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?