It was one of the biggest travesties seen on a football pitch for many a year, when the Man United fan Mike Riley gifted Man United an unlikely win over the unbeaten Arsenal, after allow Fergie’s team to kick hell out of our players from the beginning until the end.
If VAR Had been around in those days, Arsenal would have won a lot more trophies, and Man United would have won a lot less.
Remember ‘Fergie Time’ ????
Anyway, let’s watch how Riley cheats us once again….
17 years ago today: Mike Riley ended Arsenal’s historic 49-game unbeaten run with one of the most biased refereeing displays English football has ever seen.
pic.twitter.com/KS82e6tgzD— Throwback Arsenal (@ThrowbackAFC) October 23, 2021
I don’t know where Pat gets his history from, but surely it was on this day in 2004 not 1999?
Ooops, your right, I was doing the Kanu one at same time!
I’ll chamge now
Remember that Rooney dive like it was yesterday.
Just watched the highlights and dcouldn’t remember half of those challenges LOL would have been 3 reds for Man Utd these days .
Telling that Riley is now in charge of the PGMOL and the standards are way below their counterparts across Europe.
It was 2004 Pat
This was the game that changed things for me. It showed how corrupt football was and how the league wanted man utd to dominate. Oh and if VAR was available it would have changed anything you’d be wrong. You only have to look at the Crystal Palace match to see the that and numerous other matches when VAR do a Wenger and say ” I didn’t see that “. How there was no investigation after that match always baffled me and ( Just to show my age ) reminded me of the Leeds Utd European Cup final against Bayern Munich in ’75. Despicable all round. I have no faith in the fairness of the Premier League, FIfa or Uefa.
It’s still the same today, just ask Saka after the Palace game.
I have always said that there are referees that cheat and Riley /Dean are prime examples.
Watching the highlights again fills me with rage that manure got away with it, both on the field and in the media that day.
While Riley is in charge of the referees, we will never be able to call them to account, something that AW is trying to change with his latest suggestion.
How people can say it evens itself out over a season I have no idea – we “lost” that game and, with it, our incredible unbeaten run.
KEN, to say “it evens itself out over the long run” is , as you say, just a simplistic and oft repeated (in parrot fashion by so MANY fans) lot of nonsense!
Each ref mistake affects any one particular team at that time and there is zero evidence to claim that “evens out” tripe is true.
Now as you know, I disagree with you and the many Gooners who claim some refs are cheats. BUT I do think almost all refs are deeply incompetent and that Riley is a wrong un who should never have been put in charge.
Decades ago our refs were rightly regarded as the best in the world but those days have long gone and these days our refs are really bad, across the board.
Not actually cheats but subservient to their lord and master Riley, who is an ego on legs and completely unfit to even run a whelk stall, let alone a refs “association”!
Jon, I’m sure you watched the video – how you can say Riley wasn’t cheating, when he completely ignored the Neville brothers trying to end Reyes career, I will never understand.
The number of deliberate fouls that he completely ignored, does not show incompetence (as he very quickly carded Cole) it shows a deliberate and calculated plan to influence the game – just as Dean did on Monday when he completely ignored a sending off offence that happened not two yards away from him..
Will never forget this