One way of looking at the way things have been going for Arsenal this season with referees is that our luck is evening itself out, as the old adage says will happen. Except that it is supposed to work over the course of the season and Arsenal have had, in my opinion, the wrong end of decisions for years so hopefully it will take a couple more years of good decisions to balance out. Yeah right!
I never believed that saying anyway, as Man United under Fergie got away with murder for years and there is a big case for the smaller clubs´ claims that they get the short end of the stick more often than not.
The officials are really under the spotlight this season, though, and once again yesterday a lot of the talk was about penalties not given, the wrong player being sent off and bad calls from them in general.
They are under more pressure than ever so I have to assume that they appreciate the sort of support that Arsene Wenger has been giving them. The Frenchman once again this week called for more respect for the referees and for players and managers, including himself, to make a real effort to make their jobs easier.
Jose Mourinho has had no joy whatsoever in his obvious attempt to influence the officials in the favour of Chelsea this season, quite the opposite in fact, whereas I think the Gunners have been treated a lot more fairly. The ref for our game yesterday had a good game in general and resisted the ferocious home crowd´s calls for a penalty when he could have given it against us.
Only he will know whether Wenger´s approach had any influence. Perhaps they just feel under less pressure with Wenger than they do with some ranting loon waiting on the touchline to harangue them for every little mistake. Less pressure means they are more likely to get the calls right.
Hopefully round about now Mourinho will be seething about some decision that has not gone his way and hopefully he will keep harassing the officials for the rest of the season, because I think it will only help Arsenal.
To be honest the refs in this season premeireship games have been very poor! Imagine the ref sending off the wrong player, in the man city / west brom game now that was shocking!
Holy Courtois!
feel sorry for refs. alot to take in, gotta make instant decisions sometimes without really knowing,being hurled abuse by fans an home fans constant pressure, not to mention players and managers…
the best refs in our league earn 70,000 a year- less than alot of players earn in a week.
absolutely shite job, they must be mad
They can always get another job, don’t do it if you can’t handle it.
Don’t care what anyone says – near impossible for a human being to referee a modern match with any degree of certainty. In real time, see it once, over in a blink – things that even “experts” don’t agree on after the event with 26 different angles in HD slow-mo. And the “modern” player just makes it a 100 times more difficult with almost constant simulation. As one person said “there can be a billion people in the world watching a PL match and the one person with the least information is the one trying his/her best to referee it”. Ridiculous really.
Wrong identity should be inexcusable but it happens and there is not a thing to help the decision or even reverse it.
Hull pls do us a favor
off topic..
How much time does Diaby has left at AFC?
50 years…hes on the life sentence contract
#wenger’s illegitimate son
DIABY – Is part acronym and question:
Dependable Invalid on Arsenal Bench -Y?
lol nice
Good try, but not “dependable” nor on the “bench”.
Er…honestly I think Arsene talks to the 4th official as much as anyone. Jose barks at certain calls, but in some games Arsene is in the ref’s ear all day. If you think Arsenal is being called unfairly (which I do at times for the ridiculously bad luck we seem to have with calls) then perhaps it is because Arsene talks to them too often.
The uproar lately is about PLAYERS influencing the ref’s decision by a concerted effort to surround and ask for punishment. The Chelski team against PSG is the big one right now, but Jose’s teams have always done this, and you can see certain players have a clear influence over refs. Terry is the most glaring example for me as he often talks the refs into giving bookings while escaping his own for challenges anyone else would be carded for. For my money Terry should have been thrown out twice over in that game as he started shoving matches that PSG players got booked for 3 times, had a couple professional fouls to stop play, and ended up never getting a card.
I think this is what Arsene was talking about moreso than managers influencing the decisions. And if you want to talk about pre-match or post-match talks that influence refs, Arsene is as guilty as anyone, though he may have pissed a couple of them off into giving us the short end.
Exactly.
There are two ways to influence the behaviour of the Men in Black apart from talking to them from the technical area. They are:
1. Call them all C@nts who are going against you (Mourinho)
&
2. Suck up/big them up (Wenger)
So, City, Chelski, United all winning makes Liverpool another MUST win
Lets hope all our players come back from International duty unscathed
Liverpool will still be tough to beat without Gerrard
BTW- Carragher’s defense of his buddy Gerrard was making me. Henry’s face was funny while Carragher was talking. he looked bewildered. It’s quite simple. Gerrard dangerously stamped on an ankle and let Liverpool down.
cheLski just keeps winning…….and its kinda annoying *banging head against a wall*
like i said they have it in the bag
Tell me about it, sometimes I wish we’d be a bit more pragmatic, realize when we’re against it and escape with a point IF we can’t get 3. Imagine, a draw vs Spurs, United, Southampton and Chelsea would have put us a point behind Chelsea.
Darn it man! Good try Hull, soo close but Mourinho’s impact sub scores the winner a minute within being on the pitch. Our position now makes those dropped points earlier in the season hurt even more. I don’t even know how Hazard or Costa scored those first 2, world class goals.
Well we have 8 games left, we’ll see what happens, they still have to come to the Emirates.
FA Cup, 2nd place and a win over Chelsea. That would be a good season in my books
Plus Man City and hopefully Man U
even if Chelsea dropped points today you’re all assuming we win the rest of our games. We still have United, Liverpool and Chelsea themselves. And Wenger has never in his life beaten Mourinho and I can tell you for certain thats not going to be changing next month either. We were never in the title race. Lets just get FA Cup and 2nd place, thats a good season still.