- Arsenal v Villa at 8.15 Tuesday. Villa’s approach
- Why does one referee in line to see the same team 8 times this season?
By Tony Attwood
We have had some nice Arsenal comments in the media in recent times, such as, “Arsenal wonderkid Max Dowman beats one, beats two, pirouettes around another with a Zidane turn and dinks it past the keeper.”
And then again, “If you are going to beat Thibaut Courtois from 25 yards out, you better put it right in the postage stamp, and that’s exactly what Declan Rice did for Arsenal in the Champions League quarter final. Twice in the same game.”
But of coruse such comments don’t last long, and we now find it’s time to turn on Arsenal – as the media return to normal with no specifics, no worries, but a general desire to do generalities. So we get “For a team topping the Premier League table, Arsenal haven’t looked convincing enough.” One might ask, just how generalised do you want to be?
But to a degree, there is an excuse because of the never-ending run of injuries. We have three players whose appearance tonight is doubtful: Kai Havertz, Jurriën Timber, and Riccardo Calafiori, Plus of course, Ben White, Cristhian Mosquera, and Max Dowman, who are all out at least until January – possibly longer.
But at least Villa have a few men down such as Evann Guessand, Harvey Elliott, Pau Torres, Tyrone Mings, and Ross Barkley,
But for Arsenal, the main thing seems to be, “let’s just do it again.” And a look at recent results shows why that can be a good idea….
| Date | Game | Res | Score | Competition |
| 10 Dec | Club Brugge v Arsenal | W | 0-3 | Champions League |
| 13 Dec | Arsenal v Wolverhampton Wa | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
| 20 Dec | Everton v Arsenal | W | 0-1 | Premier League |
| 23 Dec | Arsenal v Crystal Palace | W | 8-7p | League Cup |
| 27 Dec | Arsenal v Brighton and Hove | W | 2-1 | Premier League |
Meanwhile, I am pleased to see that our thoughts on referees being allowed to see the same team over and over, and fans of clubs being allowed to be part of the referee ensemble, are also shared elsewhere, as for example where the Daily Canon points out there is a “Liverpool fan on VAR for Arsenal-Aston Villa clash.”
Our statistics here come from WhoScored. For the table below, we look at the range of actions by different referees who have overseen over 10 games in the Premier League this season.
As you can see, the range in the number of fouls is 21.88%, meaning the referee who sees the most fouls sees getting on for 22% more fouls than the ref who sees the fewest fouls. And do remember this is across the referees’ games this season, not just one match.
But it is when we get to penalties and yellow cards that the figures go haywire, for Darren England sees multiple times as many penalties as Simon Hooper. Is this because, game after game that Darren England is in charge, players are hacking each other to bits in the box, or could it be that different referees have different standards? In other words, how many penalties you get depends on which referee you have. It certainly looks like that. Which wouldn’t matter too much if each ref only saw each team twice. (For more on this you might care to take a look at New Year’s Crisis: Kavanagh-Liverpool Reaches Historic 4×)
And then we have yellow cards per game. And here we can see that there is no restriction on the number of games each referee can have involving a particular club. Here are the figures.
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Pen pg | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Taylor | 15 | 20.00 | 0.27 | 3.93 |
| Michael Oliver | 14 | 22.14 | 0.07 | 2.43 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 14 | 23.21 | 0.36 | 4.00 |
| Stuart Attwell | 12 | 21.25 | 0.42 | 4.83 |
| Craig Pawson | 11 | 20.82 | 0.18 | 1.91 |
| Simon Hooper | 11 | 24.18 | 0.09 | 4.36 |
| Samuel Barrott | 11 | 19.55 | 0.45 | 4.18 |
| Darren England | 11 | 21.88 | 0.67 | 3.45 |
| Variation | 24% | 466% | 253% |
So what of Mr England’s results this season? Again, we compare with referees who have also undertaken 11 or more games this season
| Referee | Games | HomeWin% | AwayWin% | Draw% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Peter Bankes | 13 | 76.9 | 15.4 | 7.7 |
| Simon Hooper | 11 | 27.3 | 45.5 | 27.3 |
| Darren England | 11 | 45.5 | 27.3 | 27.3 |
| Samuel Barrott | 11 | 45.5 | 18.2 | 36.4 |
The range here is incredible – and once again we see that who each club gets as a referee determines the likely outcome of the game. Darren England is middle of the road for results – favouring home wins over other results, but we are always happier when we have Peter Bankes at home and Simon Hooper away.
And of course, when we get those referees, we make no fuss, because other clubs are regularly benefiting from having them as referees, but the overall point remains the same. It should not be like this. There should not be one referee who sees 76.9% of his games as home winswhile another only sees 27.3% as home wins.l
This is not to say that all referees should have the same figures – of course not – but the range should not be as huge as this. Put briefly, Bankes sees three times as many home wins as Hooper. And no one in the PGMO or in the media ever asks why. Now that is odd.
I think it‘s great to start collecting this kind of data. Would think or hope coaching is doing that, too, and maybe that’s why we have fewer players getting booked or sent off this year. Hard to imagine they wouldn’t with someone as detailed minded as Arteta.
But I think it‘s too little data at the moment. Just one win going differently for England or Hooper means parity in terms of home/away wins. 10/13 home wins for Bankes, however, does start to sound like character weakness, already.