- Arsenal go through, Chelsea owner caught making money and 7 weird transfers
- What’s wrong with football? Compiling (and hiding) the complaints
By Nitram
Following on from my article ‘Penalties for and against. Are Arsenal being hard done by?’ I thought I’d look back a little further to see just how long this extreme bias against us has been going on. What I was hoping to find was a clear and obvious moment when things suddenly changed for us, and boy did I find one. And I found it in the shape of the disgraceful Mike Riley.
Now before I start, I have to say I always felt that the moment things changed for us was the year Mike Riley took over as the head of the PGMOL back in June 2009 and I was right. In fact, the day Mike Riley took charge of the PGMOL was like somebody had flicked an Anti-Arsenal switch.
So, let’s look at some numbers.
The first table below shows the six years of penalty statistics that take us back from the last year I did in the previous article, which was season 2015/16. As such the following table covers six seasons running from season 2009/10 through to season 2014/15. 2009/10 is chosen as it was the first with Riley in charge of the PGMOL.
| Club | Penalties for | Penalties against | Percentage Difference |
| Arsenal | 29 | 35 | -17% |
| Liverpool | 40 | 27 | +48% |
| Manchester City | 43 | 21 | +104% |
| Chelsea | 48 | 19 | +152% |
| Manchester Utd | 41 | 23 | +78% |
Again, a damming set of numbers. In fact ours were even worse back then, than they are now, as if that could be possible.
This is what those numbers look like added to the 10 years survey I did in the previous article. In other words season 2009/10 through to this current season 2024/25. The 15, almost 16 seasons since Riley took charge:
| Club | Penalties for | Penalties against | Percentage Difference |
| Arsenal | 80 | 86 | -7% |
| Liverpool | 101 | 57 | +77% |
| Manchester City | 123 | 54 | +128% |
| Chelsea | 110 | 62 | +107% |
| Manchester Utd | 106 | 62 | +71% |
I think you’ll agree those numbers are shocking enough on their own, but when you compare them to the five seasons prior to Riley’s appointment they become quite unbelievable. Here are the numbers for those five seasons, 2004/05 to 2008/09, prior to Riley taking charge of the PGMOL:
| Club | Penalties for | Penalties against | Percentage Difference |
| Arsenal | 32 | 14 | +128% |
| Liverpool | 25 | 13 | +92% |
| Manchester City | 20 | 14 | +43% |
| Chelsea | 21 | 12 | +75% |
| Manchester Utd | 22 | 12 | +83% |
Beyond doubt, those are some of the most damming statistics I have ever seen. Of course, performing better in the league improves your penalty statistics to some degree, but to that extent? No way.
In any case in the five seasons prior to Mike Riley’s appointment when we had that +128% number we finished 2nd, 4th, 4th, 3rd, and 4th. In the first six years after his appointment, we finished 3rd, 4th, 3rd, 4th, 4th, and 3rd and yet we went from a PLUS 128% figure to a MINUS 17% figure.
In other words, team performance had absolutely nothing to do with it. And neither did playing style, personnel or manager as the manager remained the same and the players only changed gradually. These numbers changed overnight.
Quite honestly I’m lost for words. As I said at the top, I always had a feeling it all changed with Riley, as I have been all over these numbers for years, and that was always what they appeared to be telling me.
My feeling has always been that Riley was given the job on the back of his disgraceful performance in the infamous Match 49 at Old Trafford. That was his audition and he passed it with flying colours.
He hasn’t let them down, and to his disgrace, Webb has followed his lead admirably.
Footnote:
I see Mikey is looking at the cards and is going to look at the yellow card stats and if he does, I believe he will find that they changed under Riley in a very similar way.
By way of putting some meat on the bones so to speak, I thought I’d do some comparisons to see if that drastic change from pre Riley to post Riley had anything to do with us as a team. Where we that less attacking for example? Where we that worse at defending?
As I pointed out in the article, the 5 years pre, and 6 years post Mike Riley were very similar as far as league finishes were concerned, meaning they are ideal samples to look a little deeper at.
The most obvious parameters to look at to see how we ‘played’ were goals for and goals against. In other words did we suddenly fall off a cliff as an attacking side, and start throwing the ball in our own net defensively?
5 YEARS PRIOR TO RILEY.
We scored 360 at and average of 72 per season
We conceded 170 at an average of 34 per season.
6 YEARS AFTER RILEY.
We scored 440 at an average of 73 per season
We conceded 247 at an average of 41 per season.
So, as an attacking team we were almost identical, whilst penalties awarded to us dropped by a whopping 25% from 6.4 per season to 4.8 per season.
Defensively we were worse, 17% worse to be exact. But does that justify how penalties conceded rose by an incredible100% from 2.8 per season to 5.8 per season.
I don’t think so.
Those goals for and against numbers fully support the notion presented in my article, that by and large the, manager, the team, and the players performed in a pretty consistent manner across all 11 years, pre and post Riley. The team, the manager and the style of play had nothing at all to do with the enormous change in those penalty statistics, and everything to do with the appointment of mike Riley at the head of the PGMOL
Nitram, thank you for this research, to confirm what many of us have believed to be the case.
It is worth reminding ourselves also that the disgraceful Riley performance at the OT match referred to did, amongst all the numerous other outrageous decisions, include a penalty award for a blatant dive by Rooney, for which any honest referee would have given a yellow card for simulation.
The media generally have never acknowledged the outrageous Riley performance, choosing instead to focus on Arsenal “whinging” and being bad losers.
I seem to recall an article highlighting a similar change of fortune in the way Mike Dean reffed us pre to post Riley’s appointment.
I seem to recall a fairly normal performance results wise by Dean pre Riley to us getting just one win in twenty odd games when Dean officiated post Riley.
Coincidence?
I don’t think so, Dean was clearly acting under instruction.
Mick, indeed, there have been occasions when Dean appeared to be quite a competent referee, in contrast to his notorious officiating of Arsenal games, which include the customary penalty for MU at OT, when their player threw himself at Almunia and the sending off of Alex Song (and Eboue?) at Spurs, together with his infamous dancing for delight when Spurs scored against us and his total disregard for Wilshere having his ankle broken by a MU player, McNair, and Tomiyasu having his face stamped on by an Everton player.
It has seemed that PGMOL referees have had to compete with each other to demonstrate their ability to screw Arsenal.
Great work…..again, Nitram.