PL refs, a case study: Marriner

by Walter Broeckx

If you have not been here before, you might like to look at…

The most detailed study of Premier League Refs ever:The referees 2013.

Now onwards: for in our series to find out with which ref some teams perform better than average we have referee Marriner next.

One of the top  refs and a ref who will do the FA Cup final this year.

Just like you I would love to find out how he does in general for the teams in the PL. Will we see a lot of average results? Maybe the supporters of Manchester City and Wigan will have a closer look on this one.

But first let me explain in short the average, under and over thing you see in the last row. This is for new readers of course. Regular readers can skip this text and go to the table.

When you see “average” it means that the results of the team in general are not that far away with the results when the ref is in charge. It is in fact what one should hope to see most.

When we see “over” it means that the team in question is doing much better and in some cases much much better than they usual do.

And when you see “under” it means that the team is doing bad compared to their usual win %.

So here is the table about referee Marriner

	Total	won	draw	lost	won	draw	lost	Achieving
Arsenal	797	426	212	159	53,45%	26,60%	19,95%
Marriner	16	10	2	4	62,50%	12,50%	25,00%	Average
Aston Villa	797	287	249	261	36,01%	31,24%	32,75%
Marriner	no games
Chelsea	797	414	206	177	51,94%	25,85%	22,21%
Marriner	19	11	4	4	57,89%	21,05%	21,05%	Average
Everton	797	282	230	285	35,38%	28,86%	35,76%
Marriner	24	9	9	6	37,50%	37,50%	25,00%	Average
Fulham	443	137	128	178	30,93%	28,89%	40,18%
Marriner	17	5	4	8	29,41%	23,53%	47,06%	Average
Liverpool	797	389	203	205	48,81%	25,47%	25,72%
Marriner	20	8	8	4	40,00%	40,00%	20,00%	Average
Man City	607	226	159	222	37,23%	26,19%	36,57%
Marriner	21	11	5	5	52,38%	23,81%	23,81%	Over
MU	797	520	165	112	65,24%	20,70%	14,05%
Marriner	17	13	1	3	76,47%	5,88%	17,65%	Over
Newcastle	717	284	192	241	39,61%	26,78%	33,61%
Marriner	17	4	5	8	23,53%	29,41%	47,06%	Under
Norwich	227	68	72	87	29,96%	31,72%	38,33%
Marriner	9	4	2	3	44,44%	22,22%	33,33%	Over
QPR	227	71	57	99	31,28%	25,11%	43,61%
Marriner	11	3	4	4	27,27%	36,36%	36,36%	Average
Reading	101	31	21	49	30,69%	20,79%	48,51%
Marriner	8	4	2	2	50,00%	25,00%	25,00%	Over
Southampton	531	155	146	230	29,19%	27,50%	43,31%
Marriner	6	1	4	1	16,67%	66,67%	16,67%	Under
Stoke	177	53	54	70	29,94%	30,51%	39,55%
Marriner	19	3	4	12	15,79%	21,05%	63,16%	Under
Sunderland	443	119	112	212	26,86%	25,28%	47,86%
Marriner	15	5	7	3	33,33%	46,67%	20,00%	Average
Swansea	63	20	21	22	31,75%	33,33%	34,92%
Marriner	11	5	3	3	45,45%	27,27%	27,27%	Over
Tottenham	797	307	210	280	38,52%	26,35%	35,13%
Marriner	20	8	7	5	40,00%	35,00%	25,00%	Average
WBA	253	62	64	127	24,51%	25,30%	50,20%
Marriner	no games
West Ham	641	210	164	267	32,76%	25,59%	41,65%
Marriner	18	3	6	9	16,67%	33,33%	50,00%	Under
Wigan	291	81	73	137	27,84%	25,09%	47,08%
Marriner	22	8	10	4	36,36%	45,45%	18,18%	Over

 

First of all and to come back to the FA cup final I must say that this is an appointment I applaud.  Both Wigan and Manchester City do better than average under this ref. And I think this is great for the spirit of both teams before the game. They don’t have to worry that much about the ref as he seems to give them a fair game most of the time. So well done Mr. Riley for this appointment. I can be critical about Mike Riley (very critical) but when he does good  I have no problem in admitting it.

But let us now focus more on the total results of the teams and see how we can divide the results.  First of all no results for Aston Villa and WBA. He is a local Birmingham boy I think. So we only have 18 teams to look at with him.

Who are the over performers?  Manchester City, Manchester United, Norwich, Reading, Swansea and as said before Wigan. That is 6 teams who over perform when he is around. The Manchester teams do rather very well when he is around.

The teams who perform according to their general win percentage are Arsenal, Chelsea, Everton, Liverpool, QPR, Sunderland and Tottenham.  That is seven teams in total. Here one could say that most London teams fall in the average category as do the Liverpool teams.

So we now need to find the teams who under perform when he is around. Those teams are Newcastle, Stoke, Southampton and West Ham. Certainly the last three have a low win %percentage when Marriner is around.

A possible explanation could be that Marriner being a top ref so he will have had those teams a few times when they played the big boys. A loss then is more “natural” and it could have a bad influence on the total outcome to those teams. But the numbers are what they are.

I wish him a good cup final match and hope that it will be the football that makes the headlines and not the referee. But I somehow have a good feeling about that.

The books…

• Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
• Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
• The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches
• Royal Arsenal: from the Common to the Manor.  Coming next.

The sites from the same team…

• Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
• The Arsenal History Blog from the AISA Arsenal History Society