While that is true on a sporting level the media absolutely love the circus that follows us about. We’re still the 3rd or 4th most broadcast team every season and it’s because sky/bt know we’re good for a fuck up and lots of talking points from their two bit hacks.
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Well yeah we are a top supported club. It was more the agenda being against us ref wise on behalf of other teams or pundits.
But yeah where a free hit for the media.
It’s all linked. The refs don’t get together and plan to fuck us over. But they get things in their head too…Arsenal don’t like it up them. Arsenal are divers. Xhaka labelled a dangerous player a couple of weeks after arriving. VAR reviews on basically anything involving our players…all feeding into it. It is utterly connected.
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I remember when I started watching football the rap on Arsenal was that they were a bunch of non English players who couldn’t take the physicality of the league.
That kind of stereotype sticks around for a while.
I don’t think any refs do it on purpose. Except Mike Dean who is generally just a horrible ref all around.
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Kane, Vardy, Salah, Sterling have reputations for diving. costa had an aggressive reputation when he came.
Everything getting highlighted is because we have no margin for error in games. Nobody highlighting other teams misfortune on calls. Thats justified on the old well they deserve one.
Just not buying any agendas.
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And have they won the League in that time. Plenty of other foreign based teams have. So…
Mike Dean has been in charge of a lot of our big wins in the last few seasons actually.
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I don’t want to speak for @shamrockgooner but I think the point is that there is no agenda because that implies it’s being done on purpose. It’s more of an unconscious bias.
That’s why we need more transparency in refereeing to understand what their thought process was in making the calls.
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Wouldn’t make any difference because football is blame culture.
Be better scenario if you tried getting players diving on pitches interviewed after the game imo.
I don’t see the ref being interviewed after a game ever giving an answer that opposing football fans are going to accept.
Only have too see people reaction here when cards are overturned that it’s pointless. Sounds nice in theory like VAR did but the reality is it won’t make any difference on people’s opinions.
So why is there an unconscious bias against Arsenal? Or whats the evidence that one exists?
Whether we are calling it an outright agenda/corruption or “unconscious bias against Arsenal”, it comes across as a bit pathetic to me. If I read this kind of stuff on any other team’s forum I’d be sharing it here for the lols.
Though I’m sure any minute someone will be posting that bloke off twitter again as if it’s a fact that we’ve come 20th out of 20 for referees’ most favoured team in the league for the past 3 years. Arsenal fans have really latched onto that particular tweet despite him claiming to have data that he then won’t share, which is the sure fire sign of a bullshitter in my book. But people want to believe that someone’s crunched the numbers and has incontrovertible proof, so much so that they’re OK with never seeing that proof.
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I remember an ex ref being interviewed and he admitted that Rooney used to swear at refs in every game but was often not booked because he was always swearing and was part of his game.
I bet if he was foreign and played for any other club, apart from Man U under Ferguson, they wouldn’t be so lenient.
As for the bias against us, there are games where we’ve had terrible decisions against us and there is clearly inconsistency but we are where we are because, as a club, we have owners that make terrible decisions.
Plenty of other clubs say the same, especially clubs in the relegation places, but supporters tend to remember every decision against their own club and forget all the others that went for them.
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Don’t read the thread then? IDK what to tell you. What did you think was going to be in the officiating thread? People talking about what a wonderful job they do? Cmon man.
It’s sports, everyone thinks the refs are too harsh on them. Even Man U fans or Duke basketball fans or Pats fans. Teams that are perceived to always get the calls in their favor.
Complaining about refs is just part of being a fan.
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Which is essentially a key part of my point.
I understand what the thread is for, I haven’t got an issue with people pointing out refs are shit, the point I think I’ve made enough times is that there’s no basis for claiming there’s some sort of agenda, yet people keep on insisting on doing that without being able to adequately defend that position.
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At this point it’s all we got! Shit team + shit decisions consistently
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I’ve been watching us a long time and there’s never been a season I haven’t had the odd complaint on refs. I’d say in that time that United and Liverpool often got a bias in their favour especially at home but apart from that it balances out more over the course of a season,
I do believe though that there is a consistent and systemic bias against us in recent years. I’ve got theories as to why but no firm answers and my data is anecdotal. We seem to get a lot of bad decisions against us and very few for us compared with days of old and I’ve never been as nuts about shockers by the ref as I have done this season. I genuinely believe the net cost is 6-9 points already this season which makes a big difference on our league position. I agree we’ve been shit this year but definitely think the refs make it a lot worse.
Trouble is lots of people love to see Arsenal struggling so it doesn’t get pointed out like it should outside of the fan base.
I do see league tables of poor decisions and we consistently come out worse but no idea how well or objectively they are assembled. I don’t know if anyone has critically looked at these pieces of work and would be interested to know.
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I’d genuinely be interested to hear them
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Such bollocks.
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They dished out a punishment…thank fuck
The article and quotes in no way read as if it’s a punishment.
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