Hello, everyone.
After a chaotic weekend of refereeing (more on that later), Man City beat Aston Villa yesterday to move within three points of Arsenal. Before our game on Wednesday, the heat and pressure have risen a bit.
Of course, if Lee Mason had done his job, that pressure would be a little less intense, since we would have had a bigger mattress on top of the table. Instead, he simply didn’t do the basics he’s employed to do and allowed Brentford’s double offside goal to count. Once again, let me be clear: I think Brentford were very good on Saturday, and our performance didn’t necessarily deserve the three points, but as a wise man once said: Deserve has nothing to do with it.
Yesterday, the PGMOL (the arbitration body) issued a statement saying:
PGMOL can confirm that its director of refereeing, Howard Webb, has contacted Arsenal and Brighton & Hove Albion to acknowledge and explain the significant errors in the VAR process in their respective Premier League matches on Saturday.
Both incidents, which were due to human error and related to the analysis of offside situations, are being thoroughly reviewed by PGMOL.
They can take your acknowledgment and your explanation, and frankly stick it down the hole. That will not give us back the two points. I mentioned that it was a bad weekend for refereeing, and Brighton’s perfectly good goal disallowed because they drew the offside lines in the wrong place is, at least, the kind of mistake that can happen. It’s still abysmal, but you can understand a lot more than a complete and utter failure to draw the lines at all.
The spotlight is on Lee Mason, and with good reason, because this isn’t the first time he’s messed up badly, but he wasn’t alone in the VAR booth. There is an assistant there too. He ‘forgot’ to draw the lines too? That seems dubious to me, given how basic that part of the job was, so Mason just overruled it if he reminded her? So it becomes more than human error. You can’t forget if the person sitting next to you says ‘Er, what about the lines?’. So it’s not a mistake at all, it’s deliberate.
Which, I get, heads a bit into the realm of conspiracy, but it’s a bit like an oncoming pilot who forgets to lower the landing gear. You figure the co-pilot might say something. I already find it hard to believe that someone trained to do a very specific job could simply forget to do the most fundamental part of it, and I find it almost impossible to believe that two people have the same brain fart at the same time. .
Offsides + VAR needs lines. Even without them, the footage clearly shows offside, BUT, if Lee Mason had any doubts about that, how would he have made sure? Lines! Therefore, something does not accumulate for me. They can cite ‘human error’, and I think we all understand that can happen, but I’m not convinced that this was simply incompetence. I just can’t see how it is that and only that.
And now that? Well nothing. The PGMOL will probably give Mason a few weeks off before he comes back to do his nonsense again. Howard Webb can explain all he wants, maybe even apologize, but the result stands and the two points are lost. We have seen evidence this weekend that this organization is not fit for purpose. Arsenal. Brighton. A West Ham player, not the goalkeeper, literally making a save. A Southampton player was given a second yellow card for no reason, just at the whim of a referee who didn’t like the cut on his jib. It’s pathetic.
That being said, I’ve written before about Mikel Arteta fostering a siege mentality at Arsenal and perhaps if there’s any hope at all, it’s that he could be useful in that regard. This is a real injustice, far from being aggrieved that years of alleged widespread institutional cheating have led to charges from the organization he has duped all along. Arteta should be talking big in his dressing room about how in 1991 Arsenal, in unprecedented fashion, dropped two points but still won the league. Add this latest crap to the FA charges we’ve been hit with this season, and the previous VAR.
A score on the board before Wednesday’s game: FA wins 3-2 PGMOL.
Maybe we never do it the easy way at this club, but damn, they make sure it ain’t easy anyway. Arsenal worked very hard to get in front on Saturday, and perhaps Brentford would have scored a different goal before the end, but I hope the manager and the players feel the two points weren’t lost so much. I hope that whatever anger and frustration it engenders is channeled on Wednesday, and the rest of the season, and is evident in our performances.
We won’t get those points back, so we’ll have to go out and win more.
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James and I are recording the Arsecast Extra for you later this morning. Keep an eye out for calls for questions on Twitter @gunnerblog and @arseblog on Twitter with the hashtag #arsecastextra, or if you’re a member of Arseblog on Patreon, leave your question in the #arsecast-extra-questions channel on our Discord. server.
We should have the podcast for you by lunchtime. Until then.
