Newcastle v Arsenal: who wins the game depends on the referee

 

 

By Tony Attwood

• Newcastle v Arsenal: team predictions, insulting comments, yellow cards and all that stuff
• Newcastle v Arsenal: the injuries, who returns; top and bottom of the league

All the data in this article comes from Who Scored

There is a huge variation between referees over the number of fouls each “sees” in a game, the percentage of tackles that they see which they give as fouls, and the number of yellow cards they give out per game. 

In the table below, which relates only to games this season, you can see, the variations.  Today’s referee, Stuart Attwell, is included in red – and the argument we have regularly put forward is that although there might be some variation between one referee and another, it should never be as big as these variations.

Further, the problem is obvious when one sees the figures, and it is notable that the figures are simply not regularly published in the mainstream media, probably on the old journalistic grounds that “readers don’t like numbers”.

 

Referee	Games	Fouls pg	Fouls/Tackles	Yel pg
1.Anthony Taylor	8	22.00	0.57	4.88
2.Michael Oliver	8	21.88	0.63	5.38
3.Chris Kavanagh	7	22.43	0.64	6.71
10.Tim Robinson	4	27.00	0.73	5.75
13.Stuart Attwell	4	20.75	0.57	4.50
14.Peter Bankes	4	19.25	0.51	4.50
Variation		40%	43%	49%

 

The variation in terms of the number of fouls seen between Bankes and Robinson is 40%.  To be clear Robinson sees 40% more fouls in an average game than Bankes!!!

One might simply ask, how can this possibly be?  And then again, how come no one else is writing about this?  How come it is not in every single match report?

The variation in fouls per tackle is even higher – it is 43%..  And the variation in the number of yellow cards handed out per game is even bigger at 49%.  Kavanagh is handing out 6.71 cards a game and Bankes 4.50.  So quite obviously what the sensible managers are doing is seeing who the referee is, and then adjusting tactics to accommodate the referee.  And that is not how it should go.

Another massive variation is to be found with whether referees oversee home wins, draws or away wins.   Clearly this ought to be roughly the same for the referees who are working each week.

Results for referees who have overseen four games or more ranges from 0% to 100% for home wins.  For away wins it ranges from 0% to 62.5% and for draws from 0% to 57.1%.

Now, of course, you could argue that we have only had a small number of games this season so the figures might be skewed and it is true that the variation does reduce somewhat during the season, but from past evidence, there are still clearly home and away referees, and sensible managers will study the form and adjust their players’ approach accordingly.  Again this is not how this should be.

For our referee today his favoured result is an away win.  We have included his results for last season at the end and again we can see that he does indeed favour the away team, which is good news for Arsenal.

 

Referee	Games	HomeWin%	AwayWin%	Draw%
Michael Oliver	8	12.5	50.0	37.5
Anthony Taylor	8	25.0	62.5	12.5
Chris Kavanagh	7	0.0	42.9	57.1
Robert Jones	6	50.0	16.7	33.3
Samuel Barrott	6	50.0	33.3	16.7
Craig Pawson	5	60.0	20.0	20.0
Simon Hooper	5	20.0	40.0	40.0
Tony Harrington	5	60.0	20.0	20.0
David Coote	5	40.0	20.0	40.0
.Stuart Attwell	4	25.0	50.0	25.0
.Tim Robinson	4	50.0	25.0	25.0
.Peter Bankes	4	75.0	25.0	0.0
.Darren Bond	4	100.0	0.0	0.0
.Jarred Gillett	4	25.0	25.0	50.0
Stuart Attwell LAST SEASON	17	52.9	41.2	5.9

 

If this range of results by referee does not worry you, then fine, you’ll have few concerns about referees.  If however you think it should not be like this, the only question left is, given the media won’t touch the subject, what on earth can the rest of us do?