Untold: Arsenal v Stoke, the ref review (40% of his decisions were wrong!)

Preliminary Note: This article was published here during a period when the Untold Arsenal site was down.  It is indexed on the Untold site in the normal way.

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Arsenal v Stoke, the ref review.

By Ref Reviewer 04

For the game between Arsenal and Stoke we had ref Mason in the Emirates. Because of the computer problems we didn’t get the Ref Watch online so it will be interesting to see if what we found will be in agreement with what Dogface thought it would be.

Min Type Foul from On C/NC Comment points weight
1 OFFSIDE Crouch C 1 1
1 OFFSIDE Walcott NC Walcott was level on the moment the ball was played 0 0
2 OTHER Whelan Song C Push 1 1
2 OTHER Santos C Handball 1 1
9 OTHER Chamakh Upson NC Push in the back 0 0
15 OTHER Upson Chamakh C Tackle from behind 1 1
17 OTHER Crouch Song C Push 1 1
18 OTHER Whitehead C Handball 1 1
19 OTHER Whitehead Arteta NC Frontal tackle catches ball and man 0 0
19 YELLOW Whitehead NC It was dangerous and should have been punished with a yellow card 0 0
21 OTHER Wilson Walcott C Late trip 1 1
23 OFFSIDE Walters C 1 1
24 OTHER Arteta Delap C Trip 1 1
26 OTHER Wilkinson Song C Push 1 1
27 GOAL Arsenal C Yervinho was onside, correct goal 1 3
29 OTHER Crouch Koscielny C Crouch touched Koscielny on his leg when he tried to jump 1 1
30 OTHER Djourou Crouch C Trip 1 1
30 OTHER Whitehead ARteta C Arteta has to jump up to save his legs 1 1
30 YELLOW Whitehead C Correct card. Could/should have been his second 1 2
33 OTHER Koscielny Crouch NC Koscielny made a clean jump. No foul 0 0
33 GOAL Stoke NC Stoke score from the resulting free kick. Shouldn’t have been a free kick 0 0
34 PENALTY Wilkinson Chamakh NC Wilkinson clearly drags Chamakh to the ground. Clear penalty. Ref had a clear and unobstructed view. 0 0
36 OTHER Ramsey Whitehead C Assistant gave the foul was close to him 1 1
38 OTHER Delap NC Delap steals two grassquares on the field (so some 10 meters) to take a throw closer to the goal 0 0
39 OTHER Song Crouch NC Song nicked the ball away but Crouch cannot be touched it seems 0 0
41 OTHER Delap Koscielny C Push 1 1
Half time 17 20
CORRECT 60,71% 57,14%
YELLOW 1 2 50,00
RED 0 0
PENALTY 0 1 0,00
GOAL 1 2 50,00
OTHER 1 3 33,33
3 8 37,50
OFFSIDE 2 3 66,67
Second half
49 OTHER Upson Chamakh C Clean won header just like Koscielny, no foul given this time 1 1
50 OTHER Shawcross Arteta NC Push not given 0 0
52 OTHER Whelan Arteta C Kick on the ankle 1 1
55 OTHER Wilkinson Walcott C Pulled him by his shirt 1 1
55 YELLOW Wilkinson C Blatant shirt pulling and stopping a possible promising move 1 2
56 PENALTY Walters Song NC Walters was holding Song with both his arms around Song. Song then tried to free himself and pushed Walters away against another Stoke player and then they both went to the ground. Surely the ref must know that he should punish the first foul? 0 0
59 OTHER Walcott NC Obstruction 0 0
59 OTHER Song Crouch NC Obstruction 0 0
62 OTHER Wilkinson Koscielny NC Push in the back of the defender not given 0 0
64 OTHER Santos Etherington C Trip 1 1
68 OTHER Shawcross RVP NC Shawcross wins the header but smashed his arm against the head of RVP. Clear foul 0 0
68 RED Shawcross NC As shawcross had RVP clear in front of him all the time he knew that he couldn’t stretch his arm like that. So it must have been a deliberate act. Deliberate use of the arm against a player his head should be a red car 0 0
73 GOAL Arsenal C correct goal 1 3
75 OFFSIDE RVP C 1 1
77 OTHER Santos Whitehead C Push 1 1
77 OTHER Jerome Szczesny C Barging in to the keeper 1 1
78 OTHER Wilkinson Arshavin NC Push 0 0
78 OTHER Santos Whelan C This was a foul but why didn’t he give the one seconds before on Arshavin? 1 1
80 OTHER ? Arshavin NC Advantage signalled. When you go all the way back to the keeper there is not really an advantage 0 0
82 GOAL Arsenal C correct goal 1 3
84 OTHER Jones Song NC Trip and pull 0 0
85 OTHER Koscielny Whelan? C Trip but advantage given. Stoke can almost manage a shot 1 1
85 OTHER Whelan RVP C Push 1 1
86 OTHER Song Whelan NC Obstruction 0 0
92 OTHER Upson Arshavin NC Illegal block 0 0
2nd half score
TOTAL 13 18
% CORRECT 52,00% 52,94%
YELLOW 1 1 100,00
RED 0 1 0,00
PENALTY 0 1 0,00
GOAL 2 2 100,00
OTHER 1 2 50,00
4 7 57,14
OFFSIDE 1 1 100,00
TOTAL SCORE
TOTAL 30 38
% CORRECT 56,60% 55,07%
YELLOW 2 3 0,00
RED 0 1 0,00
PENALTY 0 2 66,67
GOAL 3 4 75,00
OTHER 2 5 40,00
7 15 46,67
OFFSIDE 3 4 75,00
Correct calls For Arsenal 20 66,67%
For Stoke 10 33,33%
Total correct calls 30
Wrong calls Against Arsenal 17 85,00%
Against Stoke 3 15,00%
Total 20

An astonishing number of wrong calls from the ref. Almost 40% of his decisions were wrong.

And amongst them a few important decisions. The free kick from which Stoke scored… And maybe even worse the not given penalty for a foul on Chamakh. And the worst part was that the ref had a clear and unobstructed view of the defender wrestling Chamakh to the ground.

Shawcross also being his usual himself with planting his arm against the head of Van Persie when he just had come on the field. But then again this could have been the last thing Van Persie needed to make sure that Arsenal would win the game.

So another Arsenal win but a very low and poor display from the ref.

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PS: We’ve just got the page with the details of “Making the Arsenal” on it, back on line.   Please buy a copy and cheer me up!   If not from us, then from Amazon or from Arsenal.com or the Arsenal shops.

6 Replies to “Untold: Arsenal v Stoke, the ref review (40% of his decisions were wrong!)”

  1. It’s interesting to see you quantify what looked at the time to be a pretty terrible refereeing performance, which on another day could easily have affected the result. I’m not sure I agree with you on one point though. Although Koscielny did seem to have been unfairly punished (his leaps to get above Crouch were truly spectacular, this one in particular) the goal from the resultant free kick was caused by poor defending not refereeing as there was nothing against the rules in the goal. It doesn’t seem fair (even to Stoke) to count it as two mistakes by the ref. The Shawcross/RvP incident is two things, the missing foul and the missing red card, and I hope that the FA will look into imposing a retrospective red card on Shawcross. However, seeing as the media weren’t interested in it the way they crawled all over Song’s “stamp”, that is the resting of Song’s foot on Joey Barton’s leg, it seems unlikely. Thanks for your continued top work!

  2. David,
    I can understand your point about the goal. I have taken the line that as long as the defending team (in this case Arsenal) has touched the ball, I consider the goal as not a result of the foul/free kick anymore.
    So let us say that Arsenal defends the free kick and that a defender heads the ball away. Stoke regain possession and then score from the next phase. Then I will give the goal as a valid goal.

    In this case (yes it was bad defending no doubt about that) but the free kick went from Stoke player, to Stoke player without an Arsenal player touching the ball. So it went in straight from the free kick if one could still say 3 touches is straight in.

    Another example with a penalty that is wrongly given. Suppose the keeper saves it but the giver can bundle it over the line. I still will count this as a wrong goal because the goal still results from the initial mistake: the wrong given penalty.

    But I can understand your comment.

  3. If you think he was bad check out the one who did the QPR v Chelsea game. Generally speaking referees are not up to refereeing the modern game. Days gone by the referees decision was final, players more or less accepted it and most importantly got on with the game. Today referees every move is scrutinised by thousands, fans have instant replays to make their judgements. Referees do not and until the governing bodies pull their fingers out, have a proper working party to establish the best use of technology then player and managers will continue to cheat, put pressure on referees, who are only human and unfair bias is created. All this multi million pound game can come out with is “it evens itself out in the end”…BULL. What is happening is authority within the game is eroded, cheating is prevalent, moaning at referees. Our children and successive generations grow up thinking that is the way to play the game. It is true that discussion and arguments are created by these instances..it sells newspapers, keeps blogs busy but it detracts from what should be a beautiful game not just a win at all cost mentality.

  4. The QPR v Chelsea game was very suspicious. Usually Chris Foy seems to bottle all the big decisions by not giving anything and waving play-on. Then, in this game he gave a penalty for a dive under minimal contact, and the first sending off I also thought was harsh and would not normally have been given by him. The Drogba red card was correct but would probably have normally been a yellow under Foy.

  5. I think that in the QPr-Chelsea game, the first couple of big decision were correct: penalty, sending-off. They may not be given normally but we cannot complaign that for once a referee apply the law of the game. I must admit that then Chris Foy started to give everything to QPR, but then I think that John Terry aggressively snarling at him when trying to argue that he would have caught Shaun Wright-Phillips (which is frankly laughable) must have pissed him off.
    However in the second half he tried as much as possible not to send off another Chelsea player. Some were very close to the mark and would have walk early if Chelsea had not already been reduced to 9 players.
    He even blow the whistle to avoid having to send off Ashley Cole after his terrible tackle on Joe Barton.

  6. I didn’t think I’d ever feel sorry for Chel$ki, but I thought that was an extreme example of how biased refereeing can change the game. normally we’re on the end of this, but Micko is right – it was really obvious!

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