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By Walter Broeckx, your un-enigmatic ref
Lee Probert was the ref in Wigan today and let’s not waste any time and have a look at his game.
OTHER/CARD: A cross goes to the second post and the Wigan striker tries to score with his hand. The ref doesn’t give anything. No foul and more or all: no yellow card? An attempt to score with your hand is ALWAYS A YELLOW CARD! How is this possible? 0/1 and 0/1
OTHER: Foul on Squillaci and the ref gives nothing. Koscileny stood his ground to prevent worse. 0/1
Nzogbia going to the olympic games in London 2012 in the discipline Art diving
Sorry I cannot give you longer video clips but this is due to some program restriction.
OTHER/PENALTY/CARD/GOAL: Counter from Wigan. Nzogbia goes past Koscielny who for a moment stuck out his leg but retracted it. Nzogbia goes past Koscielny and then throws himself to the ground. The ref who was never impressed with any tumble from an Arsenal player gives a penalty. All the replays clearly show that this was a schwalbe (or a dive as you call it) and nothing else. The fact that Wigan score from this wrong penalty is making things worse. The ref should have booked Nzogbia for his dive. So I only can give him for his situation a 0/1, 0/1, 0/1 and 0/1.
OTHER: The ref refuses to give fouls in favour of Arsenal. This is getting rather ridiculous right now. You can miss one foul, even two but keep missing them in such a consistent way , you have to do it. 0/1
GOAL: Nothing wrong with our first goal 1/1
GOAL: And again nothing wrong with our second goal 1/1
And we go in at half time and the ref has the “honour” to be the first ref since I started this review this season who can go in the dressing room with a score of O % and that is a zero, apart from the two goals we scored.
Let us see if he can improve in the second half.
OTHER: Again the ref gives almost no fouls for Arsenal. This is getting more than ridiculous now. You have to see it to believe it. 0/1
OTHER: This is getting boring but the ref keeps on giving all the advantage to Wigan. This is playing against 12 man. I leave the linesman out for now as they didn’t do much wrong that I could see. 0/1
OTHER/CARD: How, how, how, merry Christmas the ref has seen a foul on Chamakh. But even the dead blind cat from my neighbours had seen this one. And he even gives a card. The ref saves himself from a total embarrassment. 1/1 and 1/1 (followed by a cynical applause)
OTHER/OTHER/CARD: Wilshere comes in between the ball and Nzogbia. Nzogbia brings him down and the ref….gives a foul against Wilshere. Wilshere is not happy about this and is saying something against Nzogbia, who doesn’t like it and gives a headbut against Wilshere. The ref didn’t see it. Oh, what a surprise. What did he see in this game?? But here comes the rescue brigade in the person of Mike Dean (of all persons…) who has seen it and explains this to the ref. Who then sends Nzogbia off. If it wouldn’t have been for Dean Nzogbia would have stayed on the field. 0/1, 0/1 and 1/1 (thanks to Dean this 1)
GOAL: Nothing against the rules with this goal. Hey a good point for the ref. 1/1
PENALTY: Walcott is being tripped by the defender who did not play the ball, he even didn’t came close to the ball. But he clearly caught Walcott on his left foot. This was a clear penalty. But well you can imagine by now how the ref reacts: he gives nothing. 0/1
PENALTY: Nasri fires a free kick and the last defender in the wall jumps up with his hand and smashes the ball away. Now we have seen this given against us this season, and I even agreed with the decision against Cesc in that game. But wait a minute. This is another ref. And this ref hasn’t given us nothing this evening. So he just does what he has done very consistent all evening: give us nothing. But to be honest I had giving up on this ref long before this. 0/1
So what is the final score from this person in his orange shirt on the field:
CARDS: 2/3 (thanks to Mike Dean!)
PENALTY: 0/3
GOAL: 3/4
OTHER: 1/10
Total score: 6/20 (30%) (including Dean)
Total score from Probert himself 5/20 (25%) ( without Dean)
Well we have seen good performances and bad performances before this season but this really, really was one of the worst refs I have seen this season.
And he gets the lowest score I ever had to give in a ref review. I never have seen a ref who was so biased. Even Clattenburg in our last half our against Chelsea was doing a great job as an unbiased ref compared to this. And to think that even Dean saved his skin and I even had to give praise to Dean.
But he was very consistent the ref. He was worthless during the whole game. I really should stop from now on to call him a ref in fact. Because he can be given all kinds of names but please don’t call him a ref. I really don’t want to be called with the same name as this person in orange. Call him a clown in the comment section. Call him what you want but this was a bad night for him and for refs in general. I feel ashamed to wear the same shirt he does.
Or maybe he was happy with the things he has done? Maybe he came on the field with the intent to help Wigan as much as possible? Well he sure done a great job then. But he made a total embarrassment of what a ref should be. He could have worn a Wigan shirt right from the start of the game and then we would have known it from before the game started. Now we had to find out during the game.
Poor, poor, poor, is the only word I can think of Mr. Poorbert. Last night I joked a bit saying that Poorbert was voted Wigan man of the match. He certainly deserved it from their point of view.
And finally is there something wrong with the refs? When we were considered as too weak to have a chance for the title, the refs did a rather good and more neutral job when dealing with most situations. Some better than others, but this was more down to let us say the preferences of certain refs like Webb and others we know who will try to do it all to stop us. But since we been top in the league the level of points from the refs have been dropping considerably.
Also in the Chelsea game when we against all odds (pundit odds of course) took a 3-0 lead the ref suddenly changed his game and tried to help Chelsea in any way he could. (Read my ref review and notice my note after our third goal) This was very visible as I pointed out in my ref review. But now when we could go top of the league joining United and City the ref continued his game plan where Clattenburg had to stop in the Chelsea game. He just gave us absolutely nothing. Is this by accident? Is this some kind of plan?
I really do have some kind of 2007-2008 feeling over this. The season they stole the refs stole the title from us. So FA and EPL and PGMO I will be watching this in the next weeks. I don’t ask refs to give us anything more than we deserve. Just a neutral game is good enough for me and this was not what I have been seeing the last weeks.
Untold untold’s, untold tolds, told untolds, and of course told told’s. We have it all
And what’s been done in the dim and distant
I have big questions mark over how honest PL refs are, I think there is more wrong then PL would admit and suspect the refs might have sold them selves to bookies. This was a perfect game for bookies to fix, as we were odds on to win. A ref can not have been that bad considering he was right there to see the pen incident from Nasri free kick. The cricket match fixers operated from London and it is only silly to think only Pakistan cricketers fell for it. In the past we know they have approached players from all different countries and surely if ur fixing cricket you will surely try to fix football games?
this is the best thing I’ve read all day all the other blogs have people talking so much shit.
Like wenger should play his strongest team no matter what and one guy even said he doesn’t care if nasri breaks a leg in the process …
I could go on and on I cant believe the shit that comes out of peoples mouths I cant believe they actually use the same brains for every day use.
I have no issues with Wengers Squad selection 7 games in 20 days I’m sorry thats reason to rotate… no rotation = injuries lets see who is most likely we have fab rv theo who are most likely from mondays game.
The squad we put out was still strong although some individual displays let us down they didn’t really cost us the game as much as the bad ref.
I felt sorry for squillaci.
I think koser was drinking before the game.
and Arshavin was so bad in the first 30 min.
Denilson was like a tumble weed in the first half.
I was looking at chamakh round the 50min thinking to myself this guy never ever loses his cool he just plays football no moaning or whining never seen him get angry and guess what 20 min later he was about to bash some brains in.
It wasn’t the best result for us but watching squillaci and chamakh stand up for wilshere really brought a tear to my eye.
Walter I am never surprised by these bad performances from the ‘refs’ in our matches. With Mike Riley involved in the choice of match ref you just know something is crooked.
If my memory is correct the same 2 (Probert 4th & Dean ref) were in charge when Wenger was sent off at OT, and that was way over the top.
A lot of refereeing performances just cannot be taken seriously as they are so blatently corrupt.This has made a mockery of the game and makes the result merely a poor interpretation/biased opinion of what really happened.When you accept that technology would remove the corruption if used correctly it is enlightening to see the attitude towards it from the ones that have been tasked with bringing the game forward.Its only a game though when all said and done,just a shame its stuck in 1980
The ref was poor. Its all i can say. Though i thought Arsenal must hav learned this a long time ago and finished of the game rather than hope the ref wont make mistakes. Its really bad to see that most refs do actually play in a biased manner but cant blame the ref for our poor performance in the 2nd half. We should had demolished Wigan.
<——– Who's this young lady?
@ La Shiz. Lee Probert’s wife.
Good report, Walter.
Surely any so-called referee who affects a game so much, actually affecting the resulting point tally, deserves the sack/zero percentage from you/anything else that can be suggested.
Still, swings and roundabouts, I suppose. At odd occassions they are on our side.
So Manchester United and Arsenal held to draws through ‘bad luck’… I wonder how much more ‘good luck’ Manchester City will get this season?
There’s a lot of oil money out there – that’s for sure.
Now Walter my mate, the referee in the Chelsea match was just as bad, but the difference is that we played our strongest fit eleven. Stop ducking and diving – the blame should be laid sqaurely on the laps of Lord Wenger for one, making a bizarre 8 changes, and two not doing much better in the summer transfer window by releasing the dosh to buy better defenders instead of the French comedians out there. One gave away a needless foul near the penalty box, and the other headed into his own goal – which would have been a fantastic header had it been at the other end – I think they should stick to knocking each others head.
Probert was 100% kelong in that one… Squillaci I will also have to keep an eye on – for now I will put it down to fatigue.
Match fixed.
Marker why not just pop your head back in the sand – you are talking rubbish… you ‘solution’ to match fixing is to blame wenger for not playing the same team for every game at a time when we are playing every few days?!? Are you stupid, a troll or just a massive retard?
Marker did u actually watch the game and do you understand that players get tired or injured do you think they superman replicas.
oh by the way sorry walter and tony but this is funny little off topic but funny.
http://www.tribalfootball.com/tribaltv/chelsea-boss-carlo-ancelotti-loss-arsenal
Are you stupid, a troll or just a massive retard?
Awsome I almost fell off my chair thank you dogface you are my hero
people think this is fifa 11 on ps3 where a player gets injured for a week for a toe injury
Think the ref was helping out Utd after their perceived injustice against Brum. Cannot have us getting too close to Utd now!
‘dilshan
December 30th, 2010 at 9:23 am
I have big questions mark over how honest PL refs are, I think there is more wrong then PL would admit and suspect the refs might have sold them selves to bookies. This was a perfect game for bookies to fix, as we were odds on to win. A ref can not have been that bad considering he was right there to see the pen incident from Nasri free kick. The cricket match fixers operated from London and it is only silly to think only Pakistan cricketers fell for it. In the past we know they have approached players from all different countries and surely if ur fixing cricket you will surely try to fix football games?’
Dilshan
It’s actually much harder for a ref to fix a match than a player. The easiest way to fix a match is to nobble a goalkeeper. The next easiest is to fix a 0-0. Or a 1-0. Which requires both sides to play ball. But can be arranged. You could argue that there are people who wanted Roy Hodgson out who organised Liverpool to lose last night as the next 6 fixtures are quite easy so a new man would get a ‘dead cat bounce’. I’m not arguing that, but you could if you wanted to. Do you?
Arsenal were winning 2-1 at half time, but the odds at the start were quite generous I thought: 1.7 for an Arsenal win.
If the ref was trying to fix it he didn’t tell Charles N’Zogbia. I can’t think of a better way to ruin a fix than to get sent off with 13 minutes to go when you’re 2-1 down. The odds on an Arsenal win were 1.12 when that happened. Sure, the bookies would make a killing if money piled on then and it was fixed. But the equaliser didn’t look fixed to me. And that would have required Arsenal to play ball……..
By all means report a piss-poor performance by a referee. But if you are saying Mike Riley is issuing orders, you’d better say so. And you’d better say who Mike Riley is reporting to. Are you saying it’s Sir Alex, because you’d better have damn strong evidence if so. If it’s Roman Abramovitch, you’d better have good lawyers…….and if it’s Betfair or William Hill, you’d better say so too. Ditto Sky Sports. Because they need to be shut down if that’s what they’re at…….I’m sure someone at Arsenal can arrange a little wire tapping, e-mail tapping and generalised bugging of some senior betting company officials, referees and rival managers/owners if you’re pretty sure.
You’d be sailing very close to the wind if you did the bugging without being sure though.
Your call………..
It is a close call about who was worse – us or Probert. We should have won despite Probert. The sad fact is that he is now one of the elite and has ben promoted to FIFA. He is now almost untouchable. We have to face the fact that he is likely to referee us 3 or 4 times per season. As he is also quite young, we have to look forwrad to this for 10 years or more. The sad truth is that there is a crisis in English refereeing. Remember this guy has got to the Premiership because he was deemed to be one of the top officials in the thre divisions below. His performance last night clearly showed that he is not up to the required standard but nothing will happen. The othjer sad fact is that as bad as he is, he is still probably better than Atwell, Mason, Jones and Walton.
But this rant hides the fact that our goalkeeper, both centre halves, Eboue, Bendtner are Arshavin were all woeful last night. I would not play our keeper or our two centre backs in my local Sunday League team.
Walter I was disappointed with this article. I know you said you would try not to be too biased but it got to the point where you were not listing challenges, just the ref gets it wrong etc. Usually your posts on the ref performance are more factual with bold illustrations. This just read as a angry Gooner. I understand the fustration but maybe a little re-write is in order, once you have time for it to boil over. let’s keep these articles professional as you have been. It’s what sets this blog apart from opinion-driven baffoons.
Oh and red Jessie, you are talking rubbish. As soon as you said I would not play these in my local Sunday league team you just made yourself look like a mug. I mean come on.
Rhys,
who is calling what and for what reason is something you can only find out with the things you mention but who can only be done by police I think.
But I have some interesting data coming up in one of the next articles with numbers that are a bit stunning in a way. Even for me.
And after seeing the numbers late this night I went to bed thinking: this can’t be real. So I woke up this morning, turned on my computer and checked the numbers again and they are real.
And they are sickening and frightning if you want football to be a fair sport. I don’t know it will continue in the next games (I really hope not, because if so we will have to play like 11 supermans) but there are some very strange things happening in the last weeks. Very strange
Aaron, there were so many fouls he didn’t give I couldn’t get to mention them all. I did with some but I did not wanted to get it too long.
But I accept your remark and will try to work on this in the next games and will mention the fouls that I really found not acceptable.
Gooneraside, yes I agree a ref with a performance like that should have had a zero score in total.
But even in the worst game he can get some things wright. So I have to give it to him.
But in fact every score below 50% means that he has had a totaly unacceptable game for a professional ref in the EPL. And could be considered as a zero
Pathetic post!!!
Typical mug for chooses to blame EVERYTHING but his teams poor perfomance! If you have to rely on ref decisions to win a game then you even more of a mug than you post suggests.
The way your going on is like everything thats gone against Arsenal is the reason you’ve won nothing.
What about all the decisions that have gone your way, penalties, sending offs for your opposition???
What about the bad ref decision that cost United 2 points against Birmingham! Oh but i guess your all failed to notice that ay, yeah of course, a BLATENT foul on Vidic, then a HANDBALL assist to an OFFSIDE player who should have been sent off waaaaaay before he scored the equaliser!
So give up on all the ‘Only Arsenal are the victims’ you muppet cos we all get decisions FOR and AGAINST us so stop blaming the decisions and start looking at your teams performance.
All excuses and no accountability
Aaron
You want to see my local Sunday side!!
Given that so many players seem to just go through the motions why not give someone like Jay ET a game or the Norwegian lad we have just sold to Borrusia Monchengladto be back FC. Surely they are no worse than some of the players who wore the shirt last night with such little pride or passion?
Yes Wigans penalty WAS a dive and should not have been a pen but what about the blatent penalty that Wigan werent awarded when Fabianski upended i think Rodellega or N’Zogbia in the box?
Gauranteed if that was an Arsenal player you would have put that in your post claiming the ref did not give Arsenal that blatent penalty so its all swings and roundabouts.
Please dont claim that everyone else gets decisions and Arsenal never do, youve had the 2nd highest amount of pens awarded (Chelsea are 1st) and also had the most red cards given to your opposition so your rose-tintef glasses need to be taken off big time!
Dog face go kiss Wenger’s Arse – Everybody else outside UNTOLD ARSENAL knows Wenger has lost it big time – fancy blaming the defenders for lack of organisation and communication, when Squeaky and Kols are very poor defenders (not to mention that short goalie, who is shyte at crosses and corners). Wenger said it will be rectified – it can only be rectified by buying decent defenders (and a goalie).
5 years and he is still rectifying it. Blame the ref all you like – there will be many more bent decisions like this, you can only beat the ref, by destroying weak teams the way we used to.
Hi, I’m so pleased about your review. I genuinely thought there must be something wrong with my eyes, or perhaps I’d just completely forgotten what constitutes a foul in football. I was genuinely astounded by how inept this referee was. What is most shocking is that he won’t even receive a reprimand for this performance.
Imagine if anyone in the normal world outside of football was mediating between two companies and got it so wrong that they potentially cost one company millions upon millions of pounds come May. They certainly wouldn’t last too long in that job.
Walter – fantastic commentary about the match and Mr. Poorbert.
You need not apologize to anyone for your point of view OR retract any comments. Mr. Poorbert is judged on his performance.
An official has more power(s) to influence a match than any player(s).
We now know from FIFA the game is totally corrupt at its highest levels of administration – it would be naive to thing that SOME refs on what £60g a year are not open to some influence – from who exactly or how this would be proven is another matter.
What stunned me with this ref – well many things really but he clearly saw the headbutting but was going to do nothing until his assistant intervened.
But we have never really had the rub of the green from refs that some rivals get – so we sometimes have to beat the ref as well as the opposition, like we used to. If you go 4-0 up in 20mins, nothing even a bent ref can do.
All said, we really need to learn to defend set pieces, until we do, it will cost. Our defenders really have to work on communication and positioning
Anyone in here still think that Wenger is good tactically? If you do you need sectioning, why hasn’t the FA brought Wenger to rule like they did Mick McCarthy for making do many changes? No excuses Wenger, especially ridiculous ones like you have just come out with, if you can’t beat teams like West Brom, Newcastle and Wigan then you shouldn’t even attempt to make excuses, someone please tell me where this apparently good squad is because players like Koscielny, Squillachi, Denilson, Bendtner, Rosicky, Diaby and Fabianski shouldn’t even be in it.
Time and time again this happens and he just does not learn, we do not have two teams that can compete , we only have one. It would have been better to start the same team that beat the Chavs , than as the poor little lambs begin to flag through tiredness to replace them with the second string. These guys are meant to be athletes not once a week footballers. We will never win anything with this sort of mentality guiding the team ! We are sick of the same old excuses time and time again.Arsenal can play well enough to win this league, they just cannot do it consistently. And Wenger’s confidence in players that are clearly not quite good enough undermines the team’s chances when there are better options left on the bench. I could have lived with four changes to the Monday night team, but eight is too many. Granted, Arsenal were unfortunate in not being given a blatant penalty for handball at the death, but they should not have been in a position to need that decision to take the three points.
It’s not over yet, it’s far from over. In this of all seasons, we know that more points will be dropped by all teams. But Wenger must learn that he cannot change a starting line-up so dramatically and expect to gain all three points, especially away from home. The players enjoyed a two week gap between matches before the Chelsea game, and the sides they are playing face equally demanding fixtures over a similar period of time. So it’s honours even. Wigan are relegation candidates and as such should not provide a huge obstacle. But Arsenal seem to make a habit of struggling on visits there.
After the ecstacy of defeating Chelsea, it’s back to reality. Birmingham on Saturday. Do you think they might test Fabianski with some high balls knocked in at every opportunity? My, how I look forward to that…
it always amazes me when blokes say that certain posters do not see the obvious and make judgement calls through biased views. So lets state the facts from the game from both sides of it.
1. Agreed the ref was poor and missed many calls against Arsenal, especially the dive in the begining and the handball for a pk at the end. But.. there were some suspect calls that did not go against arsenal that should have. call them make up calls or what have you, but I think the ref was trying to let the game go a bit in his own crazy mind.
2. Now on to the next issue. I have no problem with changes due to a hectic schedule but I do have issue with changes that are suspect. Obviously Diaby was not fit enough to go past 15 minutes at full pace, Bendtner on the flank? Djourou not playing after such a stellar outing against chelsea?
3. Wenger IMO once again waited way too long to bring in fresh legs. Around the 65th minute I was hopeful watching the lads warm up on the sidelines, but nasri and walcott were introduced in the 82nd minute when wigan had leveled already. Why not bring on Nasri who controls the ball and have walcott on there to push back the wigan defence just out of respect. Wenger surely knew that Wigan would push further and further up the pitch.
4. And the most obvious difference from the chelsea game. We didnt close wigan down anywhere near the same intensity or continued concentration. We had players gving wigan plenty of space to play the ball, and play they did which put more pressure on our suspect central backs.
5. Certain players workrate were just horrid.
So take your pick, they all had a hand in dropping points.. For once i would like supporters to see the whole picture and not pieces you believe with your heart rather than your head. I am just as dissapointed as all you, but in the end take the ref out of the equation and there were glaring reasons why the result was what it was…
Cheers! Cmon U Gunners!
“mandy dodd
December 30th, 2010 at 11:49 am
Think the ref was helping out Utd after their perceived injustice against Brum. Cannot have us getting too close to Utd now!”
So the complete mug comment above gives it all the ‘Uniteds PERCIEVED injustice’ bullshit and claims the ref done United a favour, your embarassing yourself muppet, just face it, Arsenal are not the only victims cos as it was very clear to see United also dropped two points due to a bad ref decision, oh maybe i should claim that the ref of Utds game was actually doing Arsenal a favour, seeing as “they couldnt have Utd pulling further awat from Arsenal now could they!”….lol what a biased idiot.
mshmapton, please acknowledge your sources when you copy and paste material – please see second half of Online Gooner editorial – it is only proper and correct.
http://onlinegooner.com/article.php?section=editorial&id=277
Unless of course you happen to be Kevin Whitcher!
It wouldn’t be so blatant if the Away refs didn’t act like a traditional away ref when Arsenal play at Home.
Our good friend, D. Micky, tried to stop the manager from shaking hands with his opponent, after what he’d described as a deserved draw upon their behalf.
Farcical.
Thank you Marker for showing your true colours – now piss off back to your hole to indulge in a little self-flagellation, there’s a good chap.
I agree Finsbury – I wouldn’t mind ‘home advantage’ so much if we got it once in a while!
Nice piece Walter, I agree with you on every single point. Probert was woefully bad.
I can’t believe that there is no mechanism for examining referees performances after matches. I am not suggesting that the outcome should be changed, but some kind of appeal system where a club can get a referee sanctioned if it turns out that he has made a complete pigs ear of it.
In contrast to our game, wolves beat pool 1-0 but there wasn’t even a hint of poor reffing decisions. my point is that out of ten games per round (week) there might only be 1 or 2 games that need looking at.
The cricket situation is a good example, each team get a couple of challenges, which are watched on video and then decided upon. If we had 2 challenges last night, their penalty wouldnt have stood, and one of ours would have. that makes it a 3-1 which is hugely different to 2-2.
having said that, I reckon that if our subs had come on at 70 instead of 80-odd, we would probably took the 3 points. And as for the comments about 8 changes (7 really cos fab was suspended), we have the leg breakers at their place tomorrow, and we really need to be on top of our game for that one.
As for the comment about Arshavin, was the commenter the same bloke who was commentating on the stream i was watching? he spent the first 20 odd minutes slagging the little russian, until he scored one and made one, at which point the words seemed to get stuck in his throat.
So many things wrong with english football at the moment, cramped winter schedules, no mid term break, no video refs, totally incompetent refs, etc etc. Still, it’s the same for all of us. What bites the most is chelseas, spuds and citys wins when we only managed a draw.
Yup.
–
For those still awaiting the Sunday Supplement from the NOTW on the Fitba spot fixing scandal:
Don’t wait too long.
Thankfully, we are no worst than we were before this round of games. Cool down!
@ ArsenalDuabi
we are worse off, city, the spuds and chelsea all got 3 points, whereas we only got 1. we should be second now, with a decent gap between us and the spuds/chelsea whereas we are 3rd and they are hot on our heels.
Dear Pathetic, from 12.09
I think you are new on this blog and maybe don’t know this but I do this ref review on a regular basis. Each game gets the same review system from me as I am ref myself.
If you would have been around a bit you would have known that the second highest rating so far for a ref in the EPL was for the game Arsenal – WBA 2-3 lost by Arsenal.
So if you think I only come out and talk about a bad performance of a ref: think otherwise.
And stay around for a while in the next days as I will make a report of the first 19 games of the refs and you will see that the points I give don’t correspond with the numbers of points we got from a game. We had games we won when I gave the ref below 50 points. You don’t have to believe me, just look at the site the next days.
About the united decision. If you would pay me a nice amount of money (I have asked this before you know) I would gladly be reviewing all the games in the EPL in the same way. But as I do have to make a living for my wife and family I don’t have the time to do this. And after all this is an Arsenal blog so we do concentrate on the Arsenal games. If you don’t mind.
Pathetic- go back to your Spurs site, you little man
And pathetic please stay tuned in the next days as I will tell you how many penalty decisions are right when it comes to Arsenal during this season. Both for and against.
Pathetic / Lego and your multitude of Ids on different blogs – just one question, where do you find all that time?
I am so mad at this ref right now. I want to attack him. He should be suspended. How dare he to absolutely ruin our momentum like that? Last night was a disgrace, dive by N’Zogbia, two penalty’s not given.
Wenger doesn’t intimidate like Ferguson, he gives fair criticism in the media. And in response, the ref at our games try to stick it to us, while the refs for United try their best not to get Fergie and his players mad. And when they do have a ref who heaven forbid, makes a mistake against them, Ferguson will intimidate to make sure that it won’t happen again for the rest of the season. Expect a lot of stuff going United’s way the next couple of weeks. And if it doesn’t, they deserve it.
I hate the fact that our great club Arsenal has to play in this corrupt league.
hi walter,
thanks for your ref review, i think it is a fantastic asset to this site. espescially as it is almost impossible to read about a refs performance elsewhere.(impartial or not, he he)
We discussed the phenomenon of the refs influence after the chelsea game, e.g giving free kicks in positions the opposition can take an advantage from.
what struck me about probert’s performance yesterday was that he seemed to allow the game to get out of control allowing the kind of tackles that should’nt pass without atleast a talking to or a card, to go completely unheeded. a cynic like me would say, that would have a negative bias on the team that ‘does’nt like it up ’em’/ prefer to play football. i remember the day aaron ramsey’s leg was broken, the ref had allowed the discipline on the pitch to deteriorate, so that almost every time he blew the whistle players openly dissented.so he let the game ‘flow’ until the ‘accident’. i am not a big fan of shawcross’ but i blame the ref more for what happened that day. but i suppose we can put that down to incompetence.
Something else i have noticed is that refs. seem to behave differently at different grounds. i suppose the biggest factor here would be the crowd biasing the ref to officiate in the style that suits the home team. eg. if a player on the home team tackles through a player to get to the ball,the crowd cheers but the ref should stop the game to give the decision to the away team and talk to or show a card to the hero. i get the impression certain refs would let the game flow in a home game just because they want to keep on the right side of the crowd( incompetence?/lack of cojones?).
we have got birmingham and ipswich away soon, all cynics might want to look at who gets chosen to officiate because we know what awaits us at those grounds, it might be too early to get the dullards that cheated the mancs on tuesday but after yesterday’s lot, gawd help us.
Ps.at the risk of being laughed out of the blog i noticed was the pitch was a disgrace, now i know that after the united game the lord wenger came out and rightly sighted the pitch as a contributory factor to our loss- it seemed beyond the imagination of some that the old trafford pitch might have been deliberately left overgrown for a purpose viz anti football (and yes, you must call this man Sir for services to football)
P.p.s i also notice that a lot of the commments seem on th e whole to put the blame on the selection rather than the dodgy goals and dodgy ref. i am sorry to quote darren ferguson but ‘ the supporters of this club need a reality check’. we were comfortably cruising that game with a very high maintanace 11 while resting the team for a game/ kicking on saturday. not only had the manager got a team strong enough to to do the job but the ref in effect handicapped us with a dodgy pen against in the first twenty mins. i am not teaching blame experts how/who to blame but for once open your brains and let some air in>
P.P.P.s anybody noticed chelsea used the same team that played against us on monday + anelka, result 1-0 against bolton.
Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does
some people just cant read what it says at the top
hello walter…nice piece of writing from you once again…i have been reading this blog 4 a while now and i have to say you guys are the best arsenal blog around…you and tony produce articles that are a worth read…always….i have been making rounds around the arsenal blogs and i cant believe how much tosh i found…once again the AAA brigade are calling 4 wenger’s head and the funny thing is that some were praising him b4 the match….if you want to see just how pathetic the AAA are,visit justarsenal.com..man .its beyond pathetic
Removed because of the level of abuse therein. Tony
@Marker/Pathetic-
As an adult, one expects a mature use of the English language. I am of course assuming that English is your first language!
Maybe you can stick to the the topic of the article-official grading-instead of repeating your self about a new cb and goalie AGAIN! This is getting tiring.
Believe me, this guys penchant for multi IDs on different forums to undermine Wenger is unlimited. Almost as if he deludes himself he can create the tipping point whereby the fans rise up against Wenger. Must be a bitter man in there!
hi tony,
Of late it is becoming apparent that there should be an age limit-wall to this site? some of the comments are getting embarrassingly personal and off the topic – there also seems to be a problem with pos(T)ers understanding the english used on the site_ should we get some man u or tottenham bloggers to write in the style some people understand- in the spirit of ‘no child left behind’?
It says a lot about these so-called ‘fans’ that, even when it’s so blatantly obvious that the referee has cost us the game, they prefer to attack the players and manager instead.
Having to play again just 48 hours after such a huge game against Chelsea, the changes were inevitable. We all know about the injury problems of RVP, Walcott and Djourou, so it’s absolute no surprise that they were rested. While Nasri, Song and Wilshere have played a lot of football this season and we really need them fit for the remainder of it. And Cesc was of course suspended.
The only change that you could argue with is Eboue coming in at LB for Clichy, but with Gibbs out we cannot afford to then lose Clichy as well. For the same reason that we cannot afford to risk losing Djourou while Vermaelen is still missing.
In the end, despite all the changes we would have won had we had an even half-decent referee instead of the coward ‘homer’ Probert, who fudged 3 penalty decisions, and all of them in Wigan’s favour.
Off topic but if Wenger would have played RVP, Theo and Clichy for the whole game and if they would have got an injury they would have blamed Wenger for putting them on the field.
@Walter
Of course they would! How many times have we already heard Wenger being blamed for our players’ injuries this season?
They complain if players are rested, and they complain if they’re not. They complain if players are rushed back too soon, and they complain if (like RVP and Djourou) they’re not rushed back quickly enough!
In the eyes of these individuals Wenger can no longer do anything right. They have lost all objectivity.
Yes, poor reffing and one would hope that it will be improved by the Powers That Be. However, I would be curious to see how other teams have been affected by by poor decisions in their games AND if we have been statistically MORE affected. I imagine it would require a WALTER for each team to do the referee analysis.
Great work, keep it up!
Hey Walter just watching the game back. I have to say i disagree quite a bit with your viewing of the game. I was looking to really get on his back. But in all honesty found it difficult too. Your first two supposed fouls i think are completely wrong.
The handball attempt you think rod should have been yellow carded for… really? There wasn’t a intent to handball, if anything you could quite clearly see he was over stretching. It was completely accidental with him quite clearly going for the header.
Secondly the Squallici ‘foul’ at first too me seemed like the French man had got himself into a bit of bother and if anything went down very easy. In my opinion it seemed like he got hustled off the ball not fouled. You could give it, but i think it would have been way soft.
It’s only until the bendtner free kick which he gives a subsequent corner for when it should have been a goal kick, to Wigan… that he got wrong. Other wise since then though we played absolutely appallingly
So Far up to this point i think Probert has been spot on, imo.
There were a few fouls on Denilson which were bad. I mean some real tugs and pulling down of players. Once it hit the 35 mark i would say there were a few fouls that should have been called. Mostly to us. But occasionally to them.
Agreeing with Wenger communication was a bit rubbish a few examples… First half
Denilson kicked it out from a corner Fab should have called and collected. Instead Den Kicks boots it. 3 in the midfield..Denilson, Squal and Rosic all leave the ball nearly give it away. Should have called for it… didn’t
I disagree about the Walcott pen claim… he did infact get the ball which bounced off walcott while the follow through tripped theo. Bur it really wasn’t a Pen.
The handball should have been a pen though. I really do think he messed up there. Totally in the view of it. I’ve heard the excuses from other fans of how he was protecting his face…. but apart from being a pathetic excuse… if your going to jump into the flight of the ball that’t not protecting your face… secondly whatever happened to heading the ball? Seeing as they do that on a daily basis.
Right So in all honesty i think you have been harsh on Probert. I think you owe him a re watch. There were fouls he missed, but he was obviously trying to keep the flow of the game and gave a lot of advantage play, in all honesty.
I thought Denilson was magnificent first half. Best player by far maestro of the midfield some fantastic direct forward passing. Especially when we were so bad for the first 20 mins. Really bad! But we got into it. His core strength needs work as he got pushed off a few times too easily. But no more than Squallaci who is a CB, so yea. I thought he made some great and very well placed tackles. I gotta edit a video for him. Because he had a better game than most.
And i don’t think we were as bad as most fans are raging on about. We found our feet, second half dropped off and basically for 35 mins played the ball in the midfield but created nothing up front.
Now about the subs… everyone is blaming Wenger for not bringing Nasri on earlier and or Theo. But Nasri was tame coming on. Looked really slow his marking was interesting. Not as much intent as Chelsea’s game.
Arshavin was….well Arshavin. Someone who fustrates and i think gives away an awful lot. Though does conjure up something, seriously should do better. Needs to work on his game.
The marking of Squal was all wrong, as an experienced CB he needs to be goal side. I don’t know what he thought might happen to the ball when he tried to header it facing our goal, but it wasn’t going back. I thought he had a bad game. Kos though shaky first half actually did a good job. The corner to the goal he did the right thing. Rodeagia was inbetween him and Fab. So couldn’t leave it. No doubt Fab would have had the ball tipped over him.
Anyway we should have won. We played well most of the game. And with 10 men we should have done better. We were caught sleeping and got hurt.
Walter! I back you all the way buddy. Being a ref i tend to believe you know what you are talking about. Aaron you project yourself as a Gooner, but i think you’re a faker – part of the AAA. Poobert was awful, Wigans 12th man. Hope we don’t get him again this season. Keep up the good work walter!!!
Mate Shut up… I’m the AAA? because i watched the game back and disagreed with Walter. With what i thought was fair points, which i urged Walter to re-watch.
Right that makes sense.