The Injustice of it all

I will not go overboard criticising the side, because we have played well all season and it would be incredibly harsh to dismiss our plays over the last year as a failure when the team has vastly improved over the since finishing 4th in 2006/2007. Many of the negative, moaning Arsenal fans will come out with loads of absolute rubbish now; ignore them. We have a very talented bunch of players who will provide trophies in the years to come. I truly believe that. With a bit more luck with injuries and a couple of signings this team can be great.

Whilst I am happy to accept that Arsenal are by no means the finished article, ultimately two refereeing decisions were extremely costly and they have cost the side dearly. People constantly say that, when something happens in football which should not, 'this kind of thing happens in football' and 'referees are only human'. Yes, they are. But this does not excuse the ridiculous level of inconsistency that takes place in the officiating of the sport. It must be a bloody difficult job to referee a game, and you are never going to please everyone. But as a fan, all I want to know is that should my team lose the match, it has happened because we have been beaten by a better side or that we have gone down to a wonderful 30 yard strike. As it is, I have an extremely bitter taste in my mouth today due to inconsistent refereeing, as well as the gone off Tropicana I had this morning.

It is so rare these days that a game passes without there having been a contentious refereeing decision. A lot of this is due to that fact that football gets such an incredible amount of media coverage that every little decision can be analysed. But all one needs to do is look at a couple of the ridiculous, farcical decisions that Arsenal have had to deal with over the last couple of months in order to illustrate my point:

• Adebayor has a goal ruled out for offside against 'Boro when the ball has been played off the opposition
• The penalty conceded against Birmingham when Clichy won the ball, and the penalty not given to Arsenal when Ade was hauled down in the box
• Dirk Kuyt attempting to rip Alex Hleb's arm off not being given as a penalty, yet Babel being tapped on the back being deemed a foul

It is not just Arsenal who suffer from these decisions, but since I only follow the Gunners I cannot comment on other teams. The question is what can be done to stamp out terrible decisions? It is a very difficult to find an answer to this. But the fact of the matter is that something has to happen. With so much at stake, matters should be decided by footballers, not referees. There are always going to be winners and losers in sport. Nobody is ever going to be entirely happy with what has taken place on the pitch. But more and more often, a lot of the talk is about a little man in a black uniform who interprets the game in his own way and is solely responsible for making decisions which affect many people. If only their decisions were not so inconsistent, perhaps I would not have felt like jumping off a bridge this morning.

The injustice of it all.

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