We had two heart attack games today, two scrapped victories, two goals and about two thousand fouls. The fact that only a handful of them were awarded is only due to the competence of the referees in charge of these electric derbies. I cannot say much about Mr. Halsey because I only saw him on a blurry screen; however I can vouch for Mr. Wiley who kept a game of such magnitude under control.
The London derby had nine yellow cards, could have had more and perhaps should have, but one cannot hold a grudge against Alan Wiley or either of his two assistants. I counted five wrongly given fouls/ fouls not given three of which were in favour of the home team. There were other instances however where Mr. Wiley perhaps should have produced a yellow card when he did not or issue a red card when he did.
Starting chronologically, his first mistake came after Terry’s horrendous tackle on Fabregas — in the 30th minute. The young Spaniard, being hot headed, responded and tried to confront Terry. A fight nearly broke out with Adebayor administering a punch while pretending to try and drag one of his players away. No many could have seen that clearly and maybe the Togo striker was lucky to have barely touched the Chelsea man, but at the end of the scramble Lampard and Terry were booked. This was wrong. Fabregas, who tried to retaliate, was not talked to and Lampard was booked for protests. Maybe the Arsenal midfielder could have been given a warning as well as Lampard rather than punish one and excuse the other.
His next two lapses in judgement were minor. Joe Cole was — yet again (remember Man Utd?) — excused for a tackle from behind, while Clichy was not booked for what looked to be a get-the-man-not-the-ball challenge. Joe Cole was the booked for fouling Eboube and injuring the Arsenal winger (a bit ironic that it was Eboube who injured Terry in the first half and was booked for it) a few minutes later.
Late in the game the assistant referee on the far side made a brilliant call in spotting van Persie about an inch offside. This call was followed by the most controversial call of the game: a foul on Ben Haim by Adebayor. At first the challenge did not look faulty as Adebayor just barely made contact with the Chelsea defender, but looking at the replays it became more and more obvious that Ben Haim was impeded. Had the foul not been given, Arsenal would have been two goals up with a few minutes to go. I think this was a correct call.
The next two incidents were major, however. Mikel was wrongly awarded a free kick about 25 yards out and Shevchenko came very, very close to putting the ball under the bar and out of Almunia’s reach in the fourth minute of injury time from that free kick. About a minute later Fabregas missed Arsenal’s fifth one on one chance and made a horror tackle on Ashley Cole. “Red card” shouts came even from the most devout Arsenal supporters. Surely Fabregas was to be sent off and face a disciplinary committee for a tackle with one intention: break Ashley Cole’s leg, but instead he was booked. It did not matter anyway in the context of the game as it was the last action of the day but in the long run maybe Arsenal could have paid for the idiocy of their superstar. Ashley Cole was al right in the end and nearly managed to punch Fabregas in the face.
It was a tense end to a great game, but it did not do much justice to the referee who had an overall good game, but will now be remembered for not sending Fabregas and Ashley Cole off.
me thinks you were watching the game with Blue Tinted Glasses.
I think you are wrong – the ref had a poor game – lots of bad mistakes, including impeding the play by getting in the way
and an inch offside for RVP???? clear daylight please & whatever happened to the favour attacking rule???
Alan Wiley’s a bad ref, poor vision, bad decisions going both ways (but mainly in chelski’s favour) totally useless, too short & way too fat/unfit, he couldn’t keep up with the play in the 2nd half of the match & he’s meant to be one of our top referees?
A very poor observation. A wanna be sky pundit i see. Van perise offside??! U idiot it was rosicky, get your facts right. Get out of here u loser.
Lampard was not booked for protesting, a minute or two before he had a late challange on Hleb (I think) the ref pointed to Fat Frank and then waved play on as Arsenal still had the ball. Once play stopped he booked him correctly so.
VanP wasnt offside (inch or otherwise) it was Rosicky. Fab was rightly booked as it was a bad tackle. Cole could have gone for the retailiation at the end but Fab should not have got booked for squaring up to the thug terry.
What a marvellously one sided approach to life.
It must be a hoot to be able to justify everything through ones own conviction.
By your account Arsenal recieved the “benefit of doubt” on about a dusin occasions, while Chelsea were robbed of everything.
Astonishing!
But no one has ever claimed that we must seek reason in football.
Good luck to you my friend. I still admire your conviction and, given somewhat irrational, support. But again, this is sport and there should be room for “feelings” and “beliefs”.
With football optimism,
Gus J.
Galway, Lampard was booked for dissent. Indeed it was Rocisky who was offside, not van Persie. Goonerssaurus, the bad decisions were there, but overall he made very few mistakes for a game of this magnitude. Think Styles! Favouring Chelsea? I do not think so.
Do you not think that Fabregas should have been sent off?Joe Cole too? Maybe A Cole should have had something done against him for trying to punch Cest in the face.
Andrei,
I do not think Fabregas should have been sent off. Neither should either of the Coles. I think you are being a bit harsh in accusing Fabregas of trying to break Ashley Cole’s leg. It was clearly a malicious tackle. He used his leg to wrap Cole up, bringing him down. He would’ve gone in straight if he was hoping to break a leg. Instead of trying to put opposite forces on two parts of Coles’ leg, he pulled him down. Clearly an attempt to get Cole back for his comments about Arsenal and about Fabregas (plus I’m sure Fabregas was annoyed at himself for not scoring immediately prior); but to read an intent to injure into strikes me as a step off the pier of evidence and into unjustified speculation.
If so, then the yellow card was appropriate. It was a rough game, and I do not think Wiley had a bad game (not great, but competent for such a spirit game). In fact, his stern use of the yellow card helped keep it under control without interjecting himself too much. There were bad tackles all over the pitch, if he had been as quick on red to give them to Fabregas or Cole, then there would be no justification for the praises you heap on Wiley. There is a tension in your argument – the reason Wiley was able to keep the game under control was precisely because he was not as quick to punish as he would have to be if your interpretation of the events on the field was correct.
Usually I like your reports but Im afraid you showed your light & dark Blue colours in this one. If I being a Gunner was to be as biased (which I am ) I would have sent Terry off for the two awful tackles hid did on young Fabs. The reason for the tackles were so obvious to anyone who has played the game a lot. ie; get Fabs injured or wound up or both asap. It nearly worked ! Eboue would not have taken revenge on Terry, Cole would not have taken revenge on Eboue. etc.etc. If justice had been done ie; that we had the goggle eyed bald Italian ref of yesteryear, the following would have happened and would have resulted in a more justifyable result.
1) Terry would have got his RED CARD.
2) Eboue would have also
3) J.Cole would have got Red Carded
4) A Cole also for throwing a punch and for being a pillock.
5) The two late AFC goals would have been awarded
6) the result should have been 4-1 to the Arsenal.
Now I feel better for that.
Fabregas was winding Cashley up and showing displeasure, not trying to break his leg. FFS. You need to do a lot more than that to break a leg of a professional footballer! Fabregas tripped him rather than lunge a tackle on him. Adebayor was much more malicious on Cashley, but nothing compared to Ruud van N on Cashley a few years back. Come to think of it, Cashley is the victim in all this. He must wonder what he’s ever done to deserve it. Poor love.
Alan Wiley was awful. Nothing wrong with Ades goal.
Did he not see Mikel holding Flamini back before he won the late FK Sheva took.
What about when Lampard had a go at the ball boy (at the conclusion of the incident where J Cole injured Eboue and Mikel flattened Fabregas)? Amazingly, none of that was even shown on MoTD!
lots of different views! by the way…it wasn’t van persie who was offside it was rosicky leading up to the goal
yea Paul, I was wrong in that. I knew the guy with the assist was offside, but for some reason, I thought that it was van Persie who passed to Rocisky rather than the other way…
Pete, If I recall correctly, the ball was ridiculously late in making its way backl to the pitch at the end of that incident and Chelsea were hurrying to get the ball back in play. PLus, you are not going to send a player off for having a go at the ball boy, are you?
Joeyboy, everything was wrong when that foul was awarded on Mikel. The Nigerian was not fouled, he fouled, the challange did not bring him down and it would have been wrong if Chelsea had scored.
I thought Lampard got the yellow for the foul in the build-up to the free-kick rather than dissent…
I thought Alan Wiley had a very good game (as did Mr Halsey in the earlier game.)
2 experienced referees who are both calm and use common sense in their approach.
Jm, watch the tackle again, Fabregas goes in witht wo legs and wraps up Cole. If that isn’t a red card, what is?
Wiley had a good game. My only complaints: Terry didn’t deserve a yellow for slipping and colliding with Fabregas, and that whole situation was crazy (2 Chelsea cards and none for Arsenal?) Also, the end of the game play. Honestly, Fabregas and Cole deserved red, and I thought for sure that would happen.
I was suprised that Joe Cole wasn’t booked with yellow immediately after the tackle on Eboue. I didn’t think there was an advantage to be played there.
Adebayor needs to stop punching people, as well as Cole. Fabregas is a fuck for that tackle, which was cearly aimed at hurting another player. That is absolutely disgusting and I lost all respect for him after seeing that. Terry needs to stop getting hurt and my Blues need to srtat controlling themselves after every foul; seems like they complain all the time and it has given us a bad rap.
Brian W,
Asking someone to “watch it again” after watching it many times is amusing indeed! I know it is a rhetorical device, but it amuses me none the less. Am I supposed to suddenly think you are right the fiftieth time?
I saw exactly what you saw. He used his right leg to curl around Cole’s leg and brace it against his left. This brought Cole down. It clearly was a message, and clearly was intentional. But I do not see more intent to personally injure someone than I do in Cole’s tackle on Eboue, or Terry’s on Fabregas. All three were intentional and overly harsh tackles in a brutal game filled with disappointing levels of violence.
Wiley had a choice. He could either serve up red cards and try and bring the game under control that way, or he could use yellows to keep the simmer from boiling over. I think he did the right thing. Now, maybe reds are necessary because these teams are fighting everytime they play each other. But part of the reason that was such an entertaining game was that Wiley took the later strategy. This kept the flow and fight in the game, rather than being the story of who-got-sent-off.
What I’ve disputed most strenuously is the allegation that Fabregas was trying to break Cole’s leg. If he was, then he would’ve gone in with both legs straight. Instead, he went out of his way to just bring him down. Intentional? Yep. Sending a message? You bet. Trying to injure him? Don’t see the evidence.
As to the second matter, whether it deserved red, I think it was part of a consistent strategy on the part of Wiley to let the players decide this one. And I think he succeeded.
he didn’t register cashley cole swaerin at da arsenal fans in his match report, everythin went 2 chelsea, but we stil won SHAME