Untold Ref Review: Arsenal 1 – Fulham 1. The M. D. Horror Show continues « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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By Ref Reviewer 03
What can you expect when Mike Dean comes to ref an Arsenal match? Don’t expect an Arsenal win for Arsenal had not won any of their last 9 Premier League matches that Mike Dean had reffed and Saturday’s match against Fulham would be no different.
| Min | Type | Foul from | On | C/NC | Comment | points | weight |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2 | OFFSIDE | C | Arshavin – assumed correct | 1 | 1 | ||
| 3 | OTHER | Etuhu | Ramsey | NC | Block – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | OTHER | Murphy | Ramsey | C | Trip – advantage played | 1 | 1 |
| 4 | OTHER | Murphy | Ramsey | NC | Murphy then held Ramsey to take him out of the play – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 4 | OFFSIDE | C | Arshavin – goal disallowed | 1 | 1 | ||
| 6 | OTHER | Riise | Walcott | C | Trip | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | OTHER | Djourou | Dempsey | NC | Dempsey sticks his leg out to stop Djourou from playing the ball – wrong call | 0 | 0 |
| 12 | OTHER | Etuhu | Vermaelen | C | Trip/kick – advantage played | 1 | 1 |
| 13 | OTHER | Murphy | Arteta | C | Push | 1 | 1 |
| 15 | OTHER | C | Good tackle by Walcott | 1 | 1 | ||
| 15 | OTHER | Santos | NC | Push – not given | 0 | 0 | |
| 17 | OTHER | Senderos | RVP | C | holding | 1 | 1 |
| 20 | OTHER | Arteta | Dembele | NC | Trip | 0 | 0 |
| 22 | OTHER | Murphy | RVP | C | Slid in, Trip | 1 | 1 |
| 23 | OTHER | Senderos | RVP | NC | holding | 0 | 0 |
| 27 | OTHER | Santos | C | Handball | 1 | 1 | |
| 27 | YELLOW | Santos | C | Killed attack | 1 | 2 | |
| 28 | YELLOW | Zamora | Dissent | 1 | 2 | ||
| 28 | OTHER | Dembele | Ramsey | NC | Obstruction – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 29 | OTHER | Song | Ruiz | NC | Ruiz was holding off Song by his shirt – wrong call | 0 | 0 |
| 37 | OFFSIDE | C | Zamora | 1 | 1 | ||
| 39 | OTHER | Song | Dembele | C | Trip – Dean took 50 sec. to set up wall | 1 | 1 |
| 43 | OTHER | Arteta | Ruiz | NC | Trip called – but looked a fair challenge | 0 | 0 |
| 45 | OTHER | Dembele | C | Handball | 1 | 1 | |
| 45+1 | OTHER | Etuhu | Arteta | C | Sliding tackle/trip | 1 | 1 |
| 45+1 | YELLOW | Etuhu | C | went through Arteta | 1 | 2 | |
| Half time | 17 | 20 | |||||
| CORRECT | 65,38% | 68,97% | |||||
| YELLOW | 3 | 3 | 100,00 | ||||
| RED | 0 | 0 | |||||
| PENALTY | 0 | 0 | |||||
| GOAL | 0 | 0 | |||||
| OTHER | 3 | 3 | 100,00 | ||||
| 6 | 6 | 100,00 | |||||
| OFFSIDE | 3 | 3 | 100,00 | ||||
| Second half | |||||||
| 49 | OTHER | Arteta | Dembele | C | Trip – Dean took 20 sec. to talk to Arteta | 1 | 1 |
| 50 | OTHER | Ruiz | Santos | NC | Foul – advantage seemingly played but should have given free kick | 0 | 0 |
| 55 | OTHER | Zamora | Szczesny | NC | Interfering with keeper – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 56 | YELLOW | Senderos | NC | Kicked ball away after it was out for Arsenal throw | 0 | 0 | |
| 57 | OTHER | Schwarzer | NC | Most keepers hold ball longer than 6 second limit but 12 seconds is too much | 0 | 0 | |
| 57 | OTHER | Hangeland | Ramsey | NC | Shove – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 57 | YELLOW | Hangeland | NC | Took Ramsey out of the scoring opportunity – should have been booked | 0 | 0 | |
| 58 | OTHER | Song | Dembele | C | Attempted trip – advantage played | 1 | 1 |
| 59 | OTHER | Ramsey | Dembele | C | holding | 1 | 1 |
| 61 | PENALTY | RVP | C | Etuhu won ball, RVP went down easily – good no-call | 1 | 3 | |
| 65 | OTHER | Dembele | Arteta | NC | Trip | 0 | 0 |
| 65 | OTHER | Zamora | Vermaelen | NC | Tugged on Vermaelen’s arm as he tried to clear – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 65 | GOAL | NC | Vermaelen (O.G.) – goal should not have counted because of the two fouls above | 0 | 0 | ||
| 67 | OTHER | Song | Zamora | C | Pull | 1 | 1 |
| 68 | OTHER | Dempsey | Arteta | NC | Used elbow to make space – not given and would have scored had Zamora not been offside | 0 | 0 |
| 68 | OFFSIDE | C | Zamora – looked just off, goal disallowed | 1 | 1 | ||
| 71 | OTHER | Schwarzer | NC | Held the ball for 11 seconds this time | 0 | 0 | |
| 72 | OTHER | Hangeland | Arshavin | NC | holding | 0 | 0 |
| 72 | OFFSIDE | Walcott | C | Was offside but Arshavin was fouled beforehand | 1 | 1 | |
| 72 | YELLOW | Schwarzer | NC | Time wasting – not given – it took 55 seconds to take free kick | 0 | 0 | |
| 76 | OTHER | Murphy | Arteta | C | Foul – advantage played | 1 | 1 |
| 76 | OTHER | Senderos | RVP | C | Trip | 1 | 1 |
| 76 | YELLOW | Senderos | C | Killed attack | 1 | 2 | |
| 78 | OTHER | Vermaelen | Kasami | C | Ran into him | 1 | 1 |
| 79 | OTHER | Senderos | Gervinho | NC | Shove – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 80 | OTHER | Walcott | Riise | NC | Push – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 81 | OTHER | Dembele | Gervinho | C | Foul – advantage played | 1 | 1 |
| 82 | GOAL | C | Vermaelen – goal okay | 1 | 3 | ||
| 83 | OTHER | Santos | Kasami | C | Trip – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 85 | OFFSIDE | RVP | C | Correctly called onside | 1 | 1 | |
| 86 | OTHER | Kasami | Gervinho | C | Trip | 1 | 1 |
| 86 | PENALTY | NC | Dempsey slides in and blocks the shot with his arm extended a bit off his body. Arm to ball – a spot kick should have been given. | 0 | 0 | ||
| 87 | OTHER | Riise | Walcott | NC | Held – advantage not signaled | 0 | 0 |
| 88 | OTHER | Dembele | Walcott | C | Foul – advantage played | 1 | 1 |
| 88 | OTHER | C | Clean tackle by Dembele | 1 | 1 | ||
| 90 | OTHER | Santos | Johnson | C | Santos shouldered Johnson off the ball – not much different than the shove Senderos got away with | 1 | 1 |
| 90 | OTHER | NC | 4 additional minutes – should have been 5 | 0 | 0 | ||
| 90+4 | OTHER | Johnson | C | Handball | 1 | 1 | |
| 90+4 | OTHER | Dembele | Arteta | NC | Trip – not given | 0 | 0 |
| 90+4 | OTHER | NC | Dean blows the whistle at 93:59 – should have played an extra 30 seconds | 0 | 0 | ||
| 2nd half score | |||||||
| TOTAL | 19 | 24 | |||||
| % | CORRECT | 47,50% | 46,15% | ||||
| YELLOW | 1 | 4 | 25,00 | ||||
| RED | 0 | 0 | |||||
| PENALTY | 1 | 2 | 50,00 | ||||
| GOAL | 1 | 2 | 50,00 | ||||
| OTHER | 1 | 6 | 16,67 | ||||
| 4 | 14 | 28,57 | |||||
| OFFSIDE | 3 | 3 | 100,00 | ||||
| TOTAL SCORE | |||||||
| TOTAL | 36 | 44 | |||||
| % | CORRECT | 54,55% | 54,32% | ||||
| YELLOW | 4 | 7 | 57,14 | ||||
| RED | 0 | 0 | |||||
| PENALTY | 1 | 2 | 50,00 | ||||
| GOAL | 1 | 2 | 50,00 | ||||
| OTHER | 4 | 9 | 44,44 | ||||
| 10 | 20 | 50,00 | |||||
| OFFSIDE | 6 | 6 | 100,00 | ||||
| Correct calls | For Home | 21 | 58,33% | ||||
| For Away | 15 | 41,67% | |||||
| Total correct calls | 36 | ||||||
| Wrong calls | Against Home | 26 | 86,67% | ||||
| Against Away | 4 | 13,33% | |||||
| Total | 30 | ||||||
| Total fouls made by | Home | 12 | 28,57% | ||||
| Away | 30 | 71,43% | |||||
| Total | 42 |
It was truly a shocking performance by Dean on the day, scoring an extremely poor 54.55%, and his bias showed. 26 wrong calls went against Arsenal compared to only 4 wrong calls against Fulham. And it gets worse because several of these wrong calls were very important and weighed heavily on the result of the match.
The first half was somewhat uneventful. A few 50-50 calls went Fulham’s way, but Dean wasn’t afraid to card players if needed and Santos (handball), Zamora (dissent), and Etuhu (dangerous tackle) all went into the book.
The second half was another story. Fulham opened the scoring with an own goal by Vermaelen. A closer look at the goal and the build up to it reveals that the goal should not have stood. First of all, Zamora looked to have held off Vermaelen by his shirt, something Zamora seemed to be doing all match. Then Arteta was clearly tripped right in front of Mike Dean who did absolutely nothing. Murphy then had time to play the ball into the area where it fell off Riise across the goalmouth. As Vermaelen tried to clear the ball, Zamora gave a little tug on Vermaelen’s arm, knocking him off balance and resulting in Vermaelen kicking the ball into his own net – a goal that should not have been allowed.
Fulham goalkeeper, Mark Schwarzer had been wasting time in the first half with the score at 0-0, so you can imagine how he would waste time with a 1-0 lead, and he did. He took his time on goal kicks, free kicks, and anytime he gathered the ball.
There used to be a rule that a keeper could take four steps with the ball, but everybody took six. That rule was changed that the keeper now could take as many steps as he wanted, but now he is supposed to keep the ball in his possession for only 6 seconds.
Now, you’ll notice that most keepers do hold and or bounce the ball for a few seconds longer than the six seconds allotted in the rule book. However when it came to Schwarzer, he was holding onto the ball for a full 11 or 12 seconds on several occasions. The penalty for this infraction is an indirect free kick in the penalty area, but Mike Dean didn’t seem to bothered, in fact the ref himself also seemed to take his time setting up walls.
Throughout the second half, many little fouls against Arsenal went unnoticed by the man in black, but that still didn’t stop Vermaelen from finding the equaliser in the 82nd minute, and Arsenal might have got the winner from the spot if they had been awarded a penalty for a handball by Clint Dempsey.
After some good work by Gervinho on the left, the ball came to Santos who tried to shoot the ball into the right side of the net. However Dempsey slid in and blocked the ball with his arm. His arm was extended a bit off of his body and especially as was sliding in, this was a case of arm to ball and not ball to arm. A spot kick should have been awarded and Robin van Persie should have had the opportunity to put Arsenal in front, but it was not to be.
At 90 minutes the board went up showing that 4 extra minutes would be played. However, with the substitutions, time wasting by Schwarzer, as well as by Dean to set up walls, talk to players or his assistant, there shoudl have been at least 5 minutes played.
Also note that at 90 minutes there had been a free kick awarded to Fulham who took their sweet time to take it, about 30 seconds. So, in fact, the board went up showing 4 minutes would be played, but play didn’t start again until 30 seconds later. The ball was headed out immediately for a Fulham corner which was taken another 30 seconds later. From 90:00 to 91:00, the ball was only in play for about 2 seconds.
In the end, I would have expected the ref to play an extra 30 seconds on top of the original 4 minutes, however Dean couldn’t even wait for 94 minutes and blew his whistle a second early, ensuring there would be no last-second winner.