Focus on Arsenal forget about Foy

Arsenal and Wolves are two teams that go into tomorrow’s clash from two completely different ends of the footballing spectrum. On the one hand, Wolves are riding high. They beat Manchester United last weekend and the result was hailed across the Black Country as an epic win. On the other hand, Arsenal let their fans down last weekend by allowing Newcastle to send the Gunners home with just a point after a 4-0 lead. For Arsenal it was a match that has sparked controversy over refereeing, the Arsenal defense, and whether Arsenal have the leaders needed to push for silverware. For Wolves it is seen as a match that could provide the spark to drag them out of welegation.

While Arsenal are looking for leaders to push the team over the top and possibly win the League,  Mick McCarthy’s Wolverhampton are in the middle of a welegation battle with West Brom, West Ham, and Wigan. Reading Mick’s interviews ahead of the match you see a man who is planning Wolves’ escape from the bottom of the table which partially depends upon getting a result against Arsenal tomorrow:

I’m not going to Arsenal to get beat. I’d like six points out of these next two games to make it nine with the win over United as well. We’ve got to play West Brom and they’ll have a new manager. They might have beaten West Ham at home or lost. I don’t take the view that the game before has a direct affect on the next game. It can’t, because when you see our result against Bolton, how on earth does it stack up what we did against Manchester United?

Nine points from those three matches would have been a dream at the start of the season but as we’ve seen this is hardly a typical year in the Premier League. Wolves have won just 7 games so far but there are some big names among their scalps:  Stoke, Man City, Sunderland, Birmingham, Liverpool (at Anfield), Chelsea, and United.

The astute football fan will note that six of those wins came at the Molineaux and anyone who closely follows the game will point out that Wolves’ away record is 1-1-10 — scoring just 9 and conceding 24. Meanwhile, Arsenal might have slipped up to start the season but since the loss to Tottenham Arsenal have gone 4-1-0 in home games.

Arsenal’s one draw in our last five home games came against Manchester City and they are a good point of comparison. Wolves played City to a scintillating 4-3 loss in Manchester. The Wanderers didn’t sit back and let Man City own the game as you might expect, they showed that they can play football and the final stats are proof that Wolves gave City a game; possession was split 50-50, City had more fouls (11-9), there were no cards, Wolves had 8 corners, and created 15 shots, 5 on goal.

Credit is due to Mick McCarthy then as he has his team playing football and not just wrecking people like they had been doing at the start of the season. In the last few games I’ve seen, Karl Henry has been very good both with the ball and without it and hasn’t put himself about like a human missile; again credit to him for the change of attitude. I called Karl Henry the poster child for foul play at the start of the season and I’d gladly post another story describing his change in attitude if it is indeed a change he keeps.

That is a big IF because as we know there is a lot of bad blood between Arsenal and Wolves and Henry has been the cause on several occasions. His remarks after the game last season about Rosicky and the Arsenal players diving about when he was clearly hunting them down didn’t help the matter. But judging by their performances of late and especially the match against Man City, Wolves can give Arsenal a clean game and simultaneously have a real chance of leaving with some points — or at least some pride.

Whether a game is clean or not can also be decided by the referee and tomorrow that job is down to Chris Foy. Usually, this is where I would talk about Foy’s record in Arsenal matches — I have all the stats about fouls and controversial calls — but I’m not going to do that today because Arsenal as a club need to step back.

I’ve written extensively about referees and the effect that they have had on games. Howard Webb’s influence in Manchester United matches is just one of the many that I ran and which was well received. I’ve also worked with A Beautiful Numbers Game who published an article that sought to quantify the bias of  Dean, Webb, and Dowd against Arsenal. But I think it’s important to note that neither of us accused anyone of taking a bribe.

Bribery in the Premier League is unthinkable and the ramifications of proof that games were thrown would be horrifying. If there were a provable scandal of that nature, the Premier League as we know it would cease to exist. Broadcasters like Fox Sports would be forced to end their relationship with “Professional Wrestling of Football” and switch to the Bundesliga or something else. The Premier League is so dependent on that television revenue that few if any teams could survive the fallout. Big names would leave, the level of play would drop overall, and the few local English fans who attended games would see a scandal behind every call.

That said, I don’t think that the League is without problems but I don’t think they are couched in illegal activity as much as simply cultural problems. The FA drags its feet on any change the biggest of which is that we all have the benefit of technology that referees do not. I have said all along that what is needed is either an end of broadcaster’s ability to show instant replays (much like they are supposed to do in the stadiums) or that referees should be given the opportunity to change their calls based on the same technology that we all have. And through which we judge them.

Anyone could re-watch every game and re-referee every game using slow motion and instant replay. You then could put that information into a database and show which referees consistently get which calls wrong. And all you would prove to me is that instant replay technology is superior to live action refereeing. Which, as a sports fan, I already know because pretty much every sport uses instant replay. Not only that, but instant replay takes all of the pressure off the referees. Make a mistake? So what? With instant replay the referee has the opportunity to make it right, right then and there. As opposed to, say, giving someone a red card after the game or admitting that a goal should have counted three days later.

That’s where I fall on the referee debate. My match previews are intended to show the personality of each ref, not to claim that they are being bribed. Maybe I’ve gone a bit too far, some of the letters I received both for an against what I have been doing certainly indicate that but that wasn’t the intent and I am going to take the advice of that old sage Johan Djourou when he said:

When you’re a pro you want to look at yourself first. You don’t want to look at the referees performance and stuff like that. I think we have to look at ourselves because tomorrow the referee can have some big decisions as well. The referee is going to do his job so we’ve got to look at ourselves to be better tomorrow.

Unfortunately, things are going to get weird because the BBC ran an article on Thursday which highlighted another Arsenal blog called Untold Arsenal and their work in accusing the Premier League of being bent. Saying that the EPL is “fixed” and that it’s a “bribesville” without any evidence has no positive outcome as far as I can see.

Don’t get me wrong, they have some good ideas. I’d love to see matches publicly reviewed. I’d love to see foreign officials brought in (though that’s no guarantee that they can’t be “bought and sold”). And I’d love to see referees given a scorecard. And maybe that will be the positive outcome from all this, but given the FA’s extreme reluctance to change even small things I just can’t see them take on this task in any meaningful way. It’s certainly not going to happen this year and so, Arsenal have a season to play and trophies to fight for and we need to do that with or without the referees.

So tomorrow, I’d like to see Arsenal just play football and ignore the referee. There will be bad calls tomorrow but Arsenal needs to play through them. We should have enough quality to get a result from Wolves without leaning on the crutch of bad refereeing. Which, I’ll admit could be said about my critique of Phil Dowd and the Newcastle game and is the reason why I did a two part match review.

Anyway, the match is live on ESPN2 at 7am (PST) and I’m not sure what I’ll do for an early blog (if any). Chary is going to the game so he is going to do a Man at the Match report that afternoon and I might do another “Match Report” because I’m practicing that craft a bit.

I’m not sure yet.

I’m looking for something innovative to do for match day, maybe I’ll do a weekly road trip video blog or something.

Not tomorrow though. Tomorrow, I’m going to have some sausages and make my girls some heart shaped pancakes. So, erm, I guess I’ll see you when I see you.

Bookmark It