Untold ref review : WBA – Arsenal sour grapes or not? « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
By Walter Broeckx, the biased untold ref according to some but not to others..
So for the second time we had ref Stuart Atwell this season. Last time a comfortable win this time a draw. What did I make of the ref? Just read on if you want.
| Min | Type | Decision | C/NC | points | weight | on |
| 1 | OFFSIDE | Offside against WBA | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | GOAL | Nothing against the rules with this goal | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 4 | OTHER | Dangerous tackle on Sagna. A tackle from the front, studs showing. The ref gives advantage but please ref there is a difference between possessioin and advantage. There was not a real promising attack going on. Even the linesman waved his flag to signal the foul to the ref. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 4 | CARD | This should have been punished with at least a yellow card and when you look at the picture and you see the player flying in off the floor studs showing and his foot higher than the ball it has to be a red card. | NC | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 7 | OFFSIDE | Offside given against Arsenal. Call was wrong because when Ramsey played the ball to Clichy Ramsey was further up the field and he didn’t play the ball forward. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 11 | OTHER | Foul on Ramsey not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 14 | OTHER | Foul on Arshavin given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | OTHER | Foul on Van Persie not given but advantage given. This looked more like a promising attack | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | OFFSIDE | Offside against WBA | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 17 | CARD | The ref comes back to the foul on Van Persie and gives the yellow card. This is how it should be done | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 19 | OTHER | Koscielny and Morrison clash heads. The ref stops play when he sees one stays down., It takes alsmost 2 minutes before the game restarts | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 23 | OFFSIDE | Offside against WBA | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 24 | OTHER | Foul on Ramsey not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 24 | OTHER | Foul Van Persie not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 30 | OTHER | Foul on Ramsey given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 31 | OTHER | Foul from Sagna given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 34 | OTHER | Meite connects with the cross and it comes of his shin and the keeper takes the ball in his hands. No back pass | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 34 | OFFSIDE | Offside given against Arshavin. But the ball never came to him as it came to Van Persie. The linesman was to quick to raise his flag | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 36 | OTHER | Foul from Denilson given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 36 | CARD | The ref gives him a well deserved yellow card. Again it takes almost 2 minutes before we restart the game | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 40 | OFFSIDE | Offside given against Arsenal | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 41 | OTHER | Foul from Arshavin | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 41 | OTHER | Sagna and sharner clash heads and the ref stops play. Again 2 minutes go by without playing. | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 44 | OFFSIDE | Offside against WBA | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 45 | OTHER | 4 minutes extra time is given. I think it should and could have been a bit more. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 45+ | OTHER | Handball given against WBA. Correct he jumped in the air with his arms spread from his body and his arms not in front of his face | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 48 | OTHER | Jack Wilshere gives a unnecessary push when the ball rolls out of play. The WBA who is 2 feet bigger than little Jack things it is unacceptable and makes a big problem. The ref has a word with both. Good decision from the ref to calm it down like that. | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 50 | OTHER | Foul from Koscielny not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 52 | OTHER | Foul on Koscielny not given advantage sign given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 55 | OTHER | Foul from Van Persie | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 58 | OTHER | Foul on Wilshere not given. But as Wilshere stays on his feet the ref let play continue. Costly one in our attack in fact. This leads to Clichy losing the ball. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 58 | GOAL | Well a lot of things went wrong with the goal itself but nothing against the rules | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 59 | OTHER | Foul on Arshavin not given but advantage given. Good decision | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 60 | OTHER | Foul from Koscielny given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 60 | CARD | A scissor tackle and so Koscielny gets a well deserved yellow card | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 61 | OTHER | Foul given against WBA a bit of a wild challenge but not close to the player | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 63 | PENALTY | Chamakh looks to be blocked but no replay suggest that he was deliberatly blocked. So the ref gives nothing and I didn’t see any pictures that made me change my mind | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 64 | OTHER | Foul on Nasri not given | NC | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| 64 | OTHER | Foul on Wilshere given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 66 | OTHER | Foul against Arsenal – because of the many replays and letting us look at faces of managers I don’t know why so lets us assume it is correct | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 66 | OTHER | Foul on Chamakh | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 69 | OTHER | Foul on Sagna | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 70 | OTHER | Boom says our little Russian. Goal. Nothing wrong with that goal | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 72 | OFFSIDE | Offside against WBA | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 78 | GOAL | A bit of a freaky goal but they all count. Nothing wrong with Van Persie but the question we should ask ourselfs is was it handball from Bendtner? After hours of trying to see the incident from various available angles the best picture I could come up with of any contact between Bendtner and the ball was this one below. There is a goal post and a support post between Bendtner and the camera angle. The arm of Bendtner looks to be close to his body (as far as I can see it). It does seems to touch his arm or his shoulder? Beat me I cannot say it based on the material I have. And as I follow the rule from the start of the season that as long as I cannot be a 100% sure that the decision on the field was wrong, the decision on the field is correct. I also would like to say that no WBA player appealed for handball during the action. | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 80 | OTHER | Foul on Nasri given by the assistant | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 80 | OTHER | Foul on Chamakh given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 81 | OTHER | Foul from Nasri given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 81 | CARD | Refs gives a card but there was not that much contactand it was more the reaction from the crowd that made him give the card. Nasri just stayed on his feet and never really attacked the defender. Sorry ref this was a wrong card | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 83 | PENALTY | Penalty claim for Arsenal because of the ball touching he arm of a WBA defender. If it did it came of the defender his head first so no real intention can be seen then. | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 84 | PENALTY | Squilacci with a one on one and with a very good block on the ball. Not even close to a penalty but the crowd would have liked one. Good work from the ref | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 86 | OTHER | Foul on Arshavin | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 90+ | PENALTY | Two shouts for a penalty. One or handball which it was not | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 90+ | PENALTY | Sagna went down but I could not see much contact so I will agree with the ref on this also | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| TOTAL | 42 | 64 | 78 | |||
| % | 77,78% | 82,05% | ||||
| CARDS | 3 | 5 | 60,00 | |||
| PENALTY | 6 | 6 | 100,00 | |||
| GOAL | 4 | 4 | 100,00 | |||
| OTHER | 4 | 5 | 80,00 | |||
| OFFSIDE | 5 | 7 | 71,43 | |||
| 22 | 27 | 81,48 |
So the calling for sour grapes brigade can leave me alone this time. We lost points in a frustrating game but the one that will blame the ref for this one will have to convince that I am losing sight in both my eyes.
A good overall performance from the ref. Lots of good decisions. He got the very numerous penalty calls all right. So at the end of the day he got a very well deserved high rating from my part.
BUT if you will allow me I want to draw your attention to this incident.
Right after WBA scored their first goal there was a tackle against Sagna and if you look at the picture you can see that this was a very dangerous tackle. The kind of tackle that can break legs. As this was the same ref who did the game Arsenal – Bolton this season I clearly remembered that he didn’t see the brutal and dangerous tackle from a Bolton players on Diaby. It was missed then and was missed now. Okay he played the advantage which was just possession and not advantage in fact but he didn’t give a card after that. And I think this is, just like against Bolton the only real criticism I can give to the ref.
If he can keep his eyes a bit more open for these reckless and dangerous tackles and produce the cards when he sees them he can be a great ref.