As we witnesses yet another VAR debacle in the Scotland versus Spain match, I looked up the referee in that game and, lo and behold, he was involved in a match fixing allegation that found him innocent of all charges.
Then, twenty minutes after the Scots’ goal was ruled out for one infringement, that explanation was taken down and another reason given for having the goal disallowed… after the game had restarted of course!!!
But weren’t we told that, in the spud/pool game, the game has to continue, even though a clear and obvious mistake had been made?
So that’s cleared one thing up for me then – you can change the reason why a goal was disallowed twenty minutes later, but you can’t correct a mistake 30 seconds after the PGMOL have made a mistake.
That brought me back to Howard Webb’s explanation of why we didn’t see two yellow cards (or even two red cards) in the recent Arsenal City game, although Mr Webb did admit that was what should have happened.
It was because Michael Oliver didn’t want to spoil the game by making it 11 versus 10 in such an important game.
Now I’ve searched everywhere in the rulebook for referees to find such an important rule, but to date, I haven’t found it.
Then I thought, what if Odegaard or Rice had been injured enough to have been substituted, would there be a rule that Oliver could then use to ensure it remained unspoilt, such as city’s captain having to be substituted or Rice’s equivalent to be substituted… but guess what? There doesn’t seem to be a rule covering that either!!
However, as history tells us, Michael Oliver, in the space of thirty seconds, issued Martinelli with two yellow cards, resulting in a 11 versus 10 situation, with no thought about keeping THAT important game unspoilt, and I wondered just what Michael Oliver’s record was regarding our club and Man City with regards to such decisions.
I started to trawl the Internet and came across this remarkable piece of work from another Arsenal fan, (and backed up by Transfrmkt stats).
Michael Oliver has, while REFEREEING both The Arsenal and Manchester City in the PL:
1. Produced more red and yellow cards to The Arsenal players than any other PL club.
2. Has awarded more penalties against The Arsenal than any other PL club.
3. Has awarded fewer yellow cards to City than any of the top eight clubs.
4. Has not issued one single red card against City.
5. Has awarded City eleven penalties.
Now, I have watched all the PL clubs that have graced the PL since Michael Oliver started to referee there and, from the stats above, find it very hard to understand why The Arsenal seem to be the club that infringes the rules most, have given away the most penalties under him – while City have been the paragons of virtue, with not one single red card, fewer yellow cards than Liverpool, Manchester United, The Arsenal, Everton and Spurs, and have been so sinned against, that Michael has seen fit to award them eleven penalties (remember he’s issued the most AGAINST The Arsenal) in this great piece of detective work.
I will leave it to others to try and explain this and will leave you with one last thought – if Mike Dean and Michael Oliver can “invent” rules, in order to, either, help out a fellow referee or to keep 11 versus 11 no matter what happens on the field of play (and backed up by the leader of the PGMOL in the latter incident) why on earth do we have a rule book for referees and why bother with VAR anyway?!
No wonder they don’t want the paying public to hear how they come to their decisions!!
A very dissatisfied, mystified and corrupted…
ken1945
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