By Walter Broeckx, the ref with the hardest job in the Arsenal World
If we can forget all the shit that happened in the last minute we can still try to see how ref Dean did his game. And what his contribution was. And I must say that I noticed a few of the things that I said he would do.
| Min | Type | Text | C/NC | pts | weight | on |
| 1 | OTHER | Nasri tries to run to a ball but is blocked and no foul is given. You could see the Birmingham defender checking his and Nasri his run to block him. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 1 | CARD | As this could lead to a goal scoring opportunity it should have been a yellow card | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 2 | OTHER | Offside given against Birmingham this was not correct | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 2 | PENALTY | Szczesny brings the striker down and so it should have been a penalty. And a yellow card. Not a red card because when a players rounds the keeper and goes to the outside this is a yellow and not a red. If he goes inside and takes the direct route to goal it is a red card | NC | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 3 | OTHER | Offside given against Arsenal | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 3 | OTHER | Foul on wilshere not given advantage | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 10 | OTHER | Arshavin tries to control a ball and gets a push in the back. No foul given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 10 | OTHER | Arshavin because of the push and the missed control commits a foul which is given; Should give the first foul ref. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 17 | OTHER | Foul on Wilshere given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 18 | OTHER | Offside given against Birmingham | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 21 | OTHER | Foul on Van Persie not given advantage given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 23 | OTHER | Two fouls holding and kicking on Arshavin nothing given. Dean has something against our Russian player | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 26 | OTHER | Offside against Birmingham | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 27 | OTHER | Foul on wilshere given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 28 | GOAL | Zigic places himself in front of Szczesny but as the corner is taken he steps away from the keeper. So no foul on the keeper even for me. A correct goal | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 29 | OTHER | Dangerous play on Rosicky not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 29 | CARD | coming in with a high foot studs showing at knee height should be booked | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 30 | OTHER | Foul from Song | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 33 | OTHER | Foul from Rosicky | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 34 | PENALTY | Gardner plays the ball to Zigic who is alone on goal but misses. Birmingham claim a penalty but they seem to miss the detail that the foul was outside the penalty area | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 35 | OTHER | Foul against Birmingham advantage given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 36 | OTHER | Foul from Koscilny given. First tackle Koscielny played the ball second played nothing. Boywer himself cam flying in rather wild. Birmingham got the call from Dean. Can be given like that, | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 36 | CARD | Koscielny gets a card. A nice little play acting from Bowyer and a soft yellow card. His foot was not higher than the ball, his sliding tackle was not frontal to the opponent | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 38 | GOAL | Nothing wrong with the Arsenal goal | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 41 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 41 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky not given advantage | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 41 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky given, third foul within a minute | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 42 | CARD | Larson doesn’t agree with the correct call and shows this very loud an clear and gets booked | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| 45+ | OTHER | Carr kicks the ball out and goes back to defend and looks astonished as het gets the throw | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 46 | OTHER | Foul on Wilshere given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 48 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky not given advantage | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 49 | OTHER | Handball Carr but not seen and given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 53 | OTHER | Foul given against Arshavin | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 53 | OTHER | Foul given against Clichy | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 53 | CARD | Again a soft yellow card for a small obstruction | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 55 | OTHER | Offside against Birmingham | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 56 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 56 | OTHER | Nasri then commits a foul which is given. Should punish the first foul. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 57 | OTHER | Offside against Birmingham | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 60 | OTHER | Foul on Nasri not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 60 | OTHER | Nasri commits a foul advantage given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 62 | OTHER | Foul given against Arsenal for a very small foul on a defender. So after all those years Dean shows that he knows this rule but unfortunately just against Arsenal yet. | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 64 | OTHER | Foul on Van Persie not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 64 | OTHER | Foul on Van Persie not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 65 | OTHER | Offside against Arsenal | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 67 | OTHER | foul against Van Persie near to our own penaltyarea not given. Like I said he still only give those fouls against us on defending players | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 70 | OTHER | Foul on Bendtner given signalled by the assistant | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 71 | OTHER | Foul from Wilshere not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 77 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 78 | CARD | this time the ref gives no card against the birminghamplayer just a lecture. Compare this with the way he treated Clichy | NC | 0 | 0 | 2 |
| 80 | OTHER | Foul on Djourou not given advantage played | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 80 | OTHER | Foul on Rosicky given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 85 | OTHER | Foul against Rosicky given, really dont know for what? | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 86 | OTHER | foul against chamakh not given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 88 | OTHER | Foul against clichy given | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 89 | GOAL | How much that I would have liked it but I cannot find anything against the rules | C | 1 | 3 | 3 |
| 89 | CARD | Koscielny is still down on the floor as the Birmingham mob passes him by. Ferguson punches him on the head. Needless, not a very great act of sportsmanship and bad behaviour and most of all should get him send off | NC | 0 | 0 | 3 |
| 90 | OTHER | Foul from Nasri | C | 1 | 1 | 1 |
| 90+ | OTHER | Birmingham take about one minute to make a substition and the game back going. No real added time for this. | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 90+ | OTHER | Two footed tackle on Clichy ref gives nothing even Larsonn apologises to Clichy. Dean gives nothing | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 91+ | CARD | This was worthy of a yellow card | NC | 1 | 0 | 2 |
| 92+ | OTHER | Foul on Djourou again nothing given | NC | 0 | 0 | 1 |
| 94+ | CARD | Ferguson (red card remember) kicks the ball away and gets a yellow card | C | 1 | 2 | 2 |
| TOTAL | 35 | 44 | 83 | |||
| % | 54,69% | 53,01% | ||||
| CARDS | 3 | 9 | 33,33% | |||
| PENALTY | 1 | 2 | 50,00% | |||
| GOAL | 3 | 3 | 100,00% | |||
| OTHER | 4 | 9 | 44,44% | |||
| TOTAL | 11 | 23 | 47,83% |
It will be brushed under the carpet but once again I have seen the same blatant flaws in the game of ref Dean. Fouls on Arsenal defenders are easily neglected. On the other hand they are not.
Dean is doing a personal crusade against Arshavin. After seeing all the games when both were involved this is crystal clear. The Russian gets no calls from Dean. Not even the most blatant ones.
Dean didn’t see the punch against the head from Koscielny after the Birmingham goal. He was to busy running around in joy I think and forgot that as a ref you must keep an eye on the celebrating players to see they do nothing wrong. Dean clearly didn’t check them and missed this.
In extra time he let a two footed tackle on Clichy go that even for Larsson was embarrassing as he showed to Clichy. You could see him apologising to Clichy. As a result Birmingham kept a long spell of possession deep in our half. After a substitution that took ages in extra time and kicking the ball away he gave almost no extra extra time. In the first half he did this by letting play go on for more than one minute after the 4 minutes had been gone.
When we talk about the bias index one should keep in mind that the best way to show/hide your bias is to not give fouls to a certain team. I have counted 12 fouls that Dean did not give during this game which should have been given for Arsenal. And this number does not include the times when he played the advantage which was about 5 or 6 times. Not that there was any real advantage, it was more that we kept possession of the ball.
And if you can stand the sight of it you must check the final whistle. I have never seen a ref jumping with both hands in the air when he blows the final whistle. Dean is the first I have seen doing this in my whole career of following football which goes some 40 years now. Some refs raise both hands at the end of the game but I never see them doing it while jumping in the air. I think he really was a very happy man at the final whistle. Job done. Once again.
Oh yeah, too many shandies this weekend and still feelin the effects. I meant Brum not Wigan.
Possibly the most one-eyed example of sour grapes I have read on a football blog. Post this on any neutral forum and I think it would be greeted with stunned disbelief. It’s this pious, one-eyed, delusional approach to football that is making Arsenal (and the club’s supporters) a laughing stock.
Calling Birmingham a “mob” is shameful.
Pointing out the unsporting behaviour of Ferguson is interesting. When I observed it yesterday it brought to mind Martin Keown’s gloating when RVN missed a penalty for Man Utd several moons ago. All clubs have idiots.
Heaven help us when you guys start analysing this year’s “Arsenal Financials”!! This place will be in meltdown.
Macca,
if I am not mistaken Keown was punished for his behaviour after that.
So are you suggesting that the FA should take action?
And sorry to call them a mob? In my country they call Birmingham as the “Bonecrunchers” for a few years now. I think I was being nice.
And the way they behaved again last season and this season in the league when they were kicking and kicking and kicking all over the place….
On the subject of dodgy refs, maybe today is finally the day that proof arrives that something really is going on with Utd and the refs.
Can anyone tell me another instance whereby a player runs 20 yards, blatantly elbows another professional.
However, the ref, Mark Clattenberg puts an arm around the elbower, if that is a word… and smiles at Rooney. There are calls for a ban, even Utd fans admit their player has seriously transgressed. Fergie rants about the media electrocutng Rooney? Yet the ref refuses to review the situation further and Manc Riley comes out with his joke like statement supporting Clattenberg.
Ben Thatcher did something similar to Mendes, banned 8 games, suspended for 15.
Walter or anyone else, can you even begin to shed light as to how Rooney got away with that…and why?
If other clubs have players banned over similar offences using retrospective evidence – can they use this Rooney situation as a precedent to have it overturned?
Is this protection of an England player, a Utd player, fear of Fergie or something else?
Tread carefully Walter… for you tread on Macca’s dreams.
Mandy dodd,
I cannot explain to you what you are asking.
There are only a few people around that can but they will keep their mouth shut to protect themselves.
People can call me names, can abuse me. I really don’t care. I see what I see. I am not blind.
And believe me it hurts me to the bone the things I see. I don’t want the EPL to be runned by a corrupt gang who have the refs in their hands. With refs who can be biased and who are assessed but we dont know the results of that.
Well it only makes me more determined to fight them with the only weapons I have: the freedom of speech (presented to me by Tony).
And it also makes me more determined to support the Arsenal.
Maybe I should remind new readers a bit more that my ref reviews are not really against the other team (as sometimes they also cannot help what the ref is doing) but they are a way of looking at how a ref performs and how he is doing what he should do: apply the rules, nothing more, nothing less.
And that it is not his task to support or help one team or another.
yes i saw that elbow incident from rooney and i thought it was disgraceful, if the FA don’t take no action about that incident then we know for a fact that they are stupid twats that favour manure, because an incident like that is just not acceptable in football.
Its pretty much what we expected from the preview.
Nothing changes Utd still get away with murder whether its fletcher barging the Ref at old trafford against us or rooney acting like the other day.
Corrupt biased call it want you want its not right.
And Macca yes Keown was banned and so should Fergusson you expect Birmingham to be treated differently ? get a life.
The more I think about Rooneys let off, the more incredible it seems.Riley has a lot to answer for.
Walter the one thing that annoys me about the likes of Macca disrespecting your article with his limited knowledge of the Refereeing rules is that week in week out whether its Rooney with the Elbow or Fergusson hitting Kos or Schezny getting thrown to ground against Newcastle.
The likes of Macca cant see that that 10 wrongs dont make a right …..even tonight Velas goal was offside tonight while I might smile because it was against stoke its still wrong. “Hopefuly though he scores 3 against birmingham next week and sends them to the chamionship.
When england play in anything we cant get away with the crap the EPL lets them with week in week out and as a result the national team has no idea how to defend.
Walter Keep up the good work of trying to improve football in general and dont listen to those who think wanting fair Refereeing standards is been biased.
I told everyone before the game Dean would look for a way to hurt Arsenal. I counted 16 fouls on Arsenal players not given and 3 more in favour of Brum that were ridiculous. Any person who cares for the soul of the game can see it if they look. In addition- the card for Clichy was a disgrace. Jumping for joy at the end- alone- is sine die for me, even sweeping aside his season’s vendetta against Arsenal. The Clattenburgh affair- not sending off a player who has clattered (?) an opponent deliberately on the head probably cost Wigan 3 points and Arsenal 3 points. Further 3 points were ‘protected’ at West Brom and what about the two failed sendings off of Neville. Another few points there I suspect. In all fairness- the title should be handed to Arsenal now. But no- the charade will be played out to the end because the spineless FA, Premier League, Press and Media dare not– the mind boggles– DARE NOT–why?–dare not intervene.I have no idea who is reffing these games but watch out for Benders being put in charge of the Man U v Liverpool and Chelsea games. They havn’t finished making sure the Mancs get the title yet. It took ages for the Italian corruption to come out- but it did. Let us hope we don’t have to wait so long.
Shearer got off with this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ss_7WGYa9nQ
what do they have in common
at the time Shearer was the golden boy, England centre forward, so too is Rooney.
It stinks so much it is obscene, FA spineless, not fit for purpose as their own past Chairman admitted.
The press will not persue, they too are spineless, but with the enpowering internet, we now have access to the tools once only the press had at their disposal.
Publish and be damned, the FA are spineless cowards interested only in the preservation of the gravy train on which they sit. The one we pay for. Shame on them for not following their own guidlines or procedures.
Laundry to make decisions based on the nationality of players is as bad as making them based on skin colour.
They make me sick truly.
Donnyfan, I counted 12 fouls that Dean didn’t give to Arsenal and there has been some 5 or 6 where he gave the advantage signal. I think we are both spot on I would say.
And for those who have been paying attention in the last weeks I have said that by looking at the not giving fouls you can see the bias best. And as a ref you can make life difficult for one team. So difficult they lose their normal ability to play their game.
And as we are a team that is very depending on playing our technical game a ref that doesn’t give the obvious fouls is giving our team a handicap.
It is interesting to note that from the 4 games we had with Dean this season we only could win one and even in that game he handed a goal to the opposition on a big silver plate.
“And for those who have been paying attention in the last weeks I have said that by looking at the not giving fouls you can see the bias best.”
To be fair Walter – I have pointed that out repeatedly since day one… for those not paying attention.
Yes you have A casual observer, yes we have.
Birmingham 24, Arsenal 3
Number of poor decisions given in “favour” of the teams (per Walters analysis).
You forgot to mention that TCD blew up as the ball dropped into the Birmingham box in a dangerous position. HE DID NOT WANT AN ARSENAL EQUALISER! PERIOD! 99% of refs ‘see out’ an attack before blowing up!
Clear bias towards Chelsea in the game against Man U tonight. Are the conspiracy theorists ready to at least accept that there is no plot my Premiership refs to give the Championship to Man U. I’m an Arsenal fan but I do think some take it too far. I also feel that refs always let personal feelings guide their decisions.
1st off, VERY big fan of this site. It is a blessing that the media-fueled schizophrenia and mindless neurotic bashing that infects many (all?) arsenal blogs is not present here. It makes for very…’tranquil’ and informative reading. =D
I’d just like to offer a few outside observations. While I find the ref reviews worthwhile, I’m not completely convinced that they are leading to the conclusive/corrupt conclusions you guys seem to think. At the moment, I think that they’re more indicative of the effect of unintentional bias than anything else (you could test (prove?) it by reviewing a few non-arsenal games that involve ‘suspect’ refs?).
If you want to take these studies to the next level then you’re going to have to be more honest in your approach (i.e. at the moment you guys seem to be looking for proof of corruption in every decision and it is colouring the data), a little more subjective and a little more scientific with the whole experiment. Also, what you really need, is to get a neutral to write these reviews, preferably several.
Keep up the good work,
Waffles.
…a neutral football fan + walter writing arsenal ref reviews independently, would also be very compelling and convincing.
Charlie, you cannot jugde this based on this one game. Maybe the ref yesterday has one of the other reasons that I mentioned in my articles to try to tilt the game in chelsea’s way?
Maybe it was a bit of reversed psychology? Because I didn’t see the whole game but only small pieces but in the first half it was annoying to see how Rooney was dictating the ref how he should blow and what he should blow and where the ball should be placed. And when I saw this I was thinking: if I would be the ref and I would have a player who was telling me how to ref the game I would give him a card for his constant interfering with mu business. And after what he has done last weekend I would advice him to stay a bit more low profile.
But you could see from the way Rooney behaved that he felt he could run the game like he thought and can get away with anything.
One swallow doesn’t mean it is spring…
@Charlie – DogFace saw it coming… who’s a clever DogFace (see my tweets)!
One day I’ll take the time to explain it all to you and no – it’s not as black and white as it’s oft painted but needless to say – for some teams it all evens out and for some it doesn’t.
Surely, with regards to minute 56, you cant class the foul by Nasri as an incorrect decision just because there should have been a foul given before it. If that were the case, every decision after an incorrect one would be wrong, as the game would have played out differently, no?