The Untold ref review: Newcastle Dowd – Arsenal « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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Victory Through Harmony
By Walter Broeckx, the sad ref
Every time before the game I have one hope. And certainly after the match this midweek with the completely worthless performance of Ref Mason I was hoping to be able to stop my ref review with one sentence: Good game, ref, well done.
Would I be able to do this after the Newcastle game? Let us start with the begin:
GOAL: Nothing wrong with this goal 1/1
GOAL: Again nothing wrong with this goal 1/1
OTHER: Just outside the penalty area Van Persie is brought down by two Newcastle players… and the ref gives a foul against Van Persie. This was a very strange decision. 0/1
GOAL: Again nothing wrong with this goal. 1/1
OTHER: Szczesny kicks the ball to RVP the defender heads the ball against the back of RVP his head and the ref judges this to be against the rules?????? Arsenal kept possession and Wilshere could have started a run. What is going on? 0/1
GOAL: Nothing wrong with this goal. 1/1
OTHER: The ref indicates 2 minutes extra time. At minute 47 the ball is in the penalty area and the ref let the game continue. Why? Nothing happened in those 2 minutes to let the game get further? This is the Phil Dowd Sunderland scenario: I will let them play till they can score in extra extra time. The time mentioned on the board is not sacred but if nothing happens in the extra time you have to stop the game otherwise it is useless to show the extra time. 0/1
OTHER/CARD/OTHER: Barton goes in and catches Arshavin from behind when Arshavin is doing a Zidane movement. The ref gives nothing. The way he came in he was going to take the man. This was a foul and a yellow card! The ref let play continue!! And to make things worse: DOWD KNEW THAT IS WAS A TERRIBLE FOUL BECAUSE HIS NATURAL REACTION WAS TO BRING HIS WHISTLE TO HIS MOUTH! Check it on the video on this link http://arsenalist.com/video/?id=xgwiyk on second 34-35 at the bottom of your screen. If I do this tomorrow (or better said today already) and an assessor is there he will chase me from the field and rightfully so! 0/1, 0/1 and 0/1
OTHER/CARD/OTHER: As ref Dowd let Barton get away with the foul Diaby comes in and tries a tackle. Barton jumps up and plants his feet on Diaby who is on the floor. And you can see that Barton in his jump adjusting his feet to be sure to plant them on Diaby. This adjusting is too much and all this because the ref didn’t give the blatant foul from Barton. And if a ref sees a player adjusting his feet when coming down and plant them on an opponent this is a red card. He then let play continue for almost 5 minutes and they had indicated 2. Why ? What for? 0/1, 01/ and 0/1
Second half:
OTHER/CARD/CARD/OTHER: Barton comes flying in with a frontal tackle studs showing. The ref gives no foul. This was a possible leg breaker. If possible later today I will add a picture on which you can see how lucky Diaby was to not have his leg broken. It was trapped under the leg and could have snapped. You can see it on the video on the link. http://arsenalist.com/video/?id=xgwiyk
The fact that the ref gave nothing is no surprise any more if you have seen the game. The reaction from Diaby is understandable after all he has gone through from a human point of view. But he cannot do this. But how much contributed to his reaction because the ref didn’t blow the foul and gave Barton a card? And remember: Barton shouldn’t have been on the pitch after what he had already done to Diaby in the extra extra time of the first half.
So for the reaction of Diaby the only punishment is a red card. But how can you get tackled by a player who shouldn’t be on the pitch and is only still in there because of the refs poor performance?
And then he gives the foul against Arsenal. So I give the following points: 0/1 for not giving the foul from Barton, 1/1 for the reaction from Diaby which was against the rules, 0/1 for not carding Barton again and 0/1 for still letting Barton on the field even after all he has done and still hasn’t given him a yellow card even!
Just on a side note: Walcott is having a shot and the ball rebounds from a defender. Cesc runs on to the ball and is pushed in the back by a defender. He wouldn’t have got by the ball as the keeper came first to it. But a push in the back Mr. Dowd? In the penalty area? Oh yes our captain didn’t fall to the ground. But he was pushed in the back.
PENALTY/GOAL/CARD/CARD: Koscielny is close on the back of a defender and he didn’t make contact with the ball. I can agree with the penalty. It was what most defenders do, keep pressure on the striker and he felt the defender and went down. I wonder if the ref would have done the same on the other side of the pitch. I think you know the answer yourself.
And nothing wrong with the kick except that it is a player who scores who should have been off the pitch a long time ago. Szczesny keeps the ball in his hands after the penalty. Nolan comes in and gives a kind of lash with the arm which I have seen in martial arts. As far as I know this is a game of football and as the ref clearly showed he sends people off when they push other players on the head. But not Nolan he can lash Szczesny on the head an only gets a yellow card. So this should have been the second player from Newcastle who should have been send off. This is getting ridiculous Mr. Dowd. 1/1, 1/1 1/1 and 0/1. The second time he doesn’t send a Newcastle player off.
GOAL: A Newcastle goal is cancelled. This was wrong. Rosicky played him onside. The assistant made a mess of it but he will make up for it. 0/1
GOAL: Nothing wrong with the second goal from Newcastle. 1/1
CARD: against Ebou for kicking the ball away. 1/1
PENALTY/GOAL: They knew they would get another penalty. They just knew it. It was only a question of going down. The Newcastle player just threw himself to the floor and waited for the signal. The match commentator couldn’t get it. Even on MOTD they couldn’t understand it (but I don’t base my judgement on them). I still don’t get it how Dowd could give a penalty for this. Well I do right now because I think he is biased. Or he is useless. Or both. 0/1 and 0/1
GOAL: Clever play from Barton who shouldn’t been on the field by now to go down. Clumsy from Rosicky. With the goals is nothing wrong. 1/1
GOAL: A goal from Van Persie is cancelled and I think this was the right decision. When I looked at the lines of the grass he was marginally further up field than the last defender. 1/1
CARD: Louis Enrique gets a card for a shirt pull on Wilshere. Correct decision. 1/1
End of the game. We know the score on the score board. Curious about the ref score? So am I. lets count.
CARDS: 3/8
PENALTY: 1/2
GOAL: 8/10
OTHER: 0/9
Total score: 12/29 (41%) Total score without the goals: 19%
Where do you start after such a performance? The way he let Barton get away with murder from the second part of the first half was the worst part. At that moment he was doing nothing what a ref is paid for: seeing that the rules are applied and most of all: TAKE CARE OF THE HEALTH OF THE PLAYERS! It was only down to luck that Arshavin and Diaby didn’t get a serious injury. Dowd let the Newcastle players and certainly Barton do what he wanted to do.
Looking back at it the fact that Barton even didn’t get a yellow card is beyond words. I can only take notice from this fact and sit there with my mouth open.
The fact that Nolan could hit Szcesny at the back of his head without a red card is totally beyond me. I cannot understand it at all. How can you explain an identical phase (both pushes/lashes at the back of the head) and both different punished? One with red and the other with yellow? Do I smell something from the gutter or have I seen incompetence at is best or worst?
The not given red cards against Newcastle was for me the worst thing apart from the second penalty for Newcastle which just was a gift. Those red cards would have changed the game back and so he refused to give them.
Now after the terrible performance on Tuesday I can only ask what is going on? Have the refs suddenly lost it completely? Is it a coincidence that in the two games we had this week we had refs who clearly did their best to take our points away? Or is there something more going on?
Is this bias against Arsenal from the part of the disciples of Mike Riley? Or are they just incompetent? Whatever the reason may be this cannot go on like this.
I will leave it for that for now but just tell you that at least 11 fouls have not been given in favour or Arsenal. I will have been more but I lost some data when I was copying it on my computer. He gave all the fouls he could give in favour of Newcastle. You have seen them mentioned in the section above.
Two poor refs after each other… makes you wonder. Mike Riley do you have anything to say about the performances of your refs?