- Maybe the prognostications for the Liverpool game aren’t that daunting
- Are Arsenal really as bad at selling players as the media suggests?
By Tony Attwood
Chris Kavanagh is the referee for Liverpool v Arsenal. He oversaw the community shield game between Liverpool and Palace – quite why he has to oversee a Liverpool match again is hard to explain. This is not by itself to suggest anything was wrong with his refereeing of the Shield game but it just seems silly to risk any accusation of bias by giving the same referee the same team to oversee twice in a matter of a few weeks.
Other referees are available – and if there are not, then surely the most popular league in the world (as I am told it is) ought to be able to afford to bring someone else in.
It has been noticed that Liverpool have not won any of their last three matches that Kavanagh oversaw (the Community Shield this summer, the defeat to Fulham last April and prior to that a draw in Nottingham. Does that mean he’ll think it is time to balance things up? Of course, we don’t know, but it does show why the PL needs more referees..
In my commentary below I shall, as in past seasons, I am using the referee data from the previous campaign in these early games, in order to get meaningful figures, and we’ll do that until we are a bit further into this season.
So for this review, I am simply looking at some of the referees who oversaw 15 or more games in the PL last season. There were in fact 15 such referees, but here I am just lookng at Kavanagh who oversees our game, and four other referees a examples…
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Pen pg | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anthony Taylor | 31 | 21.26 | 0.29 | 2.87 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 25 | 21.40 | 0.12 | 4.44 |
| Simon Hooper | 24 | 19.96 | 0.21 | 4.67 |
| Robert Jones | 22 | 24.82 | 0.27 | 4.23 |
| Stuart Attwell | 19 | 21.26 | 0.11 | 3.89 |
And the simple fact is that the number of fouls perceived per game varies by over 24% according to who the referee is.
However Kavanagh is fairly mid-range. But the number of penalties awarded (and remember this was for the whole of last season in the Premier League) varied between referees by 163%. Meaning that with Taylor overseeing the game there was more than twice as much chance of there being at least one penalty award as with Attwell refereeing!!!
With Arsenal being away, the fact that Kavanagh tends to be at the more reluctant end of handing out penalties could be helpful.
But where Kavanagh does make his mark is in yellow cards. Last season he was right up near the top of the yellow card table per game (the fourth highest in the league among the refs who oversaw seven or more games during the whole season).
In this regard, his appointment to this match is in keeping with the two clubs, in that last season Liverpool were 17th in the yellow card table in legue matches and Arsenal were 18th. Chelsea, you might like to be reminded got 54% more yellow cards than Arsenal in the last campaign. But no additional punishment for excessive rule-breaking.
And while on the figures, we might also note that last season Liverpool had 57.9% possession on average and Arsenal 57.1% across the season. Where Arsenal did outshine Liverpool was on the percentage of passes that were successful, Arsenal were on 87.1% and Liverpool 86.3% – so in reality, once again, hardly anything in it.
However, if you are a regular reader, you will know that for around three years we have been asking for an explanation from PGMOL about their yellow card distribution.
Again, this season is too young to deliver meaningful statistics on this, so here are last season’s figures for yellow cards, courtesy of whoscored.
The table below shows the totals last season for yellow cards given for fouls, unprofessional conduct and “other reasons”. Arsenal were second in the “other reasons” table – Chelsea got 38 yellows for “other reasons”, and this summer as previously we have been doing all we can to find out what these “other reasons” are. No one will tell us.
Here are the worst two offenders, and then the two clubs playing this weekend. The numbers are the number of yellow cards waved for each reason.
| R | Team | Fouls | Unprofessional | Other |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leicester | 72 | 1 | 14 |
| 2 | Bournemouth | 70 | 6 | 24 |
| 13 | Liverpool | 52 | 6 | 11 |
| 17 | Arsenal | 42 | 3 | 28 |
So as we can see, although I am not sure it was ever mentioned in the media, Liverpool committed almost 24% more fouls than Arsenal last season. But I would reiterate my concern about “other” yellows. This is a punishment for clubs which we can’t explain, and no one is offering to explain it to us – and yet these Premier League games are watched by millions with punishments no one is willing to explain!
What is “other”? Abusive language? Refusal to tie up bootlaces properly? Taking too long over a throw-in? Calling the referee a “useless prune”? No one will say so we don’t know. Maybe Liverpool know, since they get far fewer such yellows than Arsenal (39% in fact), but if they do know, they ain’t telling.
