RefWatch – Stoke City Vs Arsenal (28/04/2012 – 15:00)

Posted on by DogFace



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By DogFace

  • Referee: Chris Foy
  • Assistant 1: John Flynn
  • Assistant 2: Darran Cann
  • 4th Official: Andre Marriner

Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch…

There are some interesting appointments for this weekend’s and midweek fixtures. We, of course, have Chris Foy for this match (more about that in a minute) but the most interesting of the other fixtures, from a Ref Watch and Arsenal perspective, are for the two teams snapping at our heels:

  • Wigan Athletic v Newcastle United
  • Bolton Wanderers v Tottenham Hotspur

Interestingly, both of these two fixtures are refereed by Mike Dean (he is a busy boy)… now – those of you paying attention will be aware that there is a rather interesting correlation between Mike Dean and Harry Redknapp’s Tottenham as in both the flat (official) match statistics and the Untold referee statistics – Tottenham are heavily favoured by Mr. Dean.

Which begs the obvious question – just how did Mike Dean get these two fixtures [that directly affect Tottenham’s run in] that could well decide the 4th place spot?

Hello PGMOL, if you’re listening – I’m not buying this ‘random referee selection’ guff and I am not reassured by your PR statements regarding regulation and performance monitoring of your staff. I do not and cannot trust your organisation nor do I trust Mike Riley to do what is best for our sport. You cannot continue to remain opaque. There are the mainstream rumblings of shifting paradigms that you block your ears too. Pretty soon questions will be asked and you will become a matter of public concern and therefore subject to a tribunal of inquiry… when that happens we will be ‘all ears’ and, word of advice, you had better have your stories straight.

Think Italy 2006… Think PGMOL – think Leveson; there will be plenty of that, no doubt, as everyone concerned scrabbles around for a whistle to blow and a finger to point.

Of course this series of match day appointments also has the Manchester Derby which stands out as possibly the most liquid of football markets on the face of the planet ever and, less significantly (for the starry eyed mugs), the title decider!

How exciting!

The man in control of this £5 billion+ market will be Andre Marriner… and given that the reds only require a point to, in effect, clinch it and there’ll be an awful lot of cash flying around in umpteen global markets – I’m going to plump for a (probably goalless) draw in that one.

FYI – this will be Manchester United’s 4th game this season under Marriner and they show an impressive 2.333 PPG with a healthy average over performance swing of +1.250 goals per game. This is in contrast to the zero games that Manchester City have had under Andre Marriner this season.

Totally random of course… by the way – does anyone know how to spell Calciopoli; my Italian is a little rusty?

But enough of the murky Mancs and their pet PGMOL – lets check out the markets for our game.

Asian Handicap (betting line) market:

Home Handicap Away
2.000 1/2 – 0 1.900

The Under/Over market:

Over Handicap Under
2.050 2 1/2 1.850

Let’s have a look at the Referee:

  • Full name: Christopher J Foy
  • Date of birth: 20-Nov-1962 (Age 50)
  • Place of birth: St. Helens, Lancashire
  • Resides: Merseyside
  • EPL/ECH Referee Since: 2000/2001
  • EPL/ECH Games to date: 251

Chris Foy
Chris Foy – hang on… did you say potato or potartoe?

It’s Chris Foy again… you remember him:

Season Score Match
2010/2011 50.000% Arsenal 2 – 0 Wolverhampton Wanderers
2011/2012 68.000% Queens Park Rangers 1 – 0 Chelsea
2011/2012 87.180% Manchester City 3 – 1 Newcastle United
2011/2012 51.850% Stoke City 2 – 1 Tottenham Hotspur
2011/2012 70.210% Bolton Wanderers 0 – 0 Arsenal
2011/2012 75.000% Sunderland 0 – 0 Tottenham Hotspur
2011/2012 61.900% Norwich City 1 – 6 Manchester City
Average Score: 66.306%

Good gosh – that is a very poor average score from Foy there and, quite worryingly, we see the game between Stoke and Tottenham in which he appeared to rob Spurs blind to give Stoke all 3 points – but does this mean that he loves Stoke or, more understandably, that he just hates the Tottenham? Alas we don’t have Ref Review data for the other game Stoke played under Foy this season where they lost 1-2 to Fulham so it’s hard to say.

Let’s check out his stats!

FPB = Fouls Per Booking (vertical axis) BPM = Bookings Per Match(line width) AHS = Asian Handicap Swing i.e. the deviation from the expected result(vertical axis) PPG = Points Per Game(line width) Therefore a high thin line for FPB/BPM would indicate a lot of fouls and very little bookings – and a low thin line for AHS/PPG would indicate an underperformance against the betting line and very few points taken.

Chris Foy has had 16 games for Stoke City consisting of 4 wins, 6 draws and 6 losses.

Stoke City are currently in 24th in Chris Foy’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an average of 1.13 PPG.

In Chris Foy’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Stoke City come 25th with an average negative swing of -0.56.

Stoke City are currently in 32nd in Chris Foy’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an overall average of 2.06 BPM.

In Chris Foy’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Stoke City come 32nd with an overall average of 5.76 FPB.

Stoke’s performances under Foy are up over the last two seasons and show a slight over-performance. As you can see from the FPB/BPM lines – Chris Foy does appear to punish Stoke quite harshly in the challenge in comparison with their opposition – but given that Stoke are a side that thrive on set pieces, would the number of fouls given against their opposition without a card in 2010/2011 be a bit suspicious give the relative over-performance of Stoke that season?

The colour of the line represents the player type. The position of the line against the vertical axis will indicate the average time of the booking and the thickness of the line indicates the average number of bookings of players in that position. Therefore a high fat orange line would indicate that the referee often books the specified teams defence out of the challenge early, a low thin line or no line would indicate the opposite. The number of minutes bottoms out at 100 to indicate no bookings.

Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Stoke City took all their bookings under Chris Foy.

Stoke City’s booking index looks fairly normal in that they take the majority of their cards in the midfield, on average, around the halfway mark.

The colour of the line represents the player type. The position of the line against the vertical axis will indicate the average time of the booking and the thickness of the line indicates the average number of bookings of players in that position. Therefore a high fat orange line would indicate that the referee often books the specified teams defence out of the challenge early, a low thin line or no line would indicate the opposite. The number of minutes bottoms out at 100 to indicate no bookings.

Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Stoke City’s opposition took all their bookings under Chris Foy.

Stoke City’s opposition booking index under Chris Foy is unusual in that not only are their very few bookings but also look like they are trending much later, on average, in the match.

Let’s move on now and see how Arsenal performs under the whistle of Chris Foy:

FPB = Fouls Per Booking (vertical axis) BPM = Bookings Per Match(line width) AHS = Asian Handicap Swing i.e. the deviation from the expected result(vertical axis) PPG = Points Per Game(line width) Therefore a high thin line for FPB/BPM would indicate a lot of fouls and very little bookings – and a low thin line for AHS/PPG would indicate an underperformance against the betting line and very few points taken.

Chris Foy has had 19 games for Arsenal consisting of 16 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss.

Arsenal are currently in 1st in Chris Foy’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an average of 2.63 PPG.

In Chris Foy’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Arsenal come 10th with an average positive swing of 0.09.

Arsenal are currently in 2nd in Chris Foy’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an overall average of 0.84 BPM.

In Chris Foy’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Arsenal come 6th with an overall average of 11.50 FPB.

First things first RefWatchers – not matter what your feelings of Foy and no matter how many crap calls he’s made that have gone against us you have to take note of the bottom line here – and that is Arsenal has taken 50 points from 19 EPL games under him and that is a pretty good return.

We can also see from the FPB/BPM figures that generally Arsenal gets away with more in the challenge than our opposition although there’s not much in it this season and we are showing something of an under performance from the one and only game that we’ve had Chris Foy this season.

The colour of the line represents the player type. The position of the line against the vertical axis will indicate the average time of the booking and the thickness of the line indicates the average number of bookings of players in that position. Therefore a high fat orange line would indicate that the referee often books the specified teams defence out of the challenge early, a low thin line or no line would indicate the opposite. The number of minutes bottoms out at 100 to indicate no bookings.

Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal took all their bookings under Chris Foy.

The colour of the line represents the player type. The position of the line against the vertical axis will indicate the average time of the booking and the thickness of the line indicates the average number of bookings of players in that position. Therefore a high fat orange line would indicate that the referee often books the specified teams defence out of the challenge early, a low thin line or no line would indicate the opposite. The number of minutes bottoms out at 100 to indicate no bookings.

Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal’s opposition took all their bookings under Chris Foy.

Let’s move on now to check out how Chris Foy performs against selected teams in the EPL:

The ine thickness represents the average Points Per Game and the position of the line against the vertical axis represents the average swing againd the handicap.

As we can see, relatively speaking, Stoke are showing a better performance under Chris Foy than Arsenal for the last three seasons… although Arsenal have done consistently well under Chris Foy with regards to points won over the seasons. Tottenham’s figures are interesting in that they were doing really rather well under Chris Foy until about the time that Harry Redknapp took over – then they plummeted… is Chris Foy the ‘anti-Dean’?

The [slightly dodgy] Predictortron gives Stoke City a 0.405952 of a goal advantage…

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49 Replies to “RefWatch – Stoke City Vs Arsenal (28/04/2012 – 15:00)”

  1. I like the last paragraph … You see, it does ‘even out’, only not quite in the way they would like us to believe?
    Stoke, for all their usual tactics, can actually play a decent game. Under normal circumstances I would be quite happy for us to play a team who have little to play for, but, it is Stoke.
    I just hope RVP hasn’t got transfer discussions whirring around in his head as we head into these last three matches? I think a win here will be enough to reassure the last lingering doubts of would-be signees that CL will happen here. I would not be surprised at all, if we do win, to see a couple of those much talked about signings to be wrapped up by early next week?

  2. Dogface
    “Alas we don’t have Ref Review data for the other game Stoke played under Foy this season where they lost 1-2 to Fulham so it’s hard to say.”

    I’ve looked into a few reports of that game and, whilst there is nothing in the write up, I did find the following quote from Pulis about Mr Foy –

    Stoke manager Tony Pulis: “I’ve had a player who pulled out of a tackle last week and got a three-match ban, Pogrebnyak’s tackle [on Wilson Palacios] was ten times as bad and he didn’t even get booked.

    “If Chris Foy didn’t see it then Kevin Friend certainly did. I’m disappointed with the inconsistency in the Premier League – we need some clarification on tackles.

    “We are going to put a compilation of incidents together over the next few days. We will do it very professionally, in a proper manner, and then we’ll send it off to the FA.”

    Hmmm… I wonder what happened with the Stoke RFCs mixtape?

  4. If a woman, who earned 30% less than her male counterpart who was doing an identical job, were to complain, and her manager told her it “all evens out over the course of a lifetime”, do you think that would end the discussion?

  5. a look at Chris Foy’s numbers and you’ll say he is ok for us but what really worries me is his form this season..his numbers are really worrying… Perhaps his age is catching up on him?

  6. @Loanee report

    West Ham 2 – Hull 1 – West Ham will now play Cardiff City to determine promotion. Lansbury played the 90 for West Ham, and Mannone played the 90 for Hull.

  7. @Loanee report

    Bendtner starts for Sunderland versus Bolton, where Ryo is a substitute.

  10. The BBC is reporting that the number of first half goals today is the most this season (17). The record is 21 in 1992. They also give this tidbit:

    > Van Persie has registered 63 shots on target from inside the penalty area in this season’s Premier League, two more than the entire Stoke squad, according to Opta figures.

    Some twit wrote in mentioning that Gervinho has an unusual haircut. And so far, nobody seems to be ragging on Ramsey, which is nice.

  11. @Loanee report

    At 63:21 Ryo comes on as a substitute for Bolton. About 1 minute later he crosses (BBC:PA wrote centered) a ball for a blocked shot on net.

  13. Seriously dodgy second half. Missing fouls for us, inventing fouls for Stoke.

  15. Not a bad result but we should have converted our first half chances. The yellow card in 3rd minute didn’t allow too much hard tackles to take place in the game. But Foy was disappointing in the second half.

  16. Marcus well it’s well known fact in Filand that men earn more from same job and no-one say it evens out…just that it’s unfair but no-one makes changes for it.

    As for Foy, I can’t wait to see ref review to prove me wrong. Those handballs and penalties…

  17. Benny looked a pen, as did the handball. Soft freekicks against Arsenal at the end, Diarby high kick? and then just falling over at the end.

  18. Stoke’s cretinous fans would make an army of neanderthals look sophisticated. Their attitude towards Aaron Ramsey is a disgrace-well I suppose he did have the temerity to have his leg smashed by their team.
    It is hard to understand why Foy did not award us a second half penalty when Benayoun was clearly pushed in the back going for a ball in the box. Foy appeared to have a clear view of the incident.
    Perhaps he thought Benayoun went down too easily-is this yet another example of Northern English refs predisposed towards favouring the northern home team in key decisions and not sufficiently penalising pushing as foul play- which is endemic in the northern “mans game” interpretation of football? This seems a more likely explanation than conspiracy to me.

  19. @Loanee report

    Preston North End 2 – Charlton 2 – Aneke (substitute at 71 minutes) and Murphy are on loan there. Some trivia from the BBC is that another player at Preston, is Graham Alexander. Apparently he is retiring today (substitute at 84 minutes) after having played more than 1000 games (834 league, 123 cup or playoff, 40 appearances for Scotland). He scored the tying goal 29 seconds into stoppage time.

    The highest Everton can finish is 5th, assuming Liverpool can’t erase 15 goals difference, the highest they can finish is 7th. Come Norwich, beat Liverpool. (Suarez has injured a Norwich player, who probably needs to be substituted.)

    Pulis is saying Benayoun dived.

  20. does anyone know what criteria is used to give Arsenal penalties nowadays?
    1.handball in the box – nah thats okay you can use hands as much as you like when playing Arsenal
    2.hacking their players in the box – thats okay too as they are bunch of softies needing to man up
    3. Shoving and pushing in the box – whats wrong with that? You can use the bear hug and neckbreakers if you want
    Walter can you and your ref reviewers make up a list of penalties that we didnt get when season ends?…

  21. I do not like to say it but Rosicky’s fall in the the box was a dive, i got the feeling we needed someone else in this game to score the 2nd other than RVP, perhaps Gervinho, who needs to step it up a bit in the scoring front, or at least, the shot taking front. Apart from that we totally dominated possession and I have every belief that we will win the next two and finish 3rd

  22. Funny to see the Stoke hardmen diving around for calls. At least two by Crouch and one by Whitehead (who should have been off, in my estimation).

    I was grateful to see Foy booking Whitehead early on for his dirty challenge on Song. After that, Stoke were unquestionably niggly cheaters, but at least it didn’t appear they were trying to injure people, which is a positive change. That, however, is the only praise I have for Foy’s performance today.

  23. @El Gringo
    I wasn’t grateful, thought Whitehead’s lunge on Song should have been red. And to think that the Stoke players gave Foy a ton of dissent just over the yellow!

  24. @Johnny, point taken, and you’re certainly right. It was late, studs up, straight on the ankle, excessive force, no attempt to play the ball. But Foy paused long enough that I thought he wasn’t going to give anything at all. I guess the expectation of no card at all made me relieved to see the yellow. The camera caught Whitehead saying naughty words to the referee…he should have had a red for the tackle, a yellow for dissent, a yellow for another tackle in second half, and a yellow for simulation. And I don’t think I saw him do anything useful for his team, either.

    @Mahdain, I agree it was a handball. Both arms were extended towards the ball. But wasn’t it about six inches outside the area? It still should have been a free kick and a yellow card.

  25. Wenger talking about compiling a video with all the not given penalties for Arsenal this season.
    Please Arsene, drop a copy in the Untold mail box 🙂

  26. @DogFace:

    Yes, interesting that Newcastle result. I don’t suppose anyone saw the match and can tell us how Dean performed. Maybe I’ll watch the replay later.

    Just in general, it’s amazing the run of form Wigan have been on ever since Martinez got that personal apology call from Mike Riley and vouched for him and the refs in the media.

    Also, will be interesting to see how Spurs perform under Mike Jones tomorrow.

  27. So, theoretically speaking, if it all evens out over the course of a season, then it doesn’t matter whether the referees are 90% right or 90% wrong, because the deficiencies will all even out.

    The “it all evens out” logic is simply a charter for crap refereeing.

    Discuss

  28. Chris Foy was an absolute disgrace…it was a clear cut penalty but then Arsenal are not supposed to get’em!

    Gervinho definitely has to step up a bit…I guess we missed Theo…but not a bad a result on the overall!

  29. Hard to watch that Basketball playing thug type of football played by Stoke. How on earth do suppporters actualy pay to watch it week in week out.

    The fans do not seem much better their abuse of AW today along with the abuse of Ramsey last season is just sickening.

    And that baseball cap wearing moron thinks they deserve respect its beyond me I dont why some people deem it fit to think a club like Stoke deserves to be EPL they add no entertainment from what I can see.

    I thought Arsenal played great today they worked hard for that point.

  30. I know this comment would be more suitable for a media watch, but did anyone catch the post match interview by arsene? They really wanted him to comment on the chanting directed towards him, one prick of journalist in particular specifically told arsene what they were chanting after he kept talking around it. Now after they managed to get a comment out of him look at some of the headlines coming out: “Wenger hits back at stoke abuse”, “Wenger wants action over chants”, “Wenger urges action on chants”. Doesn’t seem out of the ordinary for the media to pick out the parts they want and make arsene sound like he made these comments out of anger, but part of me feels like that particular journalist either really wanted a comment out of wenger on this topic or was having a jab at him. For once I’d like to see a headline like, “Arsenal yet to get a penalty at home”. And as for the stoke fans..no, I won’t stoop to their cro-magnon level

  31. I left out my favourite one by The Shun, “Wenger fury at potters fans”, in which he “LASHED out at Stoke fans”

  32. It’s a peculiar form of cowardice when you set two adversaries up, and then sit back and watch the fall-out…

    But that’s the fourth estate for you…

    Interestingly, Arsene mentioned that we are compiling a penalty dossier…which of course winged its way 5 miles over the presses’ collective crania, (is that a word?), and landed innocuously in the basket labelled “integrity”

  34. @marcus it was classic Arsene in the presser today..i particulary liked this about the cavemen twats aka stoke fans
    “They have a relationship with me but i dont have one with them.”

  35. I was travelling today & have only now managed to see the match.
    First of all the away fans were great, I could hear them clearly on the tv. Those Stoke fans who booed Ramsey were beyond comprehension – I blame putrid Pulis for their behaviour – they take their lead from his antics – also the continuing thuggish behaviour of his players is a combination of his managership and the selective vision with which PGMOL referees seem afflicted. If Pulis won’t control his thugs the refs should be applying the rules fairly and fully to their dangerous tackles.

    Additionally, Stoke have benefited throughout this season from favourable referee decisions – otherwise they would be in the relegation mix where they belong.

    There were a number of dangerous looking challenges from Stoke today – no sign of them changing, fortunately without catching any of our players with the full force.

    Today Arsenal looked up for the battle, we were by far the better team and with any fortune would have taken the match. But, on reflection, it was a good performance at a most alien setting.

  36. @Tony – I sent the last comment under btjgooner rather than bjtgooner – sorry.

  37. Anyone just watch MoTD?

    Seems its not just the Stoke fans that are abusing Arsene. The BBC think its now acceptable as well.

  38. I can analyze lots of things to death. You won’t read it (or most of you won’t).

    Being a professional is an attitude. One hopes that that the people who like the title but won’t walk-the-walk are gone by the time one finishes preparations to be a journalist (engineer, doctor, lawyer, …). Some professions are harder to get into than others. It seems being a journalist is too easy, as their are too many boneheads claiming to be journalists.

    To me, fans taunting a player who has had his leg broken at that locale is the same as racism. But I suspect the legislation is not general enough to allow that identity.

    But, what that should contribute to, is if some Stoke player ever does something in the future which is horrific, the claim that “he is not that kind of player” should be tossed in the waste basket.

    The goons of Stoke are just that, goons. There are a few that can play football some of the time. There are some that can’t play football any of the time. But the environment is, do whatever you can during the game.

  39. Ok so the post match interviews are all censored but the link @Marcus put up at 10:40 has the full version unedited, cheers marcus

    Also, any thoughts on the nasty challenge on (what I think was) Song near the end of the match where he was taken down but the ref gave advantage and play continued. I haven’t seen it again but I remember it being pretty bad, maybe even worthy of a card? Can a player escape a booking if the ref blows play on? Then again it happened pretty quickly and maybe I didn’t get a good look, did anyone else see it

  41. This time the mail was busy doing what the media does best: Hide any errors that the ref makes.
    Just after the match ended last night, they published the preview of their report saying that Arsenal were left fuming as Benni was denied a clear penalty ending with more to follow. Well then, when the more did follow they deleted the penalty incident and now discusses it in the middle of the piece adding that it would have been harsh.
    I missed the chance to take a screenshot of the original article 🙁

  44. @Anne @Dogface
    I saw a bit of the Wigan – Newcastle match. Newcastle were uncharacteristically poor in defense and quickly went behind by 3 goals in the first half. But just after that 3rd goal, Wigan’s James McCarthy made a 2-footed lunge on Newcastle’s Cabaye for which he should have been sent off. Dean only cautioned the Wigan player and you could say they were fortunate they didn’t go down to 10 men because even though the game ended 4-0 to Wigan, Newcastle threatened a lot in the 2nd half and were unlucky not to score. I had the feeling if it had been 11 versus 10, then Newcastle would have got on the score sheet at least a couple of times and would have made the game a lot more interesting.

    http://i.imgur.com/gV0vj.jpg

  45. I was disappointed to see Liverpool win yesterday, but what the heck.

    Well, another game is in the books. Chelsea beats QPR 6-1, and Joey picks up another yellow (he’s not that kind of player). Lots of people talking up Torres now. Someone, probably an Arsenal fan of some kind, noted that Torres now has as many goals as Arteta or Vermaelen. I like the result in so far as Bolton is now even on points with QPR, the goal difference is now 5 smaller and Bolton have a game in hand. Bolton helped with Jack Wilshere last year, and Ryo this year. QPR play Stoke and ManCity, while Bolton have Tottenham, West Brom and Stoke.

    I guess at 27 minutes, Sandro ends up vomiting in the Blackburn box. Kind of unusual happening in football. Kicked in the stomach?

  46. Gord – it happens a lot… I remember two ManU players did it in the same game once; I suspect it’s a bad reaction to – um, ‘vitamins’.

  47. @DogFace

    I thought most managers had rules about having vitamins the night before a game?

    I think that someone should have asked field staff of some kind to clean it up at the next reasonable stoppage. I can’t imagine diving for a save, and getting vomit in my eyes.

  48. @Laundreyender & Pat re: Gary Linekar

    Well done for complaining, but don’t expect anything in reply more than..”We’ve looked into the matter and see no ground for upholding your complaint”

    Same as when I complained, a few years back (maybe 6 years), about Mark Bright’s in-game commentry when he advocated less-able teams fouling Arsenal players as being only fair given the difference in quality.

    It’s the BBC – spud-lovers and no shame with it!

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