Arsenal braced for more referee woe against Leicester?

It could have been worse for Arsenal fans I suppose. The Premier League could have named our old friend Mike Dean as the man in the middle for the crucial title chasing clash with Leicester City, although after his shockingly bad and biased showing against Chelsea at Stamford Bridge, the football authorities had to overturn his decisions and were left looking a bit foolish.

The referee we have been given is not a lot better though, as Martin Atkinson has a bit of previous when taking charge of Arsenal games and he has been on the end of some criticism from Arsene Wenger in the past. The last time was after Atkinson missed a clear penalty on Mertesacker while giving Arsenal players soft yellow card when we lost at Tottenham almost exactly a year ago.

He was also the man in charge when we lost 6-3 away to Man City, with all those dodgy offside calls denying us goals if you remember. The fact that our record in the last seven games reffed by Atkinson is just one win and one draw with five defeats is certainly worrying.

As I said, though, he is far from being as bad as Mike Dean and perhaps the averages will start to even out a bit against Leicester tomorrow. I certainly hope that the Gunners are not left cursing some inept decisions yet again, but if we are I would seriously begin to think that Arsenal are not being treated fairly for some reason.

We cannot keep being just unlucky can we?

Tags Atkinson Dean Wenger

8 Comments

  1. I really do hate Mike Dean. But let’s not start looking for excuses. We should win this game regardless.

    1. I saw these statistical studies that showed Arsenal’s record under Mike Dean is statistically significantly different than that under all other refs combined. Such statistical tests are used for serious medical studies to detect the presence of a cause (eg virus etc) that may be responsible for the difference in performance. Mike Dean should be out of a job right now because he’s a fraud and should have been investigated had the FA not had a blanket policy of protecting refs. Atkinson is next on that list.

    2. If we have to blame the ref every time we lose then we are weak. If the players can’t play to the rules and not score more than the others that’s hard Sh::t but please leave the Ref out of it CB

  2. We went through a whole season unbeaten & back then, we still had controversial referees that always seemed against us back then. Look, when you’re defensively poor, which we have been in the past few years at very crucial times, & players lunge into challenges with desperation & immaturity, we end up exposing ourselves to controversial or poor decisions. I think our biggest worry right now is that we haven’t really been up to scratch in our performances, more so than Martin Atkinson’s record against us. If we hadn’t dropped as many points as we’ve done recently, the worry about referee’s decisions wouldn’t be a topic of discussion at all.

  3. True, Martin Atkinson and his linesmen could be a cause to worry about for Arsenal as they tackle Leicester this afternoon. If his bias officiating and those of his linesmen incorrect flagging off-sides the Gunners in their games are to be taken into account.

    Nevertheless, the Gunners should not worry themselves on what kind of bias officiating the match officials might do against them today afternoon. But concentrate fully on their game and play the match to their maximum ability. In so doing, the Law of Nemesis will catch up will any referee’s clandestine moves against the Gunners of Arsenal FC during the proceedings of this match at the Ems. Arsenal will beat Leicester City by 3 goals to nil at full-time 90” +.

    1. Oh please stop it. Of course they did not ref ALL of Arsenal’s losses – just the ones in which Arsenal deserved to win but did not because of referee incompetence.

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