- Southampton v Arsenal: recent past games suggest there might be a problem
- Southampton v Arsenal: Saints are not the worst ever Premier League Team
By Tony Attwood
According to the official Arsenal site, “Experienced official Darren Bond has been handed this game, and it will be just the second time he has refereed us, with the other occasion coming back in September 2023 when we beat Brentford in the League Cup third round. In contrast, Bond has refereed the Saints four times this season alone, which saw them beat Everton on penalties in the same competition but lose to Aston Villa and Brighton in league action.”
Of course, in one sense, every referee in the PL is experienced, each having worked his way up from youth leagues and the lower divisions to reach the top. But to emphasise the experience of this referee seems deliberately misleading, as this season he has overseen under half the games of the most-used referee in the league. In fact, no fewer than 14 referees have overseen more games this season than our referee for the final match of the season!
But of course, our prime concern with referees is not the number of games, but rather how each referee handles fouls and yellow cards. Looking at this season, we can see that for yellow cards, our referee for the final game is on 4.23 cards a game. This is near the top end of the scale, compared with 2.83 cards a game at the other end of the scale.
Thus, yet again, we have evidence that which referee a club gets regularly will help determine the outcome of the league, given the variance in fouls seen and yellow cards handed out from one ref to another. And yet again, this boosts the view we have put forward so often that there is no reason why PGMO does not have enough referees so that each referee only sees each club in the league twice at most, once at home and once away.
That, at least, would overcome some of the impact of the huge variations in the ways that referees interpret the laws of the game. Here we can see the variations so far this season…
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | YelLOWS pg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Taylor | 30 | 21.27 | 2.83 |
| Michael Oliver | 26 | 23.15 | 4.35 |
| Simon Hooper | 24 | 19.96 | 4.67 |
| Robert Jones | 21 | 25.00 | 4.24 |
| Stuart Attwell | 19 | 21.26 | 3.89 |
| John Brooks | 16 | 22.63 | 5.38 |
| Michael Salisbury | 13 | 21.92 | 2.85 |
| Darren Bond | 13 | 22.85 | 4.23 |
| Variance | 25% | 90% |
The variance row at the end shows in percentage terms how many more fouls and cards the harshest referees sees in comparison with the most lenient referee. In short, Brooks hands out nearly twice as many yellow cards as Salisbury. Now, given that there is no restriction on the number of times a referee sees a club, clubs getting Brooks rarely will, over the season, gain an advantage over clubs who see him a lot, because he is the arch yellow card giver.
So moving on, the question is, where are Southampton and Arsenal in the yellow card and fouling table?
| Team | Fouls / game | Yellows / game |
|---|---|---|
| Southampton | 17.1 | 2.41 |
| Arsenal | 10.6 | 1.72 |
| Variation | 62% | 40% |
So there we are, Southampton commit 62% more fouls than Arsenal and get 40% more yellow cards than Arsenal. It is not a complete balance, but not too far away from it when compared with the benefits some clubs get. More tackles should generally mean more fouls because so many fouls are put in as a last chance to stop a player running forward towards goal, and Southampton get punished suitably for their work.
And thus, as we often see with a team near the bottom or at the bottom of the league, they tackle a lot more and foul a lot more than those above them.
So now we can also look at how this referee for our final game, compares with others in terms of results. If referees all saw the game in the same way and were evenly allocated games among the more and less successful teams, we would expect them to have a results profile that was similar to that of all the other referees in the league. But this is far from the case as we can see from these examples.
| Referee | Games | HomeWin% | AwayWin% | Draw% |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Taylor | 30 | 26.7 | 50.0 | 23.3 |
| Michael Oliver | 26 | 30.8 | 38.5 | 30.8 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 25 | 32.0 | 24.0 | 44.0 |
| Simon Hooper | 24 | 50.0 | 25.0 | 25.0 |
| Peter Bankes | 23 | 56.5 | 34.8 | 8.7 |
| Darren Bond | 13 | 61.5 | 7.7 | 30.8 |
The fact is that with games like this, the referees can use them to try to reduce any obvious bias that their previous games have revealed. So if that applies, then this referee might use this game to edge his away wins total up to a slightly more reasonable level.
In terms of experienced referees, he is mid-table in view of the number of free kicks he hands out for fouls. But he has been, throughout, a home referee. This is his chance to reduce that ludicrous figure of just 7.7% away wins this season under his watch. As ever, we shall see, and even if no one else wants to talk about the problem with refe
