The Untold ref review goes to Wigan and sees Mr Rooney « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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Thanks to our regular reader, Johhny Deigh, who has been so kind to take on the the Wigan- Manchester United game we got a ref review of Wigan – Manchester United. So I do wish to thank him for taking the trouble to go through the whole game.
By Johhny Deigh
| Nr. | Min | Type | Decision | correct | points | weight |
| 1 | 4 | OTHER | Foul on Smalling by Wigan | C | 1 | 1 |
| 2 | 6 | OTHER | Foul on Nani not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 3 | 6 | OTHER | Foul on Nani given this time | C | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | 7 | OTHER | Vidic climbs on Rodallega to win high ball – no foul given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 5 | 8 | OTHER | Rooney elbows McCarthy in the head – foul given possibly by the linesman | C | 1 | 1 |
| 6 | 8 | CARD | should have sent off Rooney for deliberately elbowing opponent in head, off the ball | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 7 | 9 | OTHER | Foul on Scholes – advantage played | C | 1 | 1 |
| 8 | 10 | OTHER | Diame pulled back by Carrick – no foul given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 9 | 11 | OTHER | Foul on Scholes by McCarthy | C | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | 13 | OTHER | Foul on Vidic by Rodallega | C | 1 | 1 |
| 11 | 16 | OTHER | Foul on Moses by O’shea | C | 1 | 1 |
| 12 | 17 | GOAL | Chicharito goal – nothing wrong here | C | 1 | 3 |
| 13 | 20 | OTHER | Wigan foul – advantage played | C | 1 | 1 |
| 14 | 22 | OTHER | Foul on Fletcher – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 15 | 24 | OTHER | Foul on Gohouri by Chicharito | C | 1 | 1 |
| 16 | 25 | OTHER | Foul on Carrick – advantage wrongly played | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 17 | 25 | OTHER | Foul on McCarthy by Scholes – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 18 | 25 | OTHER | McCarthy then immediately fouls Scholes | C | 1 | 1 |
| 19 | 32 | OTHER | Throw in wrongly given to Wigan – Nani poked it off Gohouri | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 20 | 34 | OTHER | Foul on Vidic by Rodallega | C | 1 | 1 |
| 21 | 36 | OTHER | Foul on McCarthy by Scholes who barges in late – gets a talking to – could’ve been yellow, but that’s the ref’s call. | C | 1 | 1 |
| 22 | 39 | OTHER | Foul on Evra by N’zogbia | C | 1 | 1 |
| 23 | 41 | OTHER | Rodallega came back from an offside position – assumed correct | C | 1 | 1 |
| 24 | 45 | OTHER | 2 added minutes | C | 1 | 1 |
| 25 | 47 | OTHER | foul on Nani by Gohouri – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 26 | 51 | OTHER | foul on Watson by nani – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 27 | 56 | OTHER | Rooney goes up for ball, leading with his fore-arm – foul given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 28 | 57 | OTHER | Foul on Chicharito by Caldwell – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 29 | 57 | OTHER | Foul on Chicharito by Watson – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 30 | 59 | OTHER | Foul on Vidic by Rodallega – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 31 | 60 | OTHER | Chicharito fouls (backing into) Gohouri who is up in the air – foul not given and Manchester nearly score from it. | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 32 | 60 | OTHER | Foul on Rooney by Diame | C | 1 | 1 |
| 33 | 64 | OTHER | Foul by Vidic on Rodallega – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 34 | 66 | OTHER | Offside – Rodallega just offside by inches – tough call but seems right | C | 1 | 1 |
| 35 | 67 | OTHER | Foul by Caldwell on Evra | C | 1 | 1 |
| 36 | 67 | CARD | Caldwell catches Evra studs to ankle – A yellow card at the very least – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | 69 | OTHER | Foul by Chicharito | C | 1 | 1 |
| 38 | 69 | CARD | Chicharito is booked for not allowing Wigan to take a quick free kick – correct decision | C | 1 | 2 |
| 39 | 71 | OTHER | Foul on N’Zogbia by Scholes on the edge of the box – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 40 | 72 | OTHER | Foul on Diame by Evra – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 41 | 73 | OTHER | Scholes fouled – advantage played | C | 1 | 1 |
| 42 | 74 | OTHER | Chicharito is offside – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 43 | 74 | GOAL | Offside goal is wrongly allowed – Chicharito is offside when the goal kick is taken, directly receiving the ball from Van der Saar. With his first touch he plays a nifty one-two with Rooney and scores. He was a good 2 yards offside – a truly shocking non-call by the linesman. Up to this point Wigan always looked like they had a shot at getting something from this match. | NC | 0 | 0 |
| 44 | 76 | OTHER | Foul on Diame by Evra – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 45 | 82 | OTHER | Foul by Fletcher – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 46 | 84 | GOAL | Goal – Rooney – Wigan make the horribly stupid mistake of playing the offside trap in their opponents half. | C | 1 | 3 |
| 47 | 87 | GOAL | Goal – Fabio – nothing wrong here | C | 1 | 3 |
| 48 | 89 | OTHER | Foul on Rooney by Caldwell – given | C | 1 | 1 |
| 49 | 90 | OTHER | 3 added minutes – might have played another minute but was not really necessary. | C | 1 | 1 |
| 50 | 90+2 | OTHER | Foul on Vidic by Rodallega – not given | NC | 0 | 0 |
| TOTAL | 35 | 42 | ||||
| % | 68,63% | 67,74% | ||||
| CARD | 1 | 3 | 33,33% | |||
| PENALTY | 0 | 0 | N/A | |||
| GOAL | 3 | 4 | 75% | |||
| OTHER | 1 | 2 | 50% | |||
| TOTAL | 5 | 9 | 56% |
The two main points of the match have probably already been pointed out in the press. One, that Wayne Rooney should have been sent off for a blatant elbow to the head of an opponent in the 8th minute of the match. And two, that Manchester’s 2nd goal which opened the floodgates was an irregular goal scored by Chicharito who was a good 2 yards offside when the ball was played by Van der Saar (see photo).
Oh petulant Rooney, what goes on in your head? McCarthy saw Rooney coming, stopped and leaned into Rooney’s path to check his run. Rooney took this as an act of war and threw a deliberate hard elbow into the head of the Wigan player. I’m not sure if Clattenburg spotted this or if his assistant did because Clattenburg did whistle for the foul, but neglected to pull out any cards – red was the only colour that would have been right in this case. We all know that Manchester and Rooney have a lot of pull with the FA but I can’t see how Rooney is escaping a 3-match ban for this.
Wigan started this game in a lively way but were a bit wasteful in front as well as having to have gone up against an in-form Van der Saar. Manchester struck first with a nice goal by Chicharito, but until the 74th minute the game was still wide open, with neither side looking brilliant, but both sides having half chances to score. That was until a routine goal kick from the Manchester keeper found their Mexican hit-man two yards offside. Directly from the goal kick, an offside Chicharito played a neat one-two with Rooney and scored his teams 2nd of the day. The 3rd and 4th were soon to follow.
Clattenburg was not great in the match, missing calls for both sides. I count 7 missed calls for each side. Gary Caldwell got away without a booking for a studs to ankle tackle on Patrice Evra. However Manchester United clearly made out the best by not having to play almost the entire match a man down as Rooney should have walked in the 8th minute – a player who shouldn’t have been on the pitch ended up scoring one and assisting for another.
Editorial postscript: Because of the coverage over the league cup final this review is obviously appearing several days after the event – but I really wanted to include it as a comparison with the reviews we see of Arsenal games we cover each match. Since the review was written we know that Rooney gets zero punishment; another little piece of evidence that there is something very seriously wrong in the EPL. Tony.
Further proof of match fixing; our predictions about the ref are proven