Taylor Is Europe's Worst Referee But Stoke Deserved To Win

Match Review: Stoke City 3 Arsenal 2 - Premier League - 06.12.14

The annual defeat at the Britannia Stadium is becoming a depressing and damaging seasonal event. But the latest instalment of this nauseating saga was an absolute stinker, even by Arsenal standards. Yet even though we found ourselves 3-0 down to Stoke, I wasn’t even that surprised. I’ve seen that lacklustre, careless, sack of crap Arsenal team before, they turn up a number of times a season and are taken apart by any vaguely competent team. Despite what you might call a ‘comeback’ in the second half, we deserved nothing from the game and after grinding out some results and momentum, we’ve thrown it all away.

Bellerin came into the side with neither Koscielny or Monreal fit and within twenty seconds we felt their absence as we contrived to assist Crouch with a tap in from three yards. I can’t bring myself to talk through the first half. In the space of forty five minutes, Giroud missed an absolute sitter to equalise, we allowed Bojan unreal amounts of space to score a second and then capped it all off with nearly the entire defence being beaten to a header by Crouch and leave Walters unmarked to smash in a third. The performance was up there with the worst I’ve seen us give in the league, the defending was staggeringly poor and our attack looked like they’d been out on a three day bender. By half time, the game was pretty much over.

What really got me about the first half was how little emotion any of the players showed. Only Alexis showed any frustration or disappointment, the rest just moped about and looked like they weren’t that bothered about getting hammered at a mid table side. No one was shouting, no one looked upset, after each goal they just looked down at the floor and wandered back towards the centre circle. The lack of fight and desire has been evident in the team many times before, but the absolute lack of any sort of passion or even a sense of shame really angered and upset me.

At half time, Bellerin was replaced by Welbeck, a move which saw Flamini move to right back and Chamberlain into midfield. It did at least give us a bit more impetus going forward and we looked slightly more likely to score. But we actually should have conceded, when Stoke broke on us and the excellent Bojan mugged off most of our defence and fired in at the near post. After a confusing delay, the goal was eventually chalked off for Diouf supposedly interfering with play from an offside position. It looked a dubious decision and I’d have been livid if we’d had that decision go against us.

The referee, the ever useless Anthony Taylor, then handed us a lifeline with another questionable decision. Flamini went over in the area after tangling with Diouf, but replays showed it was soft if you were putting it kindly. Cazorla, surprisingly, stepped up and just about squeezed the ball home. Within a couple of minutes it was then 3-2 as Stoke went to sleep at a corner and left Aaron Ramsey unmarked to smash a brilliant volley home. For all the terrible football we’d played, we suddenly had a glimmer of hope.

However, Anthony Taylor quickly evened things up on the terrible decisions count, as he inexplicably showed Chambers a second yellow for a coming together that barely warranted a free kick let alone a second bookable offence. It killed all our momentum and while we can only look at ourselves for the defeat, it was an abominable decision at the worst possible time for us. I’ve said before that the refereeing standard in England is beyond a joke and Anthony Taylor is testament to that. I haven’t seen as bad a referee as him since the current CHIEF OF REFEREES (!!!!!!), Mike Riley, was still taking charge of games. He has been consistently awful and made himself known to Arsenal fans with a quite astonishing display of ineptitude in our opening game last season against Aston Villa. He is a shining turd of an example of how refereeing pretty much Europe wide has become an absolute joke.

The man disadvantage proved too much for us and despite huffing and puffing, Stoke held on for a deserved victory. The raging debate that had been soothed temporarily by a run of wins is now alive and well again. When you see a performance like that, you have to question both the players and the manager. The team have certainly got a lot to answer for as they are the ones entrusted to go out and get results and what they showed at Stoke just pathetic. Wenger will get most of the flak but the players let everybody down, including their manager.

But then you are drawn back to the manager himself and things aren’t looking good. I can’t think of many games that we’ve looked comfortable in and our defence now resembles some form of strange comedy routine. The lack of defensive reinforcements and the decision to let Jenkinson go has been brought up time and again, but it’s impossible to ignore when you have two inexperienced youngsters in the back four. The state our defence is in is criminal. Simply put, we’ve gone backwards, we’re twelve points worse off than this stage last season and you can only look at one person for that. I just can’t see things changing at the moment, they’ve been the same for a long time and more and more fans who have defended our manager are moving towards the other side of the debate. Having been one to defend Wenger, I’m finding it more and more difficult to understand what’s going on and more and more it seems that a big change might be needed at the club.

Teams

Stoke City (4-2-3-1)
Begovic, Bardsley, Shawcross, Muniesa (Y) (Whelan 63’), Pieters, N’Zonzi, Cameron, Walters, Krkic (Huth 87’), Diouf (Adam 69’ (Y)), Crouch (Y)
Subs
Huth, Whelan, Ireland, Adam, Butland, Assaidi, Shenton

Arsenal (4-2-3-1)
Martinez, Bellerin (Welbeck 45’), Mertesacker, Chambers (Y/R), Gibbs (Y) (Campbell 90’), Flamini, Ramsey, Chamberlain (Y), Cazorla, Alexis, Giroud (Podolski 63’)
Subs
Szczesny, Koscielny, Welbeck, Podolski, Campbell, Ajayi, Maitland-Niles

Player Ratings

Martinez - 6/10 - Not really his fault that we conceded stupid goals
Bellerin - 4/10 - His first team appearances have been tough going so far
Mertesacker - 4/10 - Struggled and was at fault for the second and possibly third
Chambers - 4/10 - Had a nightmare game capped with an unfair sending off
Gibbs - 4/10 - Did very poorly for the first and second goals
Flamini - 5/10 - Looks less and less like a player worthy of the Premier League
Ramsey - 6/10 - Passing was slightly off but scored a brilliant volley
Alexis - 5/10 - Missed a golden chance and was effectively fouled out of the game
Cazorla - 5/10 - Ineffective despite scoring
Chamberlain - 5/10 - Ineffective as well
Giroud - 4/10 - Didn’t look fit and missed an absolute sitter
Subs
Welbeck - 5/10 - Gave something slightly different but didn’t have much impact
Podolski - 5/10 - Barely noticed him
Campbell - N/A

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