Mike Dean produced one of the worst and most partisan performances I have seen in a long long time. The rat faced little twerp refereed with absolutely zero consistency and common sense throughout. Newcastle were sliding into tackles left, right and centre, often getting none of the ball and Dean let them get away with it time and time again. In the second half Barton committed an absolute minimum of two yellow card offences, one hack on RVP and one waist high studs up lunge on Wilshere were notable example of this tendency towards late hacking.
One couldn't argue with the Cesc booking in isolation, but several Newcastle players did far worse and got no yellow, it was the rank inconsistency that was so very frustrating. He allowed Gutierrez to get away with a clear red card kick out on Cesc, he slid in recklessly about two seconds after the ball had gone in the final few minutes.
The soft free kicks continued to flow for Newcastle, the lump Carroll just had to fall over for yet another free kick in a dangerous position. However at the other end Newcastle players slid in and kicked lumps out of our players' shins after the ball had long gone, Dean just waved play on as no advantage came. There was the clear body check on Sagna from Coloccini that Dean ignored, then the appalling error for the Koscielny red card.
Koscielny and Ranger had a bit of a grapple with each other, Koscielny stayed alongside Ranger and shoulder to shoulder, Ranger went down having not been clipped or tugged, there was also a covering defender, he wasn't even the last man. Still Dean, the officious little twerp, seemed to relish in his error, brandishing the erroneous red card with such vitriolic glee. The icing on his cake of utter incompetence. Four minutes of injury time followed after Newcastle had ensured that the ball had barely been in play for twenty minutes in the entire second half.
Mike Dean had two sets of rules for the two sides, he allowed Newcastle to slide in late as a matter of routine while he punished Arsenal players harshly for virtually every single indiscretion. What started out as a fairly sportsmanlike game became a niggling encounter, all thanks to Dean's inconsistent and haphazard application of the rules. The amazing thing is that we were the home side, so much for the big clubs getting the decisions, the smaller clubs seem to get the run of things at the Emirates, the polar opposite of what happens at Old Trafford.
Having said that we didn't play well enough, we didn't create enough and there was no way we deserved to win this game. Hopefully Fabianski's error will lead to a few more starts for the young Pole Szczesny. Credit to a very well organised Newcastle side who came for a draw, defended solidly and came away with a win thanks to Fabianski's error.
