Dias kicks the ball away prior to an Arsenal free kick; no card, hmmmm
VVD kicks Havertz twice, from behind, completely off the ball. Not even a talking to. On a different day (and were he wearing Arsenal colors) that'd be a red.
Feels like every referee bar Anthony Taylor when we're playing Chelsea (because he really seems to hate them more than anyone) tries really hard to figure out a way not to give us any advantage.
Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), I was on my bike for the second half and so I missed a lot of contentious decisions. I've had Liverpool and United fans tell me for a decade that "everyone gets shit decisions, it all evens out in the end"; I didn't buy it then and I sure as fuck don't buy it now.
I guess you could look at it as that your luck could change. But evens out? Just sounds like a coping mechanism.
If things evened out, Diaz or van Dijk would have had yellows. Or we would have seen at least 2 other players get red cards for "time wasting" and kicking the ball. I haven't checked, but I doubt any of that has happened.
Just on Diaz and Van Dijk, I wonder if the ref avoided giving yellows as to not negatively impact such a high profile game.
Also, I refuse to see it as luck. If you accept that referees are not perfect (which I hope we do) and that they are subject to bias (which half of the league's fans seem to not), you must also accept that whether you get an incorrect call against you has nothing to do with chance and there's no reason to think that the decisions will even out.
It is a coping mechanism. I love my Liverpool-fan friend to death, but he spent 4 years seeing them more dominant than ever in his lifetime, and he came out the other side with 1 PL trophy to speak of. He refuses to concede that we've been screwed over this season (at least, any more than Liverpool were screwed over for the past 4 years), but I can understand why.