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By Tony Attwood
The Premier League have announced that Paul Tierney will be the main official when these two teams meet on Saturday at the Emirates Stadium as football finally gets going again after what seems a ludicrously long and utterly unnecessary break.
Leeds United will not be pleased with this refereeing appointment, seeing how Tierney has been in the middle of some pretty controversial moments in recent months.
He was the VARreferee that failed to review a penalty against Sunderland when Luke O’Nien fouled Pascal Struijk in the box in their 1-0 loss at Elland Road in March.
The Premier League Key Match Incidents panel ruled that the penalty should have been given and that VAR should have intervened. Tierney faced no sanctions after that error however, not because he was not wrong, but because that’s not how the show works.
There are one or two issues of interest for Leeds United however, as the last time Paul Tierney was in charge of a game for them, they beat Manchester United at Old Trafford. But it is hard to base statistics on just one issue.
Indeed the number of games each referee has seen this season remains small so we are taking data on referees from last season.
Tierney is not at the extreme end either for the giving out of fouls per game, or penalties per game, although he tended to see very very few penalties last season. Hee we look at two simple measures – the number of fouls each referee blows for, per game, and the number of penalties given per game during the whole of last season.
2025/26
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Pen pg |
|---|---|---|---|
| Michael Oliver | 29 | 22.93 | 0.07 |
| Samuel Barrott | 24 | 19.38 | 0.29 |
| Simon Hooper | 15 | 23.33 | 0.07 |
| Michael Salisbury | 13 | 22.38 | 0.54 |
| Paul Tierney | 12 | 20.17 | 0.08 |
| Variation | 20% | 771% |
A 20% variation in the number of fouls seen per game suggests that referees do have very different measures in this regard, but then a variation in the number of penalties awarded is so huge, the whole situation looks utterly ludicrous.
As for the results, I will just give you three referees from list season – Mr Tierney who we have got for this match, plus two other high profile referees – Bankes and Madley.
| Games | HomeWin% | AwayWin% | Draw% | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1.Peter Bankes | 22 | 68.2% | 18.2% | 13.6% |
| 10.Paul Tierney | 12 | 41.7% | 16.7% | 41.7% |
| 17.Andy Madley | 21 | 33.3% | 47.6% | 19.0% |
So the home win chance can range from 33.3% if the referee is Madley to 68.2% if the referee is Bankes. (In other words one third chance of it being a home win under one ref to two thirds change under another ref. That is quite bonkers.)
Away wins range from 16.7% to to an amazing 47.46% while draws shift between 13.6% and 41.7% depending on the referee. In short the result depends on the referee.
With this referee and Arsenal at home we have a fair chance of winning but really it should not be like this. I am not saying the referees should be identical in their performance, but if they are given a spread of matches of teams through the season, their pattern of results should not be so incredibly varied.
Now given that the Premier League and the referees of PGMO have utterly refused to tackle this issue over the past few years there is no reason to think that they will take it on this year. They must know, as we all do, that the internet is awash with accusations of referee bias in favour of some clubs and against others. That may well be true – but I tend not to repeat those accusations, because if you want to read them there are multiple sites already broadcasting that news.
Instead I try to offer something different – something based on facts – and the facts show that different refs have a tendency to favour different types of results.
Results in past years have been very much in Arsenal’s favour with Arsenal winning 14 of the last 17 league games played against Leeds at home which is a fairly promising statistic to start with, whatever the referee tries to do to manipulate the score. Of course it hasn’t been like this through the whole history of the clubs playing each other, but of late it has been Arsenal’s game.
Indeed in the last 20 games the results look even more exciting, showing 50 goals to Arsenal and 17 to Leeds, one yellow card for Arsenal and five for Leeds. Their league position suggests that have been picking themselves up of late, but hopefully not enough to affect this run.
But nevertheless, it all depends on the referee.
