The untold ref review: Arsenal – Blackburn « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Walter Broeckx, the one and only unbiased ref at Untold
So Dowd we got and what did he get? Let us see how he did his game from my point of view.
| Min | Type | Decision | C/NC | points | weight | on |
| 1 | OTHER | Foul on Walcott | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | OTHER | Foul from Song | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | OFFSIDE | Offside against Blackburn | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 5 | OTHER | Foul on Arshavin – Dowd gives advantage signal. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 5 | OFFSIDE | Arshavin given advantage immediately passes to Clichy who is offside. AT that moment the advantage is lost so Dowd should have stopped the game and give the foul in favour of Arsenal. You can and must come back when the advantage is lost immediately. Because what is other the use of the advantage? | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 9 | OTHER | Foul on Arshavin – tackle from behind not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 11 | OTHER | Olson comes in like a madman and brings Sagna down.Foul given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 11 | CARD | The ref gives no card for this over strong challenge? Ref this is a yellow card and it is not because of the player committing the foul gets hurt himself you shouldn’t book him | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 15 | OFFSIDE | Offside against Blackburn | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 16 | OTHER | Foul from Song | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | OTHER | Offside against Blackburn | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 21 | OTHER | Foul on Squillaci | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 23 | OTHER | Foul from Koscielny | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 25 | OTHER | Foul from Sagna | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 30 | OTHER | Foul on Sagna | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 30 | CARD | The Blackburn defenders refuses to go away so Arsenal can take the free kick. Yellow card given | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 35 | OTHER | Foul on Walcott given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 35 | CARD | The Blackburn players kick the ball away twice after the ball going out and after a free kick been given within just seconds. When you see this happening as a tactic you should give a card and as they did it within a minute this looked tactical and you should act; Salgado was the second offender and should have been booked. | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 37 | OTHER | Foul from Arshavin | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 38 | OTHER | Foul from Koscielny not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 38 | OTHER | Foul on Wilshere from Salgado – advantage given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 38 | OTHER | Foul from Samba on Van Persie given. | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 38 | CARD | Ref Dowd gives the foul on Van Persie and also comes back to the first foul from Salgado on Wilshere and gives him a yellow card. He could have given a yellow card against Samba also. Maybe it was down to the player being fouled that he decided to give the yellow against Salgado? | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 43 | OFFSIDE | Offside against Arsenal | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 45 | OTHER | Foul from Song | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 50 | OTHER | Tackle from 2 players who don’t touch the ball on Arshavin a few meters outside the penalty area. Ref gives nothing. Totally wrong | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 52 | OTHER | Foul from Song advantage given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 53 | OTHER | Foul from Arshavin given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 53 | CARD | Dowd books Song for the foul more than a minute ago. This was typical Dowd who has to book Song when he does Arsenal. A tackle from the side not even aimed at the player but an attempt to block of the possible angle of a pass going forward | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 56 | OTHER | Foul against Sagna given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 56 | OTHER | Foul against Koscielny not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 60 | PENALTY | A Blackburn player goes down when he bumps in to Song. I felt it was more the Blackburn player throwing himself against Song. Dowd was right behind it and gave nothing. | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 61 | PENALTY | Van Persie tries to run on to a ball from Cesc and goes down when a Blackburn defender is close in his back. I think this also was not a penalty | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 67 | OTHER | Foul from Song given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 68 | OTHER | Foul on Sagna not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 69 | OFFSIDE | Offside against Blackburn | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 72 | OTHER | Cross to Van Persie who keeps the ball in play. The linesman gives it over the line. This was wrong as the goal line camera showed | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 76 | OTHER | Nzonzi comes in with a flying tackle from the front | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 76 | CARD | Ref Dowd gives the red card. It was a dangerous tackle and could have brought serious injury so a correct decision | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 80 | OTHER | Foul on Koscielny | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 81 | OTHER | Foul from Song | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 84 | OTHER | Cross from Arsenal, Samba diverts the ball to his own goal and the keeper saves it. The ball stays in play and for some reason Dowd gives a foul against Arsenal? What is the matter here? There was not even contact between any player from Arsenal and Blackburn and it wasn’t offside??? | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 85 | OTHER | Foul on Song | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 85 | CARD | Van Persie runs over the ball and a Blackburn player comes running forward out of the wall. Should give a yellow card for this. Dowd does nothing and he even lets the wall standing closer as they all crept forward. You should reposition the wall when a player has left the wall like that. | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 91 | OTHER | Foul given against Cesc at the corner flag. I could not see what happened | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 93 | OTHER | Hands given against Van Persie | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| TOTAL | 31 | 39 | 58 | |||
| % | 67,39% | 67,24% | ||||
| CARDS | 3 | 7 | 42,85 | |||
| PENALTY | 2 | 2 | 100,00 | |||
| GOAL | 0 | 0 | ||||
| OTHER | 6 | 10 | 66,67 | |||
| 11 | 19 | 57,89 |
So if we look at the overall decisions one can only see that Dowd had a for his usual standard a good game. Not excellent by any means but still not as bad as we have seen in the past.
Also the weight score is in the same order so not much to complain about one could say.
If I take the important decisions, the bizar and the eye catching things as a ref his score drops. He took a few strange decisions once again on occasion and they all went against Arsenal. Like stopping play when Samba almost scored an own goal and the ball kept in play was very strange. Arshavin never getting a foul in his favour is another one.
Yet again I have seen a few things about Dowd and things that keep returning each game.
The yellow card from Song. Well he just has to book him. I think 5 games with Dowd and Song and 5 yellow cards. I think Dowd is jealous of Song his hair cut or colour. Why else would he always want to book him?
Arshavin. Dowd doesn’t like him at all. He hardly gets any foul in his favour from Dowd. Also something that could be seen in our previous games. Is it the World cup going to Russia that is bothering Dowd? Was he promised some job in the organisation after his hopefully quick retirement as a ref and does he think Arshavin is responsible for losing this opportunity? Just a wild guess but it is strange that whatever tackle or even double tackle that is been made on Arshavin he just let the game continue.
But when praise is due, I will give. After letting the first tackle on Sagna going by without a card I feared for the well being of our players. But when later on Nzonzi threw himself at Koscielny he did what he had to do and gave a red card. Finally I would say. We could have had two broken legs in this game.
As an Arsenal fan with Dowd you are already happy when he doesn’t do a Newcastle against us again. This time he was a bit more balanced, still a few things that make you raise your eye brows. Finally numbers of fouls not given that he should have given: 4 fouls for Arsenal and 1 for Blackburn.