelsea went on to win the game.  Would the result have been different with Chelsea having to play with 10 men for the rest of the game – certainly.

Of course this is not to say that Mr Atkinson is deliberated biased – because of the hyper secrecy surrounding all that PGMO do we don’t know if he is biased or simply not very good.  But it seems to be one or the other.

Bellerin Alonso Goal Foul Red , 03. Bellerin Alonso Goal Foul Red003  Here is a link to the referee review

Ref Review Chelsea – Arsenal. Something is seriously wrong with this referee and his team

In addition to the Chelsea game already mentioned Mr Atkinson was in charge for three other matches last season

Sunderland v Arsenal 29 October (1 – 4)  60.7% weighted score, bias against the two teams of 10/90 and six wrong Important Decisions all against Arsenal.

• Min12 Rodwell should have had a red card for an elbow on Coquelin,
• Min33 N’Dong was wrongly given a yellow card for a foul on Coquelin – he too should have had a red card,
• Min 41 Pienaar was given a yellow card for a foul on Coquelin but it should have been a second yellow (he should have got one in Min 26 for a trip on Alexis),
• Min 62 Kone should have been given a second yellow card for a foul on Alexis in the penalty area.

Mr Atkinson didn’t award the penalty either and in Min 74 Jamujaj should have had a red card for a high foot which caught Coquelin on the head.  We won the game but Mr Atkinson allowed all sorts of thuggery from Sunderland.

Ref Review : Sunderland – Arsenal: Was this not knowing the laws? Or just plain bias? The latter looks more probable

Man City v Arsenal 18 December (2 – 1) 65.7% overall score, bias against the two teams of  8/92 and four wrong Important Decisions all against Arsenal – something of a pattern developing here but of course this could just be a coincidence.

• Min 47 Sane was offside when City ‘scored” City’s first goal which shouldn’t have counted.
• Min 80 De Brune should have had a red card for a flying tackle from behind on Gabriel,
• Min 90+4 Sterling should have had a second yellow card for an arm to the back of Bellerin’s head and Touré should have had a second yellow card for deliberate time wasting delaying the restart.

The incorrectly awarded goal certainly cost Arsenal one point, maybe more.  The linesman who failed to flag the offside goal was Adam Nunn one of three ‘flaggable’ offences he got wrong that day, he also failed to flag Walcott offside in Min32 and wrongly flagged Sagna offside in Min60.

Ref Review : Man City – Arsenal: what exactly did Madley and Atkinson say to each other at half time?

Arsenal v West Ham 5 April (3 – 0)  72.4% overall, bias against the two teams of 100/0 and three wrong Important Decisions

• Min 18 Masuaku should have given away a penalty for a foul on Walcott,
• Min 90+2 Bryam should have given away a penalty for a foul on Monreal and that should also have been a second bookable offence.  This time the wrong Decisions didn’t cost Arsenal any points.

Ref review: Arsenal – West Ham United. There was a certain level of bias by the referee. But how much and against which team?

In 2015-16 we only had Mr Atkinson twice

Arsenal v West Ham 9 August (0 – 2)  54% overall score, bias against the two teams of 100/0 and three wrong Important Decisions.

• Min 37 Tomkins should have had a second yellow card for a foul on Monreal,
• Min43 West Ham scored from a wrongly awarded ‘phantom foul’ adjudged to be committed by Ramsey – there was no foul so no free kick and hence no goal.
• Min 62 Drinkwater should have had a second yellow card for a dive which was bought by the referee who awarded West Ham afoul against Giroud.  The destination of the points were certainly decided by Mr Atkinson in this game although whether he is just consistently bad we can’t say.

ARSENAL vs. WEST HAM UNITED ref review

Arsenal v Leicester 14 Feb (2 – 1)  52% Overall score, bias against the two teams of 94/6 and seven wrong Important Decisions – all against Arsenal (the pattern continues).

• Min 9 Kante handball in the penalty area (nothing awarded),
• Min 37 Huth should have conceded a penalty for holding Giroud following a corner kick,
• Min 43 Vardy barged into Monreal and was incorrectly awarded a penalty (it was a foul by Vardy) the subsequent goal scored from the penalty spot shouldn’t have counted either,
• Min 48 Simpson was awarded a yellow card for a reckless challenge on Sanchez but it should have been his second following a ‘professionalfoul’ on Özil in Min30,
• Min 55 Arsenal should have had a third penalty following a foul by Morgan on Giroud.  Again the biased refereeing didn’t affect the result but another awful biased piece of officiating.

Ref Review: Arsenal – Leicester

Was Mr Atkinson any better in 2014-15? In a word No – we had him three times

Chelsea v Arsenal 5 October (2 – 0) 45% overall score, bias against the two teams of 14/86.  He made six wrong Important Decisions

• Min 20 Cahill should have had a red card for a foul on Alexis and in a separate off the ball incident Ivanoviv should have had a red card for an elbow on Özil,
• Min 43 Alexis should have had a red card for a punch on Inanovic,
• Min 62 Arsenal should have had a penalty for a handball by Fabregas, Min 90 Alexis should have had a red card for a foul on Fabregas.  Another game where Mr Atkinson decided who was going to win the match and bent the rules accordingly.

Untold’s Unacceptable Referee Review: Chelsea – Arsenal

Arsenal v QPR 26 December (2 – 1)  70% overall score and bias against the two teams of 87/13.  He made six wrong Important Decisions (five against Arsenal what a surprise)

• Min 23 Onuoha wrapped himself round Giroud like a coat and pulled him to the ground – no penalty to Arsenal.
• Min52 Ferdinand grabbed Giroud by the neck and should have had a second yellow card.
• Min 75 Fer should have given away a penalty for a foul on Mertesacker (I guess sub rule 8B applied – ‘unless an Arsenal Player is involved”), and to add insult to injury two minutes later in
• Min 77 QPR were awarded a penalty when Debuchy cleared the ball cleanly and Hoilett went down.  The subsequent ‘goal’ scored from the penalty spot shouldn’t have counted either.  The one wrong Important Decision against Arsenal was in Min90 when Gibbs should have been sent off for a foul on Zamora.  Another game where the awful refereeing failed to prevent Arsenal winning but it was a close run thing.

Untold Ref Review: Arsenal – QPR

Tottenham v Arsenal 7 February (2 – 1)  61% overall score, bias against the two teams of 10/90 and three wrong Important decisions.

• Min 10 the Arsenal goal shouldn’t have counted as an Arsenal player was a couple of inches offside,
• Min59 Rose should have had a red card for a stamp on Giroud’s achilles and
• Min78 Mason should have had a second yellow card for deliberate timewasting.  For once I am not going to make a case that the result was affected by another poor piece of refereeing.

Ref Review Tottenham – Arsenal

There is no point in going back further because it doesn’t get any prettier

Summary

1. Mr Atkinson might appear to be very biased, but of course we can’t read his mind, so we can’t say why.  It is just that all our investigations suggest that…
2. Mr Atkinson is a piss poor referee when it comes to Arsenal – he appears to ignore thuggery against our players but will penalise us for the slightest infringement.  He actually goes as far as to invent fouls against our players to gift opportunities to our opponents.
3. There is no chance of  Arsenal being awarded a penalty and every chance of one being given to Liverpool
4. Mr Atkinson is not helped by PGMO.  If only they were an open organisation which would engage in debate about accuracy levels rather than quote their 98% accuracy claim, we could get some insights into Mr Atkinson.
5. Liverpool will be allowed to foul our players with impunity
6. Some people will call Mr Atkinson is a cheat.  We don’t because we don’t have the data, but the data we do have suggests that something can be seriously out of kilter when he referees.
7. The bias figures in the 8 games quoted above are all 84% or higher against Arsenal with two at 100%.  These figures prove that
8. Mr Atkinson isn’t delivering a performance at the level that would be commensurate with what one might reasonably expect in a top professional league
9. Arsenal will need all the help they can get from the crowd for this match.  We will have to make up for the fact that
10. Mr Atkinson might not quite get everything correct, but might get more things wrong for one side than the other.  Or as the headline says, “Arghhhhhhh”.

COYG

Norris at the Arsenal: The first suggestion that Arsenal could be elected to the 1st division.

 

• Too much of a good thing? Why referees need the final say in any decision, even with VAR
• Arsenal v Liverpool! The fortune telling programme that predicts results quite well.
• Greater and greater signs of widespread corruption at every level of Fifa and accepted by every country.
• Whatever happened to the idea of having a video referee system in the Premier League?