Ref Review (GW 26): Arsenal Survive Bad Refereeing While Tottenham Get Lucky

The Premier League is gearing up for a tremendous finish and with four teams in with a shot at the title, every decision or goal will have a huge impact on the overall winner. Leicester, Tottenham, Manchester City and Arsenal were all in action against one another and for all the talk about winning titles, there was just one thing to speak about regarding the game, the referee.

Both games had debatable calls from the referees and that is something that no one would want when it comes to such important games. The first calls were at the Emirates where Martin Atkinson gave Leicester a penalty, while the decision did seem to be correct on first viewing on a second look it seemed that Vardy wasn’t actually caught by Monreal but the Leicester striker actually left his leg hanging so that he could make contact with the Arsenal player.

That wasn’t as bad a miss as what was to come prior to that when Danny Drinkwater absolutely lunged almost knee high on Aaron Ramsey. The Welsh midfielder was extremely upset and lucky to not have been injured with this challenge but even this tackle went unpunished by Atkinson.

It wasn’t all good news for Leicester also, with Danny Simpson being sent off for two bookable offences. The first one itself was a questionable call but the second one shouldn’t have been a yellow, sure Simpson did tug the player but normally a player is given a warning before being sent off, the crowd did have a lot of influence on the referee.

Spurs get lucky

While Arsenal did win the game thanks to Simpson getting sent off, Spurs got the rub of the green when Mark Clattenburg gave Spurs a penalty when Raheem Steeling was adjudged to have handled the ball in the penalty box in the second half.

On replays, it showed that the ball had hit the armpit and many pundits believed that referee made the cardinal sin of guessing and making the decision. It wasn’t even a deliberate handball since Sterling turned his back on the ball. Tottenham did score from the penalty, just like Leicester did with Vardy.

There wasn’t just al doom and gloom when it came to referees; Andre Mariner was actually right in the Manchester United – Sunderland fixture when he did not give Sunderland a penalty when the ball hit Morgan Schneiderlin hand in the first half.

The Premier League race will have a few more twists and turns before the end of the season but hopefully it won’t be caused by any more referee decisions.