West Bromwich Albion v The Arsenal – Referee preview

West Bromwich Albion v The Arsenal – Referee preview

The Match officials are

Referee – Lee Mason

Assistants – S Ledger and M Perry

Fourth Official – J Moss

Mr Mason is another Lancashire referee and has been in the Premier League since 2006, he is chairman of the Bolton Referees Society and was born in 1971 so no chance of him retiring any time soon.

Walter’s summary comment on Mr Mason in his review for 2012/13 was pithy – “The referee with penalty area fever and Arsenal phobia” http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/31036.

How did he reach those conclusions? The review team looked at 15 of his 24 games in the PL last year and awarded him an underwhelming 74.5% correct in important decisions (foul, free kick, cards, penalties and goals). He got 3 out of 10 penalties correct (or 7 out of 10 wrong!), 1 out of 9 red cards correct (even worse 8 out of 9 wrong!), 39 out of 79 yellow cards correct (49%) and 2 out of 6 second yellow cards correct (33%).

He also got 5 out of 38 goals wrong so overall not the best referee in the business.

Looking at his Arsenal performances last year in more detail we have two games :-

Stoke v Arsenal 26/08/2012 (0-0)

55% overall weighted rating bias against 26/74 and 5 key wrong decisions (second yellows, reds, penalties and goals).

Minute 7 Wilkinson threw himself in front the ball that was going into the goal with arm outstretched and stopped the goal – penalty should have been awarded and Wilkinson should have been sent off.

Minute 38 Arsenal should have a penalty for attacker being stopped with arm.

Minute 57 Gibbs shoved Pennant in penalty area – penalty should have been given to Stoke.

Minute 63 a Stoke player should have been sent off for a studs up challenge. So three penalties not given, 2 against Stoke 1 against Arsenal; two Stoke players should have been sent off the first in the 7th minute. A game where the referee decided the score and cost Arsenal points.

Aston Villa v Arsenal 24/11/12 (0-0) 80% overall weighted rating bias against of 0/100 – yes all wrong decisions against Arsenal but no key wrong decisions.

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There were two incorrectly given offsides and a number of minor fouls but nothing game changing. His first half performance was excellent, the second much less so.

Mr Mason was only reviewed in one West Brom game last year – WBA v Swansea 09/03/2013 (2-1) 72% overall performance and bias against of 29/71and there were two key wrong decisions :-

In Minute 60 an own goal was scored by Swansea but the Swansea keeper was fouled in the build up and the goal shouldn’t have counted;

in Minute 86 a Swansea goal was ruled out for offside but the final ball came from a WBA defender and so the goal should have stood, Mr Mason should have over-ruled his assistant.

In this game the referee’s decisions tilted the result from a Swansea win to one for WBA.

Going back to 2011/12 Mr Mason’s performances and Walter’s team reviewed 6 of his 24 Premier League games. Overall he got 68% of his decisions right or 32% wrong (depending on how you want to look at it) so worse than last year.

In the major decisions he got 3 goals wrong out of 14; 4 penalties wrong out of 10 and 4 red cards wrong out of 4 so rather poor to be charitable.

Looking at his bias table, Arsenal were firmly his least favourite team (net bias against of 14) with West Brom also out of favour (net bias against of 8). His favourite teams were Everton and Stoke (net bias of +13 and +15 respectively). As Walter said “Oh Dear. Oh Dear. Oh Dear” http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/24264

Lee Mason has a long history of bias against Arsenal and has cost us points on a regular basis. He is also consistently one of the lowest scoring referees when subject to independent review. His performance in our Stoke game last year was the worst of all reviewed games with a weighted score of 55%. On it’s own that should have been grounds for a full independent review by the Premier League.

Mr Mason is quite capable of producing another performance on that level of bias and that might be sufficient to end our run of away wins despite the magnificent team performances we have been producing.

If you are in to betting you might look at the odds on there being no penalties, on disallowed Arsenal goals and Arsenal to draw or lose.

The books…