The untold ref review: Arsenal – Wasting Hammers « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does

By Walter Broeckx, the ref

No beach ball to see with ref Micheal Jones today so he couldn’t mess it up with that. But how did he do for the rest with the other decisions?

CARD: Ilunga gets the first yellow card. The ref let play continue first for an advantage but then comes back to the foul and gives the card. Ilunga came in hard. Correct decision. 1/1

CARD: Song gets a yellow card and no much to argue about it, he was late. 1/1

OTHER: Time wasting by Green was ridiculous. And as far as I could see it nothing was said or done by the ref. After the first half I think Green had wasted some 15 minutes of time. 0/1

OTHER/CARD: Parker fouls Denilson and the ref lets it go. This was a Dejongh kind of tackle. Like I have said some hundred times: when you take both ball and man it still is a foul and certainly when you come in frontal.  This could have caused serious injury. No foul seen by the ref and so no card. 0/1 and 0/1

CARD: Parker with another bad tackle on Chamakh this time. And again no card is shown. Are they having some kind of affair the ref and Parker? 0/1 And this could and should have been his second yellow card at least.

CARD: Boa Morte is booked for bringing down Denilson. No way he could have played the ball. The right decision. 1/1

OTHER: More and more time wasting by Green and the West Gang at each free kick, throw and goal kick. I think Green has stolen some 45 minutes on his own. Okay this is a little bit exaggerated but again I didn’t see the ref making any remark on this during the whole 90 minutes. Again I was not in the stadium so maybe he did do something but I couldn’t see it. What I do know is that during each goal kick Green had to take they gave the replays off all the chances we have had during the game. 0/1

PENALTY:  Arshavin goes down in the box at full pace. Da Costa put his hand on him and gave the impression that he pulled him a bit. But as I cannot tell if the push was enough or not I go with the refs decision on this. But if the ref would have given it, West Ham shouldn’t have complained as it is dangerous to put your arm on the other player. 1/1

PENALTY: Chamakh is being held by his marker when he tries to head it and can’t jump properly. This was a penalty for me. If this would have happened in the CL the ball could have ended on the penalty spot. He was clearly held so this is a foul. 1/1

OTHER: Theo is going for a shot and at the moment he shoots Chamakh is some 3 meters ONSIDE. Green saves and pushes the ball wide. Chamakh is first on to the ball and then the linesman raises his flag. Now I don’t know what that was all about. No way Chamakh was offside. I think the linesman was blinded by the light or so but it stopped another attack and gave West Hame some 4 minutes to waste more time. 0/1

CARD:  Chamakh is booked for a shirt tug on Da Costa. The Moroccan is not happy with Da Costa who he thinks led with his elbow. These are the things you get as a ref when you don’t have the game in hand. Players feel this and do their own thing and don’t mind about what the ref is doing. But the card was correct, a blatant shirt pull but born our of frustration with so many wrong decisions. 1/1

GOAL: party time at the Emirates and correct goal. No offside at all mr. Green.

OTHER: Extra time 5 minutes. After a game in which 1 team has done all the time wasting you can try to give the other team as much extra time as possible. So initial 5 minutes was the right decision when they made that decision and I guess this was some 5 minutes before the end of the game. So I could give him a point for this and give him a good point. But I will come back on this further on in my article 1/1

CARDS: 4/6

PENALTY: 1/2

GOAL:  1/1

OTHER: 1/5

Total score: 7/14 (50%)

Now I do confess that I give these points but can change them if someone who was in the stadium tells me that the ref actually did tell Green to not waste time like they did.

For the rest it was what I would call a typical EPL ref performance. For some reasons refs in the EPL all seem to be remembered as a ref who doesn’t ref in fact. They don’t punish some dangerous tackles. They don’t want to punish time wasting. They don’t want to give cards when it is needed and instructed. They don’t want to stop the game. It is as if they are afraid to blow their whistle.  Today was no different.

Once again a ref let a very dangerous tackle go even without blowing a foul (Parker on Denilson). So I expect us to see another few broken legs before we are champions at the end of the season.  And this is for me a very sad thing. I hope it happens with other teams and that it is not Arsenal who suffer another major blow but if the refs keep on doing nothing about those dangerous frontal tackles it will happen. It is just a matter of time.  I can only call on the refs to act and to prevent it.

I wanted to give my view on the MIOU – Spuds 2nd goal but I will give it in the comments section later on as I think it could take away some attention on the ref from today.

And a final note: it was the second visit from mr. Jones to the Emirates and last time he got 83% so it was a bad performance or the game (against Blackpool) was played in a very good atmosphere and with 2 teams wanted to play football.