Untold Ref Review: Norwich City 1 – 6 Manchester City – is there a pattern here? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

This article is part of a series stretching over several seasons in which a team of referees analyse the work of refs in Premier League matches.

Our figures show that when we analyse the errors made by refs there are consistent trends which do not “even out” through the season, as some commentators would have it.    All the earlier ref reviews plus analyses of the errors made by refs, and articles relating to our campaign to have the body which organises referees activities reformed, plus an analysis of the background to this campaign, can be found on:

• Untold Ref Reviews …
• Untold Corruption …

Although this is a site built for Arsenal supporters we welcome comments from fans of other teams, although we tend not to publish comments which are simply abusive or which are completely off topic.

Today’s referee is Chris Foy –

Last week I had the pleasure of reviewing Chris Foy in The Sunderland V Spurs game, in the 87th minute Larsson went past Kaboul, who impeded Larsson with the Ref looking straight at it. Foy not only did not give the Foul but he cautioned a bemused Larsson with Kaboul grinning like a Cheshire Cat. It was poor Reffing.

Fast forward to Norwich V Sunderland and in the 8^th minute Tevez is tripped in the box with Foy once again in a great position. Once again he does not give the foul (penalty) but he cautions Tevez who is also bemused. Again it was poor Reffing.

Now let’s talk about Grant Holt there is a lot in the papers about serial divers, and the ones that win penalties tend to get the headlines. Now Grant Holt is what my mate would call a “Big Unit” he would take some knocking down, and when he wants to use that weight to his advantage he is hard to knock off the ball. But when he chooses to he is in the habit of suddenly becoming weak at the legs and falling to the floor, usually as soon as he feels a defender on his back, and usually when he is backing in. How a man goes from being so strong to so weak only he can explain, but his attempts to win a free kick are obvious and constitute simulation. It was clear what he was trying to do, yet never once did he win the free kick, this means the Referee must have been aware of it. The Referee did not speak to him, nor caution him for persistence; it is unacceptable abdication of responsibility by Foy, who has been selective in his application of the laws, as highlighted in the incidents above, inconsistency of the worst kind

I struggle with this sort of inconsistency; all supporters want from Referees is the consistent application of The Laws of the Game regardless of who the law breaker is. Good strong refereeing is always appreciated by players and supporters alike, consistent refereeing we should be able to take for granted. Sadly we are far from that place.

Foy had the worst first half of any Referee I have ever seen, take away the goals, and the offside decisions given by his Assistants and you get a 1^st half score of 35%. That is astonishingly poor and perhaps is another reason why Mancini has, this week made the comments he did.

The bias shows a clear advantage to Norwich. Was it just home bias or MU-bias against City?