What do we make of the standard of officiating in the Premier League?
I can’t claim to have done a statistical tracking study over the years, but this season seems to have some of the worst when it comes to the general standard of refereeing in the league. I’m of course biased to the decisions that go against Arsenal, but the few other games I’ve watched, and many clips that have been posted on social media from various league matches, seem to regularly display poor decisions that are made by referees.
For Arsenal, the most recent is the elbow to Hector Bellerin’s face as Marcos Alonso headed Chelsea’s first goal past (a disappointing) Petr Cech. I saw a clip of how Bellerin reacted to the challenge as he fell to the ground, and my stomach turned a bit. It’s clear that Alonso’s elbow made serious impact and I’d have thought a foul would be given – referees see less obvious fouls when players are jostling in the penalty area during corner kicks.
Disturbing
The other big talking point from our club’s perspective is the red card Xhaka received for what seemed like a textbook yellow card offence during the match against Swansea in the first half of the season. I don’t know what’s been more frustrating about that one: the fact that it didn’t look anywhere close to a red, or the fact that no one has been sent off for a similar foul since.
Simply not a red
Then there’s that unofficial stat that shows how Man United have had as many as 6 offside goals allowed, one of which even received goal of the month. It would seem the message being sent is that referees’ decisions will be protected to the extent that a goal that should have been disallowed will still be eligible to receive such an award.
One could comb through all the games this season and would find a myriad of incorrect decisions made during this season. That is an exercise we won’t undertake here. Rather I’m more concerned about how and why those decisions occur, and when they do, what is done about it. As much as I can empathise with referees (it’s a tough job officiating matches in a league as fast as this one), it’s a job they signed up for, which they are paid well to perform, so a certain standard is reasonably expected.
Referee protection is one of the primary issues for me. Firstly, let’s be clear: protection of match officials is a necessity. They’re often on the receiving end of quite a lot of abuse which is unfair and unacceptable. Yet, at times it seems that the authorities are more interested in protecting officials than sorting out the actual officiating and ensuring that incorrect decisions are rectified.
For instance, the FA and PGMOL work under the principle that no retrospective action is taken if the referee saw an incident and didn’t believe there was any infringement worthy of punishment, even though replays clearly show a blatant foul. This principle seems to be more about protecting the referee’s “professional integrity” than seeking to make the correct decision. For example, the Pogba-on-Henderson incident that went unpunished. If no retrospective action has been taken on that, are we to accept that the referee saw nothing wrong with it? That’s shocking. Papi Djilobodji of Sunderland was retrospectively banned for something similar (off the ball incident), so why not Pogba?
https://youtu.be/0DFCiPXctsk?t=9
Another pet peeve of mine is the brainless commentary by the so-called pundits. Regarding the Bellerin incident, the general consensus from these ex-pro’s is that there was nothing wrong with Alonso’s challenge. The favoured line of thinking is that Alonso “wanted it more.” Seriously?? A player has suffered a potential concussion, and this is how the influential voices on our TV screens respond? Have we not learnt anything from the serious head injuries that players have suffered in the past? Jason Cundy on talkSPORT said elbows are part of the game and there was no foul. Yes, apparently smashing a player’s face into concussion is legal (Marouane Fellaini must have learnt this from the same school Cundy did). Are we waiting for a player to actually lose his life before we start using our brains (excuse the pun)?
What must be said, though, is that behind the scenes, referees seem to be required to account for a lot of the decisions they make. Matt Dickinson wrote an article in the Times after the incident during the dying minutes of the Burnley match where Arsène Wenger and Anthony Taylor (playing fourth official on the day) had an altercation. I find it interesting that in all of that, little was mentioned of why Taylor followed Wenger down the tunnel. As per my understanding, it’s the stewards who are tasked with ensuring the manager doesn’t hang around but duly leaves as instructed. So why did Taylor feel the need to further confront a manager who was no longer in the dugout or technical area? Wenger was obviously banned, but questions should be raised regarding Taylor’s part in the whole thing.
Anyway, the piece was generally received negatively – mostly because of Dickinson’s suggested punishment for Wenger – but it had content I found eye-opening. It detailed the rigorous process that refs go through, where they are made to answer for almost every decision (mostly the contentious ones really) they made during a match, with a detailed explanation of why they made the call they did. This is followed by an extensive review process that aims to help the referee make better calls going forward. From that perspective, it would seem a lot is done to try and improve the standard of officiating. It then boggles the mind that decision-making in general seems to be getting worse, not better. At least from my point of view.
https://twitter.com/DickinsonTimes/status/824877677706219522
Now that football referees have professional status, and given the extensive review system they are subjected to, I believe the next steps must be taken in the interest of improving standards. Much of the football world has been crying out for video technology to be introduced. The main objection is that it would kill the flow of the game. I think unpunished time-wasting is already doing a great job of that, thanks very much, and not a lot has been done to properly deal with it, besides leaving it it to the ref’s subjective judgement. So perhaps that in itself is not a good enough argument against trialling the video option.
I think it could work, especially if we adopt a hybrid between what rugby and cricket have. The match referee can be allowed to consult the TV ref at any moment a big decision is uncertain, and the TV ref can alert the match referee of any obvious things he’s missed. In addition, each team could be given a set number of appeals, say 2 per match, which they lose if the ref’s decision is proven to have been correct. In that way, incorrect decisions can be rectified or avoided before they make a material difference to the match result.
Largest collection of Arsenal Retro here
All in all, I think the football world is not expecting perfection, but only asking for consistency. For instance, take the new sterner stance on infractions in the 18 yard area, which we were told would lead to penalties being awarded for shirt-pulling. It seems only a few refs applied the rule, and it’s been a while since we’ve seen penalties awarded for such fouls. Has it been completely scrapped? Again, if we look at the aforementioned Xhaka red card, it’s difficult to have seen Juan Mata’s two-footed tackle on Jamie Vardy only receive a yellow when it looked a straight red and absolutely worse than Xhaka’s.
https://twitter.com/UnitedGaws/status/828448420482277376
As football fans, we’re obviously prone to act out of emotion, and we’ll almost always be biased towards the teams we support. But there are clear issues with officiating in general that need to be addressed, and in its current state, I’m not sure PGMOL and the FA have the ‘political will’ to find lasting solutions. When you consider the revelations by former referee Mark Halsey in September, and that farce of a match at Old Trafford that would have been Arsenal’s 50th unbeaten league game (if we must go back that far), one begins to wonder whether there’s an element of corruption we should be worried about here. It’s obviously all speculation, but you know what they say about smoke and fire.
I first encountered Arsenal when I got exposed to English football around 2004 (that champagne football sold it for me), but only learnt of the Invincible season much later on. I used to think the club is named after Arsene – a bit silly in retrospect. Appreciate the perspective and stories of older Gooners who’ve supported the club longer than I’ve been alive. Market researcher with a keen interest in photography (David Price and Stuart McFarlane have the best job in the world).
Oh, almost bought a Man United shirt as a youngster because I saw a friend of mine, who was the cool kid, wearing one. So glad I didn’t go down that road!
Bonaroca:- Week in week out I see quite a few matches. Admittedly I have been an Arsenal supporter since 1946, so up to a certain extent I might be biased with my comments. I have also watched many Italian league matches and one of my comments at the end of the day was that there was something wrong with Italian referees. English referees had a reputation of being the best except referee Aston, but now I have come to the conclusion that English referees have become more inconsistant with their decisions, and obviously to day watching matches on television certain decisions taken leave much to be desired.
With referees being well paid spectators expect something very much better.
I think that there should be a panel and matches be scrutinised why certain mistakes are glaring, which means not acceptable. Its up for the panel to warn the referee who should be penalised. I leave this to reporters to expand on this subject.
Interestingly, the panel idea you are suggesting was somewhat covered by Dickinson’s piece (which I’ve referenced in the article above). It sounds like a very rigorous process when the ref has to explain each decision and a panel reviews things and the ref gets feedback.
Perhaps PGMOL needs to be more transparent with their processes?
I’ve thought and talked about this topic too damn much in recent years. My belief is that we are being absolutely screwed by PGMOL.
My best guess is that while Wenger’s Arsenal never exactly did brilliantly with referees (one of first foreigners in an insular environment; not your typical football person, especially in England; refused to ‘play the game’ and kowtow to existing hierarchies; and most importantly was a direct rival of the incredibly powerful Ferguson) game 50 was literally a game-changer.
A ref was that bad, absurdly bad, with no negative consequences and quite possibly a very positive consequence for him. Whatever it was that created Riley’s performance for that game of course remained afterwards, growing perhaps.
People saw it, and rival managers sensed a great opportunity and explored it. If you’re utterly ruthless, why the hell not. Sure, the extra aggression saw a few legs get broken but ,hey, accidents happen. 3 game ban. Worth it over the course of seasons.
I’m sure in the conscience of a Pulis or Mcleish or any other of Fergie’s peers and pals it’s not hard convincing yourself that’s just one of those things and nothing to do with their own instructions when playing us.
Anyway, we then have Mr Riley becoming the head of Pgmol, and I believe this immediately made things many times worse for us. We have the utterly extraordinary penalty statistics from the time he took over, and other similarly strange ones.
But these are not the main drivers of my belief something is very wrong, they just offer some support.
Anyway, we’ll see what happens in the future once Wenger leaves. I expect an improvement but can’t guess by how much.
It should make things a little harder for Riley and co if there is a reasonable period of time when large numbers of our fans don’t have their heads full of hostility towards the manager and perhaps have some extra scrutiny and, if needed, hostility to spare for the men in black.
Very good points you make. I’m with you on the PGMOL and Riley point. The whole thing stinks. That 50th game was sickeningly bad. And now that Riley heads PGMOL, it all just stinks.
Agenda for this year is to get Man U to the top four of course with the help of the refs. It’s pretty obvious with the no. of decisions going their way.
I’m surprised you only mentioned your queried action of Anthony Taylor in the Burnley match, conveniently silent about the arsenal offside penalty. doesn’t fit into your narrative of the arsenal victims?
I queried Anthony Taylor’s behaviour because the piece is primarily about match officials and the decisions they make.
There is no narrative here. If you read the post properly, you’ll see I have:
1. admitted at the very start that I’m biased towards Arsenal-related decisions…I’m an Arsenal fan after all!
2. mentioned other calls specifically from matches that weren’t Arsenal related (I went as far as linking a video of a Man U vs. Liverpool match).
In any case, if I was simply about the “Arsenal victims narrative” I’d have jumped at the opportunity to talk about the clear penalty that Arsenal was denied when Mustafi was fouled in the box, which would have put Arsenal 2-0 up vs. Burnley. But I didn’t.
we get decisions in our favour too. all teams do. mkitarian’s wonder “goal” was offside.it could be argued that we shouldn’t have got the penalty that Alexis scored vs.Burnley. to use a cliche, it’s swings and roundabouts. I won’t agree that we’re singled out or treated unfairly.
I’ve tried quite particularly in the piece to not imply that Arsenal get singled out, hence I included some of the contentious decisions in non-Arsenal matches. My complaint is that generally in the league, there is an inconsistency in officiating. Obviously as an Arsenal fan, I feel those inconsistencies more keenly when they’re against Arsenal, but the piece was meant to look at referee calls across the board.
Yes, we could argue that the penalty awarded vs. Burnley should’ve been offside. Yet, we could also argue that Arsenal should’ve received a penalty for the foul on Mustafi long before that (which was part of Wenger’s frustration, I imagine). There’s a flawed rationale that things “even out” in the end. This is not a guarantee, and some moments are so pivotal that a wrong decision costs a team silverware. No amount of evening out gets you back that chance to win that trophy. Hence my suggestion that the aim should be to get it right first time around, which is why technology is a crucial part of the equation.