How Liverpool have manipulated referees to their advantage. « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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By Walter Broeckx

What is exactly the influence of the chief of the PGMOL on the refs? Is he just the paper man who is not in touch with the refs? Or is he as a former colleague still very much in touch with this refs? This is a very important question. And I don’t really know the answer.

But one can assume that the chief of the refs as being a former ref himself will have some good connections with his refs. So I think it is safe to assume that Mike Riley will speak with his refs.

And Mr. Riley doesn’t just speak with this refs. No it has been made public that Liverpool manager has spoken with Mr. Riley after getting a few decisions going against him and his club Liverpool. As far as I know this happened after two games in which Liverpool felt hard done by the refs. Had they any reasons to complain?

If I look back at the ref reports it looks as if they had reasons to complain. Against Stoke they got a penalty against them for what was not a foul. And on the other hand they didn’t get a few penalties for the most obvious holding, pulling and grabbing from Stoke defenders on Liverpool strikers. So yes they could feel hard done by.

In the next game Liverpool played Tottenham and again no penalty was given for a clear pull on Caroll when the game was still in a balance. And they could also complain about getting many yellow cards which resulted in the sending off of Adam. Certainly the first yellow was a very soft one to give from the ref. You can find both reviews on this site.

So yes on both games Liverpool could feel hard done by the ref decisions. So Dalglish went up to see Mike Riley and have a word with him.  It must have been a very nice chat. I think stories of the good old times will have been told. Maybe a good bottle of wine or a pint will have been drunk. It must have been one of the best talks that Dalglish has had for a while.

Because what have I noticed after this talk between Dalgish and Riley?

If we look at the game Liverpool – Wolverhampton we can see:

Wrong calls :

Against Liverpool:         0          0,00%

Against Wolves            9          100,00%

Total wrong calls          9

Okay this can happen you know. The ref has a bad day. He closes his eyes when a striker pushes a defender out of balance as he tries to head the ball away and oh look Liverpool score from that situation. And we see the Wolverhampton players being booked for their first little foul in midfield.

Our ref reviewer found it strange that in a game all the wrong decisions were in favour of one team. But well this can happen I would say.

But then we reviewed the game Everton – Liverpool and this time we saw when we looked at the wrong calls the following numers:

Wrong calls :

Against Everton           12        92,31%

Against Liverpool         1          7,69%

Total wrong calls          13

So yet again almost no wrong calls going against Liverpool. And the only wrong call that favoured Everton was a foul in the middle of the field early on in the game. But after that, it was one way traffic from the ref and it all went in favour of Liverpool.

The sending off from Rodwell was well how can I put it mildly a bit suspicious. And it did change the game from then on completely as before the sending off Everton looked very good. And the way the ref didn’t punish the push from Suarez which lead to the second Liverpool game was also a big miss from the ref. And the fact that Suarez also should have been booked twice also escaped the ref.

Would Liverpool have won both games without the helping hand from the refs that we have seen? Nobody knows. But I do know that both Wolverhampton and Everton have every right to feel bad treated by the refs in those games. They certainly didn’t get the chance to defend themselves in the same way as Liverpool could.

But when you look at the fact that Dalglish went to see Riley and then suddenly in the next two games Liverpool get all the decisions in their favour. Gets all the dubious calls in their favour. Then this makes you wonder: what on earth is going on?

Is it enough for a manager to go to Riley and suddenly get the calls going your way? Well then this is not just an outrageous disgrace but also this makes you wonder: how many managers have been going to Riley in the past? What have they got in return?

Maybe perhaps one manager even doesn’t have to go to Riley. Maybe he has his cell phone number ready at the office. He maybe even have his personal phone number.

To give you an impression on the wrong calls Liverpool has had this season I will give you the numbers of the wrong calls so far in their 7 games played. If you can find when and where Dalglish and Riley had their meeting just send it on a postcard to Untold Towers and the lucky number will get one free drink when Tony and I meet at the Auld Triangle the next time before a game.

Week	% of wrong calls going against Liverpool
1	25                (Liverpool – Sunderland – Dowd)
2	33,33           (Arsenal – Liverpool – Atkinson)
3	50                (Liverpool – Bolton – Probert)
4	66,67           (Stoke – Liverpool – Clattenburg)
5	63,64           (Tottenham – Liverpool – Jones)
6	0                  (Liverpool – Wolves – Friend)
7	7,69             (Everton – Liverpool – Atkinson)