by Andrew Crawshaw
Here is the full list of Match Officials for this weekend’s PL games courtesy of premierleague.com :-
Saturday 25 August
12:30 Wolves v Man City
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: Stephen Child, Constantine Hatzidakis
Fourth official: Stuart Attwell
15:00 Arsenal v West Ham
Referee: Graham Scott
Assistants: Scott Ledger, Mick McDonough
Fourth official: Kevin Friend
Referee: Lee Probert
Assistants: Andy Garratt, Dan Robathan
Fourth official: Andre Marriner
Huddersfield Town v Cardiff City
Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistants: Simon Bennett, Stuart Burt
Fourth official: Oliver Langford
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Assistants: Harry Lennard, Andy Halliday
Fourth official: David Coote
17:30 Liverpool v Brighton
Referee: Chris Kavanagh
Assistants: Lee Betts, Simon Long
Fourth official: Craig Pawson
Sunday 26 August
13:30 Watford v Crystal Palace
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn
Fourth official: Stuart Attwell
16:00 Fulham v Burnley
Referee: David Coote
Assistants: Peter Kirkup, Matthew Perry
Fourth official: Andre Marriner
16:00 Newcastle v Chelsea
Referee: Paul Tierrney
Assistants: Ian Hussin, Darren Cann
Fourth official: Martin Atkinson
Monday 27 August
20:00 Man Utd v Spurs
Referee: Craig Pawson (pictured above)
Assistants: Eddie Smart, Richard West
Fourth official: Jonathan Moss
I am glad to say that I was wrong in my supposition that we would be graced with the presence of Mike Dean this weekend but he has been given a weekend off – he is not even being used as a fourth official .
Michael Oliver, Martin Atkinson, Anthony Taylor and Craig Pawson all have their third matches in three weeks and they have also doubled up as fourth official on one occasion. I’ll keep an eye on their workloads as the season progresses.
We have Graham Scott on Saturday – He is a member of the Berkshire and Buckinghamshire FA lives in Oxfordshire. He will be 50 on 10 October this year so is no ‘spring chicken’ and has been on the Select Group of referees since the 2015/16 season. Here is a breakdown of his matches in The PL so far
| Season | Matches | Involving Arsenal |
| 2016/16 | 4 | None |
| 2016/17 | 8 | None |
| 2017/18 | 20 | Arsenal 5 Huddersfield 0, 29 November 2017 Leicester 3 Arsenal 1, 9 May 2018 |
| 2018/19 | 2 | This Saturday, Arsenal v West Ham |
According to Wikipedia, the PGMO sought to demote him after the 2016/17 season but he successfully appealed and retained his place for the following season where he was given more matches but was still relatively underused.
Reaching 50 this October he should be in the twilight of his top flight career, but will no doubt soldier on due to the dearth of younger officials.
And here are the referee rankings so far this season
| Referee | Matches | Red cards | Yellow cards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Martin Atkinson | 2 | 0 | 6 |
| Mike Dean | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Kevin Friend | 2 | 0 | 4 |
| Andre Marriner | 2 | 0 | 5 |
| Michael Oliver | 2 | 1 | 6 |
| Craig Pawson | 2 | 2 | 5 |
| Anthony Taylor | 2 | 0 | 3 |
| Stuart Attwell | 1 | 0 | 8 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 1 | 0 | 3 |
| Lee Mason | 1 | 0 | 5 |
| Jonathan Moss | 1 | 0 | 4 |
| Graham Scott | 1 | 0 | 1 |
| Paul Tierney | 1 | 0 | 3 |
And last season for referees who got 20 or more games
| Referee | Matches | Red cards | Yellow cards |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Oliver | 30 | 5 | 100 |
| Jonathan Moss | 29 | 3 | 107 |
| Martin Atkinson | 28 | 5 | 102 |
| Andre Marriner | 27 | 4 | 72 |
| Anthony Taylor | 27 | 1 | 93 |
| Mike Dean | 25 | 3 | 93 |
| Craig Pawson | 24 | 4 | 81 |
| Kevin Friend | 21 | 0 | 46 |
| Graham Scott | 20 | 2 | 47 |
| Neil Swarbrick | 20 | 0 | 54 |
Here’s hoping for a good performance on Saturday.
COYG
Seems Scott is being given a chance to prove he’s up to it by Riley. Will watch with interest.
@markyb
That’s the worrying thing, just how far does he have to go to secure his future
Referee Treatment League
In no particular order, we have:
Referee _ _ _ _ _ _ _ G _T _H A C
Andre Marriner _ _ _ _2 _7 _0 7 0
Martin Atkinson _ _ _ 2 _3 _3 0 0
Kevin Friend _ _ _ _ _2 13 _7 6 0
Mike Dean _ _ _ _ _ _ 2 _9 _4 5 0
Christopher Kavanagh _1 _0 _0 0 0
Jonathon Moss _ _ _ _ 1 _4 _0 4 0
Craig Pawson _ _ _ _ _2 15 11 4 0
Graham Scott _ _ _ _ _1 _2 _2 0 0
Anthony Taylor _ _ _ _2 _6 _0 6 0
Michael Oliver _ _ _ _2 _8 _5 3 0
Lee Mason _ _ _ _ _ _ 1 11 11 0 1
Stuart Attwell _ _ _ _1 _6 _3 3 0
Paul Tierney _ _ _ _ _1 _1 _1 0 0
G is how many games they’ve done, T is total number of treatments they have overseen, H is the number of home treatments, A is the number of away treatments, and C is the number of cards issued involving treatments.
In the (recent) past, there has been concern about the diving (simulation) taking place in the EPL. Enough so, that it was made possible to charge a player with simulation after the fact (Successful Deception of a Match Official).
It is possible for a treatment to be an act of deception, and yet none of those 85 treatments was thought to involve deception (as near as I can tell). So, if all 85 treatments were situations where a player was involved in a collision of some kind (not necessarily with a player) that required, why has only 1 involved a card?
We know that one of those treatments involved serious injury, as Maitland-Niles is out with a broken fibula. More than half of the treatments were required by the home team. If the officials feel pressured by a home crowd, why did they not feel pressured 46 times this season to issue a card (a card was issued once to Southampton)?
Only Home: Marriner, Scott, Mason, Tierney
Only Away: Atkinson, Moss, Taylor
Deutsche Welle has an interesting article on VAR.
https://www.dw.com/en/opinion-var-isnt-to-blame-the-referees-are/a-45227242