[Albion] Anthony Taylor

[Thunder Bolt]

My take was that he lost control. He doesn't have the natural authority that good refs need. At times he was ridiculously pernickety, and other times he let some very serious challenges go. There was a potential leg-breaker by a Forest player in the first half (luckily the BHA player - can't remember who - WBG? - got out of the way just in time). It was right in front of Taylor. There was another really bad foul - Taylor waved play on (fair enough), and we ended up getting a free kick - but he didn't go back and book the earlier infringement.

What everyone wants (players, managers, supporters) are CONSISTENT refs. Dunk's red card could be deserved, but there are countless examples pretty much every week of players mouthing off at refs.

100% agree.
If refs issued red cards for abusive language on a regular basis, it would almost stop completely.

 

[Guinness Boy]

Of course that’s always part of it but Taylor lost control of the game when players in both teams became angry with the pen decisions - Ours was a soft one and then he went and missed theirs (also arguably soft) which got then got overturned by VAR (for G-W to score from) - it caused friction on the pitch and in the stadium - by the time Dunky was rightly (but harshly) sent off, Taylor was handing out yellow cards like they were trick or treat sweets at Halloween.

You can’t be rightly but harshly sent off. It’s one or the other.

 

[Zeberdi]

The Premier League does seem to have had it in for us since De Zerbi took charge.

Yeah, it feels like he has a target on his back since his red card after our Fulham defeat last season - (Pep has been very critical as have other PL refs - and Cooper yesterday, saying he didn’t want to pile in but it was poor refereeing has his own history for ranting at referees.) https://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/av/football/67519699

Tunnel footage of Roberto De Zerbi's row with referee Darren England

Tunnel footage of Roberto De Zerbi's row with referee Darren England that resulted in the Brighton manager receiving a red card after the 1-0 defeat by Fulham.

www.skysports.com

"I told the referee [Darren England] that this week I had a meeting with his boss [Howard Webb] and I lost time. I lost two-three hours of work. I didn't like the attitude of the referee. I think it's not a good level of referee but I think the refereeing in the Premier League is not good enough for this very important league. I didn't tell him a bad word. I heard the opponent tell him [I said a] bad word but [I didn't]," he said.

"I want to be clear. If you want to have a meeting with me and take up two hours of my time and work, you have to have a different attitude on the pitch. If you are a referee and I am a coach. If you want to improve your work in football, you have to have another attitude. I don't want to speak about a penalty or other things, I am only speaking about attitude.

"I can't have one opponent saying a bad word, and I won't repeat this word, and the referee doesn't have the personality to keep in control of the game. But one time I lost time with this meeting but it will never happen again. I am not in England to fool around with these meetings."

Then getting fined for this was ridiculous (after our draw with Sheffield before the break and John Brooks sending off Dahoud):

“I am honest and clear, I don’t like 80% of English referees. That isn’t a new opinion. I don’t like them. I don’t like their behaviour on the pitch.”

I agree there needs to be respect between managers and referees and between players and on field refs or it all falls apart but when their mistakes cost matches, the FA can’t expect managers not to be pissed off with the standard of refereeing and apparently arbitrary use of VAR on occasions.

 

[Zeberdi]

You can’t be rightly but harshly sent off. It’s one or the other.

Well ‘rightly‘ strictly speaking because Dunk should have known better for continuing to argue with the ref so it is a breach of rules and harsh for us because it left us with 10 men

Or do you disagree? Semantics?

As I said above, Taylor lost control of the game, the players and fans from both sides were pissed off with 2 soft penalties and a number of on field decisions and omissions - Dunk getting the red card was technically right if he indeed used foul and abusive language but the ref needs to take some responsibility for allowing the game to get to that point in the first place.

 

[Guinness Boy]

He had no control of the game at all and was thoroughly inconsistent. Both sets of fans hated him. When that happens you’re making the game about yourself.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Yes it was via VAR but both pens were correctly given.

If Dunk has been thick twice and broken the now-well-known rule twice then he's been correctly sent off.

Fine by me.

 

[Seagull58]

I thought he was good, and then he just lost it. A captain should be able to speak to the ref without getting two yellow cards in 10 seconds. Insane really.

He wasn't "good" at any point. Maddeningly inconsistent/biassed with fouls and yellow cards for standing in front of free kicks and kicking the ball away. I am still in shock that the prolonged assault on Joao Pedro went unpunished.

 

[tedebear]

Yes it was via VAR but both pens were correctly given.

If Dunk has been thick twice and broken the now-well-known rule twice then he's been correctly sent off.

Fine by me.

Yes I don't think anyones saying they weren't correct, thats not the issue. Its everything else that was missed or given inconsistently. Its like the ratio of correct calls to missed / incorrect calls is about 15/75...I'm just making that up, but thats the point.

 

[tigertim68]

I still can’t believe the assault the Fulham player got away with on Gros
no var review on that , but of course as soon as Dunk says something he is off ,
I bet Dunk only player this season to be sent off for saying something to the r3f

 

[Sid and the Sharknados]

Another awful referee. I’d hope it isn’t a factor but it seems like there are too many northern referees who favour the teams up there.

I would be a tad surprised if Anthony Taylor (from Manchester) regarded Nottingham as being in "northern" or "up there".

 

[dwayne]

The crazy thing was that I almost felt sorry for forest when our pen was given and the group chat was all saying a miracle had happened and we had got a dodgy decision. Finally.

What followed was the ref and var doing everything in their power to not only even up that decision but completely reverse it the other way. We must be up there as the most unpopular team in the league with refs.

 

[seagullwedgee]

Taylor has a disgusting out-dated tactic of never booking the first or early fouls, however dreadful or dangerous they are. Yesterday he let the first 10 or so go, in the first 15 minutes, some of which were bookable. By doing this he’s telling the players to crack on with wreckless tackles and more and more of the dark arts. This gets both sets of players and both sets of fans on his back early on, and for me had already lost control and credibility in the first 15 minutes. He cannot ever have played the game himself, because he just does not recognise the dark arts manoeuvres going on blatantly before his eyes. How this complete moron can have reached the absolute pinnacle of our sport without understanding the basic arts and building blocks of a cunning physical contest absolutely feckin astounds me. He is incompetent, clueless, and seems to derive some sort of perverted pleasure and reward from repeatedly and deliberately getting everyone on his back. Complete Tosser. Sack him now.

 

[maltaseagull]

I thought he was good, and then he just lost it. A captain should be able to speak to the ref without getting two yellow cards in 10 seconds. Insane really.

In fairness I don´t think Dunk was "speaking" to him.
However, a very good point made in the comments on our match report in today´s Times :

Good to see Taylor applying the dissent laws to Dunk. Why did Taylor allow himself to be surrounded and abused by 6 Man City players for fully 3 minutes when he awarded a 92nd minute penalty to Chelsea in the 4-4 three weeks ago?

Consistency? My arse!

 

[raymondo]

In fairness I don´t think Dunk was "speaking" to him.
However, a very good point made in the comments on our match report in today´s Times :

Good to see Taylor applying the dissent laws to Dunk. Why did Taylor allow himself to be surrounded and abused by 6 Man City players for fully 3 minutes when he awarded a 92nd minute penalty to Chelsea in the 4-4 three weeks ago?

Consistency? My arse!

Possibly because Pep hadn't said a week before that he disliked 80pc of refs in the PL...and also because it's the famous Citeh.

 

[corruptplrefs]

Refs don’t have to be good anymore as decisions are made by a consortium, and they’re no longer accountable for whatever decisions they do or don’t make. Things won’t improve until VAR is scrapped.

I and some others (who are in the industry) thought that the PL VAR system will be used to try to conceal and exacerbate existing corruption..

There are no:

1. Open mikes like in Tennis, Cricket, the NFL where spectators are kept in the loop in realtime. (What's stopping them from doctoring later audio)?
2. Managerial reviews of VAR decisions
3. Pitchside monitors
4. Final decisions with on-field referees

The entire system is built to facilitate matchfixing. PL officials make the rules as they go along. Notice how uncontroversial referees are in other sports with transparent systems where everyone is kept in the loop, so there's no real inconsistency.

VAR has actually exposed how incompetent/corrupt the referees are. There are decisions they make on VAR then Sunday League referees legitimately wouldn't make.

VAR is not the problem. I'm an Arsenal fan here (though no club bias when it comes to refs). I like going onto other club forums to investigate perceptions on referees. PL refs are obviously the most corrupt refs that I've ever seen in any sport. If you go back to outcomes later found to be rigged (e.g. Calciopoli) you'll realise how ridiculously blatant it is.

Anthony Taylor sending off Dunk was a punishment by the PGMOL for RDZs comments. Referees (wrongly) get abused every single week. Sometimes, you can hear players (even on yellows) abuse referees on camera to this day and 99% it's no action. You'll notice that Taylor likely won't send another off for this reason again the rest of the season (maybe even never again).

There is a reason that you hear a lot from our club about refs (especially being assaulted by other teams under Wenger years). Every time our coach spoke out against referees, the decisions would strangely get worse/more inconsistent/biased.

Take a look at these:







The below is similar to Dunk. I would actually prefer these to be red cards if the referees were always consistent. This is ridiculous because I've seen the same match official let these go as just single yellows in multiple games after this. Common rulebook? Different rules for different teams.



Also this...

Sadio Mane vs Tierney incident Foul 2020 | Mane elbows/ arm in the face of Tierney, but only yellow card | Soccer Blog|Football News, Reviews, Quizzes

This Sadio Mane vs Tierney incident was a controversial one early in the game as Arsenal fans felt the Senegalese winger should’ve been sent off for this foul on Tierney. Mane’s arm catches Tierney in the face- he was only given a yellow card, and ended up scoring the equaliser for the Reds as...

www.soccer-blogger.com

10-15 years ago, I never wanted to see it and used to assume that Wenger moaned too much about referees. I later saw that opposition players were allowed to commit professional fouls (last man) and be punished with just a yellow and that they were always allowed to assault our players. Almost every single subjective decision would go against us and referees would strangely make decisions which would in effect dock us points.

I thought that maybe the referees would change when he left, but it got worse (especially in Arteta's second season).

Ze Zerbi (who I love as a coach) like Wenger is an honest and integral man. I personally think that he sees the corruption in the referees. It's very blatant (if you've ever seen games out of matchfixing scandals). The PGMOL do not like VAR because many of these decisions are unjustifiable. Whether you are willing to believe corruption or not (this is 0.5% of what I know about PL referees), you have to seriously wonder why they can't make the system transparent like other sports.

This is above club bias. Other fans and some of my own team love it when other sides get screwed over. Even if it happens to Chelsea (watch Antony Taylor in Chelsea matches... he despises them), Brighton or Newcastle (before Saudi money), I get enraged.

Keith Hackett says that after the Newcastle game, the PGMOL phoned up some pundits telling them to cover for the referees. Don't forget that the broadcasters and pundits have live comms with VAR during games.



Back in the day, Halsey said that he was told to say that he didn't see things in match reports.

https://x.com/JustKopOn/status/1704131401258520816?s=20

Anyways, I have a system of catching out corrupt/biased referees. I come back to forums once in a while to see what people notice based on the following criteria:

1) Every single throw in and corner decision seems to go against you. The referee even punishes your team for foul throws (which happen in every game every week).

2) The referee blows your team for the tiniest of foul but not the opposition

3) The referee allows the opposition team to get away with multiple yellow card challenges (they sometimes do this to wind up your home crowd) then book your own player for their first soft/equivalent offence. It's only after this that they book opposition players to look consistent.

4) The referee deliberately blows for a foul/overzealous to stop a game when your team has the advantage and would rather continue.

5) VAR ignores blatant grabbing pulling from the opposition from set pieces (not talking soft stuff either). I have seen games where a defender has pulled an oppo player by the front of their shirt and their club badge has ended up at the back of the shirt!

6) Blatant violent conduct unexplicably ignored and greenlit by VAR. I'm talking stamping/striking of opposition players off the ball.

7) Referees contradicting the handball law.

i) Giving penalties against you when hands are in natural positions less than a few yards away and blasted at the hand (even if the ball is going off target at times)
ii) Allowing opposition teams to block balls going on target by swiping their hands/throwing them in the air.

8) Allowing certain teams to wipe your forward out with their keeper. Remember Onana on the United game against Wolves? The PGMOL apologised after the game and stated by their own directive/interpretations of the law, that this is always a penalty. This wasn't a pen up to a few years ago but the PGMOL has now decided that it always should be a pen.

9) VAR being inconsistent on which angles are acceptable. VAR is supposed to corroborate a decision on multiple angles when a decision is inconclusive. Often I see the PGMOL defend their referees with this line, however after the game, other broadcasters (especially foreign) who have access to the same cameras that they do, show other angles in highlights that the VAR officials have access to that show an incident in a different light! Sometimes, they decide to use the worst angle on Skysports (setting a narrative) and then you see better ones after the game.

10) The referees would give a big decision against your team and then 'equalise' it later on. It seems fair, however some of these decisions are inexplicable on VAR. Some referees consistently do this (Anthony Taylor). They also seem to be biased in micro decisions such as corners and bookings against the team that has their first injustice before they 'make up for this later'. I notice that it's always the same teams with the first dodgy decision against them.

11) Go online and search your team's record with the match official before the game. Below is Anthony Taylor for Brighton. Depending on whether the ref is for/against your team, you'll notice that you always get certain decisions with certain referees. 2 seasons ago, I noticed that I could mostly predict my team's games on what referees we were assigned. If you have a particularly corrupt/biased few referees, the PGMOL will always repeatedly assign you those refs.

Anthony Taylor - Record by matches of Brighton & Hove Albion

Anthony Taylor » Record by matches of Brighton & Hove Albion

www.worldfootball.net

12) 3PM kick offs - This is one of the simpler and more common sense ways to spot how corrupt referees are. A big reason that the 'smaller' teams generate less outrage from biased refereeing is that fewer games are televised. The most corrupt, inexplicable and egregious refereeing is at 3PM. The decisions 'coincidentally' get far worse when matches aren't televised.

13) Last advice I would say is to never ever listen to TV pundits on refereeing decisions. The best interpretation of the game is with the volume off. We know according to ex-PL referees that the PGMOL use their contact with them to quieten down criticism on their decisions.

 

[drew]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but yesterday I think it was Danilo stood in front of the ball for two of our free kicks and nothing done. At the start of the season that was a booking. However, Taylor didn't miss the little flick by Buonanotte when a free kick was awarded against us and he got a booking.

 

[corruptplrefs]

Not sure if it's been mentioned but yesterday I think it was Danilo stood in front of the ball for two of our free kicks and nothing done. At the start of the season that was a booking. However, Taylor didn't miss the little flick by Buonanotte when a free kick was awarded against us and he got a booking.

I know that my post was long but out of the 13 criteria I listed at the end, how many were present in your game yesterday?

I'm trying to establish a pattern for certain teams gameweek by gameweek.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Its like the ratio of correct calls to missed / incorrect calls is about 15/75...I'm just making that up, but thats the point.

If you think it's even remotely close to that ratio then it's concerning. Much of the argument against VAR was the extremely high % of calls refs were already getting correct and it being a highlighted minority that was the issue.

 

[Goldstone1976]

I and some others (who are in the industry) thought that the PL VAR system will be used to try to conceal and exacerbate existing corruption..

There are no:

1. Open mikes like in Tennis, Cricket, the NFL where spectators are kept in the loop in realtime. (What's stopping them from doctoring later audio)?
2. Managerial reviews of VAR decisions
3. Pitchside monitors
4. Final decisions with on-field referees

The entire system is built to facilitate matchfixing. PL officials make the rules as they go along. Notice how uncontroversial referees are in other sports with transparent systems where everyone is kept in the loop, so there's no real inconsistency.

VAR has actually exposed how incompetent/corrupt the referees are. There are decisions they make on VAR then Sunday League referees legitimately wouldn't make.

VAR is not the problem. I'm an Arsenal fan here (though no club bias when it comes to refs). I like going onto other club forums to investigate perceptions on referees. PL refs are obviously the most corrupt refs that I've ever seen in any sport. If you go back to outcomes later found to be rigged (e.g. Calciopoli) you'll realise how ridiculously blatant it is.

Anthony Taylor sending off Dunk was a punishment by the PGMOL for RDZs comments. Referees (wrongly) get abused every single week. Sometimes, you can hear players (even on yellows) abuse referees on camera to this day and 99% it's no action. You'll notice that Taylor likely won't send another off for this reason again the rest of the season (maybe even never again).

There is a reason that you hear a lot from our club about refs (especially being assaulted by other teams under Wenger years). Every time our coach spoke out against referees, the decisions would strangely get worse/more inconsistent/biased.

Take a look at these:







The below is similar to Dunk. I would actually prefer these to be red cards if the referees were always consistent. This is ridiculous because I've seen the same match official let these go as just single yellows in multiple games after this. Common rulebook? Different rules for different teams.



Also this...

Sadio Mane vs Tierney incident Foul 2020 | Mane elbows/ arm in the face of Tierney, but only yellow card | Soccer Blog|Football News, Reviews, Quizzes

This Sadio Mane vs Tierney incident was a controversial one early in the game as Arsenal fans felt the Senegalese winger should’ve been sent off for this foul on Tierney. Mane’s arm catches Tierney in the face- he was only given a yellow card, and ended up scoring the equaliser for the Reds as...

www.soccer-blogger.com

10-15 years ago, I never wanted to see it and used to assume that Wenger moaned too much about referees. I later saw that opposition players were allowed to commit professional fouls (last man) and be punished with just a yellow and that they were always allowed to assault our players. Almost every single subjective decision would go against us and referees would strangely make decisions which would in effect dock us points.

I thought that maybe the referees would change when he left, but it got worse (especially in Arteta's second season).

Ze Zerbi (who I love as a coach) like Wenger is an honest and integral man. I personally think that he sees the corruption in the referees. It's very blatant (if you've ever seen games out of matchfixing scandals). The PGMOL do not like VAR because many of these decisions are unjustifiable. Whether you are willing to believe corruption or not (this is 0.5% of what I know about PL referees), you have to seriously wonder why they can't make the system transparent like other sports.

This is above club bias. Other fans and some of my own team love it when other sides get screwed over. Even if it happens to Chelsea (watch Antony Taylor in Chelsea matches... he despises them), Brighton or Newcastle (before Saudi money), I get enraged.

Keith Hackett says that after the Newcastle game, the PGMOL phoned up some pundits telling them to cover for the referees. Don't forget that the broadcasters and pundits have live comms with VAR during games.



Back in the day, Halsey said that he was told to say that he didn't see things in match reports.

https://x.com/JustKopOn/status/1704131401258520816?s=20

Anyways, I have a system of catching out corrupt/biased referees. I come back to forums once in a while to see what people notice based on the following criteria:

1) Every single throw in and corner decision seems to go against you. The referee even punishes your team for foul throws (which happen in every game every week).

2) The referee blows your team for the tiniest of foul but not the opposition

3) The referee allows the opposition team to get away with multiple yellow card challenges (they sometimes do this to wind up your home crowd) then book your own player for their first soft/equivalent offence. It's only after this that they book opposition players to look consistent.

4) The referee deliberately blows for a foul/overzealous to stop a game when your team has the advantage and would rather continue.

5) VAR ignores blatant grabbing pulling from the opposition from set pieces (not talking soft stuff either). I have seen games where a defender has pulled an oppo player by the front of their shirt and their club badge has ended up at the back of the shirt!

6) Blatant violent conduct unexplicably ignored and greenlit by VAR. I'm talking stamping/striking of opposition players off the ball.

7) Referees contradicting the handball law.

i) Giving penalties against you when hands are in natural positions less than a few yards away and blasted at the hand (even if the ball is going off target at times)
ii) Allowing opposition teams to block balls going on target by swiping their hands/throwing them in the air.

8) Allowing certain teams to wipe your forward out with their keeper. Remember Onana on the United game against Wolves? The PGMOL apologised after the game and stated by their own directive/interpretations of the law, that this is always a penalty. This wasn't a pen up to a few years ago but the PGMOL has now decided that it always should be a pen.

9) VAR being inconsistent on which angles are acceptable. VAR is supposed to corroborate a decision on multiple angles when a decision is inconclusive. Often I see the PGMOL defend their referees with this line, however after the game, other broadcasters (especially foreign) who have access to the same cameras that they do, show other angles in highlights that the VAR officials have access to that show an incident in a different light! Sometimes, they decide to use the worst angle on Skysports (setting a narrative) and then you see better ones after the game.

10) The referees would give a big decision against your team and then 'equalise' it later on. It seems fair, however some of these decisions are inexplicable on VAR. Some referees consistently do this (Anthony Taylor). They also seem to be biased in micro decisions such as corners and bookings against the team that has their first injustice before they 'make up for this later'. I notice that it's always the same teams with the first dodgy decision against them.

11) Go online and search your team's record with the match official before the game. Below is Anthony Taylor for Brighton. Depending on whether the ref is for/against your team, you'll notice that you always get certain decisions with certain referees. 2 seasons ago, I noticed that I could mostly predict my team's games on what referees we were assigned. If you have a particularly corrupt/biased few referees, the PGMOL will always repeatedly assign you those refs.

Anthony Taylor - Record by matches of Brighton & Hove Albion

Anthony Taylor » Record by matches of Brighton & Hove Albion

www.worldfootball.net

12) 3PM kick offs - This is one of the simpler and more common sense ways to spot how corrupt referees are. A big reason that the 'smaller' teams generate less outrage from biased refereeing is that fewer games are televised. The most corrupt, inexplicable and egregious refereeing is at 3PM. The decisions 'coincidentally' get far worse when matches aren't televised.

13) Last advice I would say is to never ever listen to TV pundits on refereeing decisions. The best interpretation of the game is with the volume off. We know according to ex-PL referees that the PGMOL use their contact with them to quieten down criticism on their decisions.

Arsenal fan, you say? I’m gobsmacked by that news.

 

[mejonaNO12 aka riskit]

Asking the referee for an explanation by the skipper, is not a minute of madness.

You know that's what he said? Some reports this morning suggest it was very different to your suggestion of "excuse me sir. Would you mind if one asks why you gave that decision?"