- If we had to be defeated somewhere, this is the one I’d have chosen
- What Arsenal will symbolise tonight to supporters across the world
By Tony Attwood
If anyone is going to be happy with yesterday’s defeat, it will be the bloggers and journalists who spent the last week telling us about how Arsenal cheated their way to the title via a long series of VAR decisions that changed games in Arsenal’s favour.
This view leads to the notion that if referees and VAR had done their job properly, Arsenal would have come second, but Arsenal cheated, and the referees connived in this cheating. Arsenal, in fact, were not very good; indeed, if they had been, they would have won the Champions League.
Unfortunately, football reporting is full of what is probably best described as “incomplete statements without evidence.” And so it is worth considering what we really would need to have as evidence to accept this story about referees giving Arsenal a set of VAR decisions that helped them win the league.
Unfortunately, just knowing about the VAR decisions is not enough, however, because it can be argued that lots of clubs benefit or are harmed by wrong VAR decisions. Arsenal might have had ten VAR decisions in their favour and five against them last season, giving them a benefit of +5 VAR decisions. But without the figures for ManC, ManU and Liverpool, that still doesn’t tell us much.
Then we would need to be shown how many VAR decisions were wrong for each club. Do Arsenal “get away with” more bad VAR decisions than other clubs? I’ve not seen any evidence of that.
So a significant amount of evidence is needed, and certainly it wasn’t reported.. However, this doesn’t mean that one cannot criticise referees – we do it all the time – but we use statistics, which is really the only evidence we have. Stats show us that for example, while over 68% of Peter Bankes games resulted in home wins, only 33% of Craig Pawson’s games resulted in home wins. And those figures are across the whole PL season – 21 games for Pawson and 22 games for Bankes.
Those are, of course, very simple statistics and again don’t prove corruption, but they suggest that different referees have different styles and approaches in matches, and that it could be helpful if these were investigated.
But the point about Arsenal being helped by referees and VAR is that it comes with no comparative evidence concerning referees and other clubs. And yet it was widely distributed, perhaps leading some to believe that Arsenal cheated with the help of referees.
And supposing they were – how would this happen? Did Arsenal bribe the referees? If so, that suggests the whole PL system is utterly corrupt and one would ask why no one is investigating this if the evidence is so clear? I mean, I don’t think Radio 5, Match of the Day, Sky or the other lot have actually ever mentioned this. Are they being bribed by Arsenal to keep their mouths shut? If so, how come Arsenal has such a hold over the whole football media?
Oh, and here’s another point. We’ve asked for years for the number of referees to be increased so that each club is only seen twice in a season by the same referee. Why are those people now complaining about how Arsenal are helped by referees not backing that campaign?
No, the real information we need is
a) how many referee errors are made in a season that affect the result of a game?
b) are those errors spread at random through the league, or do some teams gain and others suffer dramatically because of VAR interventions or non-interventions?
After all, it’s not much good pointing to one match where Arsenal allegedly got a win instead of a draw through a VAR mistake, if one doesn’t do it across the whole season and all clubs.
If it happens across all clubs, then that’s just referee incompetence. If Arsenal benefited at the expense of everyone else, then that is bias; the evidence should be produced, including the number of right and wrong decisions for all clubs. And it might be helpful to see any suggestion as to why referees were particularly inclined to take bribes from Arsenal, rather than other clubs.
As things stand, Arsenal had the best defence in the league last season – eight goals fewer conceded than ManC, and 19 goals fewer than the third best defence in the league, the best goal difference in the league and seven more points than the club in second place. If that was all achieved by cheating, that is a lot of cheating and it should have been visible.
So, “Did VAR win Arsenal the league?” is the headline, and if we are fortunate enough to see another Arsenal league win next season, and once more without comparative stats. (And as most of us know, conclusions without any statistics are generally not very reliable).
But perhaps the biggest problem is the way schools teach statistics, with some people leaving school not realising exactly what data is needed to prove or disprove a proposition. Not knowing that is helpful since it allows all sorts of wild accusations to be made. Although generally they don’t have much to do with reality.
May I add all the sarcastic comments about Arsenal having won no european trophy…
Which is true if you say : UCL trophy.
Or before this year’s win, that Arsenal had won no trophy since then Invincibles, which is true if you say : No PL trophy.
Anyway, yes, statistics can be bent or you can do some Lawrencing and say part of the truth.
Frankly I don’t care. I’ll enjoy watching the parade, with hundreds of thousands if not more then a million fans and be happy thinking about all these jealous people having to be upset.
I’ll sip my drink and enjoy the show.
And think about how interesting next year will be.
by the way just to illustrate the differences :
some 20’000 odd people celebrated the PSG victory in Paris last night… 130 or more arrests made
Talk about popularity…. and happiness. Guess no one gives a damn in this city.
Happy we all give a damn about Arsenal
Tony their seems to be mixed feelings about those claims as their has now been a couple of sites that have said that Arsenal would have still won the league this year if their had been no VAR decisions as of the old system of just refereeing decisions being undisputed by VAR. So just the usual unfounded jealousy and Arsenal haters making up lazy non factual journalism from the usual culprits that we all know.
Although. yesterdays Ref seemed a bit unfair towards Havertz being constantly shoved in the back and one or two unfair yellow cards being issued, it was a fair tactical type game.
On a positive note, on the whole, for this year, what a great achievement by the Arsenal and our great squad of players.
Another step up the ladder for Arsenal this year as we have been climbing in both competitions every year improving on the past year in both the Premier and Champions League.
In put in olympic terms, we have won a gold and a silver medal this year in the two of the toughest competitions and against world class pressure attacking quality teams that have been considered, the best attacking teams in the world.
We showed we have the best defence in world football also with quality international individuals in our attack, to compete with any club in the world when fully focused and tactically prepared.
With this mentioned solid foundation, we will continue to grow into a balanced more pressure scary assertive team come next year, to beat any team, and with some scary additions, to remain solid and to add that balance to be able to also attack scare all oppositions and elite teams that we come up against and forcing them to park the bus.
Time to enjoy our achievements and our improvements this year and to keep on climbing the upward ladder and keep improving.
All players have played a part and should deserve to keep their place on loyalty and achievement, but we know that we need to “continue to improve” and grow with at least two or three world class scary additions and a couple of academy promotions, to “become inclusive” of our large squad that we already have but to also become even more competitive to our first choice 11.
IMO. The squad can afford to increase in size due to the amount of games being over 60 (enough games for all squad players to take part) and with the higher risk of fatigue and injuries being greater than ever now due to the greater amount of competitive games now that everyone will want to take a piece of Arsenal.
This increase pressure next year, with us being the new champions of England and the undefeated open play European finalist.
Squad assessments areas will of course be made by our trusted guru, Arteta.
Arsenal North London forever, what a great achievement. Very proud of the whole squad. Heads held high. Onwards and upwards.