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Preview Percy thought the refereeing was bad enough at Brentford. That was until we all saw just how low the match officials would stoop to ensure an Arsenal win. He was not best pleased as you can imagine as he looks at this weekend’s visit to Newcastle...

Next up we have the Percy/Alistair derby as we go all the way up to Newcastle for a stupid kick-off time of 5:30pm on Sunday. Sod the fans then. No engineering works on the way up there but you’ll do well to get home before Monday thanks to the Premier League and TV companies’ utter contempt for the most important people in their cash cow.




So Newcastle then. Well given that they are owned by one of the – if not the- richest countries in the world, it’s not been much of a season for them. They’ve won just the one of their last six – that being a 3-1 defeat of Brighton a couple of weeks back.

Their last outing saw them draw at Forest last weekend, Barnes putting them ahead only for a late Anderson equaliser seeing them drop two points. The other four saw them defeated each time, most painfully at home to Sunderland (1-2), followed by identical scores away at Palace and at home to Bournemouth and a 1-0 defeat at PGMO-Arsenal.

All of this has left them in 13th place with 46 points from 36 played.

Now all of this might give them more cause for concern than normal. Their owners are currently reviewing the vast amounts of petrodollars used in their sports-washing division to see if they are getting value for money. It’s a review that has already seen them pull out of their Kerry Packer-style golfing circus.

Their Pro-League football set-up has eased back on the billions thrown at players coming to the end of their careers, though they did throw funds at acquiring the World Cup in 2034. No doubt Infantino will be conjuring up an award for Services to a Free Press for Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman, presumably on the grounds that its been ages since they executed a journalist.

Of course one of the reasons that those billions haven’t made a difference is that the likes of Manchester City pulled the drawbridge up behind them, rule changes ensuring that anyone coming into the Premier League behind them have been unable to throw cash at the transfer market like they did.

This resulted in the bizarre situation where they had to get rid of Elliott Anderson to take advantage of accounting rules to keep them the right side of the law. This led to them not signing anyone during the window giving Daisy yet another week off.

Newcastle have a few injury issues. Schar and Livramento are both unlikely to reappear this season whilst Joelinton is a doubt with a thigh problem.




At this point one would normally go to a look at the Wild and Wacky World of Association football but on the whole, I think that the Arsenal refereeing scandal is too big a story to wait for. If anyone had any doubts as to just how low PGMOL will go to manipulate matches you now know.

Kavanagh had set out his stall early doors, every dive - no matter how obvious - was fallen for. Goal kicks were awarded instead of corners, throw-ins were awarded the wrong way – even when the ball hadn’t gone out - and it appeared to be open season on Summerville. In short Kavanagh seemed to be doing his damnedest to ensure Arsenal got the result they wanted.

However, that wasn’t going to be enough, as we grabbed a late but deserved equaliser. The video of the incident was bad enough – in order to give the foul in Arsenal’s favour it was necessary to ignore three penalty offences all of which preceded the so-called foul. Yet it’s the release of the audio that finally destroys any argument the officials might have had.

At one point they spot the fact that Trossard’s pull on Pablo had caused the contact with the ‘keeper. “It’s impactful” were the precise words used, along with the comment “I’m not happy with Trossard looking away from the ball”. With those two comments the officials admitted that there was at least one penalty to award.

Then there were the two fouls committed by Rice, one was ignored totally then there was the foul on Mavropanos. This was noticed. So at this point the officials had acknowledged two penalty offences. However, this would have meant allowing the goal or at worst awarding us a penalty. And clearly this didn’t fit in with the agenda.

So they backtracked. Firstly they lied. Rice on Mavropanos suddenly “happened afterwards” despite clear evidence to the contrary. Then the Trossard pull on Pablo went from “impactful” and something with which the officials weren’t “happy” to something that was “nothing”.

Now it was bad enough to have officials actively making up stuff that was blatantly untrue to alter the on-pitch decision. However, in between the end of the match and the audio release they dragged out Howard Webb.

Webb has been keeping his head down for most of this season but here was a decision so poor he was forced to come out of hiding to explain why his officials has managed to get a decision so wrong. In doing so he merely repeated the warped logic that had been spouted already. Which begs the question: did Webb hear the audio before? Because if he did it would mean that Webb too chose to lie.

What we are looking at here is a situation that has been manipulated to produce a result. The audio confirms that. In any other walk of life we would be looking at people being sacked or resigning having been caught out so badly. However, this is PGMOL, where being incompetent or – as in this case – blatantly dishonest, form part of the job description rather than grounds for dismissal.




Webb should hang his head in shame – if he had had any sense of propriety he would have quit refereeing after that disastrous World Cup final he had and taken up a career more worthy of his talents – maybe politician or estate agent where his capacity for being economical with the truth – no doubt honed to perfection during his time as a police officer – would be a positive asset.

As for Arsenal they hade had so many iffy decisions go their way this season it brings back memories of their bribery days after the end of WW1 when, in conjunction with Liverpool and Man Utd, who had been caught match-fixing, they spread the cash around club chairmen to get themselves promoted from mid-table.

They are as bent a club as you will ever encounter which is why pretty much everyone in the country will add an asterisk to the win should they take the Premier League title. File alongside Ben Johnson, Lance Armstrong, 1970s Leeds, Celtic this season, Ozempic Marseilles and pretty much every Russian medal of the past 20 years.

By the way, having been caught out lying on the audio feed what punishment do you think Kavanagh got for his sins? Yup there he was on Friday night doing Villa v Liverpool. And England on VAR – he continued to do the Cup rather than being led away in handcuffs while his financial records were handed over to the forensics.

A thorough investigation of PGMOL is well overdue and the Football Regulator should make it a priority to look into how and why PGMOL has been allowed to pervert the game in favour of certain teams.

On the injury front, Traore – who missed out on the match against Kavanagh with a muscular problem – will be unavailable for this one. Other than that it’s much as you were.

Prediction? Well I’m not sure if there is any point really – PGMOL have clearly decided the result already. However, on the off chance that they feel that they have done enough and the match is actually decided on the relative merits of the teams involved rather than the whim of an incompetent employee of an openly corrupt organisation, I’ll stick £2.50 on us at Mr Winstone’s turf accountancy emporium to win 2-1 to prolong the agony for another week.

Enjoy the game!




When last we met at St James’s Park Won 2-0 (Premier League November 2024)

We could have been 1-0 down early on as Isaak beat Fabianski on a one-on-one only to be caught offside by a narrow margin. Soucek headed home from a corner. We spent the rest of the first half trying to throw the lead away. Thankfully the home side were wasteful in the extreme. Wan Bissaka squeezed home off the post to double the lead and send us home with the points.

Referee: Jarred Gillett

Appalling, even by PGMOLS’s standards. Trouble is they all are.

Danger Man: Harvey Barnes

I might have gone for Anthony Gordon whose Arsenal/Liverpool style of manufacturing penalties has cost us dearly in the past. However he’s off to Bayern Munich and seems to be persona non grata as a result. Barnes has chipped in with 16 league goals this season so will be a threat.

Percy & Daisy’s Newcastle Fact Of The Week Type Thing

The castle in Newcastle was built in 1177. Not really new then is it, guys.

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