Untold Ref Review : Fulham 2 – Arsenal 1 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade

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By Ref Reviewer 04

Sit down and relax (if you can) for a long ref review. Ref Probert did the game Fulham-Arsenal.

Before you start reading a warning: this review is based on the images shown from the live screening. And as our regular readers now we only change the call of the ref when we are 100% sure. If any doubt we have to agree with the decision on the field. Read and shiver.

Min	Type	Foul from	On	C/NC	Comment	points	weight
9	OTHER	Sidwell	Arteta	NC	Tackle from behind got ball and man, always a foul	0	0
10	OTHER	Hangeland	Ramsey	NC	Caught his leg under the nose of the ref, nothing signalled. Foul on defender, no advantage ref	0	0
11	OTHER	Song	Dembele	C	Tackle from behind got ball and man, always a foul	1	1
12	OTHER	?	Song	NC	Song played the ball upfield where RVP had a bit of a run. Song was touched a bit, ref calls the ball back in the Arsenal half for a foul	0	0
13	PENALTY	Senderos	Gervinho	NC	Senderos catches the ankle of Gervinho who goes past him and would have a shot on goal from 4 meters out. Ref looked the other way	0	0
13	YELLOW	Senderos		NC	One could argue for a red card as Gervinho would have been one on one with the keeper but there was another defender trying to close down	0	0
13	OTHER	Song	Ruiz	C	Little contact on the ankle foul given to Fulham	1	1
14	OTHER	Coquelin	?	C	Touched him at the ankle, player was in front	1	1
16	OFFSIDE	Arsenal		C	presumed correct	1	1
19	OTHER	Song	Dembele	NC	Dembele trips himself	0	0
19	OTHER	Zamora	Koscielny	C	Tackle from behind, assistant signals the foul	1	1
21	GOAL	Arsenal		C	correct goal	1	3
24	OTHER	Kelly	Gervinho	NC	Kelly swings his hips and catches Gervinho when he goes past him. Ref signals again nothing	0	0
25	OTHER			NC	Ref gets in the way and blocks a pass from Hangeland to Riise. Poor positioning	0	0
25	OTHER	Song	Hangeland	NC	Ball bounces back to Hangeland who has some troubles to control it. Song kicks the ball to RVP who wants to start a dangerous Arsenal attack. Ref invents a foul to stop Arsenal	0	0
27	OTHER	Fulham?	Szczesny	NC	Fulham player backs in to the keeper but he manages to catch the cross	0	0
30	OTHER	Fulham?	Ramsey	C	No replay assistant who is close signalled the foul, ref followed his assistant	1	1
33	OTHER			NC	Song slides the ball for a corner, assistant gives it to Arsenal	0	0
36	OTHER	Zamora	Koscielny	NC	Push just before he wants to clear the ball not given	0	0
38	OTHER	Riisse	Walcott	NC	Jumped in his back leading with the arm not given.	0	0
39	OTHER	Fulham?	Walcott	C	Little pull advantage given	1	1
41	OTHER	Riisse	Djourou	NC	Riise goes down and sits on the ball and makes it unplayable and brings himself in danger, ref does nothing	0	0
41	OTHER	Riisse	Djourou	NC	Djourou gets the ball from under the body of Riise and goes past Riisse who makes a tackle from behind and clamps the leg of Djourou. Ref does nothing	0	0
41	OTHER	Fulham?	Djourou	NC	Djourou again gets up and plays the ball and is caught late by a Fulham player and again…Ref does nothing. Fulham creat a chance because of this	0	0
41	YELLOW	Riisse		NC	Tackle from behind clamping the legs of the opponent is dangerous for injuries	0	0
44	OTHER	Song	Hangeland	NC	Little nudge not given. Hangeland lost control of the ball	0	0
45	OTHER	Senderos	Walcott	NC	Walcott has to jump to save his leg, ref does nothing	0	0
	Half time					8	10
			CORRECT			29,63%	30,30%
	YELLOW				0	2	0,00
	RED
	PENALTY			0	1	0,00
	GOAL				1	1	100,00
	OTHER				0	6	0,00
	Total				1	10	10,00
	OFFSIDE				1	1	100,00
	Second half
49	OFFSIDE	Fulham		C	Presumed correct	1	1
51	OTHER	Djourou	Demspey	C	Push	1	1
53	OTHER	Murphy	Djourou	C	Trip	1	1
53	YELLOW	Murphy		NC	Deliberate foul breaking up an attack, came late and took the man	0	0
58	PENALTY	Senderos	Van Persie	C	I had the impression that Senderos pushed RVP against Kelly who made no foul. But as I had no good replay I must stick to the ref his decision who gave nothing	1	3
59	OTHER	Song	?	C	Trip	1	1
59	OTHER	Song		C	Song gets a word from the ref. I think the ref told him he made to many imaginary fouls up to then	1	1
61	OTHER	RVP	Sidwell	C	Trip	1	1
61	OTHER	Riisse	Walcott	NC	Riisse pushes Walcott in the back with both hands and ref gives nothing	0	0
63	OTHER	Djourou	Dembele	C	Tackle from behind	1	1
63	YELLOW	Djourou		C	Tackle from behind is a yellow card but where is the consistency ref? Riisse in the first half?	1	2
67	OTHER	Dempsey	Mertesacker	NC	Climbed in his neck and held him to the ground	0	0
68	OFFSIDE	Arsenal		C	Presumed correct	1	1
67	OTHER	Dempsey		NC	Dempsey handles the ball, assistant has seen it and signals the foul against Fulham. Ref points a foul against Arsenal???	0	0
67	OTHER			C	I think the assistant said something in his ear and so he had to come back to his decision.	1	1
74	OTHER	Rosicky	Frei	NC	Rosicky touched him with his hand on the shoulder, ref gives a foul. It’s not illegal to touch someone and in this case he clearly didn’t push him.	0	0
76	OTHER	Ruiz	Koscielny	C	Push	1	1
78	OTHER	Djourou	Zamora	C	Zamora felt the defender and went down very easy. But as I have no conclusive evidence of the opposite I have to stick to the refs decision on the field. Compare to the not given push on Walcott in min 61 and it looks ridiculous	1	1
78	YELLOW	Djourou		C	second yellow. If he gave the foul he was entitled to give a second yellow as it was a promising attack.	1	2
82	OTHER	Fulham	Song	C	Trip	1	1
82	OTHER	Hangeland	RVP	NC	Push not given	0	0
83	OFFSIDE	Fulham		C	Presumed correct	1	1
85	GOAL	Fulham		C	correct goal. An Arsenal player interfered the keeper	1	3
88	OFFSIDE	Fulham		C		1	1
89	OFFSIDE	Fulham		NC	Not offside but Mertesacker had it covered	0	0
89	OTHER	Sidwell	RVP	NC	Kick from behind not given	0	0
89	OFFSIDE	Arsenal		C	Came back	1	1
90	OTHER	RVP	Senderos	C	Pulled his shirt, could not see a foul from Senderos first because of the bad camera angle	1	1
92	GOAL	Fulham		C	correct goal	1	3
93	OTHER			NC	Celebration takes 55 seconds of the 3 minutes added on. Ref clearly doesn’t tell the players to get on with it	0	0
94	OTHER			NC	Fulham player kicks the ball in the crowd who doesn’t give it back for 30 seconds.	0	0
94	OTHER			NC	Refs brings the game to an end and only allowes some 40 second when 1,5 min is lost and gives nothting for the time wasting of the crowd	0	0
	TOTAL					21	29
	%		CORRECT			65,63%	70,73%
	YELLOW				2	3	66,67
	RED				1	1	100,00
	PENALTY			1	1	100,00
	GOAL				2	2	100,00
	OTHER				3	5	60,00
	Total				9	12	75,00
	OFFSIDE				5	6	83,33
			TOTAL SCORE
	TOTAL					29	39
	%		CORRECT			49,15%	52,70%
	YELLOW				2	5	40,00
	RED				1	1	100,00
	PENALTY			1	2	50,00
	GOAL				3	3	100,00
	OTHER				3	11	27,27
	Total				10	22	45,45
	OFFSIDE				6	7	85,71
	Correct calls	For Fulham		15	60,00%
			For Arsenal		10	40,00%
			Total correct calls	25
	Wrong calls	Favour Fulham	23	85,19%
			Favour Arsenal	4	14,81%
			Total		27
	Total fouls made by	Fulham		25	67,57%
			Arsenal		12	32,43%
			Total		37
	Important W/C against	Fulham		0	0,00%
			Away		2	100,00%
					2

Where to start? The ref was totally shocking in treating both teams in a different way. This was shown in some strange decisions at times. If I manage to load the videos without overloading the server I will try to show some examples in another article. For now I will try to describe a few of the key incidents in which the ref showed his one sided view on things.

The penalty. Contact was made and it took the standing leg of Gervinho away. I had the impression Gervinho knew he wouldn’t get a penalty and tried to stay on his feet too much in fact. I’ve lost count but from the back of my head this is the 5^th not given penalty for Arsenal in the last 4 games I think. So we are getting used to this and let us move to the next bizarre event.

Min 25: The ref gets in the way when Hangeland tries to pass the ball to Riise. The ball bounces back to Hangeland who cannot control it. Song nicks the ball away to RVP who had only Senderos in front of him and the upcoming Walcott to his right. A simple pass and Walcott would be in on goal. The ref then invents a foul on Hangeland and stops play. He then stands there in a pose showing: “I can do what I want to stop you”. Even my match commentator at the time said something in the style that this was pure compensation from the ref because he had been in the way of the Fulham players. But as a ref this is bad luck you are not allowed to stop play when you stood in the way. But after seeing the whole game nothing surprises you of this ref. A goal scoring opportunity taken away from Arsenal by the incompetence of the ref. But there was more in that first half. Move on.

The ref stopping an Arsenal attack after he touched the ball and inventing a foul from Song.

Min 41: I have never seen (not that I can remember anyway) make 3 fouls on one player in the space of 6 seconds and nothing been given. Riise broke the laws twice and another Fulham player made the third foul on Djourou and still nothing was given. And it was 3 clear infringements. The second foul Riise made on Djourou was a tackle from behind clamping his legs and should have resulted in a yellow card. The third tackle was a late challenge and again could have been a booking. In fact come to think of it, it should have been one. And yet this ref who was standing a few meters away managed to pretend nothing was wrong at all.

The consecutive fouls on Djourou in the first half.

Then we enter the second half and before I come to the main talking points I want to draw your attention to another example of how he treated both teams totally different. Min 61 and min 74. Walcott tries to shield the ball out. Riise comes in from behind and pushes him with both hands in his back. Walcott ends up almost in the 7^th row in the stands and the ref does nothing. Actually he was rather good in doing nothing at all during the 90 minutes. But when Rosicky later on for a split second put his hand on the shoulder of Frei he gave a foul. There was no push, no pull. Rosicky might have thought about making a foul but he clearly did all he could to not make a foul in fact. And as far as I know you can touch another player. You may not push or pull him but just making contact is not a foul. The only difference once again between the two incidents was the team that gained advantage from both incidents. Both time Fulham was that team but I think this is not a surprise anymore.

Riise pushing Walcott in to the stands with both hands on his back.

Min 67. Dempsey handles the ball and this bounces on to the shoulder of Djourou. Probert does… Yeah nothing. The assistant takes his responsibility and signals the foul and points in the direction of the Fulham goal to indicate the direction to whom the free kick should be given. But Probert in his eagerness to help Fulham immediately gives a free kick to Fulham. This incident once again showed that he was a man with a mission and that mission was to help Fulham in any possible way. He then had to revert his decision because I think the linesman told him in his ear peace what an idiot he was. Well I would tell this to my ref if he would act like that when I was the assistant. This ref clearly gave a foul on the buzzer (the assistant has a buzzer in his flag that activates a buzzer around the arm of the ref) and didn’t even bother to look at the linesman. If there was a foul it should be given against Arsenal.

Let us move on to Djourou. And the fact that we have to stick with the ruling on the field unless we can prove something else. There was contact between Djourou and Zamora. Zamora went down knowing he had Djourou just behind him and by now he knew how the ref was doing his “Italian Job”. But as I cannot exclude a foul I had to give the ref the benefit of the doubt in his points. After seeing the whole game and seeing how he operated I can say that I think he had been waiting for a chance to send Djourou off. The way he handled Djourou in the first half was amazing and somehow I could feel that he would take Djourou out when he could. Zamora played for it and got what he wanted. But again I cannot but give him the benefit of the doubt. But what would have been his call if it would have been Gervinho and Senderos running like that? Yeah, I think you can predict the outcome: he would have done….nothing.

About the wrestling contest between RVP and Senderos-Hangeland I had to stay away from this. Because no replays where shown so I could not be 100% sure of what exactly happened but I had the impression that Senderos and Hangeland had a free ride in doing what they wanted to do. So again the short comings of not being able to have control of the camera was evident on this.

A blatant foul on Gervinho not given in the first half where he was sandwhiced and completely taken out by Senderos.

For those who are interested in what his result would have been if I could have proven that Djourou made no foul his second half score would have dropped from 75% to 50% on the important decisions in the second half. And his overall score would have been a shamefully 31% over all the game.

Rosicky “touching” a Fulham player.

And just take a look at the number of wrong calls made… shocking once again this ref made more wrong decisions than correct decisions and is it any surprise that the big majority was against Arsenal?