The Untold ref review: Ipswich – Arsenal « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Walter Broeckx, the not amused ref
Most of the times it is great fun to do these ref reviews. And every now and then it is hard work and I have to force me to start doing it. There are some games you really would like to forget as quick as possible. This was one of them. But this is down to the final score as you could imagine.
But this is not about the score line I must see how the ref did his job and so I will do it. Dedication it is called I think. Martin Atkinson was the ref and well let us see how he did.
OTHER: Some early calls from the ref against Ipswich. The crowd don’t like it. The sky anti Arsenal pundits don’t like it. But the ref was right. 1/1
GOAL: An Ipswich goal is disallowed for offside. A correct decision from the assistant. 1/1
OTHER/CARD: Walcott makes a nice move and is well past his man who brings him down. The ref gives the foul and a yellow card. No chance of playing the ball there. 1/1 and 1/1
Not much to do for the ref in this first half really but what he had to do he did if good.
Not even close to offside
OTHER: Ball over the top to Arshavin who could be going on his own for goal. The linesman put up his flag and the ref blows for offside. It wasn’t. First mistake of the evening in fact. 0/1
OTHER: This may look a bit harsh on the ref but I saw on a few occasions that he was holding up play a bit. Having free kicks retaken because not on the right spot is correct. But when it is in a position close to the own penalty area you don’t have to be too difficult and precise. I will not deduct points for this as he has every right to do this. This is just a little remark from my part as I feel it takes the speed out of the game.
OTHER/OTHER: A foul from Wilshere in midfield. The ref calls him over for a lecture. Replay shows it was a little contact and not much in it. I think it was a bit of game and crowd management from the ref to call him over. A good thing to do at times. 1/1 and 1/1
OTHER: Djourou is shielding the ball for Szczesny. The Ipswich striker pushes Djourou with both hands in the back and Djourou loses his balance and the ball could have gone anywhere. Now it ended safe in the hands of Szczesny but if the striker would have got to the ball he would have given a goal I feel. Always give a foul when a defender is fouled ref. 0/1
OTHER/CARD: Szczesny looks to be handling the ball outside his area when he collects a harmless ball at the right hand side of his penalty area. As there was no camera on the line one can not give a 100% evidence but it look outside the area. This should have been a free kick and a yellow card. I think we can put this down to his youth. I mean the keepers, not the ref. But anyway it wasn’t seen by the ref so I have to take some points away from this. 0/1 and 0/1
GOAL: A ball is lost in midfield and played over the top. The assistant doesn’t raise the flag and he can go on goal and score. Was he onside? The camera angle from around the halfway line doesn’t give any idea as the striker was not in the picture. Another angle gives the impression he was offside but I must warn you that from this angle you cannot really make a 100% call. To decide this you need other more advanced equipment, which I don’t have. The lines on the grass are not clear enough with the angle and like I said on the other picture you cannot see the striker.
From this angle it looks offside but this is the worst angle to judge it.
As the player is out of the picture I cannot judge it in a decent way. And also the distance between the half way line which could be used as a marker is not the same distance to the frame of the picture below and on top. We must not forget that the angle of the camera gives us a false image. This is only something that can be done with special software.
In American football where there are challenges the ruling on the field stands unless there is conclusive evidence of something else. So we can only give the benefit of the doubt to the ref and his assistant in this case and call this a valid goal. 1/1
OTHER/CARD: The Ipswich goal scorer comes in late and from behind on Koscielny. A foul and a deserved yellow card. 1/1 and 1/1
And this was the last real call the ref had to make in this game. So let us see how if he had a good game in total.
CARDS: 2/3
PENALTY: nothing to report
GOAL: 2/2
OTHER: 6/9
Total score: 10/14 (71 %)
Glad this one is over. So what can we say about the ref? He had a decent game. If all our players would have had a decent game like that, we wouldn’t have lost the game.
About the goal and a possible offside or not I can only ask that if there is someone out there who has seen replays in which there was conclusive evidence to let me know. I’m not saying it was offside as I cannot prove it with the camera angles I have at my disposal. So we will accept the decision, what else can we do.
And I know I let the time wasting at the end out a bit. The ref gave 4 minutes which was fair to me and even let play continue after that for a little while. And one can understand that Ipswich was in no hurry after their goal or before. But this is not the reason why we lost this game. But that is another matter which doesn’t need to be addressed in this article on the ref.
The final conclusion this time might be: we can blame who we want for our defeat, but not the ref. And if you don’t mind I will leave it for it now like that.
What’s done is done, lets look forward to Saturday. Another game, another set of emotions. Another ref to review.