Apologies for the delay with the site being down. Here’s the article that was due for release at around 8am. I really am sorry for the number of times this site has gone down this year, and we are trying to fix this, but please do note if the site is down for more than a few minutes we then publish on the Arsenal History Society site at www.blog.woolwicharsenal.co.uk Meanwhile, when all is working normally that site is running a series in commemoration of the centenary of Herbert Chapman joining Arsenal.
by Sir Hardly Anyone
The Arsenal v Manchester U game is being run by Sam Barrott and while we are normally pretty much on our own chattering away about referees, this time others have joined in, particularly the Manchester Evening News with the headline, “Premier League make controversial Arsenal vs Man United referee decision as selection confirmed”
They even go so far as to say that the official has looked after one game per team so far this season, which is an interesting reassurance that we are not getting a referee especially picked for Arsenal – or ManU.
For this ref took charge the last Arsenal v Leicester game, and ManU’s victory by 2-1 over Brentford.
Now the newspaper then tells us the referee “is currently averaging over six yellow cards per fixture but has only awarded two penalties”, which is not actually much better than telling us nothing because there is, as ever with journalists, no comparison with other clubs.
They then say, that, “It is his support on VAR that has generated most attention, though,” before adding that, “Not only has he been stationed on four games already this term set to become five from 14 Premier League games when things kick off at the Emirates Stadium – but he is also allegedly a Liverpool fan.”
So after a lot of statistics which are meaningless because there is no comparison with anyone else, we have the key point, which is an allegation without any clear evidence.
Apparently, everything goes back to “a claim made by Fox Sports commentator Brenton Speed. ‘He told me about this a couple of months ago, said keep it under your hat because I’m not sure whether I’ll get the appointment,” Speed told the Fox Football Podcast’.”
Seriously, does anyone talk to a journalist and say “keep it under your hat”??????????????????
So that’s it, and in effect what this statement does is suggest that any concern anyone might have about a referee is based on tittle-tattle and hearsay. But as we know, and as ever, the statistics give significant reason for concern.
In short the Manchester Evening News either through deliberate policy or a complete inability to follow a story, is doing PGMO’s propaganda job for them, leaving the reader to think, “if this is the best you can come up with, there can’t be much wrong.”
But let us now try and do a proper review of Sam Barrot and when we do we find that these rather silly ManU fans (silly in that they seem to believe what they read in the papers) actually have nothing to worry about. It is us Arsenal fans who should approach the game with trepidation.
On fouls per game, Mr B is shown as giving out 21.63. Robert Jones is on 27.00 and and Peter Bankes on 18.71. That means there can be a difference of up to 44% in the number of fouls awarded in a game depending on who the referee is. This one is in the upper reaches but not extreme, but in reality there should be much smaller differences between referees across a number of games.
Of the regular referees, he is the most likely to wave a card, doing this 6.13 times a game. We might compare this with Anthony Taylor on 4.08 yellows a game. 2.88 of Barrot’s cards are for the home team and 3.25 for the away team. So ManU might get one more than Arsenal.
So yes, the away team comes out of his matches with the chance of an extra card – but that is explicable, since more matches are won by home teams than away team when there is a crowd present, that means the away team is defending more. (And I say “when there is a crowd present” because during the pandemic the figures were changed quite radically – they shouldn’t have been, but the crowds have a major impact on referees, although PGMO refuse even to discuss let alone do something about this.)
So not just in this match but in every match, the crowd will have a part to play.
But despite that general rule Chris Kavanagh is not a supporter of home teams, being one of those referees who, presumably because he is aware of the overall bias by PGMO officials in favour of the home team, bends over backwards to help the away team. In fact, only one of his nine games this season has resulted in a home win!!!! (How on earth could the Manchester newspaper have missed that – or are they just making all this up???)
So yes, one of his games has been a home win, three of the games have been away wins but amazingly five have been draws
These figures show that either the protesting Manchester United fans don’t look at the facts before protesting, or the journalists are making stories up without looking at the facts. It’s quite hard to work out which really.
