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If you think you know your Arsenal, it is time to think again
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By DogFace and Walter Broeckx
Untold Arsenal has a team of qualified referees who have reviewed more than 40% of the EPL games from last season. The reviews themselves were based on full match video footage with the advantage of video technology features such as slow motion and pause.
By reviewing those 155 games we have made a database of more than 7000 decisions that have been judged by our panel of dedicated and qualified referees.
The numbers you will see are based on those decisions and those reviewed games.
I think we can easily say that the season in the PL for Chelsea was a disaster. Who would have thought that they would end up only in 6th place at the start of the season? Having spend 50M on Torres, 30M on Mata, 20M on Lu(Who?)kaku… That is 100M spend and nothing in return in the league. What was the part the refs played in this miserable league campaign for the rich team from London? Let us find out.
And look at those numbers! We have done 32 games from Chelsea last season. That is a total of 84,21% of their games in the PL. I think this is really an awesome number of games we did and no matter what the outcome will be, it will be based on very reliable numbers.
Now some might say: and what about the 6 missing games? Yep, it is a bit of a shame that we couldn’t review them. This is down to the fact that the TV stations in the countries where the referee reviewers live didn’t always gave the Chelsea games and of course because we could have done with a helping hand from qualified referees. So if you think we should have done the other 6 games also and you are a qualified referee I just want to ask you to make yourself known and join our ranks. This is an Arsenal site but we would love to have referees on board who support other teams.
So after this round of advertising ourselves a bit let us see if the refs were competent in the Chelsea games?
Well it all depends on how you look at these numbers. If you are satisfied with the overall league average and you think the refs have done great with that… The number of Chelsea is not that bad. If you however think that refs making 1 mistake in every 4 calls is not good (that is what I think) then the fact that Chelsea comes close to the league average is saying: the refs were mediocre in the Chelsea games.
And if we put weight on the decisions we see the same picture. Just slightly above the league average. This reminds me of an idiom that exists in my language that goes: in the land of the blind, one eye is king. This is how I feel about that score.
Not good enough but well we somehow have learned to live with mediocrity.
Let us have a look at the different type of decisions.
In this graphic we don’t know who got the benefit of the wrong decisions. We only look at the decisions in the Chelsea games and if they were correct or not.
Can any football supporter be satisfied knowing that 1 goal decision in 10 is wrong? I’m not. It doesn’t matter if it is only just below the league average. The league average on goal decisions stinks. This is the decision type that determines who gets the points, so it has to be as correct as possible.
Let us move on to the offside decisions. People who have been around know that Mike Riley claimed that 99% of the offside decisions are correct. In Chelsea games we only came to 87%. That is 12 % below what is promised. So rubbish result for the refs and the assistants.
Let us move on to the other results. The fouls in the middle of the field. Slightly better than the league average that is 71.96%. But before you order the champagne and start a wild party: this still means that 1 decision in 4 is wrong. I’m not that impressed by that number you know.
Let us move to the penalty decisions. And this decision type is a good one compared to the league average. In fact this is the highest result of the top teams in the league. There are 3 other teams who had a better score on this but that was only based on 10 games or less. So all in all this sounds a good result. 73% correct penalty decisions and almost 11% better than the league average.
The joy for that decision type goes out of the window when we look at the red card decisions. Only 17% correct and that is one of the lowest in the league. So really not good at all.
The yellow card decisions are at 57% just above the league average. Which is not that great to be honest but well in the land of the blind…
But let us now open our eyes and see if we can find if someone benefited from the wrong decisions from the refs? So from now on we will be looking at the possible bias we can find in the wrong decisions.
Despite Mike Riley claiming there is no bias whatsoever in the PL we have found that there is a home and away bias.
And when you go away from home you can expect a negative bias from -1.826 against you. Chelsea on their travels (and our report includes almost all their away games) had only a negative bias of -1.000. so they had a negative bias but smaller than the league average.
On the other hand if you play at home you can expect a positive bias of +1.826. In this case we found that Chelsea had a positive bias of +1.933. So slightly higher than the league average.
And the final result is that this has lead to a small overall bias in favour of Chelsea. In fact this is smallest positive bias of all the biases we have found, when we found a positive bias.
If we put weight on the decisions we can expect a negative away bias of -2.619 on average. For Chelsea we found a negative away bias of -1.588. So not as much as the league average but a negative bias never the less.
In the home games one can expect a positive home bias of + 2.619 and the final number for Chelsea is only +2.419. So when we put weight on the decisions we get a smaller negative away bias but also a smaller positive home bias.
The final outcome is a small total positive bias in favour of Chelsea on those 32 games. But this is the smallest positive bias we found of all teams with a positive bias. Let us now look at the different referees in the games.
We had 14 referees in those 32 games. 7 referees had a negative bias against Chelsea. 1 ref had a zero bias. Well done Martin Atkinson. And 6 referees had a positive bias in favour of Chelsea.
Chris Foy was the worst ref against Chelsea last season. His negative bias was grotesque in fact. Dowd, Oliver, Webb had a bad negative bias score against Chelsea. Probert and Dean were just acceptable. Mark Clattenburg was close to the zero mark so well done.
Refs with a positive bias were Friend with a not that big one. But then it goes sky high. The score of Jones, Halsey, Walton and Mason were highly favourable for Chelsea.
Let us see what happens if we put weight on the decisions.
Of course we have the same 14 refs and again 7 refs with a negative bias. 6 refs with a positive bias score. And one ref with a zero bias score: Mark Clattenburg is that ref. A great result I would say and this is where we would like to find all the refs.
But we have other refs in this report. Why don’t you just take a look at the score from Chris Foy. That surely must be one of the biggest negative scores I have seen from any ref. This is too ridiculous for words in fact. Phil Dowd and Oliver also have a very bad negative score against Chelsea. And now that we have put weight on the decisions we also notice Webb joining in the very negative numbers. As does Probert and Atkinson who made a mess of his zero score when we put weight on the decisions. Mike Dean was rather all right.
On the positive side of this graphic we find Friend with a moderate positive bias, also well done I would say. Halsey and Jones are a bit too positive to be good. The score from Walton, Marriner and Mason is beyond what can be considered acceptable.
In this graphic we see two overly negative bias numbers for Chelsea and both lead to Chelsea dropping points in those games (week 1 and week 9). This is a fine example on how difficult it is for any top team to win against the negative bias from the ref.
When the bias turned to acceptable levels Chelsea picked up the points. But when the bias turned against them, they dropped points again. But they also dropped points when they had an overly positive bias. So it doesn’t always work. A team can beat the ref but it can also happen that despite the ref his co-operation, it still goes wrong at times.
Half way through the season it was clear that this Chelsea team was not in for the league title. And the bias in the games became more to a reasonable level. Decisions going for and against in a very random order. But still a few very high negative bias scores with rather too many important decisions going against Chelsea.
In one game they got very lucky and got two important big calls that won them the game. And after that the bias suddenly dropped to very low levels. One could wonder if something has been said somewhere.
FINAL CONCLUSION
In these numbers you can clearly see how important it is to have a ref that makes the correct decisions. When the ref was making a mess and the decisions were negative for Chelsea they dropped points. And on the other hand when things went for them, they picked up the points.
You can say all you want about players, managers but at the end of the day when the refs make a mess of your games you stand there helpless and you can do nothing about it.
Some links to some Chelsea games we reviewed
Liverpool – Chelsea
Chelsea – Newcastle
Fulham – Chelsea
Chelsea – Tottenham Hotspur
Arsenal – Chelsea
Chelsea – Wigan
Chelsea – Manchester United
Chelsea – Bolton
Everton – Chelsea
Swansea – Chelsea
Norwich – Chelsea
Chelsea – Aston Villa
Tottenham Hotspur – Chelsea
Wigan – Chelsea
Newcastle – Chelsea
Blackburn – Chelsea
Chelsea – Liverpool
Chelsea – Arsenal
Bolton – Chelsea
Chelsea – Swansea
Manchester United – Chelsea
Sunderland – Chelsea
Chelsea – Norwich
Stoke – Chelsea
Editorial Footnote: Occasionally readers wish to make the point that our figures or methods are themselves fixed or biased. If you have such a view and wish to argue that point please do take a look at our article on data and conclusions first. If you want to see past articles in this series they are at EPL REFEREE REVIEW 2012- An historic study on the refs in the EPL
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Elsewhere….
- The transfer market is on the edge of collapse – and the changes are working in Arsenal’s favour
- Ref Review – Tottenham Hotspur. When it really mattered some refs turned.
- Moving from Plumstead to Islington 100 years ago – the 3 men who engineered the move
- The Myth of British Steel and Spine
- Arsenal’s two imminent signings complete the fabulous 10 new players for this season
- Should Chelsea FC concern Arsenal?
- 100 YEARS IN ISLINGTON – the role of Sir Henry Norris
if this is a Arsenal site why on earth are you doing all this work on Chelsea
@Geoff1
They’re not doing any work in favour of Chelsea. They’re just showing how incompetent the EPL refs. Check out their other articles on Sp*rs, etc.
Geoff1,
Last season we only did Arsenal games and people said: how can this be taken serious if you cannot compare with other teams. People said: you need to cover games from other teams because doing only Arsenal games is not enough.
So we just did what people told us to make it more complete and more reliable.
And of course all that long and hard work had to be made public. And that is what you see. This is by the way part 17 of the team reviews we have published.
3 more to go: Manchester City, Manchester United and of course… Arsenal.
And we are not going to stop after that…no, the Untold referee review train just keeps on rolling… 😉
but what are you trying to proof we all know that refs can make bad decisions from time to time and I’ve been watching football for over 50 years and I don’t see any difference in the standard of refereeing.
funny, I’ve bee watching football for 50 yrs too and it is obvious to me that many refs are biased and they clearly influence matches outcome!
that’s exactly what I mean nothings changed
I can remember Franny Lee handballing before he scored I can remember Rodney Marsh diving for penaltys I can remember Alan Hudson getting a goal given that hit the side netting,You see what I mean nothings changed.
Ok, first of all Torres and Mata didn’t pay off in the league, yes, but they paid off in the two cup competitions that we one.
Mata got us through against qpr, dictated the 5-1 demolition of spurs and set up a goal in the final. FA Cup won.
Torres scored against barcelona and sealed our place in the final. I know it was a late goal but barca can score a goal in a blink of an eye, so it was a worthy goal. Then he won the corner that Drogba headed in to equalise against Munich that led to a victory after PKs. Champions league won.
Lastly, it’s pretty clear that Dowd hates Chelsea as he sends off/books alot of our players.
If i may ask, y would a set of referees use a single club site to do this kind of review? Y should u fools centre ur reviews on chelsea alone? Chelsea ended up sixth in the EPL, what about the champions league and FA cup? Where did arsenal end up in those competitions? True speeking, ur analysis is absolute nonsence. You people should go and find work and do please. Till tomorrow, arsenal is lagging and will continue lagging behind untill somthing tangible is done. Nonsense!!
Very interesting article and site – just came across it today. Congrats on your efforts, but it leaves me wondering about your method especially given your comments about Chris Foy. This `negative bias’ seemed staggering so I wondered how many matches it was based on. It seems he only ref’d one Chelsea premier league match last season (away v QPR), according to the match reports on the CFC website. If you’re going to allege `bias’ rather than having an off-day, what’s your test of significance? A claim of bias against a club is surely only credible if based on repeated occurrences. NB I have no reason to defend Chris Foy personally or his performance in the match cited.
@Geoff
This project is in its second year, and will continue to expand we hope with the inclusion of Refs who support other teams.
We started with the mantra “quantifying the bias” from dogface, we are pretty much on track to do that.
If you are interested check out the archives, it is all there.
As for “nothing ever changes” Are you sure that is the right attitude, because if that is the case, we may all as well find something else to do on a Saturday afternoon (or morning, or Monday evening, wed evening etc.)
As for the Chelsea – Tottenham results, if anything ever proved that the qualified and experienced referees on this site go about their business in an impartial and meticulous manner, there is the proof.
Stevo,
have you ever taken the trouble to look 1 inch further than your own nose?
This is the 17th review of a team we have published.
And this is a review purely based on the PL and the refs in the PL.
And why so angry?
And why such abuse?
Which decision didn’t you like in particular?
Oh well I guess any team got them… 🙂
I might not have been around for 50yrs watching football but i can say that the reason why things have not changed is because some people just kept quiet. If refs know that pple are watching them and they could be pointed at in public places for poor officiating, then they would watch their toes. Good work, WalterBroeckx.
PaulT,
If you would come back in a few days/weeks when we take on the referees in separate articles, you will see why we talk of bias and not about an off-day.
We have reviewed 9 games of Chris Foy this season (and a few the season before) and well… if you have more off days than good days… we prefer to call it bias in that case 😉
Now if you would know that Foy is usually a more Chelsea biased ref it opens a can of worms in fact… a can of big fat and greasy worms 😉
On a serious note: the number of games are mentioned between ( ) before the bias number with each ref.
@ Review Team
I’ve loved reading these reviews, and I’ve had quite a few eye-openers in them. One struck me today: some refs, such as Phil Dowd and Mike Dean can be excellent when they want. The reviews have singled out Dowd for his performances with a number of teams, and Mike Dean reffed Chelsea for 5 matches with a really strong aggregate score of close to no bias at all. Of course, Dowd screwed Chelsea, and Dean loves Tottenham. Any chance of reviews focusing on individual refs where we’d find out how many matches Dean did, against what teams, and with what biases? That would be some interesting reading!
@ Chelsea fans, of course refs have already been bad. But these days, everyone is supposed to believe that it evens out at the end of the season. I think the goal over here is to find out precisely how bad they are, and to figure out if it actually does even out at the end of the season.
Yemi,
just like I said in one of the introduction articles:
I want to help to make football fair FOR ALL!
So instead of just complain and moan about a decision I started to act and do something. And once it get picked up the interest will raise and the pressure will mount.
We are just the start of the (r)evolution. We are like the guy who set himself on fire in Tunisia and who started the whole revolution in the Mediterranean area.
We are setting things on fire in the hope the internet picks it up and spreads the thought that something must change.
And If have reached one conclusion so far it is that every team will benefit from better decisions. EVERY TEAM! Not just my team.
And who knows with a little help from some friends we could review all and every game next season…
@ reviewer 02
it’s not case of attitudes it’s that after watching football for over 50 years I get as much enjoyment out of it that I ever did so I have no problem with the game as it is .so I’m just wondering what your trying to do .You will never get rid of bias it exists in all walks of life.just enjoy the game like I do and without controversies the game would not be the same
this is an excellent piece of work and rises above the tribalism which blights football in this country — so pay no attention to the ones who can’t see further than their noses — one sentence i find very disturbing: Half way through the season it was clear that this Chelsea team was not in for the league title. And the bias in the games became more to a reasonable level.
Wow — i’m a chelsea fan but i don’t want to be tribal here — this sentence is bad for ever one challenging for the title and is the last thing any team wants — its not how the free kick count ends up at the end of the game its when the free kicks are awarded — we all have seen the syndrome that teams down to 10 get sympathy frees from the ref or that when a team is losing and have had a load of decisions go against them and then towards the end of the game the ref starts to even it up well looks like the season may be a game in this regard — the decisions got better after it didn’t matter — THIS SHOULDN’T BE HAPPENING TO ANY TEAM
El Gringo,
we are working on that behind the scenes. After the team reports we will have a few articles in which we will respond to some critical voices. Critical voices who are always welcome because they keep us sharp and alert and because they make us think and try to find ways to improve this for the future.
And after that we will give some interesting league tables where we will show how the teams are placed against other teams. After all we are football fans so we love tables don’t we?
And then we go on to the individual referee reports. I have planned to run a count down and end up with what we have found “the best ref of the season”.
The refs are out there running and it looks to be a close finish between the number 1 and 2. We maybe even need a photo finish to decide who gets the honour of winning the prestigious award “The Untold Referee of the season”. 😉
It will be based on a combination on % of correct decisions but also of having the lowest bias score of course.
And my God one of the strong contenders will be one hell of a surprise. I could hardly believe it myself to be honest.
Geoff1, believe me if you travel a whole day to a game and pay lots of money and you know within seconds that the ref screwed the day with a wrong decision on the field the enjoyment goes down a lot.
Why would football lose it soul when the decisions are more correct?
As a ref I find no better satisfaction to go home after a game in the knowledge that things were fair and honest and that the final score was correct.
But well maybe that is just the way I am…
buddha9,
I agree with you and maybe I didn’t make myself clear enough but I do think it is unacceptable that such things happen.
When I was writing the final conclusion I had been thinking of throwing in a rather controversial point. I left it out because it was maybe looking a bit far fetched but will give this thought now in the comments:
I just was wondering because at the start of the season some big negative bias could be seen and some big calls going against Chelsea.
So I was thinking that maybe someone somewhere didn’t like the idea of another Portuguese manager being successful. So having a few refs putting extra pressure on that manager could be enough to make him doubt and maybe make him go down under the pressure. If that was the plan.. it worked.
@ Geoff
The time you have been watching football is no qualification. I stood on the Old Shed, the CBL at the Den, The Valley watching Keith Peacock and Mike Flannagan, I watched Derek Dougan, and Bobby Moore play and was fortunate enough to see George Best play for Man Utd and Fulham. That proves nothing other than I love going to football matches and have been doing so for a long time.
What is without doubt is that the game HAS changed, and how we watch it has changed, how much we pay, and the amount of money in the game, the laws, the amount gambled on the game, the global audience, the game has changed beyond description since it became a worldwide product, YES PRODUCT!. We are supposed to be watching a sport, and thus we accept human error, and that it will all balance its self out in the end!
However what if that does not happen, where are we then!
Personally, as a football fan, someone who has invested heart body and soul into watching, playing managing and officiating for as long as i can remember, with football being the backdrop to my life, i believe i see something rotten in the game, patterns that demand explanation. I believe the root cause generally being vested interests. you dont have to change the way you watch a game hugely to see that the dice are loaded, just adjust your focus slightly to account for the changes that you deny have happened.
Are you as a football fan happy that 17 out of 18 Refs come from the midlands northwards? And that London and the SE, and the SW does not provide a single ref to the PGMOL, or to be exact, has not been selected by the PGMOL.
When you see Howard Webb or Mike Dean at OT, what do you expect to happen?
If you are happy just plonking yourself down in your seat and calling the ref a cunt fair enough, you are on the wrong site, but if you think sport should be fair, and that football should open up and follow the examples of Tennis, Cricket, Rugby etc etc where dispute has been eliminated and official influence on results is beyond doubt, you will find yourself amongst many likeminded people here.
Like i said, check out our archives. here is a few links to help you
http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/17677
http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/23282
http://blog.emiratesstadium.info/archives/22381
WalterBroeckx.
I may being negative here but I just don.t think things will change there will always be bias and always mistakes that’s just how it is.I can remember going away to Anfield in the late 60’s and 70’s and thinking thats not fair,but thats what following football is all about.
Walter
Excellent work as usual. However I get back to my main criticism. All of this work is wasted as it is “from” an Arsenal website. Unless/until you put all of this on a separate website you will not generate the attention/impact it deserves.
reviewer02
of course the games changed so has life but if your saying that the end result is being influenced by the refs performance we will just have to disagree at the end of the day the best teams normally win the titles and cups and have always done.
@Walter dont tell me Dean is in the running for the ref of the season award? Ill go berserk if thats the case..i can handle it if its Webb but Dean? Riley will have some explaining to do
dont listen to the trolls there are obviously either jealous, corrupt or extremely ignorant.
remember the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good ppl to do nothing.
Mahdain,
only one way to find out 😉
But I will do like Wenger from now on: I don’t react to speculation.
Is Dean a candidate? Well he is a referee so he could be a candidate but do I think it will happen? We are not close to signing him at the moment. 😉
(we should sign him now that his contract with arry has finished 🙂 )
No need to review UTD they have must have a positive bias of +10 esp with WEBB.sometimes its hard to watch them play coz of bias
@Blue2theCORE – Oh… please stay tuned – those numbers are coming very soon!
Shall we see if your instincts were right? You might be surprised about Webb though.
This is amazing stuff though i’m not suprised to say the least!
lol @ Walter: “We are not close to signing him at the moment”
and “we should sign him now that his contract with arry has finished”
So you mean we get Dean on a free? That must mean he’s rubbish. Why can’t make a big name signing like Webb or Dowd. That would send a clear statement of intent. But no, as usual we’re going to lose out to a team with more ambition than us.
C4 🙂 🙂
LOL that was an even better one 🙂
All I left was: plz winger sing this guy, we nid trowfie at d emarets
I am interested both here and in the replies to some other articles that some people find it hard to grasp the notion that this is a football site from an Arsenal perspective.
It reminds me of those Tottenham supporters who kept writing in when we first started broadening our approach to say, “you are fixated on Tottenham”.
Now I must balance that by saying that of late we have had some great exchanges with fans of Tottenham, Chelsea and Man C who recognise that while, in the stadium, we retain our tribal loyalty to Arsenal, as they do to their clubs, we are also intelligent enough to have more serious discussions outside of that scenario.
I am starting to wonder if after each post about another club we shouldn’t just gather up the trolls commentaries and put them in a troll file – so they are there if anyone wants to read them, but they don’t get in the way of the discussion.
geoff1,
You are so one-note and no-minded in your so-called thinking that you are beyond reasons and reasoning. This website is about reasons and reasoning.
jbh,
You are so Tribalist and closed-minded in your so-called thinking that you are beyond reasons and reasoning. This website is about reasons and reasoning.
A large-enough minority of fans, maybe more, are focused or can focus on reasons; and they can put their childhood’s tribalism – at least partly – in check and at least consider something out of the usual box – their media-induced prison-coma.
p.s. Geoff1, you can still snap out of your trance. Step one is to realize you’re in a trance. Once you do, you’ll find plenty of good company.
The endless debate and speculation about which official ¨prefers¨which team(s) will never be satisfactorily resolved, since Richard Nixon’s Republican mantra, ¨deny,deny,deny…and make it plausible¨ always protect them. If Riley says it isn’t so then according to the media and the FA…it isn’t. If,on the other hand, UA and its excellent referee reviews say that there is demonstrable and provable bias for certain teams both on the field and in the EPL Boardroom, then the media, the PGMOL and the EPL scramble to ¨explain¨ such concerns as ¨it all evens out in the end so why worry?¨
In response to any and all who say why bother…nothing changes…I say that Arsenal and those associated with it have ALWAYS been in the vanguard of leadership, innovation and agitation for improvements in the Game and will continue to do so regardless of what the ¨establishment¨ wants and promotes. Trying to make the Game fairer and those responsible for its development more conscientious is both a noble and honourable vocation….more power to Arsenal!
Bob
I may be in trance thats what watching Chelsea since 1957 does.Look mate I accept that theres been some fantastic work done here on this site all I am saying is that it’s not going to make any difference because if you did a ref review in 50 years time you will probably come up with the same results. I think the game has changed and evolved may ways [ie not playing on mudheaps]but you aint gonna do anything about the refs unless you want to use technology which is a totally different argument.
geoff1
Who’s to say this doesn’t lead to the use of technology? That is exactly how I anticipate this leading to and have all along. The modern game is too advanced for the old refereeing system and IMO Technology or 22 refs is the only way forward. It will come down to which is the most viable.
Geoff1,
We could have done what 99,99% of the people do. Moan each week without having any clue of what you are moaning about is right or wrong.
We could have done what 99,99% of all football supporters do: do nothing.
We could have done what 99,99% of all people do in live: just accept it.
Well with that mentality this blog would not have existed, the internet would not have existed, we probably would still be sleeping in cages and beat animals to dead with primitive tools.
Progress can only be made when that 0.01% of people actually start searching and digging. Things can only change when that 0.01% of people start demanding change.
Well I like to think that we over here are part of that 0.01% of people.
Will it change because of what we do? Probably not immediately.
But if ever things will improve I think our contribution will have been valuable.
In order to get things changed in football you need much pressure. Pressure is what we provide over here.
And maybe for the first time people will actually be able to see if the mantras from the media and the FA, PGMOL, UEFA and FIFA and whoever is responsible in football is based on facts or on thin air?
Progress has to start somewhere and I think that is what we try to start. If it leads to nothing… so be it. But at least I and my fellow referee reviewers and Dogface will be able to say: we tried to do something about it. Don’t blame us for football not being fair. And don’t come crying when your team has been robbed by the refs. People should have joined us and help to put pressure on the bodies that rule football.
At the end of the reviews we will come up with propositions to improve football and most of all the standard of refereeing. And for the first time such propositions will be based on facts of what is really wrong. Not on feelings what could be wrong but on numbers from 40% of the PL games from last season.
And if it leads to nothing? Well at least we tried.
it sure is annoying to see people come on here and talk lots of shit.
i think its a great job you guys are doing and to spend so much time on it – so well done! 🙂
to all the haters… whether you take a biased look at your own team or a balanced view, there are dodgy refereeing decisions in nearly every game. if biased, you notice it going against your team, if balanced, you notice happening all the time.
what the guys on this site are trying to do is to show a pattern. whether it proves nothing, bias, corruption, or all of them, we dont know and may never know.
however, just highlighting what they have done, can only bring good – to let the officials know we are evaluating them (better and more publicly than their bosses), whether to put pressure on them to improve, to encourage bring in use of video replays, or to make some refs think twice before taking bribes etc.
You shoulda review QPR v Chelsea. It must be THE MOST NEGATIVELY BIASED MATCH AGAINST CHELSEA.