- Arsenal v Crystal Palace: Do Arsenal need to beat Palace to avoid sacking Arteta?
- Tackles, fouls and yellow cards, Arsenal, Palace, Chelsea and Tottenham compared.
The referee for the Arsenal v Palace game is Paul Tierney. The other officials are Assistant Referees, Scott Ledger and Daniel Robathan, Fourth Official: Andrew Madley, Video Assistant Referee: Stuart Attwell and Second Video Assistant Referee (in case the first one drinks too much coffee and gets overexcited): Steven Meredith.
Below is the data table for referees who have overseen 10 or more Premier League games this season… and you might want to look away now, because there is a problem with this referee.
In fact overall there is a problem with referees, for the most card-waving referee has shown almost three times as many red cards as the least card-waving referee. This shows yet again that the real determinant of whether a player gets a card or not is who the referee is, and that is not how it should be.
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Yel pg | Red pg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Andy Madley | 12 | 25.25 | 5.08 | 0.17 |
| Robert Jones | 13 | 24.31 | 4.38 | 0.31 |
| Simon Hooper | 12 | 23.50 | 5.33 | 0.25 |
| John Brooks | 13 | 23.08 | 4.62 | 0.31 |
| Tim Robinson | 13 | 22.62 | 4.38 | 0.00 |
| Anthony Taylor | 16 | 22.38 | 5.19 | 0.13 |
| Craig Pawson | 10 | 22.20 | 4.60 | 0.30 |
| Stuart Attwell | 11 | 21.82 | 5.00 | 0.18 |
| Paul Tierney | 12 | 21.42 | 3.58 | 0.25 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 13 | 21.31 | 4.62 | 0.08 |
| Peter Bankes | 10 | 21.30 | 4.90 | 0.10 |
The range of fouls per game is quite varied – in fact the most foul-prone referee is seeing 19% more fouls per game than the least foul-seeing referee. That difference is more than we might expect between professional referees.
The range of yellow cards however is greater, the most card-waving referee shows 37% more cards per game than the least card-waving referee.
And the results that referees like to give, again for referees with 10 games or more in the Premier League this season, is much bigger than looks reasonable. Indeed you really might want to look away now if you are of a delicate nature.
If not, here’s the reason… in terms of Home Wins, Paul Tierney is the lowest-performing referee in the PGMO among those who have seen 10 or more games this season, which does not bode well for Arsenal. You’ll find him at the foot of the table.
| Referee | GamES | Home Win | Away Win | Draw |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Stuart Attwell | 11 | 63.6% | 36.4% | 0.0% |
| Craig Pawson | 10 | 60.0% | 30.0% | 10.0% |
| Simon Hooper | 12 | 58.3% | 25.0% | 16.7% |
| Tim Robinson | 13 | 53.8% | 38.5% | 7.7% |
| Chris Kavanagh | 13 | 53.8% | 23.1% | 23.1% |
| Robert Jones | 13 | 53.8% | 15.4% | 30.8% |
| Michael Oliver | 13 | 46.2% | 38.5% | 15.4% |
| Anthony Taylor | 16 | 43.8% | 25.0% | 31.3% |
| Peter Bankes | 10 | 40.0% | 30.0% | 30.0% |
| Andy Madley | 12 | 33.3% | 50.0% | 16.7% |
| John Brooks | 13 | 30.8% | 46.2% | 23.1% |
| Paul Tierney | 12 | 16.7% | 50.0% | 33.3% |
But perhaps what is most shocking is not so much that the referee for this game has just overseen under one-fifth of the games has controlled as home wins and half as away wins, Stuart Atwell has overseen almost two-thirds of his games as home wins and one third as away wins. That is a huge difference and suggests referees are just doing what they want, rather than following central guidance from PGMO. No wonder PGMO is such a hyper-secretive organisation.
Of course Arsenal’s record against Crystal Palace is good – Arsenal have won well over half of the games played between the clubs: 32 wins to Arsenal, 16 draws and just six wins for Palace.
But as we have noted previously, in recent years Arsenal went through a run of eight games against the club winning only one of the matches. But Arsenal has won the last three games against the club in a row.
90 Min give us a lineup prediction of
Raya
White Saliba Gabriel Zinchenko
Odegaard, Rice, Havertz
Saka, Jesus, Martinelli
The Mirror is of the same opinion.
Three Added Minutes however offers one change from that suggestion
David Raya;
Ben White, William Saliba, Gabriel Magalhaes, Jakub Kiwior;
Declan Rice, Kai Havertz; Martin Odegaard;
Bukayo Saka, Gabriel Jesus, Gabriel Martinelli.
So there we are: just about the worst referee we could possibly have based on his previous form of hardly allowing any team to have home wins. But Arsenal are expected to put out a fairly strong team.
The feeling all round is that Martinelli is going to be given every chance to play his way out of his lack of goal-scoring form (compared with last season) and that the return of Jesus to the front line should help us knock a few in against a defence that is in fact slightly better than the likes of Tottenham Hotspur, Chelsea and Newcastle, to name but three.
I shall be there, hoping it is slightly warmer than it is in my home town.
