By Tony Attwood
- Brentford are slipping, although Tottenham are trying to rebuild
- Arsenal’s success after 13 and why we must change the rule about yellow cards
There are two views of Arsenal at the moment. One is that as a club, they are very happy to be top of the league with Tottenham Ho slipping ever downward and much rumbling to be heard in the environs of White Hart Whatnot from the fans.
The other is that the game with Chelsea was a total cock-up, and if we can’t beat 10-man Chelsea, we have no chance of winning the league. Personally, I am in the former camp.
But now let us move on to other matters: the referee. This time we have Tony Harrington – an interesting referee because referee data can’t quite agree on when he was born. Probably that is not significant, but it is slightly odd, in that it suggests that when PGMO is collecting data on its referees, it isn’t actually checking the details. And if that is so, it would explain a lot about the huge variance between the way different referees oversee different games.
But then they would probably argue that it doesn’t matter since there is no official retirement age for Premier League referees. They can go on doing the job as long as they want, as long as they meet the fitness requirements (which rather craftily are not made public). How long, I wonder, before we see two ancient fellows with telescopes, waving walking sticks, motoring up and down the line in electrified wheelchairs. (And I write that with no disrespect, being well into my 70s).
Referee Harrington is a supporter of Hartlepool United, currently 11th out of 24 in the National League. Their mascot is H’Angus the Monkey, and he was elected mayor of the town until the position was abolished in 2013. Their most famous fan is Jeff Stelling.
But to get back to our games. The ref who sees the most fouls in PL matches sees 27% more fouls per game than the ref who sees the least. But when we come to penalties, the referee who sees the most penalties sees over five times as many penalties as the referee who sees the fewest penalties!!!!!
And with yellow cards, the ref handing out the most yellow per game hands out over two and a half times as many cards as the ref who sees the least. And remember all these figures are per game. As ever, how well a club does, depends on which referee the club regularly gets – and with no restriction on the number of times a ref can see a team, that influence can grow and grow.
In short, if Samuel Barrott is overseeing a game, there is a one in two chance of a penalty. If Michael Owen is overseeing a game, the chance of a penalty is 1 in 10. If Attwell is running the match, you’ll probably see four or five yellow cards. If it is Pawson, the number of cards will be one or two.
And this is all down to the ref. Here are the current figures – our ref tomorrow is shown in red.
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Fouls/Tackles | Pen pg | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Oliver | 11 | 21.91 | 0.64 | 0.09 | 2.36 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 11 | 23.18 | 0.71 | 0.45 | 3.91 |
| Stuart Attwell | 9 | 21.78 | 0.66 | 0.33 | 4.89 |
| Craig Pawson | 8 | 21.75 | 0.65 | 0.25 | 1.88 |
| Samuel Barrott | 8 | 21.38 | 0.64 | 0.50 | 4.75 |
| Tony Harrington | 6 | 19.83 | 0.64 | 0.17 | 3.33 |
| Simon Hooper | 8 | 25.13 | 0.68 | 0.13 | 4.75 |
| RANGE % | 27% | 11% | 555% | 260% |
So in this game with T Harrington running the show, the referee activity in terms of tackles, fouls and cards will be low.
As for the teams, Brentford are 12th in the Premier League card table with 25 yellows. Arsenal are 18th with 18 yellows. But the range between the Premier League clubs is already pretty huge – with Tottenham for example having 32 cards this season already – almost twice as many as Arsenal!!!
Last season, Arsenal were running at 1.68 yellows per game, Chelsea at 2.60, Tottenham at 1.84 and Brentford at 1.63. This season, Arsenal are on 1.38 yellows per game, Chelsea on 1.92, Tottenham at 2.46 and Brentford on 1.93. Tottenham and Brentford seem to be kicking anything that moves; Arsenal and Chelsea are reigning in the fouls.
What this shows is some very clever work by Chelsea who have significantly reduced the cardage rate year by year while keeping themselves in touch with the leaders. The problem team, of course, is Tottenham – only Bournemouth and Brighton have got more cards – and then it is only a couple.
At this rate, Chelsea will end up with 73 yellows by the end of the season, compared with 99 last time around and 104 the year before that. They are getting their card numbers down – but how exactly are they doing that?
