The Untold Ref review: Tottenham 2 – Arsenal 1 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager

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By Walter Broeckx

The following review of the Tottenham – Arsenal game has been subject to some internal debate amongst the ref reviewing team.

The game was reviewed by Ref Reviewer 02 and then later on changed by me. The changes were made about the first goal from Tottenham. So if you have any comments about the way we have treated this decision you can aim them at me. Not at the ref reviewer.

The argument was on how we should give points when at the end of the day the ref made a decision that proved to be wrong but that he or his assistant could not see on the pitch. Should we give him the points because he was innocent when making the mistake or should we go for the reasoning that if the ruling on the field was not correct we should give him zero points.

As the head of the ref reviewers I had to take a decision at the end of the day. I have chosen to follow the path I had taken when starting the reviews and that is just judging if the decision was correct or not and give him points or not. But I do think that in this case the ref can have my sympathy because from his point of view he could not see that VDVaart used his arm to bring the ball down.

The talking point will be the first goal.

The ref was in the right position where he should be. The body of VDVaart blocked the ref his view on the incident. The assistant was probably blocked by the defenders between him and VDVaart. So both could not see it. SO WE CANNOT BLAME DEAN FOR HIS DECISION ON THE FIELD.

But as the decision itself was wrong I had to give him no points for this. It is a bit sad in fact because I had the impression that Dean was doing his best to not be biased against Arsenal. You can see this in the wrong calls decisions that are nice shared between the two teams.

When I told our Ref Reviewer 02 that I would change his review he asked me to let you know that he didn’t agree with my point of view. And I must say that in this case I can understand him and as a ref I know that you can only punish what you can see. He couldn’t see it, so he couldn’t sanction it.

This might be a time for Mike Dean to ask the FA to give the refs all the help they can get in order to make the correct decision on the field. Help like the 4^th ref being able to review the incident immediately on TV and correct it if needed.

On a last note I would like to add the following thought. Mike Dean had an almost perfect first half apart from one incident where the assistant gave a corner to Tottenham when the ball clearly didn’t cross the line. The only other wrong decision was the VDVaart goal. For which he was not to blame as has been said before. But in the second half he made a lot more errors.

I wonder if this was down to the fact that maybe he knew during half time that he made a mistake? Could it have affected him? I know the last thing a ref wants is to start doubting a decision. Because once you start doubting and thinking: “was I right on that decision?” you can start losing your focus on the game. And this could explain that he made more wrong decisions in the second half.

So lots of debatable things and not just about the events on the field but also behind the screens of the Untold ref reviewing team. See you at the bottom of this article to hear what your thoughts are.