Mike Dean and The Arsenal – A New Chapter

Ah, Mike Dean – every Arsenal fans most hated referee (and that takes some going when you look at the competition). We’ve written a couple of blogs about Mike Dean and Arsenal before. One highlighted Arsenal’s awful record under Dean, whilst the second showed that it looked like the curse had been lifted.

However, after yesterday’s game against Chelsea I think there is no doubt that his total ineptitude continues to coincide with Arsenal failing to win games. Thanks to Darren Berry for the picture of Jose and his daughter.

Here is a list of every Arsenal game where Mike Dean has been the referee. It looks to me like someone must have had a word in his ear in October 2004. If you’re reading this on a smartphone, you might want to turn it 90 degrees to see the whole table.

* Lost on penalties

As for where Dean’s loyalties lie, who can forget his reaction to Tottenham scoring against Arsenal a few years ago.

Here is a breakdown of Arsenal’s record with Mike Dean as referee.

And here is Arsenal’s record since 16 September 2000 without Mike Dean:

If Mike Dean was in charge of every Arsenal game, we would be flirting with relegation.

Another unusual statistic about Mike Dean is the number of Arsenal Premier League games that he officiates. The number of referees used by the Premier League is usually 18 or 19 per season. That means that each referee should officiate each team two or three times per season. There is no reason for a referee to be in charge of the same team more than three times in a season.

However, Mike Dean is consistently chosen to officiate four Arsenal games per season, although in 2011/12 he managed a whopping six games.

We’ve already had him once this season, and I would put my mortgage on seeing him at least three more times. That’ll be fun.

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