The Arsenal – Michael Oliver – Manchester City by Ken 1945
Many things have been written and said regarding the above. Conspiracy theories, Arab influence, PGMOL turning a blind eye, player reactions, etc, etc, but I want to concentrate on the three names in the title and how they are inexplicably intertwined.
Let’s begin with the referee Mr Oliver – touted as the best in the country by many, but a person who seems to ignore the rules when he referees the games between The Arsenal and City.
Let’s start with last season and his decision not to penalise Kovacic for a ankle high and dangerous tackle from behind on Martin Odegaard.
He was up with play when the incident occurred. He waved play on and it later emerged that he decided not to take any action, as he didn’t want to spoil the spectacle (or words to that effect).
Now, despite me scouring through the rule book, I can find no mention of any official having the right to make such a decision, but the PGMOL took no further action against either the player or the referee.
So one must assume the PGMOL were OK with the referee making that decision.
Fast forward to our match against City at the Etihad stadium and with seconds left of an absolutely brilliant encounter, Trossard kicked the ball away, after Mr Oliver had blown for a free kick.
It was a stupid thing to do by Trossard, but no other player was involved and no injury resulted from this action. Now, bearing in mind how Mr Oliver didn’t want to spoil the spectacle last season, by sending off a player, one would have expected the same level of consistency in this game.
But no, out came the yellow card in an instant, thus doing the complete opposite of what he did last season.
Why would that be?
Unfortunately, we will never know, because the PGMOL refuse to let their officials be interviewed after games, or at any other time, with regards to decisions made on the field of play.
Only Howard Webb, who leads the PGMOL, is allowed to be interviewed, in what can only be described as a friendly little get together, with Michael Owen.
Every single entity that has policed itself has been found to be corrupt and every one of them had individuals who were allowed to corrupt without any kind of punishment given out.
It’s been well documented that Mr Oliver has been invited out to the Arab Emirates and officiated in one of the countries league matches, receiving a reported £20,000 for doing so.
The links between the owners of City and the country itself, along with their FA is well documented, and Mr Oliver seems to have profited very well indeed, considering the reported £20,000 for one game, is about a quarter of what he reportedly earns a season in the PL.
There has to be something fundamentally wrong, when the PGMOL allows one of its officials to go out to the country that, basically, owns a football club in the PL and earn that kind of money for one match, to then appoint said official to referee two games between City and it’s closest rival for two seasons, where the decisions of said referee favour City enormously on both occasions.
Where is the accountability and why does the PGMOL not allow referees like Mr Oliver to explain his 360 degree turnaround on the issues above?
Just one further point on the neutrality of Mr Oliver and The Arsenal. Remember the double yellow booking he dished out to Martinelli?
Never been done before and never been done since.
Now on to City115 – my personal description of a club who I once admired and always wanted to become the team for Manchester. They used to have brilliant, honest and loyal fans, who suffered under Ferguson’s United.
But the club and it’s fans are nothing like the City of old, in fact, they’ve become an even more arrogant copy of Fergie’s United.
The behaviour of Haaland on Sunday was a disgrace and yet, no card was shown to the player, even though he threw the ball into the back of Gabriel’s head… and here’s the shocker – it was recorded by VAR and Mr Oliver and his team decided no further action was necessary!!
Let’s see what happens when other players start to do the same thing – I’m sure the same rule won’t apply then!!
Those 115 charges should be cleared up immediately and, if found guilty, City should be punished, using the criteria that saw Everton and Forest deducted points.
Lastly, The Arsenal: When will our players learn to think clearly?
We had the Brighton game in our pocket, until Rice gave the referee the chance to send him off. OK, whether one agreed with it or not, it should have been a lesson learnt.
Arteta should have drilled it into their heads that no player should let it happen again and he probably did… at least I hope so.
Did Trossard not hear the whistle, did he not have time to stop his action??
Who knows, but it gave Mr Oliver the opportunity he, in my opinion, had been waiting for.
We have taken enormous positive strides in the last two seasons, witnessed by the relief of every city115 players, manager and fans reaction to getting a 2-2 draw against a ten man opposition for over 55 minutes!! Just become even more professional and we, the fans, know your on the cusp of something incredible.
Just my take on The Arsenal – Mr Oliver – Manchester City saga.
What’s yours?
ken1945
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Didnt he go Saudi Arabia not where City owners are from
Also think he would have disallowed City’s first goal if he were on City’s side
City are not owned by the Saudis
Nor are they one of the Emirates
They are – my error😔
That is what I am thinking
Good article. Oliver shouldn’t referee arsenal again because of the debate
It would have been extremely shady to disallow the goal, as the defender was right in line with his other three colleagues when the ball was played
But isn’t that the accusation?
That’s he is shady
Would you not say he’s shady Dan, or perhaps even corrupt when it comes to the refereeing with regards to The Arsenal and city115?
How else can one explain the highlighted issues?
Saudi Arabia is NOT Abu Dhabi? I don’t get what you are on about Ken.Oliver didn’t have a good game on Sunday but not for most things people are talking about. Probably his worse decision was what happened with our second goal and Kyle Walker, but we benefitted from that. Your opinions Ken but we should level things ip when injustices are dished out. He got the Doku one spot on, the Trossard one right. Some of his other decisions were not great but none of them are being mentioned by most on here. Oliver didn’t have a great game end of!!!!!
I think you meant 1st goal with Walker Reggie😊
Reggie, city115 had ten men behind the ball when the free kick was taken and the goal was given.
Why aren’t you answering the Kovacic versus Trossard differences, or the Martinelli one off and never to be repeated classic?!
I’m sorry mate, but everyone else seems to grasp what I’m talking about.
Writer was absolutely right. There has to be a way of checking and making EPL Corruption free. Some referees such as Oliver Michael are ruining the game
Well written Ken. Pulling those incidents together brings it into focus.
The other issue is the way the same offences are handled across the PL by other refs in other games. And often in the same games (when Trossard and Rice were sent off, the other side had already got way with the same offence).
On the other hand, Trossard made a bad job of it, his punt towards the sidelines would never be seen as “a normal play” – if he’d simply passed to the GK he’d have a case for saying that he didn’t hear the whistle. Hoofing it into the stands is too obvious – and there wasn’t even any real danger. But it’s the inconsistency that gets people riled up – for good reason.
“Lastly, The Arsenal: When will our players learn to think clearly?” –> “Did Trossard not hear the whistle, did he not have time to stop his action??”
Not really the focus of the article, and not particularly aimed at Ken (I’ve heard seen people say trossard made a stupid mistake and that’s not what I’ve read here), but I do think these thoughts are incompatible – if trossard didn’t hear the whistle or didn’t have time to react to it, then it’s nothing to do with him being stupid in that moment or not thinking clearly, he couldn’t have really done anything differently except anticipate the whistle, and if the whistle hadn’t been blown he’d have lost the ball and then he would have looked like an idiot. Imo he didn’t have time to react and so was extremely hard done by.
I don’t go along with accusations of corruption but I do think the referee got this one wrong and perhaps was overly keen to get the yellow card out for perceived time wasting. I don’t agree with excessive punishment for infractions where there was no intent, and there was plenty of reason to give trossard the benefit of any doubt on this one.
“I’ve heard/seen *other* people say trossard made a stupid mistake”
Good article Ken.Oliver always strikes me as an arrogant individual who seems to relish having authority over players and being the centre of attraction, whereas a truly excellent referee is rarely involved in controversy and maintains a lower profile.The irony is that the game is far less physical than it used to be yet the number of bookings and sendings off is as high as ever.
Michael is always given those games and Arsenal rarely avoid red card or penalty and FA loves that. These guys who call themselves PGMOL are good at writing history for some clubs, players and coaches. We have sacred cows in the EPL
You stated your case clearly Ken1945.
It has been an interesting week reading the opposing views from regular JA contributors and not having seen the City game cannot comment on the truth of Trossard’s claim that he did not hear the whistle.
I would only add that such is the level of inconsistency within the ranks of the refereeing community, that they all need to go on a course to learn about consistency and how to apply it.
Do we know if other referees have a particular sway to or against other clubs that they referee? If we knew the answer, that could solve or at least let us understand the conundrum of unconscious bias or something much worse.
SueP, I have only delved into Mr Oliver, as I’ve been watching a pattern emerge that can only be described as corrupt in favouring one club (city115) over another (The Arsenal).
Mr Oliver has referees 47 matches involving City115 and guess what?. Not once has he sent a city115 player off.
How many Arsenal players has he sent of?
SEVEN I’ll let you find out in how many games – you’ll be surprised!!
Sorry I got the two countries muddled up by the way!!
One of those decisions was the double yellow he gave Martinelli in one passage of play against Wolves.
A decision that Rio Ferdinand claimed was about a referee trying to make the morning headlines.
The daftess red card ever,
So we can rule out that conspiracy
A further factoid – what PL club has Mr Oliver sent off the most players from?
Begins with a A and ends with a L.
We know it’s not city115 of course.
Mr Oliver is reported to earn between £180 – £200k a year from being a PL referee (so my initial figure of nearly a quarter of his salary was wrong) and has never been publicly questioned about his refereeing exploits outside of said PL.
Nor has he been reprimanded about ANY decision or cared a fig for the fans.
Can anyone see a pattern emerging with regards to Mr Oliver?
Ken1945
I understand your pain and the painstaking efforts made in respect of your article.
I think proving corruption is an uphill task and it would take more than you have listed to make waves within football circles.
Especially when the PGMOL police themselves SueP.
I wonder why they do that?
Any ideas from your perspective SueP, or even Dan, DK or Reggie come to that – why insist on policing your own?
But they’re financed by The FA, The Premier League and The Football League, who should show some muscle and insist on more openness, especially now that PGMOL are broke and crying out for extra money.
So Jax, why don’t they insist on more transparency then?
As a fan, that’s what I want.
Who knows Ken and when they make the retiring refs take an NDA with a big pay off, it makes it even more unlikely.
Jax, perhaps they’re “conspiring” to ensure no negatives come out?
That’s why it’s ridiculous to have someone like Mike Dean as an “independent pundit” – especially as he was one of the worst of them!
Jax, iirc, Mark Halsey refused to sign the NDA when he retired as a referee. He then made statements about the PGMOL, which did indeed make them look corrupt.
Yeah, I’ve read Mark’s book (very good reading), and I guess he decided he’d make more money from the publishing than the £100K (I think) that PGMOL: were offering.
I can’t recall the PGMOL addressing any of Mark’s accounts and allegations… have they?
Ha! Not.A.Chance.
Well… saying “Who knows Ken” is kinda ducking the question. Ken’s point is that we want to know.
And you have to wonder why refs should need to sign an NDA. And a £100k payoff depends on them signing it. That stinks to high heaven – what have they got to hide?
We should be asking these questions, so an answer of “Who knows?” really isn’t very helpful and is not what anyone is looking for.
Well I don’t know for sure, and that’s my way of saying it and If you find that unhelpful then I suggest that you look elsewhere.
The red card and the City equaliser both came well after extra time had expired
Remember “Fergies time”?
The City equaliser was scored in time added to added time for treatment to an Arsenal injury (Timber I think)and our even more time wasting. Not sure about the red card though.
That was my reply to tim spindler.
Michael Oliver was paid £3,000 and given business-class flights when he travelled to Saudi Arabia to referee a top-flight match between Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr and Al-Hilal last year. he made a whole lot more and surprise surprise closely linked to the owners of Man City, so if that isn’t bordering on corrupt referring giving City special treatment, then what is. Now the refs have been told no more. Our so called number one ref is a joke and should be called out for this
Man City owner is from Abu Dhabi, capital of United Arab Emirates, which is NOT in Saudi Arabia where Oliver refereed his match, so no connections at all, unless you know something we don’t.
The connection is the Arab FA I believe Jax – that’s where I got muddled up as well with the countries.
Yes Ken, they’re neighbouring countries and allies, so I would guess plenty of connections football wise, although Sheik Mansour is not a Saudi.
But, fioshadow, we’re told there’s no corruption and / or conspiracy in the game!!
Dan takes every opportunity to tell us so and that every team has been treated the same.
Unfortunately, I can’t find any other club that has seen a player yellow carded and sent off in one incident, or the same club being denied a red card (Kovacic) simply to keep the game entertaining, only for the opposite to happen in the very next meeting (Trossard) officiated by the same official, Mr Oliver – I’m hoping he’ll give his opinion, but I’m not holding my breath!!
Apparently, several EPL clubs complained about the use of Arsenal’s dark arts last season as well. Perhaps that causes referees to question Arsenal’s motives and give less leeway
An excellent article Ken, and one I fully endorse. Mark Halsey, the former referee, spoke out about the PGMOL a few years ago, and it would seem that things haven’t changed.
👍 HD I only wish Dan would address the issues raised!!
My opinion is that “Dan” just writes articles that are designed to get under people’s skin and get lots of clicks / comments.
He won’t go beyond a few short comments in someone else’s article, but you can bet he’ll be writing another of his own soon. Then he’ll respond to comments in his own article with his own comments that are designed to goad other ppl into longer discussion – generating more clicks and comments for his article.
That’s modern journalism for you – more interested in generating heat than shedding light. Clicks = money.
Ken, he can’t, as he would be contradicting himself, going on his previous posts.
The PGMOL is corrupt End of story. Liverpool have been blatantly robbed of three premier league titles
Can’t help but wonder if Trossard hadn’t deliberately flattened Bernardo right in front the ref , whether he’d have let – hoofing the ball away -go without a card. The two together was pretty damming.
The Martinelli “double yellow ” just take a look back at it again, petulant, but correct.