The variance of referees: Nottingham Forest v Arsenal

 

 

• Nottingham Forest v Arsenal: the injuries and why some clubs suffer more than others
• Nottingham Forest v Arsenal: a question of balance

By Tony Attwood

What we saw in the last article is that there is an enormous variation in the number of injuries that clubs have, and this can have as big an impact on where the club ends up in the league table as anything else.

And as we know the referee can have quite an impact too, although as we found in the last match, a referee being reminded how he has shown a real home bias up to now, might well then deliberately change his approach, in order to bring his personal statistics back to the norm.  (Although of course it might have been just a coincidence).

Anyway, this time we have Andy Madley as the referee; Arsenal have won just one of the four matches he has overseen involving Arsenal in the League, so that doesn’t bode too well for Arsenal, but it still doesn’t suggest it is all over before it has started.

For although he clearly is a home bias referee, as the figures below show he can give some away wins,  (although Anthony Taylor gives twice as many away wins and Madley does.   Pesky beings these PGMO officials).  Figures are from WhoScored.

 

Referee	Games	HomeWin%	AwayWin%	Draw%
Anthony Taylor	23	17.4	60.9	21.7
Samuel Barrott	16	37.5	56.3	6.3
Tony Harrington	14	42.9	42.9	14.3
Stuart Attwell	13	30.8	46.2	23.1
Andy Madley	13	46.2	30.8	23.1
Darren England	12	25.0	58.3	16.7

 

So Arsenal do have a chance of getting something under Andy Madley although we are not going to be given many gifts, and a fair number of 50/50 decisions will be going the way of the home side – at least based on previous activities.  He is also middle of the road when it comes to yellow cards, so there is a fair chance Arsenal will be allowed to get on with their game.

But moving away from the referee we should remember Forest have lost their last two games, conceding six goals in the process.  And at this point there is one possible bit of help coming Arsenal’s way as the Forest goalkeeper Carlos Miguel dos Santos Pereira is reported as possibly injured his hamstring and so might have to be replaced.

But there is one other factor that might swing matters in Arsenal’s favour, and that is history   Arsenal have beaten Nottingham Forest 55 times.  If we add together the games Forest have won and the games that have been drawn, that comes to 51 – so the most likely outcome in historical terms is indeed an Arsenal win.

What’s more we can also see that the recent record is very much in our favour.  Looking across the last 21 games in the Premier League, the League Cup and the FA Cup we find that 14 games have been won by Arsenal.   Three have been drawn and that leaves just four games being won by Nottingham Forest.

In the last five Premier League games N Nottingham Forest have won one (a 1-0 win at their ground) and Arsenal have won four, including a 5-0 victory in 2022 and a 3-0 win last year.

So all things considered there should be a fair amount of hope for an Arsenal victory this time around no matter what the referee decides to do.

But these referees can be rather contrary creatures and one can never be quite sure which way they are going to jump.  If only the national media would pay some attention to them, we might be able to persuade them to be a little more consistent.