Arsenal v Everton: the big worries about the referee, and the team

By Bulldog Drummond

So here we are with the last team preview of the season…

The referee is Andre Marriner.  And that is not good news for Arsenal for while the vast majority of the referees have reverted since the pandemic to giving victories to home teams, Marriner is one of the two referees who have stuck by the lockdown style of refereeing in which no home advantage was given.

Here is the current table from WhoScored.

Referee Games HomeWin% AwayWin% Draw%
1.Anthony Taylor 27 40.7 25.9 33.3
2.Paul Tierney 26 38.5 34.6 26.9
3.Mike Dean 25 32.0 36.0 32.0
4.Martin Atkinson 25 52.0 32.0 16.0
5.Michael Oliver 25 52.0 28.0 20.0
6.Craig Pawson 25 52.0 32.0 16.0
7.Jonathan Moss 24 62.5 25.0 12.5
8.Stuart Attwell 20 60.0 20.0 20.0
9.David Coote 20 25.0 40.0 35.0
10.Andre Marriner 18 22.2 61.1 16.7

Only 22% of Marriner’s league games this season have resulted in home wins, while every other referee in the PGMO top ten of most used referees has given more.   Indeed half of the ten most used referees in the Premier League have given home wins in over half their matches.

These figures are simply not reasonable and give no faith in the notion that referees are all using the same standard and approach to refereeing.  We will of course come back to this during the close season.

Pain in the Arsenal has a very helpful piece on How to watch on TV although in my house it is not so difficult.  One follows the ten point plan.

  1. Enter the living room 20 minutes before kick-off
  2. Start searching for remote control
  3. Shout at children to ask where the remote control is
  4. Tell children not to be cheeky when they copy their mother and say, “Where ever you last left it”
  5. Get frantic
  6. Try to calm down
  7. Remember that “calm down” is a Liverpudlian saying and I am most certainly not Liverpudlian.
  8. Have drink
  9. Look under cushions on sofa, behind TV, on the mantlepiece… begin to despair
  10. Head up stairs to demand more co-operation from children before finding it in my pocket.

 

So back to Pain in the Arsenal.  They offer

Ramsdale;

White, Holding, Gabriel, Tavares;

Elneny, Ødegaard, Xhaka;

Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli.

Fortunately (since I have not yet written the prescribed number of words for this to count as an acceptable Untold article) the Standard has a different approach…

Ramsdale,

Cedric, Holding, Gabriel, Tavares,

Elneny, Xhaka, Odegaard,

Saka, Nketiah, Martinelli

Personally, I would always play White if he is fit.  He’s young and he’s learning all the time, and every game is valuable for him.   But I can’t quite see the point of putting Ødegaard.  (Ø is the twenty-ninth letter of the Faroese alphabet; I bet you didn’t knØw that,) on the far side.   I’d place him in the middle generally playing in frØnt of Elneny and Xhaka.

And I’d offer Elneny a new cØntract.

SportsMole go with

Ramsdale;

Cedric, White, Holding, Tavares;

Xhaka, Elneny;

Saka, Odegaard, Martinelli;

Nketiah

Shall we tell them, and the Standard, how to turn Odegaard into Ødegaard?  No, perhaps it would look petty and silly.  And pretentious.

And that’s really about it for the lineups, or if you prefer lines up.   So let’s finish another season of match previews with something positive.   This from Sportkeeda

“Arsenal have a lot to be positive about. The performances of young attackers like Bukayo Saka, Emile Smith Rowe, Martin Odegaard and Gabriel Martinelli has often been the difference between an Arsenal win and an Arsenal loss; while centre-back Ben White, who cost Arsenal nearly £53 million last summer, has asserted himself well in the Gunners’ defence.”

I’ll go with that.  Although the “has” should actually be “have”.

4 Replies to “Arsenal v Everton: the big worries about the referee, and the team”

  1. don’t really care about who’s starting and who’s on the bench this evening. the team have to give massive performance for this match after their last 2 disappointing outing. and came’on Norwich, show us the miracle of Premier League on your last match of the season in the top flight. i know you can do’it, Arsenal ’till i die

  2. Interesting…just before Saka’s goal…Dele Ali and Xhaka were jawing at each other. The referee came up to talk things over. Dele was laughing, puts his hand around the referee’s back like he’s a good ol’ boy. Xhaka says something back…The referee turns and gives all his attention to Xhaka and dresses him down. Don’t know what was said…but Xhaka came out of it the worst.

  3. The whole back line and the holding midfielders fell asleep on the goal…can’t be doing that if you want to be going places…sigh

  4. @GGG, is like the back line easily gave the goal back to opponent after the team is comfortable in the lead. and yes, it’s annoying to see how the referees treat our players, especially Xhaka

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