Referees' Performances | 2025/26

[bluemanchester]

VAR took almost 5 minutes to scrutinise a 4 second passage of play. That is equivalent to walking 1 mile out of Manchester city centre then discussing that first mile for another 74 miles till you reached Kendal in the lake district. Clear and obvious it was not. The first foul by Rice should have been a penalty everything else that followed is chatter, the game should have stopped then. Players got banned in the 60s for match fixing, this lot do what they want. If I was a director at West Ham I would have been with the lawyers all night then knocking on the door of an east end police station. Be interesting to read Martin Samuel on this, hope if he comments someone will post it here

 

[Newman Noggs]

If I was a director at West Ham I would have been with the lawyers all night then knocking on the door of an east end police station.

In Sullivan's case, from the inside.

 

[thyer64]

Arsenal haven't had a pen awarded against them all season...yet the key match incidents panel had come to vote that they had 3 incidents were it shoudlve been a pen but the blind refs/var didnt give it...these in wins were they won by the odd goal (if I remember well was against Everton, Brighton and someone else).

In the same breath, we shouldve had a pen + red for the foden foul vs newcastle...

Not to mention the disgrace of yesterday - how can you tell which foul came first? West Ham player shirt was being pulled down by Gabriel who wasnt allowed to challenge for the ball.

Gabriel shouldn't have even been on the pitch to influence matters as should've been his 2nd match suspended from the headbutt vs us!

Any of those instances, and we would be top.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

The RDAHMeedya would settle for West Ham being relegated if it meant an Arse title.

 

[Dave Ewing's Back 'eader]

We may well play them in the charity shield anyway pal.

Now that would be an opportunity to play the kids.

 

[DenisLawBackHeel74]

VAR took almost 5 minutes to scrutinise a 4 second passage of play. That is equivalent to walking 1 mile out of Manchester city centre then discussing that first mile for another 74 miles till you reached Kendal in the lake district. Clear and obvious it was not. The first foul by Rice should have been a penalty everything else that followed is chatter, the game should have stopped then. Players got banned in the 60s for match fixing, this lot do what they want. If I was a director at West Ham I would have been with the lawyers all night then knocking on the door of an east end police station. Be interesting to read Martin Samuel on this, hope if he comments someone will post it here

They’ll tell you they were just being careful, given the gravity of the decision…

 

[Burtonblue]

Something else I don’t get is referees frequently holding up play before corners are taken in order to tell players to stop tussling and holding each other.
The corner is then taken and holding and grappling is totally ignored.
Arsenal have benefited hugely this season by referees allowing this.
It’s inconsistent and laughable really.
PIGMOL need a big sort out and I think new rules will come into play next season to stop this as clearly there is a media focus now on the subject. Hopefully it will mean arsenal will never win the league again with these tactics.

 

[Doc_Testosterone]

Arsenal haven't had a pen awarded against them all season...yet the key match incidents panel had come to vote that they had 3 incidents were it shoudlve been a pen but the blind refs/var didnt give it...these in wins were they won by the odd goal (if I remember well was against Everton, Brighton and someone else).

In the same breath, we shouldve had a pen + red for the foden foul vs newcastle...

Not to mention the disgrace of yesterday - how can you tell which foul came first? West Ham player shirt was being pulled down by Gabriel who wasnt allowed to challenge for the ball.

Gabriel shouldn't have even been on the pitch to influence matters as should've been his 2nd match suspended from the headbutt vs us!

Any of those instances, and we would be top.

It is the same story in the CL. They get given the softest penalty to progress against Leverkusen, then against Atletico commit 3 barn door penalties with VAR and the referee refusing to interfere.

Referees pick their winners, like they did Madrid plenty of times. Leicester was the same in the PL.

 

[feedmpenzaandhewillscore]

Something else I don’t get is referees frequently holding up play before corners are taken in order to tell players to stop tussling and holding each other.
The corner is then taken and holding and grappling is totally ignored.
Arsenal have benefited hugely this season by referees allowing this.
It’s inconsistent and laughable really.
PIGMOL need a big sort out and I think new rules will come into play next season to stop this as clearly there is a media focus now on the subject. Hopefully it will mean arsenal will never win the league again with these tactics.

The game within a game the other week when it was Haaland against Gabriel, the ref allowed Haaland to be man handled all game to the point his shirt got ripped off. The fisticuffs when the head but was thrown didn’t even result in a red, that Arsenal player shouldnt have been on the pitch yesterday.

 

[halfcenturyup]

VAR took almost 5 minutes to scrutinise a 4 second passage of play. That is equivalent to walking 1 mile out of Manchester city centre then discussing that first mile for another 74 miles till you reached Kendal in the lake district. Clear and obvious it was not. The first foul by Rice should have been a penalty everything else that followed is chatter, the game should have stopped then. Players got banned in the 60s for match fixing, this lot do what they want. If I was a director at West Ham I would have been with the lawyers all night then knocking on the door of an east end police station. Be interesting to read Martin Samuel on this, hope if he comments someone will post it here

Ah, but Dale fucking Johnson tells us they were right to take that much time because of the importance of the decision. Absolute bullshit. It's no more important than any other decision at any other time of the season. Three points is three points. They really think we are stupid.

 

[ALDN_Ko]

 

[Tb1981]

Arsenal have literally been handed this title on a plate

From the goal against United on opening day
To the handball against Newcastle in September not given as a penalty before an injury time winner
Gabriel not being set off against us or newcastle
The penalty not given to Everton in a 1-0 win
The penalty not given to Brighton in a 1-0 win
Every single set piece they are allowed to cheat

Couple that with the decisions against us
Dalot sending at at 0-0 in the derby
Foden penalty in Newcastle defeat
Bruno offside for the goal in the same Newcastle game
Kean red card against Everton in 3-3 draw

There’s a theme
They tell you it doesn’t affect the season as whole but VAR have influenced all these close call matches

 

[KUN_a]

From the goal against United on opening day
To the handball against Newcastle in September not given as a penalty before an injury time winner
Gabriel not being set off against us or newcastle
The penalty not given to Everton in a 1-0 win
The penalty not given to Brighton in a 1-0 win
Every single set piece they are allowed to cheat

This

And , the goal disallowed by spurs vs ASL after Gabriel dives on feeling contact. That was significant, and joke given amount of times we saw ASL put their hands on opposition during attacking corners

 

[coolcity]

VAR took almost 5 minutes to scrutinise a 4 second passage of play. That is equivalent to walking 1 mile out of Manchester city centre then discussing that first mile for another 74 miles till you reached Kendal in the lake district. Clear and obvious it was not. The first foul by Rice should have been a penalty everything else that followed is chatter, the game should have stopped then....

100% correct, that almost word for word what I said on the match thread. First of all any decision should have been based on the FIRST foul. Rice was pushing and pulling, then had both arms around his opponent long before the ball got anywhere near Raya.

We've seen goals chalked off countless times because of a foul in an "earlier phase of play"; there were several in that sequence. It's no defence to say referees don't give those, if it's a foul they should do and if we start to see a lot more penalties it would cut out a lot of this nonsense at corners.

Goalkeepers shouldn't get special protection either, they already have the advantage of being able to handle the ball.

Secondly it wasn't a clear and obvious error. The referee awarded the goal and VAR then replayed the Raya incident (without even bothering to look at anything else) over 30 times before asking the ref to go to the screen. The ref was then shown 17 replays. I said at the time that they were obviously looking for a reason to disallow it and Bowen said the exact same thing in his post match inverview.

But the point here is that if they have to review it that many times to decide whether a foul has taken place or not then it's not a clear and obvious error. You can resolve this fairly easily by saying that if they can't reach a decision within 30 seconds (and that's being generous), then the referees decision prevails.

The third issue for me is the referees' decision is final, but they're not refereeing the game any more. They're too frightened to give a big call, like a red card, in a big game and looking for VAR to back them up while for other issues like this one they're clearly being influenced by the VAR panel. If they're given a second chance to review the decision fine, but don't tell them what decision they should be reaching, let them watch the footage then decide for themselves. After all, that's their job isn't it?

 

[coolcity]

Arsenal have literally been handed this title on a plate

From the goal against United on opening day
To the handball against Newcastle in September not given as a penalty before an injury time winner
Gabriel not being set off against us or newcastle
The penalty not given to Everton in a 1-0 win
The penalty not given to Brighton in a 1-0 win
Every single set piece they are allowed to cheat

Couple that with the decisions against us
Dalot sending at at 0-0 in the derby
Foden penalty in Newcastle defeat
Bruno offside for the goal in the same Newcastle game
Kean red card against Everton in 3-3 draw

There’s a theme
They tell you it doesn’t affect the season as whole but VAR have influenced all these close call matches

Aside from the fact that he could have collected 3 or 4 yellows in the Etihad match, the one thing few mentioned was the handball early in the match. He deliberately leaned towards the ball and the result was it hit his arm. The key word here is "deliberately", and that's the reason Bernardo was sent off a couple of weeks prior to that.

I've never been a conspiracy theorist but there does seem to be some sort of agenda. Look at the Brentford match., OK we won comfortably but their "non-penalty" was replayed five times by Sky immediately after the incident and many times afterwards in the post match discussion. The one that was cleared by VAR in two seconds for West Ham after the disallowed goal last night wasn't replayed at all.

 

[Tb1981]

Aside from the fact that he could have collected 3 or 4 yellows in the Etihad match, the one thing few mentioned was the handball early in the match. He deliberately leaned towards the ball and the result was it hit his arm. The key word here is "deliberately", and that's the reason Bernardo was sent off a couple of weeks prior to that.

I've never been a conspiracy theorist but there does seem to be some sort of agenda. Look at the Brentford match., OK we won comfortably but their "non-penalty" was replayed five times by Sky immediately after the incident and many times afterwards in the post match discussion. The one that was cleared by VAR in two seconds for West Ham after the disallowed goal last night wasn't replayed at all.

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy
But I do think they are incompetent on a level we have never seen.
It’s a case of the ref won’t make a decision and the VAR is desperate not to overrule him.
Hence we suffer because we don’t get penalties and we don’t get the appalling red card tackles

They could make the rules simpler, but they put all their efforts into explaining the unexplainable and acting like only they know what they are doing.

 

[gingerprince]

I wonder what dopey Dermot will make of it all tomorrow. No doubt nearly 5 minutes to convince the ref that he made a clear and obvious error is ok

Dismal has x2 stock answers for every incident..

If VAR HADNT intervened & sent Ref to Monitor

"I didnt think it was a foul first time I saw it"
"More importantly Ref on the pitch didn’t think it was a foul and he's in the best position to see it"
"VAR isn't there to re-referee the game"
"We've been consistent on this all season, remember Donnarumma @ Bournemouth and Bayinder Uniteds keeper v Arsenal at OT?"
"The Goalkeeper has to be stronger"
"It's a contact sport, not every contact is a foul"
"It's just a natural coming together"
"Players naturally raise arms out to balance"
"If you slow it down/freeze frame you will find a penalty decision at every free kick,cross or corner. We don't do that, we have set a high bar"
"It's a subjective call so unless there's an offside or a Handball by goalscorer [unless your name is Sesko], and the onfield decision is goal VAR will always support a subjective onfield decision"

[ii] If VAR Sends Ref To Monitor

"That freeze frame shows the contact"

 

[Stiff Little Wingers]

100% correct, that almost word for word what I said on the match thread. First of all any decision should have been based on the FIRST foul. Rice was pushing and pulling, then had both arms around his opponent long before the ball got anywhere near Raya.

We've seen goals chalked off countless times because of a foul in an "earlier phase of play"; there were several in that sequence. It's no defence to say referees don't give those, if it's a foul they should do and if we start to see a lot more penalties it would cut out a lot of this nonsense at corners.

Goalkeepers shouldn't get special protection either, they already have the advantage of being able to handle the ball.

Secondly it wasn't a clear and obvious error. The referee awarded the goal and VAR then replayed the Raya incident (without even bothering to look at anything else) over 30 times before asking the ref to go to the screen. The ref was then shown 17 replays. I said at the time that they were obviously looking for a reason to disallow it and Bowen said the exact same thing in his post match inverview.

But the point here is that if they have to review it that many times to decide whether a foul has taken place or not then it's not a clear and obvious error. You can resolve this fairly easily by saying that if they can't reach a decision within 30 seconds (and that's being generous), then the referees decision prevails.

The third issue for me is the referees' decision is final, but they're not refereeing the game any more. They're too frightened to give a big call, like a red card, in a big game and looking for VAR to back them up while for other issues like this one they're clearly being influenced by the VAR panel. If they're given a second chance to review the decision fine, but don't tell them what decision they should be reaching, let them watch the footage then decide for themselves. After all, that's their job isn't it?

Good post

 

[blue b4 the moon]

I feel for West Ham because they have been robbed, not Manchester City
West Ham should be in uproar tonight and demand action and take the Premier League to court ? The proof is there from all the other games this season that goal has been allowed to stand

They're just a pawn in the grand scheme of things.

Operation red shirt cartel/stop City is the only game in town.

 

[coolcity]

I don’t think it’s a conspiracy
But I do think they are incompetent on a level we have never seen.
It’s a case of the ref won’t make a decision and the VAR is desperate not to overrule him.
Hence we suffer because we don’t get penalties and we don’t get the appalling red card tackles

They could make the rules simpler, but they put all their efforts into explaining the unexplainable and acting like only they know what they are doing.

I don't think it's a conspiracy either, some of the comments you see on here are absurd, but I do think there is some sort of bias in some quarters.

I think it's the opposite, refs are making decisions (like the West Ham goal yesterday) then VAR are looking for reasons to overrule him. There was no one clear and obvious foul yesterday (as Carragher said in the post match there were probably about 10 fouls in there), it's the same in every match at every corner so they give the goal. Then for whatever reason VAR very clearly went looking for a reason not to give it. 37 times it was replayed by them apparently, then another 17 times for the refs review. But ONLY the Raya incident was reviewed. If you have to review anything that many times then it's not a clear and obvious error.