by Andrew Crawshaw
With 9 games gone in the Pl we are now effectively a quarter of the way through the season and this is a good time to see how the referees have been doing.
Here are links to the nine weekly reports we have published
Matchweek 1 ; Matchweek 2 ; Matchweek 3 ; Matchweek 4 ; Matchweek 5 ; Matchweek 6 ; Matchweek 7 ; Matchweek 8 ; Matchweek 9
Firstly a table showing who has been the busiest and who has spent most of the season so far on the beach (as far as the PL is concerned).
|
Ref |
Total No of games |
| Mike Dean |
8 |
| Anthony Taylor |
8 |
| Martin Atkinson |
8 |
| Michael Oliver |
8 |
| Mark Clattenberg |
6 |
| Craig Pawson |
6 |
| Robert Madley |
6 |
| Jonathan Moss |
6 |
| Andre Marriner |
6 |
| Mike Jones |
5 |
| Kevin Friend |
5 |
| Neil Swarbrick |
5 |
| Roger East |
4 |
| Lee Mason |
4 |
| Stuart Attwell |
2 |
| Paul Tierney |
2 |
| Graham Scott |
1 |
So 17 referees in total have been used by the PGMO, all of the usual suspects have been busy but Mssrs. Attwell, Tierney and Scott have had very little to do. Roger East and Lee Mason haven’t been overworked either both having been given half of the games if the busiest referees.
Who has been seen seen too frequently by supporters ?
I’ll now look at the teams who has had repeat visits from referees and at one quarter of the season played there really should be no excuse for this happening. It is firmly my opinion that each team should have a referee no more than twice in a season, once at home and once away. That way any possible influence over results is minimised.
|
Team |
One visit from |
Two visits from |
| Arsenal | Dean, Clattenberg, Pawson, Madley, Moss, Friend, East | Oliver, |
| Bournemouth | Madley, Moss, Marriner, Friend, Mason | Dean, Pawson, |
| Burnley | Dean, Taylor, Clattenberg, Pawson, Moss, Mason, Tierney | Jones |
| Chelsea | Oliver, Clattenberg, Moss | Taylor, Atkinson, Marriner |
| Crystal Palace | Dean, Taylor, Atkinson, Clattenberg, Swarbrick, | Oliver, Pawson |
| Everton | Atkinson, Clattenberg, Madley, Swarbrick, Mason | Oliver, Jones |
| Hull | Dean, Taylor, Moss, Marriner, Friend, East, Mason, Attwell, Tierney | |
| Leicester | Taylor, Atkinson, Oliver, Clattenberg, Pawson, Marriner, East | Dean |
| Liverpool! | Taylor, Atkinson, Pawson, Madley, Marriner, Swarbrick, Mason | Oliver, |
| Man City | Dean, Oliver, Madley, Moss, Swarbrick | Clattenberg, Marriner |
| Man United | Dean, Atkinson, Oliver, Clattenberg, Madley, Moss, Marriner | Taylor |
| Middlesbrough | Dean, Taylor, Atkinson, Friend, East, Mason, Scott | Swarbrick |
| Spurs | Dean, Taylor, Atkinson, Oliver, Pawson, Madley, Marriner, Friend, Scott | |
| Stoke | Dean, Taylor, Atkinson, Oliver, Pawson, Madley, Jones | Friend |
| Southampton | Dean, Taylor, Atkinson, Clattenberg, Madley, Moss, Jones, East, Mason | |
| Sunderland | Dean, Taylor, Atkinson, Mason, Attwell | Madley, Jones |
| Swansea | Oliver, Marriner, Jones, Swarbrick, East, Attwell, Tierney | Moss |
| Watford | Dean, Atkinson, Oliver, Moss, Jones, Friend, Tierney | East |
| West Brom | Taylor, Atkinson, Clattenberg, Pawson, Attwell | Friend, Swarbrick |
| West Ham | Taylor, Clattenberg, Pawson, Madley, Moss, Marriner, Swarbrick, | Atkinson |
So in only nine games the PGMO have only managed to give three clubs a different referee every week. Seven clubs have had repeat visits from two referees and Chelsea has seen each of Taylor, Atkinson and Marriner twice.
This isn’t healthy from a potential corruption point of view but is there any evidence that clubs are benefitting or being penalised by these repeat visits in terms of Important Decisions (Second Yellow Cards – YY, Red Cards – R, Penalties or Goals)?
Here is a table giving a breakdown of decisions for and against clubs by referees who have visited more than once
|
Team |
Referee |
Decisions in Favour |
Decisions Against |
||||||||
|
YY |
R |
Pen |
Goal |
All |
YY |
R |
Pen |
Goal |
All |
||
| Arsenal | Oliver |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Bournemouth | Dean |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Pawson |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
1 |
0 |
7 |
||
| Burnley | Jones |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Chelsea | Taylor |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
3 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
||
| Atkinson |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
||
| Marriner |
1 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
||
| Crystal Palace | Oliver |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
||
| Pawson |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Everton | Oliver |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Jones |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
||
| Leicester | Dean |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Liverpool | Oliver |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
||
| Man City | Clattenberg |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
2 |
|
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
||
| Marriner |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Man United | Taylor |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Middlesbrough | Swarbrick |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Stoke | Friend |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Sunderland | Madley |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Jones |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Swansea | Moss |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
|
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| Watford | East |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
1 |
2 |
2 |
5 |
1 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
||
| West Brom | Friend |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
|
0 |
1 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
||
| Swarbrick |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
2 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
|
|
0 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
||
| West Ham | Atkinson |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
|
0 |
2 |
1 |
0 |
3 |
1 |
0 |
0 |
0 |
1 |
||
In the case of Arsenal there is absolutely no signs of bias from Mr Oliver, in both of his games the numbers of wrong decisions for and against Arsenal were identical.
Chelsea can feel aggrieved that Mr Taylor has missed two penalties in their favour in both of his games, but relieved that he didn’t send off their players on two occasions.
Bournemouth had a shocker from Craig Pawson in one game where he made seven wrong Important Decisions, all against them, but he made none in the other game.
Most of the other clubs have only had one out of the two games from any individual referee where they have justification in believing that the referee was ‘against’ them. Where that happened the other game was either clean or in their favour.
I therefore conclude that if there is any bias it isn’t happening with the ‘big decisions’ that we have been monitoring for all clubs. It might be there in the timing of lower level fouls but that will require a whole lot more analysis beyond the scope of this article.
Who has done well and who hasn’t so far this season?
Here is the table showing all of the wrong Important Decisions. It is sorted so the referees with the most wrong decisions per game are at the top and the ones with the fewest are at the bottom. If I were a manager, I would be looking forward to visits from Mike Jones and Martin Atkinson but not looking forward to seeing Roger East, Robert Madley or Craig Pawson
| Referee | Games | 2nd Yellow | Red | Pen | Goal | Total | Avg |
| Roger East | 4 | 2 | 2 | 7 | 1 | 12 | 3.0 |
| Robert Madley | 6 | 3 | 7 | 5 | 1 | 16 | 2.7 |
| Craig Pawson | 6 | 2 | 7 | 6 | 0 | 15 | 2.5 |
| Mark Clattenburg | 5 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 1 | 12 | 2.4 |
| Mike Dean | 8 | 2 | 5 | 7 | 4 | 18 | 2.3 |
| Jon Moss | 7 | 6 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 15 | 2.1 |
| Graham Scott | 1 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 2 | 2.0 |
| Anthony Taylor | 8 | 4 | 2 | 6 | 2 | 14 | 1.8 |
| Michael Oliver | 8 | 4 | 3 | 4 | 2 | 13 | 1.6 |
| Kevin Friend | 5 | 1 | 5 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 1.6 |
| Paul Tierney | 2 | 0 | 2 | 1 | 0 | 3 | 1.5 |
| Andre Marriner | 6 | 3 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 8 | 1.3 |
| Lee Mason | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 2 | 5 | 1.3 |
| Neil Swarbrick | 5 | 1 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 6 | 1.2 |
| Martin Atkinson | 8 | 2 | 6 | 1 | 0 | 9 | 1.1 |
| Stuart Attwell | 2 | 1 | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 1.0 |
| Mike Jones | 5 | 2 | 0 | 1 | 1 | 4 | 0.8 |
|
Totals |
39 | 51 | 54 | 18 | 162 |
One hundred and sixty two wrong Important Decisions in nine weeks, 39 second yellow cards, 51 straight red cards, 54 penalties and 18 goals. These are truly awful numbers. and in no way supporting the typical PGMO statistics. Remember you can check every single one of our decisions yourself by looking at the video clips that are provided with the weekly reports. You can’t check any of the PGMO statistics because they don’t publish how they arrive at their numbers.
Now as well as the bad decisions, referees also make good ones and here is that table.
| Referee | Matches | 2nd Yellow | Red | Penalties | Total |
| Mark Clattenburg | 5 | 0 | 0 | 12 | 12 |
| Andre Marriner | 6 | 0 | 1 | 10 | 11 |
| Michael Oliver | 8 | 0 | 0 | 11 | 11 |
| Mike Dean | 8 | 0 | 0 | 10 | 10 |
| Robert Madley | 6 | 0 | 0 | 9 | 9 |
| Craig Pawson | 6 | 0 | 0 | 8 | 8 |
| Jon Moss | 7 | 0 | 2 | 6 | 8 |
| Neil Swarbrick | 5 | 0 | 0 | 7 | 7 |
| Roger East | 4 | 0 | 2 | 5 | 7 |
| Martin Atkinson | 8 | 0 | 0 | 6 | 6 |
| Anthony Taylor | 8 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Kevin Friend | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Lee Mason | 4 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Mike Jones | 5 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Paul Tierney | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Stuart Attwell | 2 | 0 | 0 | 4 | 4 |
| Graham Scott | 1 | 0 | 0 | 2 | 2 |
|
Totals |
0 | 5 | 110 | 115 |
What is interesting about this table is that the overwhelming proportion of the correct decisions are penalties. No referee has correctly issued a second yellow card this year and only Marriner, Moss and East have correctly issued red cards.
Referee of the Season so far – Mike Jones – 5 games, four wrong decisions and four correct. Well done Sir!
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The good rate for Atkinson is only a temporary blip.
Sadly he’ll be back to his usual poor level soon enough.
Andy Mack,
Yes, you are right about that, Atkinson was the ref for Sunderland vs Arsenal at Week 10, and we all know what he did. And the report for Week 10 is nearly ready.
This is a fantastic effort and a great resource for reference and discussion around the key refereeing issues.
There will always be those who contest the interpretation of events especially where intent is entailed, outcomes as there are examples where teams thwart what “should have happened”, and certainty of impact eg a major decision goal/no goal in the last play of a game irrefutably impacts the score but all we know is that a score will otherwise not go down. (To introduce consensus and probability weighting would be interesting but probably too onerus and may not affect the outcome?).
Provided we can, as readers say to ourselves that shirt colour does not influence the panel decision or language used to describe it (which I think we can) we can use it to draw our own conclusions.
Do you see a regression from the anti rugby stance initially adopted at the start of the season towards allowing greater physicality of which the pgmob has traditional supported (allowing teams to compete by “not taking them on at football”). This leads to more second yellow scores which in all likelihood would not have occurred had the first been given, and players will push the boundaries. It may show that the refs are not necessarily inept but follow the direction of the FA and other paymasters.
When England’s new manager wants players to be more streetwise I do wonder if the message goes to refs to allow them to practice.
Good work guys.