The ref review of the season, 4. The bias doesn’t come close to evening out. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

Does it even out? Really?

By Walter Broeckx

But now comes the main question: did it all even out at the end of the season? So we will go and try to analyse this a bit more from now on.

So how did I try to do this? Well I tried to make it a bit simple and took each game and looked for wrong decisions that could have influenced the final score.   For example, when a goal that was given should have been disallowed had a influence on the final score I took points away from the team that got the benefit of the decision.

I hope I can make this clear when you read further. And for this I only took the league games as the cup games are what they are : cup games with a stay in/go out system. In a league you have a continuation of games which end in a final table so it all adds up…or it will even itself out at the end of the season.

To do this I started with  the real key decisions such as penalties and goals. These are the most important things that have a direct influence on the final result. I also took notice of some red cards that also can have a devastating effect on a game. So here we go…

Game	ref	penalty	goals	Points	+/-
Liverpool – Arsenal	Atkinson		100	1	/
Arsenal – Blackpool	Jones	100	100	3	/
Blackburn – Arsenal	Foy		100	3	/
Arsenal – Bolton	Atwell	75	100	3	/
Penalty not given for Arsenal  but not important for final result. Also red card not given but also not important for final result.
Sunderland – Arsenal	Dowd	66	100	1	+2
Penalty not given for Arsenal and equaliser from Sunderland after the extra  extra time. Song was sent off with a two yellow  cards by Dowd. Remember those names as they clearly don’t like each other.
Arsenal – WBA	Oliver	100	100	0	/
Chelsea – Arsenal	Dean	50	50	0	+1
First Chelsea goal came after Song was tackled from behind but the foul was not given. We could have had a penalty when Cech tripped Chamakh but the ref gave nothing. Two major decisions going against us.
Arsenal – Birmingham	Atkinson	100	100	3	/
Man City – Arsenal	Clattenburg	100	100	3	/
Arsenal – West Ham	Jones	50	100	3	/
A penalty not given by the ref for Arsenal but not important for the final result
Arsenal – Newcastle	Dean		100	0	/
Wolverhampton – Arsenal	Halsey		100	3	/
Everton – Arsenal	Webb	100	66	3	/
The Everton goal should have been cancelled for a blatant foul on Song but it didn’t have an impact on the final outcome of the game
Arsenal – Tottenham	Dowd	33	85	0	/
Arsenal could and should have had a penalty for a push in the back of Song. A penalty that Dowd later in the season liked to give against us for a soft brush of the hand. The foul that led to the penalty for Tottenham was not a foul from Song (again Song and Dowd) as he read the run of Modric and took the ball away from Modric who bumped in to Song and fell down.  So I can make a few claims but I will not say that we would have got points from this game. I try not to be too biased.
Aston Villa – Arsenal	Clattenburg	50	83	3	/
Aston Villa should have had a penalty but one of their goals should have been disallowed for offside.  So they could have had a goal more but one should have been cancelled so one can say that it didn’t affect the final outcome of the game
Arsenal – Fulham	Foy		66	3	-2
The second goal of Arsenal should have been cancelled. RVP was offside when the ball was played to him and then he played it to Nasri to dance his second goal in. This is a moment when we were lucky with a decision of the ref.
Man Utd – Arsenal	Webb	0	100	0	/
Utd got a penalty that wasn’t a penalty. Fletcher assaulted Webb without getting a red card and Ferdinand made an assault against Sagna without getting a red card. But other than that nothing wrong. The Fletcher assault was when the score was still 0-0. But I will be generous and not claim a point from this game.
Arsenal – Chelsea	Clattenburg	50	100	3	/
We should have had a penalty a clear one on Van Persie. But as we won it didn’t matter for the points we won.
Wigan – Arsenal	Probert	0	75	1	+2
Ref Probert gave a penalty for a dive from Nzogbia. And he refused to give Arsenal 2 penalties one for a foul on Walcott and the other one for a handball in the wall.  A copy of the penalty we got against Tottenham. So a not correct penalty which lead to a goal and two penalties not given for Arsenal. I think we can claim 2 points for this
Birmingham – Arsenal	Walton	0	100	3	/
Arsenal should have had a penalty and Birmingham should have had one. So both teams can be unhappy about a decision but it didn’t change he final outcome of the game.
Arsenal – Man City	Jones	0		1	+2
We should have had a penalty after Kompany sticking out his arms to block a cross from Walcott.
West Ham – Arsenal	Mariner	100	100	3	/
Arsenal – Wigan	Friend	50	100	3	/
We should have had another penalty but it didn’t matter at the end
Arsenal – Everton	Mason		66	3	/
The Everton goal was a blatant offside but it didn’t matter at the end of the game as we managed to turn things around
Newcastle – Arsenal	Dowd	50	80	1	+2
Phil Dowd didn’t give red cards to Barton and Nolan but did give one for Diaby after he pushed Barton in the neck after Barton assaulted Diaby for the second time in the game without punishment.  He then gave a silly penalty to Newcastle. The assistant tried to help us out and rectify a few things by flagging for offside when Newcastle scored but he was wrong.  All who have seen the game have seen how biased Dowd was in this game. If he had done his job Newcastle would have been down to 10  and not Arsenal.
Arsenal – Wolves	Foy	0	100	3	/
Both teams should have had a penalty. So it didn’t really matter for the final outcome.
Arsenal – Stoke	Walton	0	100	3	/
Arsenal should have had a penalty but it didn’t matter for the final outcome
Arsenal – Sunderland	Taylor	0	0	1	+2
A clear penalty on Arshavin was not given. And when Arshavin scored the goal was ruled offside. He wasn’t offside. We lost 2 points to the refs
WBA – Arsenal	Atwell	100	100	1	/
Arsenal – Blackburn	Dowd	100	0	1	/
Blackpool – Arsenal	Mason	60	100	3	/
Both teams should have had a penalty so not really influenced the final outcome of the game
Arsenal – Liverpool	Mariner	33	100	1	+2
Arsenal should have had at least 2 penalties in the regular game time. The Liverpool penalty was a nice dive from Lucas and the ref fell for it. Lost 2 points because the ref failing to give us the penalties we should have had
Tottenham – Arsenal	Atkinson	50	85	1	/
Tottenham should have had another penalty for a foul from Djourou. Arsenal scored a valid goal which was cancelled for offside. So it wouldn’t have mattered for the final result.
Bolton – Arsenal	Jones	0	100	0	+1
The ref was quick to give a penalty for Bolton which was missed. But he failed to see the blatant foul (even according to the BBC) on Walcott. I don’t even want to mention the penalty on Koscielny which I just did now.  But I want to be generous and only claim one point from the ref.
Arsenal – Man Utd	Foy	0	100	3	/
Both teams had a claim for a penalty. Arsenal for the Vidic handball and a red card for Vidic, Utd for a foul on Owen late in the game. So no direct changing of the final result I would think.
Stoke – Arsenal	Halsey	100	100	0	/
Arsenal – Aston Villa	Oliver	0	100	0	+1
A blatant penalty for a foul on Ramsey not given and the red card for Dunne didn’t come out the ref his pocket. A disallowed goal from Chamakh and this was the first I have seen ruled out in a long season for such a light contact between a defender and a striker. But I will not go over the top and will claim only 1 point for this game from the ref.
Fulham – Arsenal	Atkinson	100	100	1	/
Total		2234	3977	2874
Overall % correct decisions		48,57	86,46	62,48
Total points that could be claimed by Arsenal this season down to bad referee decisions	13

So where does this leaves us when we do the adding of the whole list? I count some 13 points in total that could have been ours. No, that should have been ours.

Just add those to our points total and also keep in mind that some of the decisions at the time did not only cost us points in the game but also cost us a mental blow. And no one can figure out how important those mental blows are that we had to deal with.

To finish I made a table in which you can see how much points some refs have cost us this season. And this with visible mistakes that have been made on the big decisions.

Ref	Total points cost
Dowd	-4
Jones	-3
Probert	-2
Taylor	-2
Mariner	-2
Dean	-1
Oliver	-1
Foy	2

And I don’t think it is a big surprise that you see that Dowd is standing first in this table.  I really wonder how ref Foy must feel. He is the only ref who has brought us some points due to a mistake. I can imagine him getting some stick next time the refs come together to train. He will be the lonely figure in the dressing room. The one to avoid.

But to finish this article I come back to the main point or it and the remark you hear  ‘it evens out at the end of the season’ is not correct for Arsenal.

NO, it didn’t even out for Arsenal. It doesn’t come even close  to even.

The overall performance of each individual ref this season – and is the Untold ref analysis biased?

The 10% bias – how refs fix the odds against Arsenal, and who is to blame.

Half the penalties in Arsenal games were wrongly given this season!