- All that money and nowhere to go: the Chelsea ground and games v Arsenal
- How the football media is conning most of us, day after day after day
By Tony Attwood
Looking at Anthony Taylor’s record this season through his ten games as a PL referee in terms of the home and away team, we can see quite a difference. Away teams are deemed to commit more fouls per game, more of their tackles are deemed to be fouls, and they get more yellow cards.
| Venue | Fouls pg | Fouls/Tackles | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Home | 9.30 | 0.47 | 1.40 |
| Away | 9.50 | 0.56 | 1.70 |
| Difference | 2% | 19% | 21% |
But as we can see, there is something very odd here. Because in a Taylorite game, although on average the away team only commits 2% more fouls than the home team, 19% more of their tackles are deemed to be fouls than for the home team. And 21% more of the away teams tackles are deemed to be worthy of a yellow card. In short with Taylor running the game, away teams know they are going to be clobbered.
The question of course therefore is, are away teams really that much worse in these games that Taylor oversees, or is it simply that Taylor feels that away teams commit more fouls and so deserve to have 21% more yellow cards.
To get some insight into this, we can look at the Tayloristic results. In his ten Premier League games this season, six of them have been home wins, three away wins and one of them a draw. So obviously home teams do better than away teams under Taylor, but this does not mean that under Taylor away sides can’t win.
But the big problem we all have with Taylor’s figures is that he has only seen six clubs this season from the Premier League, and all six of them have been seen twice. – which is very much not what we want to see in the Premier League. Our view is that if Taylor merits seeing ten Premier League games this season, he should have seen ten Premier League clubs, not just six sides.
And we imagine Crystal Palace might be having words with PGMO for this ref has handed out three yellow cards to Palace this season, whereas the two Manchester clubs have just had one each.
| Games | Fouls pg | Fouls/Tackles | Yel pg | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Liverpool | 2 | 7.50 | 0.47 | 1.50 |
| 2. Manchester United | 2 | 6.00 | 0.27 | 1.00 |
| 3. Bournemouth | 2 | 10.50 | 0.49 | 2.00 |
| 4. Wolverhampton | 2 | 12.00 | 0.49 | 1.50 |
| 5. Crystal Palace | 2 | 10.00 | 0.51 | 3.00 |
| 6. Manchester City | 2 | 8.00 | 0.70 | 1.00 |
But let’s just have a look at different referees this season and how they compare in key metrics. All the referees in this table have overseen six or more games in the PL this season
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Fouls/Tackles | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 3. Anthony Taylor | 10 | 18.80 | 0.51 | 3.10 |
| 4. Peter Bankes | 9 | 24.22 | 0.72 | 4.11 |
| 8. Craig Pawson | 7 | 23.43 | 0.70 | 2.14 |
| 9. Samuel Barrott | 7 | 22.43 | 0.67 | 5.14 |
| 10. Thomas Bramall | 7 | 21.43 | 0.75 | 3.57 |
| 14. Andy Madley | 5 | 23.00 | 0.77 | 3.00 |
So the difference between the referee who sees the most fouls and the least fouls in Premier League games this season (and remember these are all referees in the Premier League elite squad) is 29.%
To spell this out, among this group of select referees in the Premier League, with figures spread across at least five games, and only looking at PL games this season, one referee is seeing 29% more fouls than another. And that is not because one referee just sees teams that tackle a lot – this is across all their games this season.
But it gets worse. Madley sees over three-quarters of the tackles in his games as fouls. While Taylor sees fractionally over half the tackles in these games as fouls. Which means Madley is seeing 50% more of the tackles in his games as fouls than Taylor.
And then we come to the dreaded yellow cards. Referee Barrott sees well over twice as many tackles in his Premier League games as worthy of a yellow card compared with referee Pawson.
So let’s consider this final issue. Pawson and Barrott are both considered to be in the elite bunch of Premier League referees and are being called upon regularly to oversee PL games. But so different is their vision of what constitutes a yellow card offence that Barrott hands out twice as many yellow cards as Pawson!!! It makes no sense at all.
Now you probably won’t have seen these figures on any other website or in the media, because by and large most commentators don’t analyse the performance of referees as we do, and that in itself is worthy of consideration.
With one top referee handing out yellow cards at over double the rate of another, we are surely due an explanation. And yet not only do we not get an explanation, we also don’t even get a mention of the facts!!!
Now of course, clever managers and their teams are discussing who the referee is before each game and analysing his record, and then changing their style of player behaviour. But it should never be like this. Clubs should be playing by the rules – not by the attitude of the referee.
This is both a scandal and a shambles. And in this game, we have the referee who sees fouls far less often than most of his counterparts in the league. This gives the opposition a greater chance to kick Arsenal off the park. They will, I am sure, be taking that into account tomorrow.
