Arsenal v Southampton: shocking revelations about referees, tackles and cards

 

• Arsenal v Southampton: where the two teams have been of late
• Where has all this abuse against Arsenal come from?

By Sir Hardly Anyone

The referee for this game is Tony Harrington, a man who according to WhoScored (which invariably knows all about these things) just saw 10 Premier League games last season..  His games showed up a below-average number of fouls and a below-average number of yellow cards although the number of tackles per game was measured as fairly average.

Past analyses by Untold Arsenal have showed both how varied referees are between each other, and just how different they can be between the way they treat home teams and away teams.  But new analyses now show how clubs are adjusting their play to which referee is on the pitch.

And the resultant figures would be pretty alarming in a school’s league, let alone “the best league in the world”. 

For example, players in matches refereed by Chris Kavanagh put in 51% more tackles in those games than in games when Jarred Gillett was involved.  So we ask “why?”

The reason for that is that Jarred Gillet punishes one in every 1.29 tackles as a foul while Chris Kavanagh punishes only one in every 1.89 tackles as a foul – a 46% difference.  Obviously, the media won’t ever publish this, because it reflects badly on PGMO, but with all their statistics and analyses the clubs know exactly what each referee does and so they are taking advantage of the matter.

Christ Kavanagh saw over 40 tackles in his average game last season, while Jarredd Gillett saw just under 27 tackles per game.  That can’t be just by chance.

Yet despite this enormous variation in how referees treat tackles, the difference in number of fouls per game given by referees is very slight – around two per game.

So the referees are making it such that they all spot roughly the same number of fouls per game – but they do this by some being much more relaxed about what tackle constitutes a foul and what doesn’t.

And because the number of fouls per game is so similar from one referee to another, the number of yellow cards per game is also very similar.  These figures below are from last season and include Tony Harrington the referee for Arsenal’s game this weekend, and three of the most used referees last season in league matches.

 

Referee	Games	Tackles pG	Fouls pg	YelLOW pg
Tim Robinson 2023/24	21	32.92	23.05	4.24
Jarred Gillett 2023/24	21	26.91	20.81	4.57
Chris Kavanagh 2023/24	20	40.85	21.65	3.90
Tony Harrington 2023/24	10	39.45	21.70	3.70

 

The huge difference between the way in which different referees treat tackles as either “OK” or as “fouls” and how clubs are using this knowledge to adjust their style of play from one referee to the next is shown in the next table.

Gillet allows on average just 5.89 tackles to go by before a card is waved, while Harrington allows 10.66 tackles to go before a card is produced.  As a result players in the more aware clubs adjust their style of play and so tackle more or less depending on which referee is in charge.

In short, the game you watch depends a lot on which referee is in charge.  Watch a game refereed by Kavanagh and you will see tackles flying in.  Watch a game overseen by Gillet and you might wonder weather the players have forgotten that tackling is part of the game..  

 

But then in order to stop games looking too different between one referee and another, the difference in the number of tackles that can be made per foul, and the number of tackles that can be made per yellow card is adjusted so when we get to the number of fouls per yellow card these can be close together for each referee.

As a result, clubs with particularly able and intelligent footballers are able to keep their card level down by adjusting their game according to the referee.  Get Kavanagh and the instruction is let the tackles go flying in.  Get Gillet, and the instruction is, don’t tackle unless there is nothing else to do.

Looking particularly at Tony Harrington, the referee for Saturday’s game we can also note that while he has been giving the home team 0.67 yellow cards a game he has been giving the away teams 3.00 yellow cards a game..

Last season he gave the home teams 1.8 cards a game and the away teams 1.9 cards a game, so that bias is something that has sudden happened this season – or of course it could just be a quirk of the figures.  But this season, in just three games that he has overseen in the Premier League he has given out nine cards against the away team and two against the home team.

In the next piece we will have a look at Arsenal’s card situation overall this season compared with recent times… to see if it really does all “balance out in the end” as we are told.

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