The headline in the Guardian reads: “Not fair to criticise VAR just because you don’t like final decision, says Howard Webb”. Below is the sub-heading saying “Referees head wants to rebuild trust in video technology”.
And of course being in a national newspaper it omits any reference to the match in which the ball clearly went out of play but the VAR official denies it because of the “curvature of the ball”.
Leaving aside the issue of the “curvature of the ball” the PGMO were utterly guilty in thiat incident because they had totally failed to give the information that the ball being over the line meant including a guess from a non-definitive angle about the “curvature of the ball”. I must say it still looks completely out to me, but apparently curvature is not all it seems these days.
Now Howard Webb has announced that the criticism VAR receives is because supporters don’t like the ruling the referee comes up with. But this is nonsense, it is because the rules (like the curvature of the ball) seem to be made up as we go along and often the VAR referee (as here) is dependent upon camera angles which are themselves from the wrong position – to do this properly we need a camera along the goalline – which is surely utterly obvious – and incredibly simple to achieve. Which raises the question: why does PGMO oppose this?
But of course before that notorious “curve of the ball” viewed from the wrong angle event, PGMO were struggling with their credibility – that event destroyed it totally. And so what did they do? They retreated behind their infamous wall of isolation and silence.
So who have we got this time?
Referee: Jarred Gillett. Assistants: Darren Cann, Nick Greenhalgh. Fourth official: Gavin Ward. VAR: Paul Tierney. Assistant VAR: Natalie Aspinall.
These figures are for all of last season for Jarred Gillett’s 17 games…
| Referee | Fouls pg | Pen pg | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|
| 13.Jarred Gillett all games | 18.00 | 0.29 | 2.71 |
| 13.Jarred Gillett home team | 9.29 | 0.12 | 1.47 |
| 13.Jarred Gillett away team | 8.71 | 0.18 | 1.24 |
Home teams under Gillett have more fouls given against them than away teams suggesting he is trying to overcompensate for any allegations of being swayed by the crowd. As a result of this greater freedom on the pitch, the away teams get fewer yellow cards and at the other end get awarded more penalties than the home team.
This is a case of the away team having everything go their way – they are seen to commit fewer fouls, get given more penalties and get fewer yellow cards than the home team.
And we can see the result of this…
29.4% of Gillett’s games last season were home wins. 41.2% of the games were away wins.
Compare this with Stuart Atwell for whom 72% of his games last season were home wins and 12% were away wins.
I cannot see any viable explanation for how this happened “by chance”. The only reasonable explanation is that one referee favours home teams and one favours the away team. It might be deliberate or it might be through psychological pressure, but those figures CANNOT BE BY CHANCE.
Now this is not to say that Gillett is totally and deliberately biased, for over the years we have investigated this phenomenon, and using data from the season where matches were played behind closed doors because of Covid, and subsequent research in which referees were given matches to referee on TV screens in which the sound of the crowd was available for half of the refs, but not for the other half, we now know just how much home crowds can influence referees. The quite separate University of Reading report on this is also interesting.
However because of the abject secrecy of PGMO and compliance of the media, this research was not widely discussed and debated, and thus referees were left to make of it what they could. So some ignored it, while others overcompensated, deliberately giving the away team an easier ride, for fear that otherwise they were being biased by crowd noise.
Of all the referees who oversaw 10 or more Premier League games last season, none had as low a percentage home wins as Gillett. His figures are truly shocking in the sense of being out of line with his fellow referees.
For this referee still to be running matches in the Premier League with statistics like these would be unbelievable if we had not seen it so often before. To have him still taking PL games is even more shocking, and for Arsenal to be given him as their first referee of the season hints at something pretty odd going on behind the scenes.
Gillett should have been retrained long ago, and then been put into lower league games to re-learn his craft. That nothing has happened tells us a lot about PGMO, referees and (because they won’t even mention this issue) the media.
Referee support Wolves? Funny thing to say. When that happens Aldershot and not Arsenal gonna win the EPL 😉
Yes it would be a funny thing to say, which is why it wasn’t said. What we said was that the ref has a bias based on home nad away results from previous seasons.
Any perceived bias towards away teams will be more than compensated for with bias against Wolves. And if Gillett don’t get us, the VAR man will.
I don’t suppose you’ll need the officials to win the game but have no fear, they’ll be there as back up just in case.
FYI Jarred Gillett is one of FIVE Liverpool fans in the PGMOL list of officials, methinks footballisfixed might have something to say on the matter…
Stephen that would be a most interesting post if you could provide some evidence in the form of statistics, as Untold has tried to do across the seasons. Just making a statement doesn’t make something true.
Maybe I am wrong Tony, but is Gillett not a self confessed Liverpool fan. If so, how strange him getting Arsenal’s first home game.
I can only defend that comment by saying “according to reports” or at least one report.
Jimmy and Stephen
FYI, this particular referee has history with Arsenal, both as a referee but more significantly when he has been on VAR. I’m really sorry that I cant highlight them for you, but they are/he has been highlighted on here on every occasion. I can in fact remember the one which first alerted us to his miscreant behaviour because it was a vary significant VAR turnover against us when we scored what would of been a very late winner at Selhurst park some years back. It was a terrible decision that cost us vital points. We have been wary whenever he is on duty against us ever since, and you can only take my word for it (because I cant be arsed to go back and find them all), but he has lived up to his reputation and some.
This doesn’t mean I don’t accept that you have had some very poor VAR’s go against you, but I can assure you Gillet is no friend of ours. We shall see.
Good luck for the season, except of course for today.
It seems that neither Gillett nor VAR have no problems with strangulation or a little bit of off-the-ball groping.
seismic
Indeed. An absolute nailed on red card.
Not even discussed post match on MOTD. (Don’t know if it’s been discussed elsewhere?)
Can you imagine if an Arsenal player had done that?
First off, the ref would of red carded the player.
If he’d missed it VAR would of dealt with it.
Rest assured if they hadn’t, MOTD, SKY and every man and his dog would be banging on and on about how we got away with one.
That’s without mentioning the pull on Saka. Yes, he got his shot away but he was falling back because of the pull meaning he didn’t make a clean contact. Definite penalty, again just brushed aside.
seismic
I see Gallagher thinks putting your hand round a players throat is okay, as is pulling a players shirt. What a surprise.
Having watched 6 of this weekend’s matches, I can’t say that I have noticed any improvement in the performance of referees or VAR. Gillett’s performance was everything I have come to expect from him over the last 5 years.
I watched the Brentford vs. Palace match where referee Sam Barrott caused a Palace goal to be disallowed after blowing for a foul (incorrectly, I thought). At half-time, SkySports Kelly Cates tried to justify the referee’s decision by claiming that it was his first PL match. At full-time, she did the same thing. He refereed 15 PL matches last season. I find it quite incredible that SkySports stats person was not in possession of the facts, and that none of the three studio “experts” – Sturridge, Richards and Redknapp corrected the error.
Unless it wasn’t an error.