Mansfield v Arsenal: the referee and the issue of cards

The referee for the Mansfield Town vs Arsenal is Thomas Bramall. He will be assisted by Constantine Hatzidakis, Alistair Nelson, and Josh Smith.

In the summer of 2021 Bramall was promoted to the referees’ group overseeing Championship games, and he also took charge of the 2022 FA Trophy final.

He then oversaw a Premier League game for the first time in August 2022.   We can see his record in terms of games, fouls and cards this season in the chart below…

The number of fouls per game varies from ref to ref by just under 20% per game, and this referee is in the mid-to-upper range, which could help Arsenal a little if the opposition for this FA Cup match turns out to be one that sees kicking of opposing players as a viable defence mechanism and a way of getting the ball back.

In terms of the number of tackles he sees as fouls, he is not in the range of Madley who sees around three-quarters of all tackles as a foul, but he is certainly above Samuel Barrott, so this should offer Arsenal players some protection, if the opposition feel they might be ableto kick their opponents rather than the ball.

But the number of tackles he sees as fouls is high, so Arsenal would be well-advised to intercept and pass accurately rather than put in tackles.

As we see each week when we analyse referee behaviour, the granting of penalties is a complete lottery, with some referees handing out seven times as many penalties as others.   And what makes this so extraordinary is that PGMO has done absolutely nothing about this.   So some clubs could be getting multiple extra penalties by having certain referees over and over again. 

And yet no one else who writes about football is mentioning this disparity.   But the issue is simple – whether you get a penalty kick given or not is as much dependent on the ref as it is on the action of defenders.  Brammall is certainly at the upper end of the penalty giving chart, which could help Arsenal if this proves to be the opposition’s last resort as Arsenal attack.

We must also note he is right at the top of the yellow card waving list, which again could give Arsenal some protection if the oppositioin feel that the only way to cope with Arsenal’s speed and touch is to foul the players en route.  Indeed, if this were our prime worry, this is a good referee to have, and we can be thankful that we do not have Michael Oliver waving the cards.  For with him, if the opposition were to be inclined to kick our players about, we would have virtually no protection.

Ideally, such issues should not be part of our pre-match discussion since all referees ought to be able to follow the same rules and referee in the same way, but sadly, English league football has never been anywhere near that level, so we have to take what we get, which is variation and randomness.

This referee has overseen three League Cup and one FA Cup game this season in which he has given out  17 yellow and two red cards and that does give us hope of a fair football match.   In fact, in the first of these four games (Everton v Masfield) he either didn’t show any cards at all or the data has gone “missing”, but he then amassed eight yellow and one red in the League Cup game between Wolverhampton and Chelsea.  Across his last four games, he has waved 21 yellow cards.

Now, as you may know, Arsenal are at the foot of the yellow card table in the Premier League with just 40 cards.   We might compare this with 72 each for Tottenham Ho and Brighton and HA.   Indeed, this high number for Brighton was undoubtedly part of the reason for the outrage expressed by the Brighton manager after their defeat to Arsenal, as he seems to have been quite desperate of late to hide the reality that his team – like Tottenham – are heading for DOUBLE the number of yellow cards that Arsenal pick up.   

Incidentally, Chelsea are once more heading for the trophy for the most cards this season both in the yellow and red categories.  It was indeed, ever thus.   (Card data comes from ESPN)

More anon.