The terrible truth behind how refs are bought in Arsenal games « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Walter Broeckx
I will start with a question that could be asked at an Arsenal quiz evening and I think that I can bet a few £ that nobody will know the answer.
The question is : Name one referee under who’s guidance Arsenal never lost even one single point in 4 years? Tick tock tick tock goes the clock… found the answer already? Well let me no longer hold you in tension there is such a referee in fact and his name is MIKE DEAN.
I can imagine many fans shaking the head in disbelief right now. No way Walter this cannot be the truth. You made this one up. I’m pulling you a leg or whatever expression you can think of for someone who is telling a joke. So let me show you the games Dean has done in his early years as a EPL ref starting from the year 2000.
| PL | Date | Home | Away | H | A |
Points |
| Premier League | Su 09May 2004 | Fulham | Arsenal | 0 | 1 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 24Jan 2004 | Arsenal | Middlesbro | 4 | 1 |
3 |
| Premier League | Su 19Jan 2003 | Arsenal | West Ham | 3 | 1 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 01Nov 2003 | Leeds | Arsenal | 1 | 4 |
3 |
| Premier League | We 27Aug 2003 | Arsenal | Aston Villa | 2 | 0 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 09Nov 2002 | Arsenal | Newcastle | 1 | 0 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 03Feb 2001 | Coventry | Arsenal | 0 | 1 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 09Dec 2000 | Arsenal | Newcastle | 5 | 0 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 16Sep 2000 | Arsenal | Coventry | 2 | 1 |
3 |
Nine wins out of nine games!
So here it is black on white Dean hasn’t always been a bad ref for us. Au contraire, my friend. At the start of his career Dean was great. Dean was superb for Arsenal. A game with Dean in charge was a certain 3 points. So what has happened to the Dean of those days? Why on earth is it impossible for Arsenal to win any game with him in charge apart from the odd cup game in which even then he tried to screw us but failed miserably?
Well I think I have found a possible answer. For those readers on Untold who have been here for a long time they will remember that I once wrote a series of articles about how refs can get rewarded for their “good” services. The reward came in the form of getting good games, getting top games and getting a Fifa badge.
But in the years I showed in the statistics Dean was just a regular EPL ref with not Fifa badge. But this changed somewhere in 2004 and Dean became a Fifa ref in that year. But even though he was a Fifa ref he didn’t get many international games. In fact I can only find 2 international games (one friendly and the clash of the giants between Iceland and Latvia)
Meanwhile in those 4 years the results from Arsenal under Dean got a bit worse. As you can see in the next table.
| PL | Date | Home | Away | H | A |
Points |
| Premier League | Sa 16May 2009 | Man Utd | Arsenal | 0 | 0 |
1 |
| Premier League | Su 08Feb 2009 | Tottenham | Arsenal | 0 | 0 |
1 |
| Premier League | Su 30Nov 2008 | Chelsea | Arsenal | 1 | 2 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 13Sep 2008 | Blackburn | Arsenal | 0 | 4 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 23Feb 2008 | Birmingham | Arsenal | 2 | 2 |
1 |
| Premier League | We 05Dec 2007 | Newcastle | Arsenal | 1 | 1 |
1 |
| Premier League | Sa 21Apr 2007 | Tottenham | Arsenal | 2 | 2 |
1 |
| Premier League | Tu 26Dec 2006 | Watford | Arsenal | 1 | 2 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 25Nov 2006 | Bolton | Arsenal | 3 | 1 |
0 |
| Premier League | Sa 15Apr 2006 | Arsenal | WBA | 3 | 1 |
3 |
| Premier League | Sa 24Sep 2005 | West Ham | Arsenal | 0 | 0 |
1 |
| Premier League | Sa 06Nov 2004 | C Palace | Arsenal | 1 | 1 |
1 |
| Premier League | Sa 02Oct 2004 | Arsenal | Charlton | 4 | 0 |
3 |
13 games : 5 wins, 7 draws and 1 defeat. Not that perfect any more since Dean became a Fifa ref but in total in 22 games we had 14 wins, 7 draws and 1 defeat. And if we compare this to the overall record of Arsenal under Wenger we get this comparison numbers
| Total games | Won | Draw | Lost | |
| Total Under Wenger |
573 |
332 |
144 |
97 |
| In % |
57,94% |
25,13% |
16,93% |
|
| First 7 years under Dean |
22 |
14 |
7 |
1 |
| In % |
63,64% |
31,82% |
4,55% |
And so we can see that in those first 7 years the average result of Dean and the overall result of Arsenal with Wenger in charge is almost the same. In fact we lost fewer games with Dean in charge compared to the overall record. So in his first 7-8 years Dean was not that bad for Arsenal as a ref.
And then we come to the final years and I will give the reason to why I split up my time line on this point later on in this article. But here are the results of Arsenal under Dean since half 2009.
| PL | Date | Home | Away | H | A |
Points |
| Premier League | Sa 26Nov2011 | Arsenal | Fulham | 1 | 1 |
1 |
| Premier League | Su 02Oct 2011 | Tottenham | Arsenal | 2 | 1 |
0 |
| Premier League | Su 07Nov 2010 | Arsenal | Newcastle | 0 | 1 |
0 |
| Premier League | Su 03Oct 2010 | Chelsea | Arsenal | 2 | 0 |
0 |
| Premier League | Sa 24Apr 2010 | Arsenal | Man City | 0 | 0 |
1 |
| Premier League | Su 07Feb 2010 | Chelsea | Arsenal | 2 | 0 |
0 |
| Premier League | We 16Dec 2009 | Burnley | Arsenal | 1 | 1 |
1 |
| Premier League | Sa 29Aug 2009 | Man Utd | Arsenal | 2 | 1 |
0 |
And if I do compare this again with the overall record of Wenger you will that something is wrong. Utterly and totally wrong:
| Total games | Won | Draw | Lost | |
| TOTAL |
573 |
332 |
144 |
97 |
| In % |
57,94% |
25,13% |
16,93% |
|
| last 9 games |
9 |
0 |
3 |
6 |
| In % |
0,00% |
33,33% |
66,67% |
Even a blind man can see that this is so totally wrong compared to the others numbers and the overall numbers that well this indicates something very strange.
SO WHAT HAPPENED HALFWAY THROUGH 2009? What happened in this period that suddenly turned Dean from that former rather good ref for Arsenal in a ref that seems to find a devilish joy in making Arsenal lose?
And if you could go back to the painful way and the utterly corrupt and biased performance of the ref at Old Trafford that stopped our unbeaten run with the collection of the most bizarre decisions going against Arsenal. Remember the ref that day at Old Trafford? I think any Arsenal supporter can say his name and curse him at the same time: Mike Riley.
Well the strange thing is that halfway 2009 Mike Riley stopped as a ref to become the head of the refs at the PGMOL. Since that day Mike Riley is no longer a colleague of Mike Dean, no he is his superior. Now you might say: what has the appointment of Riley has to do with the performances of Dean?
You may remember me writing of this in my articles about rewarding the refs, and this is relevant because now we can see a strange coincidence. Because as I have written before Dean was a Fifa ref but he hardly got any international games. So imagine the situation that Dean goes to Riley and asks him why he doesn’t get international games? And Riley tells him: just make sure Arsenal loses as many games as possible.
Far-fetched? Well let me just show you how many games Dean has got since Riley became head of the refs in Europe and in European competitions?
| Europa League Th 24Feb 2011 Stuttgart 0 – 2 Benfica |
| Europa League We 01Dec 2010 Hajduk Split 1 – 3 AEK Athens |
| Euro Championships Tu 12Oct 2010 Belgium 4 – 4 Austria |
| Europa League Th 30Sep 2010 B Dortmund 0 – 1 Seville |
| Europa League We 02Dec 2009 Valencia 3 – 1 Lille |
| Europa League Th 05Nov 2009 Dyn. Zagreb 0 – 2 Ajax |
| Europa League Th 22Oct 2009 FC Bruges 2 – 0 Partizan |
| Europa League Th 17Sep 2009 Villarreal 1 – 0 Levski Sofia |
That ref who hardly got 2 games in 4 years before, suddenly gets 8 games in two seasons. What a turnaround. In fact as big a turnaround as the results Arsenal have in games with Dean in charge.
And so we have it for those who want to see it. Dean isn’t making us lose just because he has something against Arsenal. No he is doing what Riley has done to us and he got promoted for this. And now Dean is making Arsenal lose to get rewards in the form of European games. European games which not only are very well paid but also get you travelling around the world in first class, staying in the finest hotels, be treated like a king before the games (not during the games by the fans, of course, but that is just part of the job).
European games bring you prestige and people look up at you. And to do this Dean is just doing what his boss has done before him: try to make Arsenal lose as many games as possible.
The good news is that Dean has around 1.5 to 2 seasons to go as a Fifa ref. After that he will return: Dean EPL ref. And who knows maybe he will become back the Dean from before who had a normal record in Arsenal games. But until then we will have to suffer the bias from Dean.
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