Untold Ref Review: Arsenal 2 – 1 Newcastle United « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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Today’s referee is Howard Webb –
So we had Howard Webb for the 4th time this season and after a hard and long fight Arsenal got the better of Newcastle. Did Webb get the better of our ref reviewers?
| MATCH REVIEW DETAILS – Howard Webb (2012-03-14) | ||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period 1 | ||||||
| Min | Type | Foul from | On | C/NC | Comment | Weight |
| 1 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 3 | OTHER | Ba | Vermaelen | NC | Didn’t see him do anything wrong | 1 |
| 5 | OTHER | Cabaye | Arteta | C | came a bit late | 1 |
| 5 | OTHER | RVP | Coloccinie | C | Sliding tackle ball but also standing leg | 1 |
| 7 | OFFSIDE | Newcastle | C | correct, ref plays advantage as keeper has the ball | 1 | |
| 8 | OTHER | Tiote | Song | NC | came late not given | 1 |
| 9 | OTHER | Rosicky | Tiote | C | Trip | 1 |
| 12 | OTHER | Santon | Walcott | NC | Sticks out an arm to prevent Walcott getting past him, not given | 1 |
| 13 | OTHER | Tiote | Arteta | C | a trip but advantage given, Arsenal get a corner | 1 |
| 14 | GOAL | Newcastle | C | correct goal | 3 | |
| 15 | GOAL | Arsenal | C | correct goal | 3 | |
| 16 | OTHER | NC | Ref overrules his assistant who had a clear view on the throw. According to Riley assistants get their calls correct for +99%? | 1 | ||
| 17 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 21 | OTHER | Song | Obertan | NC | Ball and man came in from the side | 1 |
| 21 | OTHER | Tiote | Rosicky | NC | Pushed him from the ball, not given | 1 |
| 21 | OTHER | Coloccini | Walcott | C | came in wild got the attacker | 1 |
| 24 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 26 | OTHER | Rosicky | Tiote | NC | push in the back not given | 1 |
| 29 | OTHER | Tiote | Walcott | NC | Trip when the ball was gone | 1 |
| 31 | OFFSIDE | Newcastle | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 32 | OTHER | Santon | Walcott | C | Trip | 1 |
| 33 | OTHER | Rosicky | Williamson | NC | Nothing wrong with that except Newcastle lose the ball in a dangerous position? | 1 |
| 36 | OTHER | Ba | Koscielny | NC | Koscielny kicks the ball forward and Ba comes late and catches him on his leg, nothing given. Even the Newcastle players admit this is always a foul and kick the ball out of play | 1 |
| 36 | YELLOW | Ba | NC | Should have been booked for a late challenge | 2 | |
| 40 | OTHER | Koscielny | Ba | C | jumped in his back | 1 |
| 42 | OTHER | Koscielny | Ba | NC | Jumping in the back not given | 1 |
| 44 | OTHER | Tiote | Rosicky | C | Trip | 1 |
| 45 | OTHER | Jonas | Sagna | C | pull | 1 |
| 46 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| Period 2 | ||||||
| Min | Type | Foul from | On | C/NC | Comment | Weight |
| 47 | OTHER | C | clashing heads and ref stops play immediately | 2 | ||
| 50 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 50 | OTHER | Tiote | The ox | NC | Arm in the face, not given | 1 |
| 52 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 53 | OTHER | Perch | Walcott | C | obstruction given by assistant | 1 |
| 54 | OTHER | Rosicky | Tiote | C | Trip | 1 |
| 58 | OTHER | Song | Tiote | C | holding | 1 |
| 61 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 63 | OTHER | Tiote | Rosicky | C | Trip | 1 |
| 63 | YELLOW | Tiote | C | stopping a possible promising attack | 2 | |
| 64 | OTHER | Arteta | Jonas | C | Trip | 1 |
| 69 | OTHER | Ameobi | Rosicky | C | Trip | 1 |
| 72 | OTHER | Rosicky | Jonas | C | looked like a push in the back to me | 1 |
| 73 | OTHER | Ameobi | Arteta | NC | Jumped in his back not given | 1 |
| 75 | OTHER | Arteta | Ameobi | C | Pushed with his hand | 1 |
| 78 | OTHER | Koscielny | Ba | C | Came in from behind | 1 |
| 78 | YELLOW | Koscielny | C | Promising attack stopped | 2 | |
| 80 | OTHER | Ameobi | Sagna | C | Trip | 1 |
| 82 | OTHER | Ben Arfa | RVP | C | push | 1 |
| 84 | OFFSIDE | Newcastle | C | Assumed correct | 1 | |
| 85 | OTHER | Jonas | Sagna | C | deliberate block | 1 |
| 85 | YELLOW | Jonas | C | took the man with the ball already gone | 2 | |
| 91 | PENALTY | Coloccini | C | Walcott called for handball but the ball hit his arm a bit but his arm was in front of his body, correct non call | 3 | |
| 92 | OTHER | Koscielny | Cabaye | C | From the ref his position a free kick for coming in and getting ball but also the man a bit | 1 |
| 95 | GOAL | Arsenal | C | correct goal | 3 | |
| 96 | YELLOW | Krul | C | No need to run out of his penalty area to confront RVP0 | 2 | |
| 96 | YELLOW | RVP | C | Not a smart move to provoke an opponent | 2 | |
| 99 | OFFSIDE | Arsenal | C | Assumed correct | 1 |
Was the ref having any controversy with his decisions on the day when it comes to important calls? No. There was one appeal for a penalty when Walcott took a shot on goal in the last minutes and it hit the arm of Coloccini and then went out for a corner. Coloccini had his arm in front of his body and close to his body. Unless a surgeon doing a quick remove of his arm while the ball flew to him he could not have his arm out of the way. So it was correct from Webb to ignore the appeal from Theo.
If we look at the both halves I only can say: a very strange game from the ref. After a while as a ref reviewer you get to know your refs a bit. And most of the time Webb has a rather decent first half and then his numbers drop in the second half. This time it was the opposite. A disastrous first half and an almost perfect second half. He did make a few mistakes of course but all very well within his normal margin.
A bad moment in the first half was the foul from Ba on Koscielny. The typical striker who wants to block off a clearance from a defender, coming late a bit and catching the defender. To the surprise of the 60.000 in the Emirates and a few million people who were watching the game on TV Webb gave nothing. Not even a foul. And even without touching Koscielny it would have been a foul. Ba came in with a high foot and studs showing.
This non call was so outrageous that even the Newcastle players didn’t agree with it and they voluntary stopped play and kicked the ball out. A refs nightmare where the players in fact demoted that decision and showed to the world that the ref was very wrong in not giving a free kick.
| COMPETENCY SUMMARY – Howard Webb (2012-03-14) | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Period 1 | Called | Total | Correct % |
| GOAL | 2 | 2 | 100.00 |
| OFFSIDE | 6 | 6 | 100.00 |
| OTHER | 9 | 20 | 45.00 |
| YELLOW | 0 | 1 | 0.00 |
| TOTAL | 17 | 29 | 58.62 |
| WEIGHTED | 21 | 34 | 61.76 |
| Period 2 | Called | Total | Correct % |
| GOAL | 1 | 1 | 100.00 |
| OFFSIDE | 5 | 5 | 100.00 |
| OTHER | 14 | 16 | 87.50 |
| PENALTY | 1 | 1 | 100.00 |
| YELLOW | 5 | 5 | 100.00 |
| TOTAL | 26 | 28 | 92.86 |
| WEIGHTED | 35 | 37 | 94.59 |
| Totals | Called | Total | Correct % |
| GOAL | 3 | 3 | 100.00 |
| OFFSIDE | 11 | 11 | 100.00 |
| OTHER | 23 | 36 | 63.89 |
| PENALTY | 1 | 1 | 100.00 |
| YELLOW | 5 | 6 | 83.33 |
| TOTAL | 43 | 57 | 75.44 |
| WEIGHTED | 56 | 71 | 78.87 |
The incident between Krul and Van Persie was well dealt with. On the replay on TV you could only see Krul suddenly running towards Van Persie in an angry and aggressive way. Judging on the smile that Van Persie was showing he enjoyed the reaction of Krul very much. As a ref this is a moment that you could feel the urge to kick them on their bottom and tell them to behave like grown up man. There was no need to provoke anything in my eyes as the game was played in a hard but fair way. As I just pointed out before. So as a ref I will say to RVP and Krul: don’t do such things again.
About the extra time and time wasting. There had been 4 substitutes and the general rule is then to give half a minute for each substitution so that means 2 minutes. There had been a clash of heads that the ref stopped play for that took at least one minute of time to restart the play. So a total of 3 minutes was the absolute minimum.
Watching the game on TV is something from which you can learn how much time is wasted. With every goal kick that had to be taken by Krul we got an enormous amount of replays sometimes from 7 different angles (could have been only 6 maybe) while Krul was taking his time to kick the ball back in to play. The more replays I see in a game at such moments, the better I know that a keeper is taking his time and thus wasting time. I even don’t have to see the wasting, by looking at the replays shown I know he is doing it.
And then it us up to the ref to count the time. It is the ref in the middle who indicates (or tells with the headset) to the 4th official how much time he will add. So with an absolute minimum of 3 minutes another 2 looked appropriate. Maybe Newcastle fans will disagree on this and I must admit that I didn’t expect Webb to give 5 minutes. But anything less than 4 minutes would have been not enough.
About the remark that everyone is doing it, has nothing to do with it. It shouldn’t be done. Everyone is kicking their opponents from time to time but is this a reason to not punish it? I don’t think so.
| BIAS SUMMARY – Howard Webb (2012-03-14) | |||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Period 1 | Arsenal | % | Newcastle United | % | Total |
| Correct For | 9 | 52.94 | 8 | 47.06 | 17 |
| Correct For Weighted | 11 | 52.38 | 10 | 47.62 | 21 |
| Incorrect Against | 8 | 66.67 | 4 | 33.33 | 12 |
| Incorrect Against Weighted | 9 | 69.23 | 4 | 30.77 | 13 |
| Fouls Commited | 10 | 43.48 | 13 | 56.52 | 23 |
| Fouls Penalised | 7 | 70.00 | 8 | 61.54 | 15 |
| Period 2 | Arsenal | % | Newcastle United | % | Total |
| Correct For | 12 | 44.44 | 15 | 55.56 | 27 |
| Correct For Weighted | 17 | 47.22 | 19 | 52.78 | 36 |
| Incorrect Against | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 2 |
| Incorrect Against Weighted | 2 | 100.00 | 0 | 0.00 | 2 |
| Fouls Commited | 11 | 55.00 | 9 | 45.00 | 20 |
| Fouls Penalised | 11 | 100.00 | 7 | 77.78 | 18 |
| Totals | Arsenal | % | Newcastle United | % | Total |
| Correct For | 21 | 47.73 | 23 | 52.27 | 44 |
| Correct For Weighted | 28 | 49.12 | 29 | 50.88 | 57 |
| Incorrect Against | 10 | 71.43 | 4 | 28.57 | 14 |
| Incorrect Against Weighted | 11 | 73.33 | 4 | 26.67 | 15 |
| Fouls Commited | 21 | 48.84 | 22 | 51.16 | 43 |
| Fouls Penalised | 18 | 85.71 | 15 | 68.18 | 33 |
If we look at the bias table we see that Newcastle had things mostly going their way. A few inconsistent calls where sometimes a player could block another player with his arm (Santon on Walcott) where no foul was given and when Rosicky did the same later in the game a foul was called. An invented foul from Rosicky when Arsenal gained possession in a dangerous position just outside the Newcastle penalty area was also a strange decision. Even the Newcastle players didn’t appeal for anything and the “fouled” player was just concentrating on getting back in to position.
And now to finish this review I will go and open a bottle of champagne to celebrate something. But I will let you know what in another article coming your way soon.