As much as we Arsenal fans have bitched and moaned about the likes of Sir Alex Ferguson and Jose Mourinho seeming to have a real and unfair influence on the officials in recent years, you know that we will happily take a friendly decision or two in our favour.
But really we just want a referee and his assistants to play fair and get their decisions right, and that could be even more important than usual when Brendan Rodgers and his Liverpool team arrive in north London on Monday evening. We certainly do not want anything like the ridiculous bias shown to them in their last game against Bournemouth, who had a good goal disallowed while Liverpool had a blatant offside, according to the new revision of the rules, ignored.
Rodgers has even had the nerve this week to praise the decision, even though the Premier League has announced that their goal should not have stood. Yeah, Brenda, nice objectivity, I am sure you will be saying that if the same thing happens against you.
Anyway, my point is that this is likely to be a tough and tight game and it could be the fine margins that decide it, so I am happy that we have got Michael Oliver as the man in the middle. Arsenal have not always had the best results under the young ref, with the 5-1 loss at Anfield being one of them, but we have not had much cause for complaint either. And with the seemingly penalty proof Marten Skrtel sure to be trying to take off our players´ shirts at every set piece, Mr. Oliver could have a big part to play.
He was brilliant when we went to Old Trafford in the FA cup last season, having the balls to send off Di Maria in front of the raging Man United fans. I think Oliver is on his way to being the best ref in England and I very much doubt that he will have any bias or make many mistakes, so now it is all down to the Arsenal players. Simples?