Good morning gang, Arsenal lost 2-1 to Wolves yesterday and judging from the Arsenal fanbase today this post is going to be a loser no matter what I say.
It all revolves around a controversial moment in the first half.
David Luiz is way out of position when Wolves win the ball back and Willian Jose makes a smart run into the space left by David Luiz. David Luiz sees the hole and sprints to get back, then does something that he likes to do – he runs across the back of the attacker. Willian Jose gets ready to take a shot, his backlift hits David Luiz in the knee, Willian Jose goes down. Craig Pawson awards a penalty and a red card, both of which are correct by the letter of the law.
In a denial of a goal scoring opportunity situation the law states that a ref should give a yellow card and a penalty if a player is making an attempt at the ball but that a player should be sent off if they foul but don’t make a challenge for the ball. This is a change of the law from a few years ago where every “last man” foul was a red card. The intent of the change was to prevent double-jeopardy: where a team loses a player who was legitimately going for the ball and concedes a penalty from a DOGSO. But from the moment that they made the change I knew it was going to cause problems because it creates a perverse incentive for players to go in hard for the ball. Just get rid of the red card component for any foul that causes a penalty. If it’s outside the box, I suppose you could keep this weird double rule, or I suppose you could just give a red card for any DOGSO outside the box. Or you could award a penalty for any DOGSO no matter where it happens on the pitch. There are a lot of options here to fix this law but the bottom line is that it’s weird in its current conception and can’t keep going this way.
The other big problem here is what constitutes a foul. We are now in a situation where literally any contact in the box can be considered a penalty. The attacking player needs to fall over (like Willian Jose did) in order to alert the officials to check the replay but once they do there’s a chance that the official will award the penalty.
Is it a 100% chance? No. What’s the criteria they use to decide “how much contact” is “enough”? They use the very reliable “my gut tells me”. We see this random application of the “law” every week and even multiple times in a match.
Earlier in this very match where David Luiz was sent off for the crime of being kicked by Willian Jose, Willy Boly kicked Bukayo Saka and prevented a pretty decent chance at goal. VAR looked at that and said “not enough” but somehow this was enough. And in the Man U v. Southampton insane fest of officiating, there was literally no contact in a similar situation, and Mike Dean looked at the video only to give a penalty to Martial for his dive and a red card to Bednarek.
And this idea that you’re going to get a red card for pulling out of the challenge but a yellow card for not pulling out is also not 100% true. David Luiz also got a red card this season when he half-challenged Tammy Abraham in a similar situation. The interpretation there is that it wasn’t really a challenge for the ball. Sigh.
And there’s a video currently making the rounds of Paul Pogba tripping a player from behind, the referee going over to the video, seeing that there was minimal contact, and waving away the penalty.
We now watch football every weekend and see this exact same law applied differently in every single situation. This is what football is now.
I don’t have a solution. I’m just a blogger, folks. Maybe the people who are paid millions of dollars a year to make the laws, train the refs, and so on should come up with a solution?
And here’s the other thing that’s being lost in all of this (and the reason why everyone is going to hate me). While we are moaning about the officials and VAR we should be angry with David Luiz and Bernd Leno. Once again, just like against Burnley where Xhaka made a ridiculous challenge and got sent off, Arsenal were playing really well and all of that good play to start the match was blown away like Thanos dust because of David Luiz. He does this move where he runs behind defenders and challenges ALL THE TIME now because his legs have gone, and I get that and completely empathize with him. But Arsenal have 9 red cards in Arteta’s 18 months in charge (which is astonishing) and David Luiz has 3 of those red cards all from this or a very similar challenge from behind.
These aren’t “reputational” reds, he’s only got 4 career red cards. These are red cards because he’s lost his legs and he can’t get his mind around the fact that he can’t play the same way he used to. David Luiz has been playing football for 87 years. He should know better than to do what he did and yet he seems to do it all the time.
But the rest of the team is utterly ill disciplined as well. Gabriel was sent off for a ridiculous challenge a few weeks ago. And I know that since it’s more than two weeks old we don’t remember it anymore but fucking Pepe? Remember that bat guano headbutt? And then Leno yesterday, what on earth is he doing?
And look here, if you watch that match again you will see Xhaka and Partey making some pretty awful challenges in midfield. Not leg-breakers, but just… going to ground and then reaching out to trip a player. Both got a yellow card for that exact tackle but both also got away with a similar tackle (Xhaka’s was before his yellow, to be fair).
We’ve had 5 red cards this season. FIVE! We had five last season as well (4 of them during Arteta’s time) and five the season before. You have to go back to the 2012/13 season to find another Arsenal season which had 5 red cards in it. The most red cards in a season for Arsenal is 1998/99, 7 reds: two for Keown, two for Petit, one each for Dixon, Vieira, and Grimandi.
As much as I want to sit here and rail on the referees we are still a half-aster waiting to happen. If you want to have a go at the refs, I can understand that, but you also need to look at this Arsenal team. Yes, the refs are bad, yes the laws are dumb, yes I agree we don’t get calls like we should, yes other clubs seem to get lucky, and also yes, these Arsenal players love to shoot themselves in the foot. Sure, blame the refs, ask for the laws to be changed, but at the same time we need to be asking ourselves why Arsenal’s players are so crazy ill-disciplined.
Good, fair assessment, and it has persuaded this gooner that he got his initial reaction wrong. No hate.
100% agree with you there Tim. The lack of discipline in this team is astonishing. Luiz and Xhaka aside, look at all those foul throws by Hector. In this instance Luiz is too slow, he’s out of position. Had he switched off thinking the ref would blow for half time? Ha! Play to the whistle.
What bothers me even more is the prospect of Luiz getting another 12 month extension. If Edu has his way it may still happen. Surely he hasn’t got the nerve to do that??
Luiz is a bonehead. Worrying to see Arteta defending him. The plus is that he’ll be out for 3 games – both Gabriel and Mari are big upgrades defensively.
But Leno’s card was both worse and more damaging. He could have let it run if it was going that fast. And his deputies are just not as good.
That said, if the outfield all play as well as they were doing for the first 46 minutes, I still fancy us against the Villa.
Sadly, not much to disagree with here. The call was probably technically correct, but stupid. Same stupid thing then happened again in the very next match(and I feel bad for Soton).
And yet the blatant violent conduct by Fernandes in the prior match didn’t even get him a yellow.
And I think at this point, if we felt that it was best to get Mustafi out, then Luiz should be out using the same reasoning. Mustafi was a decent player 90% of the time. Luiz is probably actually not at that level. If we feel like the catastrophic mistakes were unacceptable relative to Mustafi, then they need to be that way with Luiz too. As much as he might be liked in the locker room, we need to focus on the younger defenders.
SLC – I was thinking the same this morning. He has taken over the Mustafa mantle. Why do we always have one guy like this at CB?
Because we buy and retain 30 year olds who were past their sell by date.
Iv’e honestly just come to the conclusion that the rules are there isn’t no rules.
No consistent ones anyway
I was worried as soon as I saw Luiz in the lineup that he wouldn’t have the legs for 2 games in such quick succession. He didn’t. Yes it’s a stupid rule. Yes it shouldn’t be a red AND a pen. But David Luiz knew exactly what he was doing running behind Willian Jose and he clipped him intentionally/ unintentionally. If he just stays on Willian’s right side and crowds him, there are other players closing on the left and Leno coming out. Maybe he misses the shot or it’s saved. Probably not. But at worst we go in 1-1 and we come roaring back 11v11. We were destroying them and would have done the same in the 2nd half. Terrible judgment. A lazy, cynical foul by a guy with no legs. Luiz is to blame 99% here. Can’t wait till he’s gone.
I dont why you got a downvote. This is a fair comment. The more you think about this intentionally/ unintentionally as you describe it, the less sense his run makes. He runs to Rob Holding’s side/patch, instead of staying on the attacker’s right.
Agreed Clause. That’s what bothers me about Luiz here. I’m not saying he’s a terrible player who offers nothing. I’m not saying he hasn’t played some very good matches. But this ‘running behind guys who’ve beaten him ‘ is very familiar 🤔. I think there was a similar instance this season but he didn’t get called for it. Anyone else remember this?
It was unintentional, I thought, fairly clearly. The striker’s heel collides with his knee, and the striker collapses in a heap. “By the letter of the law” it’s also simulation. Another referee might’ve booked the striker. But look, at the end of the day we shouldn’t get too hung up on this. Things like this happen to every team. We are not special. What’s important is the performance prior to the sending off and whether we can replicate that in our next fixture.
Nobody gets booked for simulation. Been watching for almost 2 decades and seen nary one.
Victor Moses, FA cup final
There are a couple of different things going on. We get a lot of reds as a result of concentration errors, and we get reds for pure ill-discipline.
Both of the reds yesterday were concentration errors, leading to panic, leading to fouls. Luiz’s error was to listen for the whistle instead of getting in position. Leno’s error was to misjudge the ball, and he kind of froze when he realised it was going to hit his arm. I’ve seen Luiz (lots), Bellerin, Xhaka (lots), Mustafi (lots), Chambers, Guendo, Torreira, and now Leno panic when they switch off or make an error. Instead of staying cool, far too often there’s a desperate lunge or shirt-pull or “tackle”, or whatever Leno’s weird scoopy I’m-not-handling-the-ball-honest thing was.
The ill-discipline thing at Arsenal is also real – and it boils down to a few key suspects; Xhaka, Pepe, Ceballos, Guendo and seemingly Partey. There are too many niggly fouls going in, and too much retaliation. But it’s a different thing from the mistake -> panic -> foul thing.
Ok weird, Arteta made this exact distinction as well
You’ve pretty much given a reason for why Luiz has been red card happy at Arsenal. For the others, I think it’s just a random clustering of moments of madness. Rush of blood to the head. We can be sure they’re not coached or encouraged to be ill-disciplined. We don’t even coach our players to dive!
Maybe we need more sports psychologist consultations for Xhaka and his neck grab. He, and his team mates need to learn to be zen to provocation. He will always be targeted for provocation on the field because he’s perceived as a bit of a hothead who has achieved a fair control on the inner fires (that’s my read of him anyway).
As for Partey’s yellow card, I believe that’s called ‘taking one for the team’. Personally, I applaud it. He’s experienced in the less than savoury arts of defending and he is obviously confident in his ability to manage the rest of the game. I don’t think he should have allowed Traore to get a free run at Luiz for example. It would have been a near certain goal or red card. Although 1-1 at half time wouldn’t have been the end of the world. We could have gone ahead to score more.
There’s a bigger issue however imo. Arsenal seem to have a few problem referees. Pawson seems to be among them. Not suggesting there’s a conspiracy or anything, but I think they only screen potential referees for positive biases towards teams. Not sure they screen for people who have teams they hate. Probably impossible, as the potential referee is hardly going to admit he has teams he hates if nothing incriminating was harvested from his social media. I think a lot of the bad referring performances that cost Arsenal just due to incompetence and ridiculous laws/interpretations but I also think some of the referees mayy have a thing against Arsenal. Some old hates, maybe childhood/family history that none but themselves know.
It may seem a bit ridiculous, but just look at some of the videos of bad refereeing decisions against Arsenal last season and this circulating online. They’re vastly more ridiculous
Some fair criticism of David Luiz, but some misplaced hate as well, in my view. Several things could be possible at once…
One, he’s one of our best defenders. That’s why he plays. He was judged MOTM against United by a fair few pundits the previous match. It is a reflection of the mercurial nature of fans than you can go from superb to crap in one game. In recent games since coming in for the injured Mari, he has had barnstorming performances, looking like a latter day Franco Baresi. But…
Two, you can buccaneer all you like, but when (as Tim notes) your legs are more or less gone, you are going to lose a foot-race with a fast attacker. And you’re going to revert to the sly stuff that Tim persuasively argues about. But…
Three, Luiz is one of the few leaders on the pitch. Plays for the badge, encourages the youngsters, organises. The captain’s armband would not look out of place on his arm. Auba, Hector and Laca do not bring that same on-pitch leadership. Xhaka does too, somewhat. But Luiz does so — to my eyes — more than anyone else.
Four, he got carried away when we are so dominant. And he paid the price..
Five, to build on Tim’s point about habit… there’s always been this sly, niggly aspect to his game and the refs are on to it. It is quite possible that the benefit of the doubt would have been given to another player (I’m guessing). Harry Maguire gets away with lot. Poor ol’ David doesn’t anymore.
If you think that Luiz is rash and past his prime, fair enough. But a number of things can be possible at once, including his skill as a defender. He’s not Mustafi II… in fact you can argue that he’s always had Mustafiesque a rash streak. Perhaps the point is coming when his disadvantages outweigh his advantages. Perhaps it’s already here. But let’s see the whole picture.
I agree with all of this. I wonder why regular, straightforward, no-nonsense Maguire gets away with a lot that flamboyant, curly-haired, demonstrably not English Luiz doesn’t.
So much easier to blame the referees than the fact that Arsenal keep buying aging players who have washed out from Chelsea.
Well, you brought up the disparity in refereeing in your post. You also pointed out very clearly that the problem at Arsenal is systemic and goes beyond Luiz, so I’m not sure why it’s now all about him.
I’m not blaming referees either generally or specifically for David Luiz’s red cards.
I do think that when refereeing is so subjective by design, unconscious bias will always play a part, yes, and a certain kind of no-nonsense English player will likely benefit from that.
Him being one of our “best defenders” is a hell of an indictment. But he’s not, he lost his starting job to Gabriel and Rob Holding.
Leaders don’t get themselves three red cards in 18 months. And again, if he’s a “leader” on the pitch, that’s a massive indictment.
He didn’t get “carried away”, he was criminally out of position.
If we keep him for another year it will be a massive waste of money: Lich-level waste. Because just like Lich, the best case scenario is that he doesn’t ever play.
IMO – Mustafi is less rash and prone to getting sent off than Luiz.
There’s a chance of recovering a goal deficit if you keep eleven players on the pitch. In the last 8 games we have a lost a player to red cards we have drawn or lost but never won.
Cant really quarrel with any of that assessment, but….
Gabriel is fit again, and Luiz is keeping him out of the XI. Luiz was, by several accounts, our best player against United, or at least one of our best. The lot that put 9 past Southampton, got nothing out of Luiz and co the match before.
I’m the best singer in my family, and it is absolutely an indictment against my siblings.
We are all expecting Claude karaoke videos now of course.
I think it would be instructive to review how and why Luiz gets dragged out of position and why this keeps happening. He’s clearly trailing the play and in a terrible position, but why? Was he instructed to press the striker into his own half and was let down by a lack of coordinated pressing around him? Did he fail to register too late that the press broke down and didn’t adjust? Did he simply over-commit? Did the striker knee him in the balls and then sprinted away? This is the type of thing Arteta will ask himself. Reductionist theory such as “Luiz is past it” is clearly not true, as he has been involved in some of our best defensive performances.
Also in judging his contributions or lack thereof, you have to balance the bad with the good. Maybe part of the reason we had been dominating is that he had the striker in his pocket and kept denying the outlet pass to him. I don’t know. I didn’t analyze the film and I’m not going to. But if I was in charge and asking the questions, that’s where I’d start.
Good points all round. For my tw’penneth worth. Check out holdings positioning for the equaliser. Sure DL was to far up but Robinho was too far BACK and should have pressed the player who made the final pass. Re the comment on refs disliking AFC i agree 100% any of you on here youtube the 11 min vid of us losing our 49/0 unbeaten record. Absolutely disgusting reffering from a certain Riley ( wonder what he’s up to now? ) mind you we had a certain Mr Jeff Winters during the day that seemed to like us so hey whats the truth?
Oh and the ref last night was the same guy who disallowed our winning goal by papasok last season v CP..just saying
The player that was the supposed victim of Luiz’s tackle was brought down by a Jewish Space Laser wielded by a S$#&s supporter. Just that congressperson. She knows all about it.
I am afraid that anyone who did not read Deborah Ross’s article in the Times T2 today will not understand what you are referring to and will think that you are being antisemitic.
This is a US based blog with many non- uk participants who will not have seen that article.
For them, the reference is to an article by a Jewish Journalist making fun of a US congresswoman who blamed the forest fires in California on Jewish Space Lasers controlled by the Rothschilds.
This is similar to the centuries old antisemitic claims that the Jews control the banks and the media and thus the world.
The article was written extremely tongue in cheek.
Anyone who is interested may like to see if they can do so online.
Thanks for the clarification. The brilliant comic and late-night TV presenter Trevor Noah joked that using the “Jewish Space Laser” to start California wildfires* was a bit overkill. It was like using the Imperial Death Star (from Star Wars) to make ‘Smores! Why not use…um…matches.
(*This is a ridiculous tin-hat conspiracy that revolves around the Rothchild family investing in the making of some kind of tight beam fired from an orbital satellite. that has been publically promoted by a sitting U.S. Congresswoman. Anti-Semitic is only half of it. Between laughing and crying, I always go with the former).
ha!
This game was heartbreaking. It should’ve been 3 points. What’s different was this is how good teams lose. They outplay and out-think opponents. They dominate games and rack up chances. They lose because of bad luck, bad calls and bad bounces. Until recently, we’ve been losing like a bad team. Getting dominated, outshot,outrun and playing timidly. If we keep playing like yesterday’s first half, we will start getting a lot of results going our way. Losses will be unlucky and more uncommon.
Another excellent review Tim. Accurate and balanced. Claude said this yesterday but there is too much room for personal interpretations by the ref in futbol and it leads to this sort of controversy in far more games then we would like. Most other sports have a couple of scenarios where the ref has a judgement call such as pass interference in American football and the way that is called is inconsistent. However in European futbol almost every call the ref makes is similar to pass interference which means that inconsistency is completely unavoidable. This problem has been around as long as there has been futbol and there is no way to avoid it. In days before slow motion multiangle replays no one knew just have many controversial or incorrect calls there had been. A play like the one yesterday looked easy to call in full speed in real time and no one would have given it a second thought before the age of slow motion replays. However with slow motion replays almost any call can be criticized. The fact there can be controversy and differences of opinion on a play like yesterdays even after having many different people watch the play on multiangle slow motion replays tells you all you need to know about how difficult it is for the refs. In the end fans tend to remember the ones where they felt their team got the bad end of the call and quickly forget or rationalize about the calls that went their way. I think fans of almost every team believe they come out on the wrong end of alot more of the questionable calls and that’s where the conspiracy theories come from.
I agree with you that it was clearly a penalty and Luiz screwed up. I also agree the way the rule is written is poor and a penalty plus red card is overly harsh. Losing that game really hurts our chances of climbing back to a Europa league spot. Hopefully we can recover quickly.
I know this is old history but I saw a stat a couple of days ago which I thought was informative. In their 3 years of playing together Mesut Ozil only had one total assist to Auba. That is exactly what my eyes told me but I had never seen that actual stat. During most of that time Auba was the one of the most clinical and productive scorers in Europe and it seems almost impossible that an attacking creative midfielder could play with him for 3 years and only make 1 single pass that turned into a goal scored. Ozil for years was one of the worlds best at helping to break down defenses and making the final pass that lead to a high percentage scoring opportunity which is exactly what we have needed for the last couple years. However, either his vision to see the openings and/or his ability to execute that final pass just completely vanished. That seems like a pretty good football reason for a manager to drop him
One assist, yeah that’s mad
I was calling this Luiz “la vida” moment ever since his motm performance. Whenever he gets the spotlight after a game, he needs to be sat down for the next game. It’s a totally stupid position to be in going into half time.
Having watched the first half back, I’ll add the following:
The Saka goal that was ruled out for offside is a perfect example of how video replay is being misused. The linesman didn’t flag for offside. There was no egregious missed call. Lacazette’s 5th metatarsal head was beyond the last defender so sure, look at it with a microscope and it’s offside. But that was never the point of video replay. The goal would’ve stood without the microscope and really should’ve stood. This type of thing is bad for the game in general not just Arsenal today and I know we’ve had our bacon saved by similar calls in the past. I still hate it and want it gone. Video replay should only exist to overturn obvious refereeing mistakes.
Here’s another one:
Moutinho picks up an early booking and later in the half appears to clean out Nicolas Pepe. At least I think it was Moutinho. The referee waves play on. If we are going to examine crucial missed calls, how about that one? A red card for Moutinho there changes the game completely. There wasn’t so much as a single replay of the incident shown.
Or how about the play where Saka is in the penalty area, Boly runs across the back of him and tries to poke the ball loose. It’s not a clean tackle. Saka goes down. Decision is corner. Wolves are incensed because they feel it should be a goal kick. I’m incensed because it’s a similar play to the David Luiz one and there is nothing given. Had I seen it without knowing about the later Luiz one, I’d let it go. But the two are very similar and the outcome is vastly different. That’s what bothers me.
After all this, the Moutinho grin and post game fist bump with Pawson makes me sick. In other words, it wasn’t just the Luiz thing. We got screwed.
This “it’s really close” thing on offside is strange to me.
Close offside calls were being called before, goals ruled off, goals ruled on, all by the eye of someone who was supposed to be watching a ball being played (20, 30, 40, 50) yards away and simultaneously a runner. How anyone could decry the technology being used because “it’s such a close call” is beyond me. It’s miles more accurate than it ever was before and offside is offside.
As for the moutinho thing.. I’ve watched the game again looking just to see how many times the referee “got it wrong”.
So.. the first yellow card for Moutinho is, comical. That’s not a yellow card in almost any game but Pawson wants to send a message or something about how the players are targeting Lacazette. So, fair play.
And your second scenario? I can’t find it.
You should go back and watch a lot of the way that Traore was treated in this match. I’ve noticed almost no one has mentioned how awful Arsenal were but there are a lot of challenges on him which should have been yellow cards. Cedric in particular was poor – he elbowed Traore in the face obstructing one of his dribbles and undercut him (into Leno) in the 43rd minute on an aerial duel. We got away with quite a bit of physical play in this game.
We didn’t get screwed. We screwed ourselves.
I respect your opinion greatly but I sense you have an axe to grind with this whole blaming referees thing.
I just found the “clear out” you are talking about. 17:20 – Pepe carries into two players, sees Moutinho closing down on him and dives to try to draw the foul. I agree that Pawson got that wrong, should have booked Pepe for diving.
I saw this on my cell phone screen with no replay, so I’ll take your word for it.
This is a somewhat strange piece and reaction in that it highlights the arbitrary way that refs are applying the laws, and then in the comments, Tim castigates any effort to hold officiating to account for how the game plays out. Tim, as you’re fond of pointing out, “surely it’s both.”
If you actually think Arsenal are objectively (that’s an important objectively) the dirtiest and most indisciplined team in England, hands down, three times worse than any other team in the Premier League (in terms of red cards, at any rate), then I’m not sure what to say. I don’t believe for a second that refs are actively targeting Arsenal, but it’s naive to think bias isn’t at play when you compare how Arsenal play with the rest of the league in terms of fouling (called or not).
[Side note: personally (and this really is just my personal sense of things), I’ve felt that refs from northern environs (like Pawson, Dean, etc.) have trouble officiating southern city clubs, and Arsenal especially occupy a special place in the imagination of northern club supporters (particularly of a certain age) of being a snobby big-city club with foreign pretensions and, as a result, are deserving of censure and ridicule for any success. If you supported Arsenal during the early to mid Wenger years that sentiment was openly shared even by the media. Those kinds of habits of thought die hard.]
And now it gets even more arbitrary and inconsistent. Arsenal’s appeal was denied, but Southampton’s, for pretty much exactly the same thing, was upheld.
Ridiculous.
Though I’m not inherently upset about missing Luiz for a couple of matches.
It is both, the ref are getting things wrong and we are indisciplined. Are we “the dirtiest team in the league”? No, but we are the least disciplined. You can’t look me in the face and say that what Pepe did or what Xhaka did wasn’t deserving of a red card. Or how about Leno handling outside the box? Did he only get that card because of “bias”? Was it undeserved?
The ONLY thing people can argue is that other teams should get the same reds – e.g. that other guy who touched a throat, the Bednarek thing. Ok, sure, we should have more reds? Or is it fewer reds? Because now I also see people saying that refs are giving out too many red cards. So, I’m confused. Maybe.. we should have our players stop grabbing throats, head butting, and doing the David Luiz “runs behind, trips a guy and pretends he didn’t mean it” thing?
Bias. Hmmm.. yes, I think Mike Dean had a thing where he hated Arsene Wenger. Are the refs suddenly biased but only against Arteta? Is there a reason for that? Because for the last few years we haven’t actually gotten that many reds, we haven’t been giving away an excessive number of pens, it’s just since Arteta came in. So, is it just Arteta? That they hate?
Ah the old southern-northern chestnut! Cool, let’s agree that this is happening. Is there a bias against Chelsea? That’s the most posh place in London. Or how about Tottenham – I guess they get bias in favor because they have Harry Kane – but what about before they had Kane? Or QPR? Do they get a bias against? Man, they won 10 pens a couple years ago was that the anti-city/northern bias? Or West Ham? And does this bias sneak into the 2nd, 3rd, 4th divisions? Are the refs biased against Brentford because they are all northern refs?
And if there is a bias in favor of something, how come salt of the earth brit clubs like Brexit Burnley never get pens? Or, oh man, Newcastle. They should be getting reds for the opponents all the time, or pens galore. Can’t think of many more northernly club than Newcastle.
Or is it just Arsenal? They just hate Arsenal and Arteta.
Come on. This is real wild conspiracy stuff.
I get that folks are mad but some of this stuff is weird when you even think about it for five minutes. And maybe get mad at the guys who keep getting red cards?
You want a bias? How about the bias of us as die-hard fans absolving our bone-head players and instead blaming some secret cabal of refs out to sink Mikel Arteta?
THAT has a really strong whiff of bias.
It’s a chestnut to the people for whom it is a chestnut, and you can see evidence of it throughout the UK. Dismissing my comment on account of my mentioning it is a really lazy response. And your hyperbole about my admitted side note is just a sad distraction. Come on, Tim. I find it expedient the way you are ready to admit bias and read authority in bad faith in other contexts, but not here. I don’t think Arsenal players are deliberately targeted, as I said, but I do think our official disciplinary record is not a reflection of how much worse Arsenal are compared to other clubs when it comes to on-pitch indiscretions, and the fact that the official record indicates otherwise should give us all pause for thought, and, in my opinion, does reflect something systemic.
Also in my opinion, your idea that “die-hard” fans are somehow unable to switch on a critique of their players is a very weird idea…as evidenced by your posts and mine over the years.
Our disciplinary record was fine under Unai: 3 red cards in 18 months.
9 red cards under Arteta.
Every fan thinks that the Premier League is bent against them. The Northern teams all think the southern teams get preferential treatment and so on. I get it. I used to argue these same things, you probably remember. That and the one about how refs are biased against Arsenal. But it’s fantastical. Bias? Sure, everyone is biased and people make mistakes.
But biased to the point where the refs and the league will both rule against Arsenal time and again? But then stop ruling against Arsenal? Then go back to ruling against Arsenal with no clear pattern (except the Mike dean one on Wenger which was very clear and which was objectively proven)?
You accuse me of hyperbole but the real exaggeration here is thinking that we haven’t gotten the red cards we’ve deserved or that the rest of the League is getting better treatment than us.
For the thing about “not switching” – if the fans are typically talking about a performance in a game, they are happy to critique their own players but if an outside fan says the same thing, they get livid. And if there’s a choice between criticizing David Luiz and “the refs” (especially in marginal calls) they will always take the latter. Every marginal call is never the player’s fault in the minds of the fans. I think you know that and sometimes I think you argue these things just to be oppositional.
You know what’s funny about the “marginally offside” goal everyone’s complaining about (where Laca was a “metatarsal” off)? We shouldn’t have been awarded the free kick that led to that goal – Partey lost the ball and fell over to win a free kick. And fucking Lacazette was offside on a free kick. Just dumb shit like that, where people complain constantly about refs and VAR when it’s our own players being dumb and being offside when they shouldn’t be offside is annoying.
I haven’t been infuriated by match officiating like this in ages. I don’t think I was alone. Honestly, I hate complaining about refs. Those who know me here will know that I rarely talk about them, and that’s mainly because it’s futile, though it’s partly because I can readily see that the responsibility for our results lies predominantly in our hands. E.g., why didn’t we make more of our chances? Why did we put ourselves in a position where a player had to make a challenge like that? You get the idea. But the Wolves match got to me. And now I’m reading about the successful Southampton appeal, and it’s just adding fuel to the fire. Even if you think that all teams are treated poorly or arbitrarily the same way, it doesn’t take away my belief that the officiating played a big part in our loss, by which I mean a selective, harsh, or perhaps even wrong application of the law, particularly if you believe (as I do) that the Wolves player tried to make the foul happen in the first place.
I think this is well said. At the end of the day the fact is Arsenal had this game well in hand, should’ve had it even more in hand than they did, and a single decision completely reversed that course. Scott Willis breaks this down nicely over on Arseblog. The red card and penalty flipped the win probability from handsomely favoring Arsenal to favoring Wolves.
To Tim’s point, I’d find it in myself to be a lot more angry at the players if they played badly. But they didn’t play badly.
Lacazette was looking across the line. He was not being lazy. Imagine how difficult it is for a player to consider in that instant of the match how every part of his body, no matter how small, must be behind some constantly shifting, somewhat subjectively drawn imaginary line. They don’t officiate any other aspect of the game that closely, including offside calls on plays that don’t become a goal. There’s an inherent subjectiveness to refereeing and machines can’t take that away. You said yourself when VAR first came out that it will not improve the standard of officiating. When used like it is now, I have to agree. All this does is makes it more difficult for everyone to score by applying a standard of rigor to goals and penalty incidents that are not applied anywhere else. If Saka’s shot is saved, that sequence never gets reviewed, the offside is never called and it goes down as a shot on goal. That’s what irks me.
i agree that the red cards that xhaka, pepe, and even gabriel’s red were stupid and well deserved. however, the red card luiz received wasn’t deserved. it was a situation that the authors failed to consider when writing the laws of the game.
below, i’ve proposed the idea of creating a general rule, authorizing officials to take a common sense approach to the laws of the game and the freedom to deviate if the violation is not in the spirit of the why certain laws of the game were written. tis a shame that luiz was sent off because of an accidental contact whereas a player making a bad challenge only receives a yellow but such are the laws. i never talk about the referee conspiracy stuff as i think it’s nonsense.
i understand luiz’ running behind a defender, though. as a general rule, you’re taught if you get beat, you get goal side. you’re becoming a second defender that’s covering a goal keeper. the keeper is going to stay on his feet and keep the striker for shooting as long as he can, hoping the defender gets on the goal line to cover him. to me, that’s what luiz was trying to do by running behind the defender. he was trying to get on the goal line to clear any shot that may have gotten past the keeper. i don’t think it’s fair to criticize him for that. the laws of the game aren’t comprehensive enough and the contact by luiz was unlucky, not bad soccer.
+1 for the second half of that comment. I became inured to fourth official and some other englishman exchanging a look and openly laughing at wenger sometimes when he complained about something on the pitch. Insular it
As for the rest, I don’t think referees come into it much on this one; Luiz is a liability. Watch him getting ready to do an interview after Germany pulled their pants down in the world cup. Thiago pulled him away.
This article might go some way to explain why the recent red cards were / weren’t rescinded.. BTW – I’m not stating an opinion, just sharing a former ref’s view:
https://www.skysports.com/football/news/11095/12207425/ref-watch-david-luiz-was-right-to-be-sent-off-but-mike-dean-got-it-wrong-at-old-trafford-says-dermot-gallagher
claude, comparing luiz to baresi is the most disrespectful thing you’ve ever said on 7am! baresi was lauded for his defensive quality is one of the best defenders the game has ever seen. even on his best day, no one has ever said that about david luiz. ever!
tim, i have to somewhat disagree with your take on luiz being out of position when wolves “win the ball back.” actually, it was more of a trap that led to luiz getting beat. to make my point, i’m going to coach “both sides of the ball” at the same time; an absolute no-no in the coaching world but i’m not exactly coaching you guys. first, an arsenal goal kick is how wolves won the ball back, not a transition. second, we don’t know what arteta’s strategy was for dealing with willian jose. personally, i teach that if i have two central defenders against one center forward and that center forward drops into midfield, like willian jose did, i require one of my center backs to go with him, denying him service and the freedom to turn. simultaneously, my other center back should slide to a more central baresi-type libero position and the two outside fullbacks pinch in about 20%. what i saw david luiz do made sense to me. likewise, hector pinched in. if holding had slid more centrally, the through ball to willian jose would have been more difficult to complete. like i said, we don’t know what arteta teaches.
coaching from the attacking side, i teach center forwards if you receive the ball with someone on your back, which ever side you lay the ball off, roll the opposite direction. the primary reason for that is it produces a momentary uncertainty in the defender. because the forward rolled away from the ball, the defender can’t see both the ball and the man at the same time so he has to determine whether he can still pressure the ball or should he turn his back on the ball and follow the man. both having things going on behind you and turning your back on the ball are two acts that are so unnatural for a central defender, hence the momentary uncertainty in luiz which allowed willian jose to get behind him.
as far as the penalty/red card, that was harsh and the rules are stupid. personally, there should be a general rule that allows the referees the freedom to use common sense and good judgement. there are so many things that can happen in football that the rule-makers, despite their best efforts, will fail to consider when they’re making these laws of the game. just call it the general rule and change the “laws of the game” to “guidelines of the game.”
lastly, for all of his criticisms, runnarsson’s goal kicks are money! if we could put runnarsson’s distribution into leno’s game, arsenal would have the best goal keeper in the world.
one last thing, i don’t particularly care for arteta’s management of the game once arsenal go down a man. this was his 8th game having a player sent off so he’s had plenty of time to derive a good strategy, preferably one that allows the team to win.
i have a general rule that has served me well. when i go down a man, i move to a hybrid 9/10. that way, everyone else’s role remains the same and there’s no change in strategy. the center forward/attacking mid simply assumes double-duty but he’s got to be smart enough to do both jobs. when arsenal don’t have the ball, they don’t really need a center forward and things of that nature apply.
a few years ago, back when arsenal played in the champions league (sigh), it seems that giroud got a champions league red card every season. often times, wenger would replace giroud by either moving alexis or theo forward or simply play without a center forward. one year, wenger didn’t make any substitutions and just kept mesut more central. holy cow! all of ozil’s qualities were on display. he won the ball in the final third, kept the ball in the final third, completed passes in the final third, made intelligent forward runs, drew fouls, etc. all of the things you need from a forward when you go down a man, he provided. i don’t think arsenal won that game but, despite being down a man, were absolutely rampant. you guys all saw that game. i think arteta even played in that game.
it was my inspiration for playing the hybrid 9/10. as a u19 coach in 2018, i had consecutive games where i had a player sent off, once in the 20th minute and the other in the 5th minute. we drew the first game and won the second. a couple of weeks later, i had a few players on college visits and had to play a full game where i only had ten players. however, i had time to prep and do a proper walk through with the team in training. we won that game 0-8. full disclosure, the other team had a player sent off but we were 65 minutes into the game and already up 0-5. those results meant that team won the league that season.
i know it was only a youth premier league but even in the english premier league, we’ve seen arsenal be dominant with only ten men. i’d like to see arsenal be a bit more bullish and less sheepish when going down a man.
Arteta spoke after the game about how the players were fired up at halftime and really wanted to go get the win. Then the Leno thing happened.
i’m sure the boys, after their rampant first half, were ready to play. my problem wasn’t with the players. it was with arteta. it’s great to have players “fired up” at halftime. however, being fired up was never gonna be enough. they needed a sound strategy that would see them win on the road against a premier league-level team who were likely just as fired up…and they had to do it despite being down a man.
i forgot to mention this in my original post but the decision to take off lacazette instead of smith rowe was a poor one. with that, i’ll readily admit my bias as i believe strongly in my approach. arsenal needed to be fired up but they also needed leadership and know-how. after taking lacazette off, who was the experienced leader of that attack, the 20-year old or the 19-year old? not only that but lacazette knows how to read the needs of the game better than smith rowe does at 20. maybe arteta wanted younger legs on. maybe lacazette was knackered…something i thought before halftime. despite the leno sending off, i thought lacazette would have given arsenal the best chance at winning, despite the red card.
I agree completely with Tim’s views on the refs and this so called anti-Arsenal bias. The fact that so many calls that happen every game are judgement means that inconsistency is completely unavoidable and because of that the fans of every team in the league believes their team gets the bad end of the close calls. Northern teams think there is a southern teams bias, small teams believe the big teams like Arsenal get all the breaks. Etc etc. There has to be a logical reason for any sort of institutional bias or conspiracy and I have no idea what possible motive there could be for the entire ref fraternity or the league to have an anti-arsenal bias. It makes no sense
Of course we do Bill! That’s part of being a fan. We don’t think there’s a conspiracy but we’re upset because the punishment didn’t fit the crime, and that destroyed a good team performance. And if you and I can be biased, so can refs! I’m not saying they got paid off, or anything like that. But what if Craig Pawson happens to have a really annoying uncle who’s an Arsenal fan? Or maybe he just dislikes London clubs. Or maybe his partner or his kid, or his favorite niece is a Spurs fan. Again, not saying he’s going into these matches thinking “how can I screw Arsenal.” But it’s not impossible, even probable, that in these close decisions when he has to make a big call that can go either way, his implicit biases kick in. That’s no fault of his own, but it’s also foolish to think it can’t happen.
Josh
I understand the idea of giving refs a chance to make common sense decision however as Claude pointed out there is already far to many opportunities for refs to make judgement calls which is why the way our sport is officiated is so incredibly inconsistent. Unfortunately that inconsistency is unavoidable and it leads to all of the controversy we see on a weekly basis. Arsenal fans believe the ref did not use common sense and some believe he showed bias when he sent off Luiz however if he hadn’t shown the red card then Wolves fans would have screamed bias. Fans focus and remember forever every call where the ref bent the rules against them but quickly forget every time a rule was slightly bent (for the sake of common sense) in their favor and the conspiracy theories would multiply. It’s a lose/lose situation.
i’m not arguing the legitimacy of the call, bill. and i agree that the wolves fans would have been well within their right to protest luiz not being sent off. i’m arguing the efficacy of the way this and other laws of the game are currently written.
there are simply too many variables in situational football for humans to consider them all when writing these laws. because of these human limitations, referees should be endowed with limited authority to exercise judgement based on the spirit of the laws of the game.
i’m not saying grant match officials the general authority to subjectively make calls based on their opinion of how the game should be played. however, a limited purview to make some judgement calls when it comes to a decision as significant as sending a player off is justified because of the recognized limits of humans writing the laws of the game.
I think Luiz is getting too much criticism for a situation where he didn’t do that much wrong. He was a split second slow to react and so had to recover. But the bigger fault was with Holding not coming across to cover, as Josh says above.
When Tim rails against referee conspiracy theories from fans who won’t accept that we are architects of our own downfall, he’s dead right.
Arteta said as much. We have had something of an anger problem with the actions of players like Pepe and Xhaka. I think that’s under control. I don’t think we are dirty tacklers, certainly no more so than teams like United. More worrying for me is the other kind of indiscipline, where we make an error and in trying to recover, “give the referee a decision to make”.
That’s not too say there is no referee bias, whether against clubs or, more likely, against individuals. The part where the referee makes the decision is where bias comes in and is out of our control. The part where we give the referees too many opportunities to punish us, that’s in our control and Tim is right to be annoyed by it, and it’s a great point to discuss. Why does it happen?
Where I switch off is when this analysis of behaviours and actions turns into attacks on the quality and character of individual players – for being too stupid, too error-prone, too lazy, too old, too young, too expensive, the wrong background, the wrong history etc.
So I’m afraid I’m not very interested in an explanation of Luiz’s red card that says, well he’s David Luiz, he’s 33 and error-prone and used to play for Chelsea. That tells me literally nothing, and just triggers the scapegoating.
“Arteta said as much. We have had something of an anger problem with the actions of players like Pepe and Xhaka.”
Yes, literally just a few weeks ago both men lost their rag on a football pitch.
“I think that’s under control.”
I don’t. We just had two more guys sent off for losing control.
“I don’t think we are dirty tacklers, certainly no more so than teams like United.”
Definitely not. In fact, I go the other way and have for a long time: we need to be a little more snide.
“scapegoating”
It’s not scapegoating if the player literally ran across the back of the attacker and gave away a red card and penalty. It’s assigning responsibility.
Why did Holding not cover? Because he was covering Podence first and when Podence makes the pass, David Luiz is already in his way, what’s he supposed to do? Dive in and give away a penalty and red card?
Dr Gooner.
Something like you describe about an annoying Arsenal fan uncle of a match ref is theoretically possible in any sport and there is no way to legislate against something like that. However, I have been following Arsenal blogs for about 15 years and we both know there is a significant segment of the Arsenal fan base that honestly believe there is generalized anti-Arsenal bias in the entire ref community and that is what I find hard to accept. Anytime you suggest that the punishment does not fit the crime then you are introducing a refs discretion in determining what the punishment should be and you introduce the potential for that bias. The only way to eliminate that potential is to have the refs follow the rules. Someone else mentioned that Lacazette should not have been called offside because it was only by the width of his 5th metatarsal. In American football do they ever allow a pass reception to stand when the players foot landed out of bounds by the width of a metatarsal? You and I would be screaming mad if our team lost a football game because the ref arbitrarily choose to ignore that width of metatarsal being out of bounds.
i have a rule where i say 9 times out of 10, i prefer a super-smart player to a super-talented player…but it’s only 9 of 10. there is that 1 of 10 i reserve for moments like the pepe goal, which i don’t even think has gotten a mention on this thread. and, let’s not forget that he also hit the woodwork. a great performance for him and, unfortunately, it’s not lauded because of the sending off.
Hey Josh – the points above are well made. I appreciate the coaching perspective you offer.
One place where I differ with you is whether Luiz was heading to defend the goal line after getting beaten I am not a coach, but it seems to me Luiz should stay on the right side of the opponent. By doing so, he eliminates the possibliity of Jose rounding the keeper to the outside. Holding and Bellerin are already there to cover the goal line on the wide side – Luiz would never get there before them for a rebound. If Luiz were the only defender, it would make sense to run behind. But with 2 teammates to his left closer to goal it seems like a strange choice.
When he pulled down Mahrez in June for a red card, he also ran behind him. This time NOT goal side. I just think this is his MO. He gets beaten, then runs behind the attacker, hoping to draw contact in a plausible deniability kind of way. I think the refs, if biased, are biased because he has a history of doing this. Refs know what guys do. And they are on the lookout for it. Especially if he’s gotten away with it from a game that ref has previously officiated. Fool me once… If that’s bias, so be it. I could argue that’s preparation that any good ref should do. Know the tricks players will try to pull and don’t let them get away with it.
Exactly.
Watch the play develop: Luiz had Holding in position to do exactly what Joshua is claiming that Luiz is going to do. The smart thing there is for DL to run directly to the goal line where you can make a clearance if possible (you’ve seen a lot of players do this in your life). But what Dingbat does is runs to Willian Jose and Holding. He’s not “trying to get to the byline to make a save” he’s trying to run across the back of this player and hopefully get away with a sneaky trip where he can pretend (after the contact) that he was “trying to get out of the way.” BTW: watch the replays, he’s looking at Willian Jose’s feet as he’s making this stupid “mistake”.
Fuck me, this entire thing is draining, it’s like arguing politics with Qanon.
That’s a good analogy, Tim. BTW, it’s shorthand for “Qanonsense”. Maybe an extra 10 minutes on the cushion would help?
Look, I’ve read through the whole thread and I don’t really see much disagreement. Luiz did a dumb thing, in the heat of the moment. He’s done it before, it’s part of what you get with him. You also get positives. The ref made a harsh decision. I believe there is bias against Arsenal from some referees, based on a history of decisions going back to Wenger who for some reason (English animosity against the French dates back to pre-Norman Conquest) seemed to irritate officials. I also believe the players must have some sense of where the biases are, so yes, they should be more careful around these officials. But they are also playing a game where situations occur that prompt reaction (stupidity). Better discipline would certainly be appreciated.
We all react a bit differently to these incidents, based on our own preferences and biases. It’s what makes the blog so interesting. Personally I wrote this season off before the turn of the year, so my irritation at the result on Tuesday is more than balanced by how good we looked in the first half. If we could have gone in at the half three-nil up (really should have), we would have won even with 9 men. I see as lot of promise in this team and look forward to us climbing back up to where we belong, several places above the Totts. Probably not this season. That’s OK. Breathe.
i won’t disagree with your first paragraph, lagunner. if luiz stays on the right side and willian jose holds the ball, he may be able to put pressure on the ball, but luiz would not be goal side. i don’t mean to patronize (i don’t know what you know), but goal side is defined as between the ball and the goal. it’s like a law that if you get beat, your first priority is to get goal side and then develop the situation from there.
the shortest distance between two points is a straight line. david luiz has less than two seconds to get to a goal side point so he takes the straightest line that he can. unfortunately, it was a bit too straight and he caught the attacking player.
understand, i don’t know why he did what he did. i’m only speaking from the perspective of how players are trained. likewise, someone higher up the thread asked why he seems to do that so often
also, initiating any contact from behind a dribbler, incidental or not, will always lead to a free kick; there is no plausible deniability. i don’t know why he would want to do that in the box as you imply.
“also, initiating any contact from behind a dribbler, incidental or not, will always lead to a free kick”
yes.
There’s really no debate here: it was a foul, it was a red card. In fact, it’s probably the least biased call we saw all weekend.
I wish we could get more objectively correct calls like this. VAR did the exact right thing as well. It’s kind of bizarre how somany Arsenal fans want to argue with this truth but I get it, because when I first saw what happened I was ticked off as well and felt an extreme sense of injustice. But when I learned that this is the law of the game and that it was applied correctly, I let go of that white hot anger.