Everton v Arsenal: how this referee treats the home and away team

 

Arsenal are lucky in the choice of referee

Previously…

• Everton v Arsenal and the oddity of referee behaviour
• Everton v Arsenal this saturday lunchtime: just what are Everton playing at?

The referee is David Coote; he is overseeing Arsenal for the second time this season.  We’ve always argued that two should be the maximum number of times that any single referee oversees a Premier League club’s games in a season, so no complaints there.   

Where we do complain is that Anthony Taylor has overseen Arsenal games FOUR TIMES this season already!!!   Michael Oliver has dealt with three Arsenal games so far.   On this basis Taylor will get EIGHT Arsenal league matches this season, and that is outrageous.

But… in his Arsenal game Mr Coote only called 10 Arsenal fouls against the opposition, which is right on our average and with two yellow cards in that game against Arsenal.  In these figures he is again middle of the road.

This will be his 12th Premier League game of the season.  Using figures drawn from WhoScored for referees who have overseen 10 plus Premier League games, he is third in the chart of ten such regularly used referees when it comes to fouls per game.  Top is Craig Pawson with 23.83 fouls per game, David Coot has 22.00 and at the bottom is Stuart Attwell with 19.15.  So the difference between them is not unreasonable.

Mr Coote is on the low side for yellow cards per game at 3.09 (only one of these regular referees has given out fewer).  Top of the tree is Peter Bankes with 4.50 yellows per game.  So again not a huge amount in it between each referee.

So now let’s move on and compare his treatment of home teams with away teams.

 

So how does that fit in with all we know?   The main thing we know from all the analysis over the years is that referees are influenced deeply by the crowd – if you missed our piece in the series on the topics the media won’t cover, this issue came up there with What the media won’t tell you about football, part 3 – referee home bias

However when we look at this season for referees who have overseen 10 or more games the results show that although Mr Coote is not the most favourable toward the away team, we are a lot better off with him than we would be with the outrageous Simon Hooper, who in 14 games has not once overseen a match with an away win!

Under the guidance of Mr Coote home teams win 45.5% of the time, and away teams 36.4% of the time.

 

Referee	Apps	HomeWin%	AwayWin%	Draw%
Simon Hooper	14	78.6	0.0	21.4
Stuart Attwell	13	61.5	23.1	15.4
Michael Oliver	16	56.3	37.5	6.3
Paul Tierney	16	56.3	37.5	6.3
Robert Jones	13	53.8	30.8	15.4
David Coote	11	45.5	36.4	18.2
Peter Bankes	10	40.0	10.0	50.0
Anthony Taylor	15	33.3	40.0	26.7
Andy Madley	13	30.8	23.1	46.2
Craig Pawson	12	25.0	50.0	25.0
Jarred Gillett	10	20.0	40.0	40.0

 

But perhaps more than just looking at Arsenal’s situation this weekend, we should reflect on this insane level of difference.  With Mr Gillett, 20% of games are home wins, with Mr Hooper it is 78.6%.  That is just beyond the bounds of statistical normality.

So we can be grateful that we don’t have Mr Hooper anywhere near this game.  If we did, then despite Everton’s appalling record this season by being at home they would stand every chance of beating Arsenal this weekend.

• Referee: David Coote. 
• Assistants: Lee Betts, Mark Scholes. 
• Fourth official: Andy Madley. 
• VAR: John Brooks. 
• Assistant VAR: Darren Cann.

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