Officials

You can argue all you like, but Arsenal got screwed all season by referees and here are the stats to back that up.

Mike Dean’s face might well go down as one of the highlights of this awful Arsenal season, but having to wait until the end of July for it was almost worth everything else we had to go through.

Arsenal picked up just a point against Leicester as they struggled to hold onto their 1-0 lead after Eddie Nketiah was sent off, but why did Jamie Vardy get away with kicking Mustafi in the head?

Matthew is joined by Anita to pick over the bones of disasters away at Man City and Brighton, the impact of injuries and recent Covid-19 news, and ask who has the right mentality for a massive club.

Martin Atkinson’s performance during Arsenal’s match at Brighton on Saturday was one of the worst we’ve seen and while we can say blaming the referee for a defeat is refusing to accept how poor Arsenal are, Arsenal and the referee can both be sh*t at the same time.

Against Manchester City on Wednesday, Arsenal will get a set of match officials that does not involve Martin Atkinson, Mike Dean, nor Chris Kavanagh in what almost feels like a minor miracle.

Martin Atkinson took charge of his sixth Arsenal game this season as the Premier League and FA continue to give this man more Arsenal matches than any other but even he couldn’t stop Arsenal beating West Ham.

After sitting on top of the table all season, Arsenal have finally dropped down a place as referees move Bournemouth to the top of the yellow card table.

Premier League referees will finally use pitchside monitors properly from next season to rule on offside calls as well as red cards.

The Daily Mail today reported that PGMOL are not responsible for the fact that referees do not use pitchside monitors because that was the decision of Premier League clubs in at least four meetings.

For the seventh time this season, Mike Dean will be involved with an Arsenal match, this time taking charge of our FA Cup tie at Portsmouth on Monday night.

VAR will be used in the Europa League knock-out stages which start this week with Arsenal welcoming Olympiacos to the Emirates.

Arsenal won 4-0 against Newcastle United on Sunday, but that shouldn’t stop us drawing attention to a terrible offside decision against Mesut Özil in the second half.

Lee Mason will take charge of Arsenal’s game against Newcastle this weekend and, despite being viewed as a widely incompetent ref, he’s actually one we do really well under.

Bobby Madley is set for a return to refereeing in England, despite being sacked by PGMOL for mocking a disabled person.

After slipping to second place for a week, Arsenal are back on top of the yellow card table.

Arsenal will travel to Bournemouth on Monday night for a match refereed, again, by Martin Atkinson, while Mike Dean will run the VAR. One week…

Stuart Attwell took charge of Arsenal’s game against Chelsea and maintained his record of being Arsenal’s worst referee in the Premier League.

When Arsenal played Sheffield United back in October, 76% of fans believed Mike Dean robbed us of a penalty, something he did again when the sides met this weekend.

Even though Arsenal weren’t at their best against Sheffield United on Saturday, had they been given a stonewall penalty when they were 1-0 up then the result would have been a different matter altogether.