Cheated! Maybe Wenger is right to feel paranoid

If Arsene Wenger was upset by Liverpool’s ‘offside’ first goal at the Emirates, he’ll be infuriated to learn that it merely carried on a trend from last season. Wrong decisions cost the Gunners so many points it denied them runners-up spot in the Premier League.

Wenger was often portrayed as being paranoid or having ‘lost the plot’. But research shows that if all the key decisions had been called correctly, with no refereeing bloopers on penalties, goal-line decisions and offside calls leading to goals (or not), Arsenal would have finished second to Manchester United, with Chelsea third and Manchester City fourth. City would have had to endure a Champions League qualifier, not Arsenal.

Wenger’s team should have won four extra points, for a total of 72, to give them second place behind United on 77 (three fewer than they actually got), while Chelsea earned one point more than they should, and City nine.

You cannot be serious: Wenger complains to Martin Atkinson at Sunderland

At the other end of the table, 100 per cent accurate decisions would have seen Blackpool and Birmingham stay up, while Wigan and Wolves would have been relegated with West Ham.

These conclusions are based on 250 hours of detailed analysis of 713 ‘significant’ incidents across the League’s 380 games (or around two per game on average). Of these, 361 involved penalties given or not given, and 152 involved goals allowed or not through offside decisions.

Examples of wrong calls included the decision that famously left Wenger ‘too disgusted to speak’ in March — when a perfectly good goal from Andrey Arshavin at 0-0 against Sunderland was chalked off in error by linesman Andy Garratt. That alone cost Arsenal two points.

The research was done by Tim Long, a broadcaster and sports journalist, for his radio documentary, Beyond The Goal Line: Football’s Technology Debate, airing among other places on BBC Radio Manchester at 2pm today.

The show explores the need for technology, and how officiating blunders can make a material difference to clubs.

Holmes sees red over bikes

Eamonn Holmes, now employed by Sky, was caught up in traffic last weekend as a result of the Olympic men’s road race test event, so began tweeting.

‘Big tailbacks on A3 and A3 approaches to M25 and in other direction to Wimbledon,’ he wrote. ‘Due to flamin Olympic bikes. Keep sport in a stadium,’ added the man whose employer sponsors, er, British cycling.

He then tweeted: ‘Can’t get to Harefield Fete in time cos of Olympic Cycles,’ before concluding: ‘Don’t complain whatever u do or the bike facists will have u!’

For the record, Sky sponsored the winning team, who are soon to employ winning individual rider Mark Cavendish.

Biting the hand that feeds: Holmes

Budweiser's Cup opener goes flat

Budweiser's debut PR stunt as the new sponsors of the FA Cup has been greeted by many fans as eagerly as a pint of warm lager after a Facebook broadcast of a match was blighted by technical problems, tacky sales pitches and criticism that Bud don’t get football.

The extra preliminary round win on Friday by non-League Wembley over Ascot was shown on Budweiser’s Facebook page.

Fans were urged to ‘grab an ice-cold Bud’ to watch the game ‘live in the first round’.

Actually, the first round isn’t until much later, and Facebook will have no role as ITV and ESPN own the rights from then on, but that was just one detail Bud’s US-owned parent company botched.

‘What do they know about football?’ asked one message. It got worse as many fans reported no pictures and intermittent feeds. As one viewer said: ‘It was like trying to follow a football match through a small, distant letterbox on a dark night.’

Another posted that the Cup was being tarnished by association with ‘techno chumps’, while comments included ‘lucky I don’t drink your beer’.

Inside Sport tuned in — after having to switch off privacy settings to access the page, making it vulnerable to data harvesting a spokesman said wouldn’t happen.

Budweiser said the game had 30,000 ‘views’ worldwide — 699,970,000 fewer than the ludicrous suggestion of 700million.

Bon anniversaire



Never forget: Henry

The Irish don’t forgive and forget easily, if the birthday announcements section of Metro Herald in Dublin is any barometer.

On Wednesday, it began with Robert De Niro, actor, 68 and Kevin Rowland, singer, 58. Then there was a certain Frenchman, who earnt notoriety on November 18, 2009, when he handled the ball to assist a goal in a World Cup qualifier against the Republic of Ireland.

As the Herald described him: ‘Thierry Henry — cheat and footballer, 34.’ Will the enmity persist?