by Andrew Crawshaw
Here, courtesy of premierleague.com, are the matches for this mid-week round which is Matchweek 24. Kickoff times are 19:45 unless noted otherwise. Predictions for some of the games will appear on the Predictions websites. The Arsenal v Cardiff predictions are already online.
Tuesday 29 January
Arsenal v Cardiff City
Referee: Mike Dean
Assistants: Darren Cann, Dan Robathan
Fourth official: Kevin Friend
Arsenal v Cardiff: the predictions
Fulham v Brighton
Referee: Lee Probert
Assistants: Andy Garratt, Adrian Holmes
Fourth official: Roger East
Huddersfield Town v Everton
Referee: Stuart Attwell
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Mick McDonough
Fourth official: Darren England
Wolves v West Ham United
Referee: David Coote
Assistants: Adam Nunn, Daniel Cook
Fourth official: Graham Scott
20:00 Man Utd v Burnley
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Assistants: Marc Perry, Harry Lennard
Fourth official: Martin Atkinson
20:00 Newcastle United v Man City
Referee: Paul Tierney
Assistants: Eddie Smart, Simon Bennett
Fourth official: Lee Mason
Wednesday 30 January
AFC Bournemouth v Chelsea
Referee: Roger East
Assistants: Simon Beck, Matthew Wilkes
Fourth official: Simon Hooper
Southampton v Crystal Palace
Referee: Andre Marriner
Assistants: Simon Long, Sian Massey-Ellis
Fourth official: Lee Probert
20:00 Liverpool v Leicester City
Referee: Martin Atkinson (pictured)
Assistants: Stephen Child, Lee Betts
Fourth official: David Coote
20:00 Tottenham Hotspur v Watford
Referee: Graham Scott
Assistants: Stuart Burt, Constantine Hatzidakis
Fourth official: Kevin Friend
This will be the second League Match this year under Mr Dean’s whistle for both teams. Surprisingly both earlier games were against Spurs. We had him for our 4 – 2 win at home on 2 December and Cardiff away on 6 October when they lost 1 – 0.
Never our favourite referee and someone who always courts controversy, our recent record with him in charge isn’t actually too bad. We have drawn some games we should have won but you have to go back to September 2015 to find the last match we lost with him in charge (Chelsea 2 – 0). Here is a table showing all of our games under him since the start of the 2014/15 season:-
| Season | Date | Game | Score | Res |
| 2014/15 | 22 Nov 2014 | Arsenal v Man United | 1 – 2 | L |
| 18 Jan 2015 | Man City v Arsenal | 0 – 2 | W | |
| 11 Apr 2015 | Burnley v Arsenal | 0 – 1 | W | |
| 17 May 2015 | Man United v Arsenal | 1 – 1 | D | |
| FA Cup Last 16 | Arsenal v Middlesbrough | 2 – 0 | W | |
| 2015/16 | 19 Sep 2015 | Chelsea v Arsenal | 2 – 0 | L |
| FA Cup 5th round | Arsenal v Hull | 0 – 0 | D | |
| 2016/17 | 22 Oct 2016 | Arsenal v Middlesbrough | 0 – 0 | D |
| 24 Apr 2016 | Sunderland v Arsenal | 0 – 0 | D | |
| 13 May 2016 | Stoke v Arsenal | 1 – 4 | W | |
| 2017/18 | 11 Aug 2017 | Arsenal v Leicester | 4 – 3 | W |
| 18 Nov 2017 | Arsenal v Spurs | 2 – 0 | W | |
| 31 Dec 2017 | West Brom v Arsenal | 1 – 1 | D | |
| 2018/19 | 2 Dec 2018 | Arsenal v Spurs | 4 – 2 | W |
| FA Cup Third Round | Blackpool v Arsenal | 0 – 3 | W |
I must admit this wasn’t what I was expecting to see when I started updating my spreadsheet.
Does this mean that we should remove him from our hate list? In my opinion probably not, he still can’t be trusted to be even handed and always manages to put himself at the centre of the match rather than the two teams.
He also still has the habit of interpreting the laws of the game in a quite extraordinary manner when it suits him to do so. Make no mistake he knows the rules forwards, backwards and sideways and always “knows what he’s doing”. Unfortunately what he does, frequently leaves Arsenal fans scratching their heads and wondering WHY?
With snow forecast from late evening onwards maybe he’ll slip and break a leg forcing Mr Friend to take over. But of course Untold does not wish harm upon anyone.
COYG
Andrew, this spreadsheet might be used as an argument that you can literally prove everything with statistics.
I mean, take a look at this record. It must mean Dean is now a good guy, right?
WRONG!
Two highly controversial games are on this list. Firstly, his double mess-up at Stamford Bridge in 2015 when he failed to send off Diego Costa and showed red for Gabriel instead. Both decisions were changed by FA but to no practical use for us – the mess-up took place at 0-0, just before the half-time so Chelsea had 45 minutes with an extra man on the pitch instead of playing 10 v 11 for 45 minutes.
Second game is the game against West Brom that pretty much killed our last season when it comes to league. We dropped two points because of the penalty he gave to our opponents in the last minutes of the game. There is no way it was a penalty (in fact, there was a better penalty shout when Alexis was fouled). Our away form never recovered from the Dean treatment.
In 2014, Dean was in charge for our game v United at home. He let McNair with a tackle that broke Wilshere’s ankle without any sanctions.
Even his performance against Spurs in our 4-2 victory should be given a negative mark as he failed for Son’s dive more than once.
Awful, awful referee that should have been retired years ago.
@Josif, I don’t think I argued that Mr Dean should be treated as one of the ‘good guys’. I just pointed out that since the Chelsea game we haven’t actually lost under his whistle. My last comment probably expresses my true feelings about him. I don’t and never will trust him any further than I could propel him by applying the sharp end of my shoe to his lower anatomy.
It is true though that over the last 5 years there are some other regular referees under whom we have had far worse results
Was it a “Wenger-thing” with Dean? Somehow we seem to have managed to overcome his antics on the field. But given his history I don’t trust him at all
Arsenal (1637:35:-20) v Cardiff (1470:39:-25) under Mike Dean 7th:24 (16:8 24:15:5:3)
Cardiff are the only team which has more treatments than Arsenal, and their treatment time tends to be higher. Arsenal get considerably more Caution thrown at themselves. Cardiff has a slight tendency to kick the other team (nowhere near as bad as the Spuds and ManU). Mike Dean tends to be hard on the home team, which is us.
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ManU get Burnley with the incompetent Jonathon Moss. Moss tends to be harder on the away team, so perhaps he will man-manage things so that ManU kick the heck out of Burnley, and get a lot of cards? Or has policy changed since moaninho left, and the Caution will not be thrown at ManU?
Newcastle v Man$ity under Paul Tierney. Newcastle is ROTP team with little Caution, which should be getting significantly more cards. 11:2, 16:2, 14:0, 12:0, 11:1, 11:0, 14:0, 13:1, 12:1, 11:2, 11:1, 12:1, 11:1, 16:2, 13:1, 11:0 – that is 16 of 23 games have foul:card counts that should be outliers. One or two would be outliers, this is policy by someone.
Liverpool v Leicester under Martin Atkinson. Atkinson is near the top at having managed 36 treatments for 84 minutes of short-handed play and 9 substitutions needed. Liverpool doesn’t mind having a kick at the opposition, and they hardly ever get carded.
Spuds v Watford under Graham Scott. Spuds like to kick the opposition, but somehow Watford tends to avoid needing treatments (CPalace is like that too). The Spuds also tend to get kicked a fair amount in return. Scott tends to be hard on the home team.
Whatever stats may show, Dean is a corrupt cheating representative of the select group of imbeciles called PGMOL. He will always show the selective vision that is ingrained in the PGMOL. His dancing following a result of his choice has never been magnified by the media.
If ever the game was brought into disrepute, it is the PGMOL that do it.