Watching the foul against Bellerin in the 13th minute of Saturday’s match against Chelsea, my initial reaction was surely Atkinson, seeing it in real time, must have gotten it right; after all he is the senior FIFA ref in the PGMO. That was until I saw the young man crumpled on the turf oblivious to what was around him, clearly hurt and later diagnosed as concussed. Then came the slow realization that I and others was experiencing a classic replay of the worse of PGMO refereeing that has afflicted Arsenal and other unfancied clubs in the Premier league in the past ten years; the blatant use of excessive force, perpetuated in plain sight, had gone unpunished in favor of a big-moneyed team who, on this occasion, were allowed to score a decisive first goal. (The replays I speak of are the unpunished smashing of Eduardo and Aaron Ramsey in the not so recent past.)
While I had written two-blogs in the preceding weeks documenting, in my view, clear and convincing evidence of OR on the balance of probabilities proof of referee bias, it struck me I was still psychologically unprepared for Atkinson’s proclivity to rule against Arsenal and in favor of Chelsea. Thus, contrary to my initial desire to not belabor the point, I am impelled to provide additional evidence of referee bias to the jury of public opinion, many of whom, even after Saturday, remain unconvinced.
Initially, I was inclined to research whether the award or denial of penalties was tied to Arsenal’s disciplinary record with yellow and red cards. But my colleagues in the Positively Arsenal community were able to point to a study by someone at Untold Arsenal which indicated that during the Mike Riley era, of the constantly PL teams since 2007, no other team except Sunderland has received more red cards despite the narrative in the media that Arsenal is not physical enough. Even Stoke, that paragon of English toughness, has fewer red cards. What an amazing statistic; the least physical team in the PL is adjudged the dirtiest by the PGMO refs.
Not wanting to bore my readers by going over old ground, I decided to evaluate whether the award of penalties bore any relationship to the offensive statistics of the top-6 teams in the league. Fortunately for me, at least, since 2009 the highly rated whoscored.com have done a team by team analysis of every participant in the league compiling what they identify as key data and thereafter giving each team an overall ranking as well separate ranking based on their offensive and defensive statistics.
For this blog I focused on the offensive ranking of the top-6 over the past seven seasons and compared this with the average number of penalties awarded by the PGMOB. Despite being hardened and inured to the ability of PL refs to turn reality on its head, I was astonished by the results of the data. Since Mike Riley’s tenure, the PGMO have managed to make Tottenham the equal of Arsenal in creating penalties despite being ranked 5th offensively compared to the Gunners being ranked 3rd.
| Arsenal | Chelsea | Livepool | Man City | Man Utd | Tottenham | |
| Off Rank | 3 | 4 | 5 | 4 | 4 | 5 |
| Shots pg | 16.0 | 16.9 | 16.9 | 16.6 | 15.0 | 16.9 |
| Shots OT pg | 5.9 | 5.9 | 5.6 | 5.8 | 5.2 | 5.6 |
| Dribbles pg | 11.5 | 9.7 | 9.7 | 9.3 | 8.6 | 9.6 |
| Fouled pg | 11.3 | 11.6 | 11.0 | 9.9 | 10.7 | 11.0 |
| Rating | 7.10 | 7.0 | 7.0 | 7.7 | 7.03 | 7.0 |
| Penalties | 5 | 8 | 6 | 7 | 6 | 5 |
According to whoscored, Tottenham is inferior to Arsenal in all statistical categories except shots per game. Most notably they have 16.5% less dribbles per game, which is generally accepted as a metric highly correlated with getting penalties. But they manage to get practically the same amount of penalties on average.
More mind boggling is Liverpool being awarded on average more penalties than Arsenal (6 vs 5) despite being inferior in every category except Shots per game. They were equally dribble-shy as Tottenham.
Overall, despite being having the highest average offensive Rank and second highest Rating by whoscored, Arsenal has been awarded close to the lowest number of penalties of all the top-6 teams. Yet Arsenal has on average the highest number of Dribbles per game and is the next to Chelsea is the most fouled team. The irony of the Foul per game data is that the award of fouls is by the same referees who seem reluctant to award penalties.
Like the flagrant unpunished foul on Bellerin, the non-award of penalties to Arsenal by the PGMO defy the laws of the game and any statistical explanation. Contrast this to the more favorable treatment to all five other teams in the top-6 especially Tottenham and Liverpool.
Next time, after comparing the penalties against data with whoscored’s defensive rankings, hopefully we can arrive at some definitive conclusions.
Positively Arsenal 
‘The very thought of Arsene Wenger considering that the challenge on Bellerin by Alonso was a foul makes me think that the Arsenal manager is starting to lose his perspective,’ the Tottenham legend told the BBC.
‘No referee who wanted to keep his credibility would have given a free-kick. Besides, it was a brilliant challenge by Alonso and an excellently taken goal.’
G Crooks
It’s now brilliant to lead with your elbow and knock someone out before touching the ball!
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Gary NevilleVerified account@GNev2
Gary Neville Retweeted Donald J. Trump
You should be on Arsenal Fan Tv!
Gary Neville added,
Donald J. Trump @realDonaldTrump
Just cannot believe a judge would put our country in such peril. If something happens blame him and court system. People pouring in. Bad!
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the Bellerin knocking out once again brought to the fore the soundbite
“you don’t get them in England”
the usual throw away line to explain off any non appliance of the rules of the game by the officials.
the PGMOB call it “game management”
so why is the game of football in England allowed to be different to the rest of the world, its the same rule book, its the same ball, its the same size pitches and we now have managers and players from all over the world playing it here, so that only leaves the officials, the PGMOB.
Did someone in the PGMOB watch a super bowl and say to himself, hey look at them damn Americans, they are putting the rest of us to shame, they don’t care about the FIFA rule book, they are Game Managing it in their own way and FIFA is not stopping them, we should do the same. Of course we will have none of the TMO stuff, that would mean having to game manage all games the same we can’t have that, we have historic dislikes to adhere to.
I had a chat with a man utd fan on Saturday about the refs in the English game, and said the sooner the BPL Ref list is done away with and we start getting the refs from the Championship and League 1 and 2, the better. We would no longer have the man in the middle trying to be the star, and “game managing”. Oddly enough when he was talking about Bellerin being knocked out, and how he felt this would certainly not have been allowed the other way round, he mentioned how this has been the case for years now, he pointed out how he remembers Chris Samba of Blackburn being allowed to flatten the Arsenal goalie(Fabianski) into the back of the net and the goal being allowed – “you don’t get them in England” – only you do if you are not Arsenal Football Club.
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just some of the nonsense spouted by English commentators and pundits to excuse cheating and foul play – when it suits.
you don’t get them in England
he got the ball first
he touched the ball
it was accidental
get in their faces
let them know you are there
if you leave your foot out the attacker is entitled to go down
it was smart play by the attacker to buy the penalty
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Before Riley:
England beat Holland, Argentina, the odd slump: a normal football team.
After Riley:
Hilarious attempts to play football against the giants of:
Ecuador, Costa Rica and Iceland in consecutive order.
–
If looks like a turd, smells like a turd, has the consistency of turd droppings, then it just might be an actual turd.
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< not the current Holland but Bergkamps Holland…
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As Shearer has now predictably piped up about softness and bullying, just want to post part of something I wrote ages ago after reading Nev’s book, but never posted.
I don’t think it is a quarter as relevant, reaction to the elbow aside, to Saturday’s game as to many a game, but it is to the soft/ bullied narrative
——————————————————————-
What does bullying entail on a football field, and what role does a referee play in determining the success of bullying as a tactic? Yes, I’ve been reading the words of Gary Neville again.
Any Arsenal fan who doesn’t experience pain when thinking about game 50 at Old Trafford is one I find hard to understand; any who doesn’t feel anger towards the United players and manager and, especially, the referee Mike Riley is one I doubt I could get along with and, moreover, one I suspect full stop. What are they about? How could they fail to see how despicably the referee performed on that day? How could that game not persuade them to think, often, that there is something amiss with a refereeing system that produced Riley, and then effectively made him the king of refereeing in this country?
Anyway, Neville. Yet it is about more than Neville, much more. It is about the ideas in this country of how football should be played, is about whatever this concept of bullying means on a football pitch; whether it is true we were then, and still are now, a soft team; it’s about what is legitimate on a football field. It is about the attitude of other clubs towards us for the last decade or so. It’s about broken limbs, the media, the referees, hypocrisy, truth, lies…and whether or not most of us Untolders are deluded, or crazy, or whinge bags, or various other undesirable things.
Gary Neville is arguably the most respected football person in the country , unless you bring his former manager into it. Yet, there are still at least some who loathe Ferguson, while Neville has largely won everyone over, convincing all that he is articulate, interesting, honest, and fair.
For me, if he is our great hope, our champion of footballing intelligence, our fate is sealed. If, that is, he is honest in what he says. I only need to read Neville’s views on game 50 to be sure of this. They make clear that Neville, apparently, has no concept of what the majority of the football world acknowledges as fair or foul; a tackle, or a foul; a booking, or not; smashing into an opponent deliberately and dangerously, or tripping them up. A man who genuinely doesn’t understand these things cannot succeed where a referee performs adequately. He cannot help the national team rise from perennial disappointment to something greater. He is not likely to succeed in a foreign land. If he does not recognise the role of the referee in deciding whether bullying tactics succeed or not, his outlook is fatally flawed should ever a referee’s views- or behaviour, more like- not be the same as his own, or suit his purposes.
But does Neville believe the ref did his job adequately that day? The answer to that seems crucial in determining Neville’s success at home and abroad. The answer is unknown, and yet Neville’s behaviour suggests he knows well enough what was what. If he didn’t target all wingers as he did Reyes, especially in international games or in Europe, there has to be a good reason why. After all, it worked nicely on Reyes. I say he knows; as a football nut and an intelligent one, he knows well enough. In his capacity as an England coach he would never take aside a player on the eve of a game, let alone an important one, and say, ‘come watch this; look how I dealt with Reyes; you do the same’. He wouldn’t because he knows. That is not how the referee will perform. A booking will arrive early and, if you persist, a second.
Yet Neville insists his tactics on the day were ‘legitimate’, that the advice of the great man merely centred around tackling. The genius insight was that no one had been tackling Arsenal players, and it was about time someone did. Lightbulbs flashed in United players minds, admiration swelled. ‘Geez, who would have thought: so simple. People haven’t been tackling them; we will.’ Now, you could look critically at all the other foolish players and, especially, managers, who had not had this idea about tackling Arsenal players, but why dwell on it. let’s just appreciate a genius manager at work. The whistle went, the tackling began, and…bloody hell, he was right, right I tell you, they didn’t like being tackled.
I believe that game did hideous damage to us as a football club. The loss of points and the end of the unbeaten run was one thing, but in effect it paled into insignificance when compared to the real damage : a new benchmark, a new narrative.
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Technology and officiating: I completed this blog while watching the Superbowl and it was simply amazing how the NFL ensured that all the refereeing decisions were transparently fair. There are several calls which are subject to review by the video ref even after the ref has blown the play and made a ruling on the field. Cases of unecessary roughness (excessive use of force), holding and smashing the quarterback after he has released the ball are not subject solely to referee interpretation. The video ref will have a decisive say. One major game changing call, which could easily have been gone either way, was the miraculous catch in the 4th quarter by a New England player after the ball was tipped in the air by a Falcon. The sequence was so fast the officials would have been forgiven for getting it wrong. Meanwhile those of us watching on tv after the 1st replay could see it was a fair catch. It was referred to the video ref for ajudication who easily ruled in the Patriots favor. Atlanta have absolutely no grounds to stand on this morning to claim they were robbed.
Meanwhile, those of us watching the PL from afar ,with or without high definition tv, see the PGMO refs making a complete mockery of fair play. The Americans and the NFL in particularly are not stupid. They have one of the biggest, most profitable sports franchises in the world. They are not going to let refereeing bias and ineptitude fuck it up. Pardon my French.
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Arsenal’s title hopes are all but gone after their 3-1 loss to Chelsea and Arsene Wenger admits that the defeat was a painful one.
Published
1 hour ago
Arsene Wenger was hurt by the “naive” performance of some of his Arsenal players during a defeat to Chelsea that was “difficult to watch”.
Goals from Marcos Alonso, Eden Hazard and former Gunners captain Cesc Fabregas sealed a 3-1 victory for Antonio Conte’s side on Saturday, with Olivier Giroud’s late header serving as scant consolation.
The result leaves Arsenal 12 points adrift of the Premier League leaders and only one above fifth-place Liverpool with 14 matches left to play.
And Wenger – who watched from the stands as he continues to serve a touchline ban – says his side’s defensive nous and creativity in attack left much to be desired, and suggested the 2-1 home loss to Watford the previous Tuesday had damaged their belief more than he thought.
“That defeat against Watford had bigger consequences, maybe, than expected,” he said. “We didn’t create enough. In the final third we didn’t look dangerous enough.
“That was difficult to watch from upstairs. I’m not subdued. I’m disappointed and angry because we lost a very big game.
“The title’s slipped further out of our hands and there’s no hiding that.
“Certain players individually were not at their best and when you are very young and inexperienced and there seems to me players who are not playing at their best level, well that hurts.
“There were players who know Hazard well and know very well that you don’t let him get up a head of speed and we were very naive.”
Read more at http://www.fourfourtwo.com/au/news/hurt-wenger-says-chelsea-drubbing-was-difficult-watch#0KY0dPkrxoK6rVgI.99
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rich of course Neville knows full well that he could do to Reyes what he did, cos it was Man UTd, and it was Mike Riley, just as the group of managers often called the manchester mafia knew they could kick lumps out of Arsenal – Moyes, Pulis, Fat Sam, Bruce were just some of the managers in the Manchester mafia, they took the advice of Fergie on kicking Arsenal, the refs were accommodating and the result – Reyes kicked out of the league, Diaby and Eduardo kicked out of a career, and Ramsey with an injury ravished career, and of course its “soft Arsenal don’t like it up them”
how anyone who viewed that 50th game and now sees Mike Riley in charge of the BPL refs, could possibly think that underhand deeds are not being performed by the refs is beyond me
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“The sequence was so fast the officials would have been forgiven for getting it wrong.”
Forgiven ….. !!! FORGIVEN !!!!!! But there are seven of them ?
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Rich
Not just a new benchmark but a tactic that can only be employed with the support of the 12th man. (Argie Bargie exists everywhere but usually you don’t have a handicap applied to one team…). It also explains why they don’t want to invest in coaches or in kids. If the average player has a career of a few years before being hacked off the park then why bother, as with happened with Kevin Davis, or even Gazza. Meat is meat, after all. That’s the pathology of these loons.
That was, what, thirteen years ago?
What has been the result?
Ecuador, Costa Rica & Iceland.
LOL!
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Shotta we know why American sports have that rigour:
The 1919 World Series.
And he association with the betting industries.
Fortunately things like Man Utd or Liverpool getting convicted of match rigging (which happened in 1919! Or close enough) could never happen here.
As Frankie Boyle would say:
“Oooo. Er. Missus”
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Andrew
Not only seven officials (supported by new fangled occult technology such as the disembodied spineless radio ref) but they have also have a smaller pitch to cover which means they should all be closer to the action!
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Ranty,
I had made that request in the past but here we are and Shotts has put together this brilliant series, don’t worry there’s no going back now!
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Technology ? I thought it was about flag throwing!
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I suppose the EPL equivalent is kicking the water bottle – a much better commentary from Gordon Strachan
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fins, Frankie Howard, not Frankie Boyle, ha ha .
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Good work again Shotta.
I regularly contribute with clips and tables on Untold Arsenal for the weekly ref reports. So if anyone has been reading it, up to Week 16 there has been 322 wrong major decisions in 160 games. That is roughly 2 wrong major decisions per game.
Here is a link if anyone wants to read.
https://justpaste.it/137rk
In cricket, the One day cricket in general, provides 1 review each to both teams. This review allows the team captain to challenge any decision of the umpire, major decisions or even smaller ones. If the umpire’s decision gets successfully overturned, then the team that reviewed it gets to keep their review, to use again later at any point.
This has led to umpires raising their games and improving the sport as a whole in general.
My quick initial solution would be to do the same in football, giving each team 1 review, with which they can challenge the referee on a penalty (given/not given), offside leading to a goal (given/not given), straight red card (given/not given), 2nd yellow (given/not given) and any foul leading to goal (given/not given).
With this the time lost would be kept to as minimum as possible.
As for the disadvantages and the drawbacks… I will keep it short.
1. Bias of main ref.
2. Bias of the video ref.
3. Teams that get favoured a lot, will go against this.
4. Referees’ will feel insulted having their decisions being challenged, even disregarding the benefit of the sport (yes, this is a real thing there a still many refs in Netherlands, Germany and England against video use in football).
5.TV companies using bad angles of incidents for certain teams.
6. Media, pundits, “experts”, papers all going against as it would spoil the “flow” of the game.
http://untold-arsenal.com/archives/58627
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Yes, Andy, forgiven. And the reason is that video technology ensures the consequences of such a human mistake are mitigated: a missed call is not allowed to turn a game. People are magically more forgiving when you set up a system whose purpose is to get it right and not to court controversy. Shotta is right that Atlanta will not make one argument today that they were robbed by a bad call. They collapsed and threw away what should have been an insurmountable lead, and allowed the evil empire to win again (twice in one weekend)…but no one will blame a ref.
Not being a correlation equals causation fan, I don’t believe that missed calls (true) equals crooked refs (not proven). Having said that, my opinion, unsupported by any data at all, is that the FA and the League like the controversy. It drives conversation on Monday morning, and the only thing worse than people saying something bad about you is people saying nothing at all. Video technology won’t be used until missed ref calls drive people away from the product. We could be getting close…
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Further to my point: Seven refs on the field in the biggest spectacle in American sport, and I could not have told you the name of any of them. Yet every week, we’re told who’s going to ref our PL match days ahead of time, so we can start the debate early. There’s something wrong with that.
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Eds,
Hah! Boyle is also very funny. The two Frankies would’ve been a great show.
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BOOM!
‘bama ends the debate!*
Sorry everybody.
*it was the same problem in the cricket. The various boards and associations would bikker and argue over various appointments, letters would be written requesting the removal of ‘biased’ individuals, series would be ruined and the sport degraded and undermined.
Now these ‘debates’ mercifully only occur when certain boards insist on Old Skool methods.
As with the 1919 world series in the US there is a reason why modern cricket had to adopt strong support for the officals thereafter: the influence of betting match fixing mafia*, the legal definition used in the US being RICO enterprise which i believe is exactly the term that they used to describe FUFA…blimey!
People who have connections with smaller football clubs in the UK have been jailed in the UK for fixing in cricket, but watch Barton continue to be defended by the BBC etc., the same people telling us it wasn’t a foul on Bellerin. There it is.
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< bicker!
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usamazaka at 12:39 pm: A video ref along the lines you propose is infinitely superior to completely subjective travesty that now exists. As I documented previously, the real goal of referees that help found the PGMOB was to earn more money via a full-time career serving the money-making machine called the PL.Improving referee standards was just the PR to sell the idea to the usually feckless, gullible public who are inexperienced in such matters. 20 years later, the evidence is in; referees are beholden to the biases of their leadership and to the moneyed clubs that power the league. If I made this charge 10 years ago, after game 50, I would have little evidence in support. As I learnt from the advice of professional investors, one must wait on the data.
As for the importance of unbiased statistics, it is not surprising that although I and you, including your friends at Untold, started our journeys at different points, by following the data inexorably we ended up at the same conclusion. This rotten system of PGMO refereeing needs to be reformed. Ultimately technology will have to play a role, a much bigger role.
As for the remaining sceptics, who regard this as whingeing by bitter Arsenal fans, let me remind you the biggest sufferers from this unjust ystem is the mid to lower level teams in the PL. Increasingly they are failing to get the rub of the green as more and more penalty calls go in favor of the big moneyed teams at their expense.
Finally, I can confidently predict that it won’t be a revolt by the masses that will change this system given the reluctance of the mainstream media as well as the army of Arsenal bloggers and tweeters to make it an issue. After all it is not profitable to question the status quo. But only by challenging the Establishment that real changes come about; ask Martin Luther King. (I deliberately avoided any reference to recent political changes in Britain and the US because this is not the place to incite political divisions.) But I predict that sensible businessmen who have a vested interest in the PL growing and thriving will soon direct the PGMO to make the needed reforms. It’s all about who benefits.
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Has the pool of the refs in the PL, the number of officials who aren’t part timers (approx 12/13 of those on the list) been a reduction in the overall numbers* to that which existed prior? I don’t know, but others will!
*Whilst also excluding people for the past decade from the most populated part of the U.K. with the most football clubs and the most registered players and therefore the most active refs, none of whom apparently are qualified or capable to apply the flexible code variant of pgMOB Rules (OK?) Football. LOL!
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Good point made by Alabama earlier about the notoriety of PL refs becoming part of the marketing and hype surrounding the game. Yet in the Superbowl game yesterday, unlike the pre-video era, the head referee and his band of 6 officials were almost anonymous. Yet we have this nonsense of our fortunes hanging on the graces of messers Atkinson, Clattenberg, Mason, Dean, et al., all of whom are subject to a major cock up without the assistance of a video ref.
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The “forgiven” quip should have had the irony pennant attached Alabama. Very, very occasionally a PL who makes an error will be given the “honest mistake” option but the day in and day out abuse of officials as a corrupt, incompetent, sub human species rather suggests it is a rare instance.
Fair point about knowing the names of the officials, and where they were born, and live, and their hobbies!
And finally the other thing Shotta will have noticed in the Houston game is how the on field officials are not subject to tirade of hysterical, spit filled obscenity from the players any time they make a call that one side or the other (occasionally both) does not agree with – as is our own beautiful game.
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Andrew you mean like this?
This clip is taken from before the pgMOB era, a long time ago now, when officials such as the gentlemen dealing with the slightly irate Arsenal Captain hailed from the region of the country that produces, by far, the highest proportion of professional footballers today, when people from the region of the nation that produces most of the top level footballers in the sport were still allowed to be officials and representatives on behalf of the FA.
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Marvellous Fins – I remember it well – Rooney has taken the concept to new levels though;
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Andy and Fins: Thanks for reminding us of the disgraceful abuse directed at senior English referees by the most senior of English footballers in their blatant attempts to ensure that the referees bow to their will. I am sure you can find similar shots of England’s senior defender dishing out similar vitriol on behalf of Chelsea. As Alabama highlighted, contrast this with the Superbowl when even a superstar like Tom Brady deferred to the officials and the array of video which they could rely.
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Fuck the Chelsea game and fuck the league. Let’s concentrate on the CL and the fact that Bayern look very beatable.
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Gainsy: There are 2 cups at stake; Champions League and FA.
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One interesting thing I just read on the FA site is a recommended minimum 19 day break from football for a player who ha suffered a concussion, including a preliminary 14 day complete break of 14 days.
http://www.thefa.com/-/media/www-thefa-com/images/my-football/concussion/10182-diagrams-large6.ashx?la=en
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Just a coincidence we have been targeted by elbows to the head though.
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just listened to a little football chat on the Matt Cooper show on Irish radio station TodayFM, the two pundits were Tony Cascarino and Mark Lawrenson, the 3 things discussed – Arsenal/Wenger, Chelsea/Conte and Liverpool/Klopp. No doubt any of you who listened to any football discussion show in the last few days will have listened to probably the same nonsense as I’ve just done. Certainly anyone who visited any of many Arsenal bloggs will have seen the sort of logic that now passes for well thought out critique. I seen a number of AFC blogs who ran with the theme that even though the Bellerin incident was a clear foul and the goal should not have stood, maybe even a yellow card offence, it did not alter the match one iota, cos before that incident Arsenal had not exactly dominated the game. The Alonso goal being ruled out would only have delayed the outcome, not altered it.
anyway back to the Matt Cooper show football discussion
the jist of it
time for Wenger to leave, as Arsenal not challenging for the title, lots of top managers out there to replace him, but here is the punch line – even with a top new manager Arsenal unlikely to challenge for the title for the next 3 years or maybe even much longer, but Wenger has to go for not winning the title.
and oh yes it will be a “joke” when little old Bayern Munich dump Arsenal out of the CL in a few weeks time.
Little old chelsea have been transformed by Conte (of course the facts that they were run away league winners only two years ago, and have spent over £150M adding to that squad was overlooked). Conte is the best manager ever.
Liverpool player have let Klopp down, LFC need to buy lots of top players, Klopp is great, its not Klopp’s fault, spend spend spend, and Klopp is wonderful, Boom.
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Unfortunately that concussion guideline is just a “recommendation”, the British medical council whi once asked for heading to be banned were probably not happy with that!
we’ve seen players over the last few years in the league come back prior to three weeks off but imagine now there’s greater awareness that the three week window will become more common. There was a recent concussion at AFC in the last few years and I think they took the three week route, could be wrong as I haven’t checked!
Some concussions are given three day window guidelines but I guess that is for the kind of milder knock you might get under a desk etc. as opposed to the old UFC elbow in the face following a long run up and jump where one had a clear line of sight of the whilst the other on the receiving end didn’t, therefore unable to have a reflex adjustment in their posture etc. to mitigate the impact from the incoming object: about as cowardly an elbow as you’ll see, considering they are banned in rugby etc
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Eddy I gave up on the blogs and podcastateers after the match at Stamford bridge two seasons ago when Ozil was hacked off the park (don’t worry andrew I won’t add a mild three week knock or strain to the list of injuries caused by uncalled fouls, no need when there’s plenty to choose from…!)
There was one podcast that was over two hours long, longer then the football match, where non of the bile filled puffbags who were then slagging off an injured player who went on or had just won a WC managed to pick up that the player was hobbling from about the 15th minute onwards.
Simple conclusion:
They’re not watching the football!
My advise:
Don’t waste your time!
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still 0-0 in the u23’s game with Everton
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everton have taken the lead on 86 minutes
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REPORT – MARTINEZ AND JENKINSON FEATURE AS ARSENAL U23S SUFFER LATE AGONY AGAINST EVERTON
by jeorge bird
Premier League 2
Everton 1 Arsenal 0
A much-changed Arsenal U23 side suffered late agony away to league leaders Everton this evening, with substitute Nathan Broadhead hitting a late winner for the hosts.
Arsenal were thrashed 5-0 when these sides met earlier in the campaign, but Steve Gatting’s side managed to give a much better account of themselves on this occasion.
They were unable to hold on, however, and in truth Everton merited their victory having tested Arsenal goalkeeper Emiliano Martinez on several occasions.
With many players having left the club on loan in the closing stages of the transfer window, Gatting called upon several members of the U18 side for this fixture, with Joseph Olowu, Josh Dasilva, Donyell Malen and Vlad Dragomir all starting.
Two members of the first-team squad, Martinez and Carl Jenkinson, were also involved, while Cohen Bramall continued at left-back and there was a rare start for Savvas Mourgos. Eddie Nketiah, however, missed out through injury.
Martinez
Jenkinson-Olowu-Sheaf-Bramall
Nelson-Dasilva
Mourgos-Dragomir-C. Willock
Malen
Subs: Fortune (for Malen, 83). Not used: Virginia, Johnson, T. Bola, McGuane.
Reiss Nelson had the first opportunity of the game, with the England youth international, deployed in central midfield, shooting over.
At the other end Martinez then had to react quickly to keep out Kieran Dowell’s effort, with Arsenal eventually managing to scramble away the danger.
Everton were the dominant side for much of the opening period and Martinez was on hand to prevent Courtney Duffus from getting a shot away when well placed.
Henry Charlsley, who was impressive in midfield for Everton, then shot over but Arsenal managed to mount a response, with Nelson seeing his attempt saved.
The final opportunity of the half fell to Everton, with defender Matthew Foulds embarking upon a mazy run downfield only to see his effort repelled by Martinez.
Arsenal started the second period brightly, with Vlad Dragomir’s fierce shot from distance saved by Everton goalkeeper Mateusz Hewelt.
However, it was Arsenal’s goalkeeper, Martinez, who continued to shine, with the Argentine denying Anton Donkor.
Duffus later squandered an inviting chance to score the winner for Everton as the clock ticked down and it appeared as if Arsenal were going to hold on.
Yassin Fortune, who scored for the U18s against Fulham on Saturday, entered the fray late on as he made his first appearance for the U23s this season.
Arsenal’s hopes of securing a point were dashed in the closing stages, however, with substitute Broadhead finding the net for Everton after he was located by Dowell.
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Previously I had been restricting the mental count on injuries caused by uncalled fouls in the post Ozilian era to:
Serious knocks, broken legs, dislocated shoulders, flying leaps with elbows to the head that thankfully only result in concussions, that kind of thing.
At least that’s my excuse for some vagueness on the second Debuchy injury *coughs*
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Oh! Can’t forget the two handed push in the back into a pit.
That was a classic!
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I might have to start writing some of these down (don’t worry I won’t, no need!)
There are quite a lot of them…
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I’ve seen a fair few where our player stays down after a dodgy challenge, Alexis a couple of times at least, where strangely no replay was forthcoming.
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Well worth a read https://www.balls.ie/football/hector-bellerin-concussion-358444
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Very interesting Shotta, the data is certainly accumulating.
I am not sure things will improve until we get an English manager, or our board stop being so bloody passive and conservative.
Some great comments. What will change the PGMOL and the potential for bias and match fixing in this league? My guess , a greedy, or possibly slighted insider. Big money brings problems with loyalty and secrecy. There will be a ref who knows something, has evidence, perceives he has been shat on from above, decides on revenge one day, and change may come. Those in power in world bodies, probably corrupt themselves, but jealous of the money in this league will surround events like hungry vultures, eager to bring this league down.
Mike Riley, if he is indeed doing what many of us suspect he is, has been shown in the past as a weak man that yields easily to power, IF he has in anyway been corrupted, he won’t be able to get out at this point, he will have to keep it going, in the knowledge that should the house of cards fall, he would be one of the first in the firing line while the corrupt agents, bookies, managers, officials , media and god knows who else make their exits. He may of course be completely innocent of anything criminal,and just incompetent, in which case, he will have nothing to worry about and can sleep very easily knowing he has the fortune to have been promoted well beyond his abilities
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Just read through. Brilliant article & comments.
Thanks fins. Write em down, even if you don’t publish.
Usama, what’s been goin on at/outside the Bridge/coal yard, please?
(with Mike T’s mates. What a ****ing troll, eh)?
I remain somewhat devastated at the long and ongoing diatribe aimed at ending getting rid of Arsène Wenger. I need to write a letter and hand it to him when he comes out of the car park. I’ll tell him how very much I appreciate all he’s done at Arsenal and that I know he has suffered from insidious corruption throughout his managerial career, and that he should stay as long as he wishes. I’ll resist telling him I wish he was my dad.
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Been half sticking to my plan of avoiding the football news, but just had to have a little look before bed didn’t I.
Ever seen an active prem player disparage a team and manager and suggest the manager should leave before?
Not me. Charlie fucking Adam of all people. I’ve noticed he seems to be in with some media people and no doubt will be on our screens for a few decades when he’s done.
Also heard him warmly talking about ‘Davey’ Moyes in a way that suggested they are pals. Friends of Fergie live on, blighting the sport.
http://metro.co.uk/2017/02/06/charlie-adam-calls-wengers-tactics-madness-and-arsenal-players-soft-6431794/
First his weird obsession with Bale and trying to injure him, then his stamping and headlock antics against us, with Alexis now his primary target. Is he jealous of real footballers or something
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Re Your 8.20 comment on heading a football Fins I don’t think anyone has ever suggested banning heading. I think there is a lot more care taken with head injuries in all sports now because of the fatalities and serious injuries that have followed allowing sportsmen to return to action.
On the more general point of “heading” and what it does to a human brain though there is some cracking research via this weblink from the University of Stirling;
https://www.stir.ac.uk/news/2016/10/heading-a-football-causes-instant-changes-to-brain/
I look at Merson, as one among many ex pros, and the short term conclusions at least ring a loud bell
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