By Tony Attwood
One of the interesting things that has emerged in the last month is a small number of articles on social media focusing on Arteta’s “illegal” tactics and referees’ errors that favour Arsenal. One of them involved Arteta being about a foot outside his technical area. Another is the award of an Arsenal penalty in the game against Everton.
But what one finds, certainly in all the articles of this nature I have seen, is that there is no attempt at balance in terms of either the match as a whole or the season as a whole. It is as if Arteta being one foot outside the technical area, or one wrong penalty decision, are the only mistakes (if that is what they were) that have been made this season, and they have both favoured Arsenal. And from there the implicatiion is that “Arsenal are getting away with it.”
Of course, what we really need is an analysis of all such events through the course of the season to see if other clubs benefit from these more (if Arsenal really did get a benefit) or whether in fact, they are balanced through the League clubs across the season. And indeed, we could also do with an analysis of why referees are seemingly making all these mistakes.
But as far as I know, no one has done any such analysis, or indeed even attempted it, probably because the issue is so trivial in each case, especially at a time when the issue of how many penalties referees award to different clubs and how many of those are of a dubious nature is still unresolved.
But the current blog and media approach raises an individual event up to the level of a game changer, which then in turn, leaves the writer free to make the comment that Arsenal have cheated their way to the top of the league.
But compare this now with the issue of referees overall. If you are a regular reader here, you will know that of late, we have been citing various major issues of concern about the number of times the same referee oversees matches of the same club. If you want to know more the site to visit is www.reffymandering.net
Now there is a prime difference between two approaches that we see. The refffymandering site takes, among other things, the number of times each referee sees a specific team and generates statistics, which anyone can check, and which clearly show that certain referees are seeing the same clubs over and over again. Using these figures, we then put in the point that if that referee had a conscious or subconscious bias in favour or one team or against another, that bias would be amplified four times so far – and at this rate, either times by the end of the season.
That is not proof that something is wrong, but it is a worry. A worry not just because all humans can have subconscious bias, but also because the situation is quite unnecessary.. This is the richest league in the world, and so clearly could afford to train up and employ as many referees as it likes. But it doesn’t. PGMO chooses to use a small number of referees over and over again.
So the issue of referees is clearly an ongoing situation, and one that is examined not just from one point of view (that referees should only see each team a maximum of two times a season) but also with statistics.
But the issue of Arteta straying a few inches outside of his technical area, allegedly to interfere with the actions of an opposition player, is not just unproven (we don’t know his intention) but relates to just one case. Yet that is what is focused on.
Now, if it were shown that Arteta or any other manager spends a lot of time out of his area, and that this is becoming a common tactic used to interfere with the opposition, the rule could be changed, and referees could be told to apply the new rule.
However, while our work on referees takes into account all referees in the Premier League, these articles about Arteta focus on one man in one incident.
I am not quite sure why these publications are so keen to attack Arteta in this way while not examining the behaviour of other managers, but that is how it is, and that of course, reduces the validity of the reporting.
Maybe they just like knocking Arsenal. Maybe they would like to emulate the detailed analysis of referees that is now going on but can’t be bothered to do the hard work. Maybe they don’t like the look of the Premier League table….
| Team | Pld | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Arsenal | 19 | 14 | 3 | 2 | 37 | 12 | 25 | 45 |
| 2 | Manchester City | 18 | 13 | 1 | 4 | 43 | 17 | 26 | 40 |
| 3 | Aston Villa | 19 | 12 | 3 | 4 | 30 | 23 | 7 | 39 |
| 4 | Liverpool | 18 | 10 | 2 | 6 | 30 | 26 | 4 | 32 |
| 5 | Chelsea | 19 | 8 | 6 | 5 | 32 | 21 | 11 | 30 |
