Proof That Arsenal Were Cheated, While Man Utd & Chelsea Got Lucky
By Football Talk Published: 22nd August 2011Arsenal would have finished in second place last season had it not been for refereeing decisions going against them, that’s according to independent research conducted recently.
Broadcaster and journalist Tim Long conducted his research on 713 ‘significant incidents’ from 380 Premier League games in 2010/11 for his radio documentary Beyond The goal Line: Football’s Technology Debate.
A significant incident included penalties, goal line incidents and offside calls with each leading to, or could have lead to, a goal. His programme looks at the need for technology in football and how refereeing mistakes can make a real difference to clubs.
According to his findings, Arsenal would have finished in second position with an extra 4 points had the correct decision gone their way, while Man Utd, Man City and Chelsea benefited from poor decisions and should have finished with less points than they ended up with. Liverpool and Tottenham would have ended up with the same number of points.
Here is the table as it ‘should’ have looked at the end of last season, according to Long’s research finding:
Long wasn’t aiming to highlight the referee’s errors but to show the need for technology in football and how it could be used to make match deciding decisions more accurately.
A full account of this story and research can be found on Sporting Intelligence.
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Not surprising in the least.
Man Utd got lucky? We ended up first and SHOULD have ended up first by this “proof”. I think your title should have read Man City got lucky seeing as they ended up in the Champions League’s automatic qualification spot.
Agreed
So how did man united get lucky?
Through dubious refereeing decisions tw
o penalties turned down vs Chelsea Cha
pions Leagu knockout stage ,two more vs
Blackpool atBloomfield Road in the Premier League, Vidic not given a straight red card for blatant handball in the box vs Arsenal at the Emirates
van Persie,s winner vs Spurs scored
from level,incorrectly ruled offside by yet more inept EPL referees and thei
r linesmen ,plenty more dubious decisions but we don,t want to make you cry ?
All the guys saying is that if man u hadnt have had the decisions go there way then things might have turned out different, ie lower confidence in the squad effects the morale and future results. Most of you man u “fans” dont even fucking live there, support your local team boys and girls
There ll be more poor officiatings as they re close to getting wenger out. Look at what happen at nc. Arsenal two red cards in two games. When did bolton, stoke, sund, newc, wolves got such. The question is can any team get 2 reds if they played as arsenal played. No, period.
It is not b’se of poor refereeing that arsenal went away with two red cards against Newcastle but first see what song did to barton didn’t it deserved a red card? for gervinoh I cant tell much on that
Some refrees should be ban 4rm football because the are not qualify 2 be a refree.fifa should do something about it.blues 4 life
And Arsenals defence should be banned from premiership cos there not qualified to be defenders lolz
as long suffering arsenal fan have to agree about our defenders but not as bad as people say. if vidic played for us he wouldve been sent off 5+ times last season. fact. but enjoy….
y is it dt all english refrees hates wenger and his team? They always cheat Arsenal. We are being scored goals out of time and with offsides…ds should b stoped pls
just another arsenal fan complaining cos they didn’t do well enough…..you’re a has been club!!! get over it
Too true
So how does Joey Barton get away with man
handling Gervinho on the ground,a week ago
or the same Barton crude tackle on Diaby
last season ,any idea,Robert ?
true we would like to do better but who wouldnt? barca? we had them beaten until ref sent off rvp…..i just find it hard to believe man u only lost 3 points!!!
The fallacy in this is that had significant events happened differently everything else would have stayed the same. Had different decisions occurred, whole games would have panned out completely differently, and neither Mr Long nor anyone else knows exactly how.
His analysis is shallow and puerile.
Move on.
Agreed
Did you all realised that the entire so called professional english referee has being applied double standard against us since our invisible era maybe all the other teams have been jealous to our success. It also coincident since Ivan Gazidis took over David Dein position. Therefore, Ivan Gazidis should start building up a good relationship with the FA as David Dein always did during his time. Bring David Dein back to our board. David Dein also a key figure for England World Cup bidding committee.
I don’t remember seeing your invisibles era!
Thats nt the 1st tme it hz bn dne 4 seasons bck
this isnt accurate.. you are implying that all the penalty decisions that should have been given were scored.. but this is unpredictable as even the best spot-kick takers miss from time to time or there is some excellent goalkeeping at work
To hell with all your opinion. 2 matches played 36 more to go
The title of this article is ridiculous. Yeah, Arsenal might have got the most decisions against them wrong, but football is a game of 90 minutes. Who’s to say that everything else would have remained the same and Arsenal would have won? Clearly, they crack under pressure anyways.
Article itself is bad enough but given its based on incredibly selective & flawed “proof”, typical attempt at academic analysis that considered only ‘significant incidents’. About as much validity as the ‘fair play’ league which only highlights the inconsistencies of referees. So far 5 clear penalties denied Chelsea in 2 games & no not the Lampard ‘dive’ or the Torres swandive but: the Whelan straight arm push on Kalou, the Huth elbow on Alex, the Shawcross kick on Torres, Foster upending Anelka and Olsson palming the ball away from Anelka’s head – ‘significant’ incidents or not. Until technology is allowed to help refs then we will continue to put up with the flaws of the game!
This is joke right? Football is that way. who doesn’t remenber the CHL game between chelsea and barcelona? Chelsea was overruled on 3-4 penalties. if the ref, had ruled out right chelsea might had won CHL that year, but that’s just the way it is. You can even argue that Chelsea already this season got cheated for 3-4 penalties in the first two Primier games, but that’s the way it goes.
Looks like this article was written by a very narrowminded arsenal fan.
Stop feeling sorry for yourself. This is football and as i saw, Arsenal had bigger problems last yeah then the refs. So did Chelsea. Man U had the stamina to see it too the end and the won. fair and square.
Totally agree. Man U well deserved last seasons title. Chelsea definitely had its calls go for and against them but it wasn’t just officiating that doomed their season. Same with gunners. Cesc was dreadful last season as was Bentner and RVP was injured. That’s just the way it goes. You take the good with the bad and move on.
oh bo ho Arsenal got bad decisions you forgot 2009/10 when chelsea beat man u twice park had a pinalty and chelsea goal was off side grow up and play football
AND MANU WON 2010/11 BECAUSE THEY WERE THE BEST DONT FORGET CL FINALIST
I think there is some faulty math here. It seems to me if you take points away from a team those same points need to be given elsewhere to balance out the won/loss deferential. He has awarded Arsenal and other “wronged” teams a total of +35 points but has only taken away -23 from the MancU, Chelsea and the other “lucky” teams.
As a gooner I’m offended by the bias in this article, whoever wrote this gives a bad name to Arsenal Fans. What about Blackpool and Birmingham who got relegated because of these errors. Yes we would have finished second and possibly changed the position our fledgling team is in right now. However, this isn’t an Arsenal blog site, so at least pretend to be impartial!
Football Talk only provides news for the ‘top 6′ teams in the premier league. Therefore our articles are geared towards the fans of those teams.
That is the reason the article is focussed on those sides, and doesn’t discuss teams like Blackpool, etc.
The article has no Arsenal bias, we’re just providing the findings of the research, which happens to show out of the 6 sides we cover news for Arsenal were the most adversely effected.
Thanks
Admin
With Song’s three match ban, it should be three red cards in to games now.
I look forward to this season’s update…United should have had another penalty v Chelsea and 2 v Stoke that were not given and even I can admit we were lucky with decisions against Wolves on Saturday.
Epl referees make most awkward decisions, do u remember rio’s kung-fu kick that tore sagna’s jersey during the FA cup?