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By Tony Attwood
Darren England is the referee
This will be Darren England’s third Premier League match of the season. So far he has had one home win and one draw and no away wins. And that is interesting because this is in contrast to last season, in which he oversaw 20 Premier League games, of which 35% were home wins, 45% away wins, and 20% were draws.
Every team of course, plays 19 home league games in a season, making up the league season of 380 games, of which 155 (just under 41%) last season were home wins. That might seem a low number but we have to note that Ipswich Town and Southampton only won one home game each in the whole league campaign.
Of course, we don’t expect every referee each oversaw 41% of their games as home wins, because of the fact that PGMO refuse to budge an inch toward the most logical and obvious rule that each referee should only oversee each team a maximum of twice in a season. Such a rule would of course immediately reduce the chance of bias by referees in favour or againsst certain clubs, which we currently have due to the fact that referees can oversee matches of individual teams four, five or even six times in a season.
But if we compare the results of Darren England’s matches with those of the league as a whole, instead of 41% of his games being home wins we find that 45% of his matches were away wins. This compares with 36% for the league as a whole. In short, he is significantly above average for awarding away wins and way below average for overseeing home wins.
Now it might be argued that being 11% above average is not that much, but it is enough to tell teams exactly how to prepare for this game, and for teams then to adjust their play according to the referee, and this is ABSOLUTELY NOT what should be going on. Adjust the team according to the opposition, of course, that is only sensible. But to adjust your play according to the referee is ludicrous. But this is what happens game after game.
Altogether, Darren England’s figures last season were 35% home wins, 45% away wins and 20% draws, and here we are with Arsenal now facing a referee who prefers the away teams. And this comes just when Arsenal are hoping for a home win in order to secure their place near the top of the league. (Data from WhoScored).
Now these figures are slightly balanced by the fact that he has seen Arsenal four times at home, and Arsenal have won three of those games. It is a different story when the games are played in the Forest (as it were), but for now, we don’t have to worry about that. What we can see is that overall, he does like away teams to win, but with Arsenal, he overcomes this tendency, which is good news.
Of course, as we noted last season and the season before and…. we should not need such discussions since referees in the PL should be recording results not far from the average, since they see a variety of teams through the season, but this is not so. Last season, there were 155 home wins out of 380 games or just under 41% home wins. Here we have a referee who only sees 35% home wins – that is quite a drop.
Last season there were 132 away wins: that is 35% of games. In short, we can see that this referee reverses the national average. Instead of seeing 35% away wins as the average referee does, he sees 35% home wins – obviously to Arsenal’s disadvantage tomorrow.
Now of course, there will be some variation across the season between referees, but really, we should expect most referees to be near the average for the league, or else be taken off for re-training. But no, such referees tend to be rewarded by ever more matches, and Arsenal, playing at home in front of this referee, are going to be taking on not only Nottingh Forest but also the away-biased referee.
We might also note in passing that none of this is reflected in the media, who pathetically refuse to debate any issue relating to referees, no matter how many times they see each club and their bias in favour of certain teams. But it has been like this for years, and the fact remains that football matches can, to some degree, be predicted by knowing which referee is in charge.
Arsenal, however, are a strong team this season, and have a massive array of research at their disposal, so hopefully the nuances (the kind word for bias) of each referee can be accounted for in training. Also, there is always the possibility that PGMO might note some of these excesses in terms of home or away prejudice and have a word with their employees. I wouldn’t bank on it, but there is a chance.
I am of course not saying that every referee should have figures that fit the league average of 35% away wins, 45% away wins and 20% draws – much depends on which teams they get, but some of these excessively odd runs of results, such as 35% home wins 45% away wins (the reverse of the average, obviously) really should be investigated. Either this referee is behaving oddly, or a lot of other referees are.
