The Untold ref review: Liverpool – Bolton

14 Replies to “The Untold ref review: Liverpool – Bolton”

1. Will there be a monthly aggregation of the different refs and teams somehow that we can view? These are very interesting and I think will accumulate to a fascinating big picture

2. Woaahhhh!! Hold on a minute. Are you saying that Lee Probert only made 4 incorrect decisions in a game?

   Something is starting to smell here. We’ve now had Phil Dowd and Lee Probert referee games almost faultlessly. Why is that as soon as they are put in charge of an Arsenal game these incorrect decisions hit double figures and then some?

3. Phoenix Gunner,
   yes we will try to make a monthly review of all the numbers and try to analyse the different refs and try to see how they connect or disconnect with some teams.
   Not just a monthly aggregation but on a regular basis during the season. You can count on this.

   I don’t know yet if I can make it after 3 games played as this would be too soon to draw conclusions.

4. @Andy Kelly,
   Yeah… It asks an awful lot of questions. The primary one, for our reviewers, is when do the wrong calls occur in an Arsenal situation. Is it before, during or after the time that the fouled player has the ball? Do Arsenal players release the ball before they are fouled?
   Other than a massive anti-Arsenal bias I’d like to look into human factors that could explain things.

5. Andy Kelly…. yep…it will be curious to see what happens when those refs do an Arsenal game…. very curious…

6. For presentation sake, I think it would be good to put the match scores at the top of the ref review so that we have an idea of the outcome as we read. It would add a good dimension to the reader’s overall understanding along the way.

7. Good remark Bob, I will try to think about it

8. Walter, Why posting the scores in the opening paragraph would help a lot is because (I think) readers are looking for whether/how a call or non-call plus the ref’s overall performance will have influenced or decided the outcome. That’s the driver, so to speak. So knowing the outcome up front will hook us (readers) into the de facto moral drama that each unbiased review is actually performing as it unfolds the match, call by call.

9. Isn’t it interesting how the refs seem to be doing quite well when they’re not reffing Arsenal…

10. I’m not sure, but it may be better to have a non-arsenaland or opposition supporter do the ref reviews for Arsenal matches? I see a clear trend in the reviews, that Ref’s are “generally” doing a decent job, until they ref an Arsenal match…Obviously being a Gooner, to me this stinks of corruption/underhanded tactics against our team, but in order to further give credit to your findings one might try to eliminate all possible points of criticism…

    I am not saying that the reviewers of the Arsenal game are being unduly harsh on the refs in their review of events that occur in our matches, it would just be interesting to have 2 reviews of the same game…one of which being a reviewer who has no bias whatsoever to Arsenal.

    just a thought…maybe that already is happening…if so disregard this post.

11. Walter, All,
    Here’s pushing the envelope a little bit, but I think it’s really worth doing: What about, just for an experiment, letting both Walter and a non-Arsenal guest referee both review any same two Arsenal matches. Then we can compare whether there’s much if any difference overall. This, in turn, can be a way to cast some light back on the relative even-handedness of Walter’s last season ref review. So many fear that Walter’s being an Arsenal fan will have, or readily will be perceived as bringing a pro-Arsenal bias to his analysis. I think it would be a really interesting thing to compare the two different analyses of at least two matches – again, one by Walter, one by a different guest ref in each case – and let’s see what we get. We can only learn from it and my hope, to be up front, will be that there’d be little to no significant difference. And that this, in turn, would shed new light on the viability of previous ref-watches (and last season’s final report) as reference points as we go forward. How’s that sit with you Gooners?

12. I must say that both the refs in our defeats got a relative high score so I think we can keep the bias rather very well under control. 😉
    But I wouldn’t oppose the idea of a second (non Arsenal supporting ref) doing an Arsenal game

13. Re the high score, and relatively few mistakes, the game is available online and the beauty of this system is anyone can come back and say that review is rubbish, you missed X,Y and Z. I also reviewed the Arsenal Liverpool game and i believe that the ref only made 4 mistakes in that game, sadly for us one of them was game changing.

    I was surprised by the lack of passion in Bolton, they only put in two tackles of any weight in the whole game, both by Robinson and both correctly let go by the ref, and they were firm but fair tackles.

    Davis simply never got into the game so was not able to cause the usual mayhem in the opposition back four. I was literally watching the game thinking “come on, something happen”.

    Bolton really were subdued, and accepted defeat early in the game, I am not sure if it was down to Liverpool or not but, I have now done all of their games, and they are playing with a steely professional determination Suarez goes down too easy, and Adam can get caught but, as can JC but, they do not fester on decisions, just get on with the game.

    I think it is early days so difficult so come to any conclusions, let’s see what happens at the business end of the season, but as far as bias is concerned, you review a game with a refs head on, any ref will know what i mean.

14. Walter,
    I have no doubts about “bias control” 🙂
    I’m referring to using the two reviews of Arsenal to show that there is no bias in your last season’s reviews and, especially, to redeem and shed a spotlight on your first-rate end-of-season report from least season which, in part, imo, has not received enough attention because people either accused you or were afraid that others would accuse you of Arsenal-bias in putting that report together. If this doesn’t feel like a priority, so be it. But I think it would shore up your/UA ref review’s method all along the way to do this experiment for a couple of matches of two ref’s – you and two others – review of Arsenal matches. When the same standards are applied, there will likely be zero to minimal difference. The same eyes, yours, were at work, alone, last season. I would like to finally see that work validated by this method and rescued from the unfair cloud of bias (or potential bias) that was then put over it be some commentators hereabouts.