Sunderland v Arsenal. The ref is John Brooks, and stats suggest that’s going to be a problem.

 

• Sunderland v Arsenal: the problems the Arsenal team cause the opposition as players are moved around
• Sunderland v Arsenal: the background and recent past games.

By Tony Attwoode

John Brooks will referee Arsenal’s Premier League trip to Sunderland on Saturday night and the Read Arsenal website has some information on that topic.   Which is very much to be welcomed in my view – although it would be great to see more.

Of course we’ve been doing quite a few pieces of late about referees and the impact they have, and we are continuing with that, even though the media absolutely doesen’t want to know.  Yet it is clear that one of the key features of Premier League referees is that each referee has his own way of doing things.  But not only that, the media, perhaps because of PGMO pressure, will not touch this subject.  Which means season by season the bias continues.

So again this season it is worth considering who is refereeing each match, and here we go….

The full officiating team is:

• Referee: John Brooks
• Assistants: James Mainwaring and Wade Smith
• Fourth official: Elliot Bell
• VAR: Stuart Attwell
• Assistant VAR: Edward Smart

It is too early in the season to measure referee Brooks’ abilities or bias so looking back to last season we find

 

Referee	Games	Fouls pg	Fouls/Tackles	Pen pg	Yel pg
Michael Oliver	29	22.93	0.65	0.07	3.03
Stuart Attwell	25	21.68	0.67	0.32	4.60
Samuel Barrott	24	19.38	0.60	0.29	3.71
Simon Hooper	15	23.33	0.65	0.07	4.00
M. Salisbury	13	22.38	0.60	0.54	4.38
Paul Tierney	12	20.17	0.60	0.08	3.33
John Brooks	12	20.92	0.67	0.33	3.67

 

With fouls we can see that Hooper sees 12% more fouls than Brooks in a game; Brooks sees one of the lowest levels of fouls in matches, which means the opposition on seeing this will certainly see kicking Arsenal players as a viable option.  We can also see that in terms of fouls that are seen as tackles by the referee, this ref is near the top of the list, so as long as he is left to his own devices he will blow for fouls against Arsenal players.

And perhaps it is following this that we find that he is one of the top awarders of penalties.  He doesn’t give out the most (Salisbury gives out almost twice as many) but Brooks himself sees four times as many penalties as Tierney.   As we have noticed before, what is and what is not a penalty is really pretty much something that depends on which referee you have runnnig the game.

But perhaps most important for this match is the fact that this referee is one of the lowest in terms of handing out yellow cards, which means the opposition most certainly will get away with a high number of fouls before the ref even warns the player that a yellow card might be on the way.

But even that is not the most worrying bit.  66% of Brooks’ games last season were home wins – only one referee sasw more home wins.   This compares with Jarred Gillett who in 22 games only saw five home wins in the league last season.   So Arsenal must know they are facing a referee who goes overboard on home wins.  Only 17% were draws and another 17% were away wins.

So yes this referee does sometimes oversee matches which end up as something other than a home win, but this is very rare.   What has happened for this game is that PGMO have given it to just about their most solid “home win” referee.  That might be “pure chance” but the fact that there is a “home win” ref on the books shows how much in English football depends on which ref you get on the day.

Arsenal of course will know this, and they are going to have to be incredibly careful here because every occasional push or tackle is going to result in a free kick and an advantage to the opposition.   Any dubious off side will be given where it favours Sunderland but not if it favours Arsenal.    In short, this is going to be a very tough match, given the record of the referee.

And as if that were not enough, there is more.    This referee gives out 3.67 yellow cards a game on average.  This is certainly more than someone like Craig Pawson with 2.67 yellow cards a game, but nothing like Stuart Atwell with his 4.6 yellow cards a game.  But still it is a worry.

So Arsenal players need to be wary of any tackle or push that might just be considered illegal by a ref inclined to think that way.  It could well quickly move over to being a card offence if there is any sign of dissent from the Arsenal players.

So what we have here is a referee who offers a home advantage in a match where Arsenal are away.  That might of course be pure chance, but even if it is, it should not happen, since there should not be this massive level of difference between one ref and the next.

In short, it might look as if Arsenal away to a team that is not doing especially well in the league could be a reasonable draw, but this referee means that nothing like that should be taken for granted.