By Walter Broeckx
Next in our series as we cover each and every team, we have Everton.
Now before any Everton supporters comes on here and starts questioning what we are doing, I would ask you to read the other articles that started out this series so you can see what we are trying to do. There is nothing anti-Everton here, rather there is a questioning of the what is going on with the refs.
You can find the opening articles here and here
And if you can come back and have a look at the statistical information we have found, you’ll see we compare the overall results of Everton with the results of each ref who has handled Everton games.
Of course you might have had a bad experience with some refs in some games but who you can see (after reviewing the statistics) is not really that bad overall. You can share your experiences on such games of course, but this article is not really about those games in particular. It is more about the total picture of the referee and this team.
In this table I will try to give a short explanation on what you see.
|
Total |
won |
draw |
lost |
won |
draw |
lost |
% games |
|
|
Everton |
797 |
282 |
230 |
285 |
35,38% |
28,86% |
35,76% |
|
| Atkinson |
22 |
6 |
4 |
12 |
27,27% |
18,18% |
54,55% |
8,94% |
| Clattenburg |
9 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
44,44% |
22,22% |
33,33% |
3,66% |
| Dean |
2 |
0 |
1 |
1 |
0,00% |
50,00% |
50,00% |
0,81% |
| Dowd |
35 |
14 |
9 |
12 |
40,00% |
25,71% |
34,29% |
14,23% |
| Foy |
1 |
0 |
1 |
0 |
0,00% |
100,00% |
0,00% |
0,41% |
| Friend |
10 |
7 |
2 |
1 |
70,00% |
20,00% |
10,00% |
4,07% |
| Jones |
10 |
1 |
7 |
2 |
10,00% |
70,00% |
20,00% |
4,07% |
| Halsey |
41 |
15 |
11 |
15 |
36,59% |
26,83% |
36,59% |
16,67% |
| Marriner |
24 |
9 |
9 |
6 |
37,50% |
37,50% |
25,00% |
9,76% |
| Mason |
22 |
9 |
6 |
7 |
40,91% |
27,27% |
31,82% |
8,94% |
| Moss |
5 |
3 |
1 |
1 |
60,00% |
20,00% |
20,00% |
2,03% |
| Oliver |
9 |
5 |
3 |
1 |
55,56% |
33,33% |
11,11% |
3,66% |
| Probert |
15 |
8 |
5 |
2 |
53,33% |
33,33% |
13,33% |
6,10% |
| Swarbrick |
4 |
2 |
2 |
0 |
50,00% |
50,00% |
0,00% |
1,63% |
| Taylor |
5 |
2 |
2 |
1 |
40,00% |
40,00% |
20,00% |
2,03% |
| Webb |
32 |
10 |
11 |
11 |
31,25% |
34,38% |
34,38% |
13,01% |
The overall win percentage of Everton in the PL era is 35.38% of the games. This is the benchmark we keep in mind when judging if a ref has been “good” or “bad” for a team.
At first sight you may think that all refs do Everton games. Actually they don’t. Because despite Dean and Foy having done two and one game of Everton respectively, since then they have been taken away from Everton games. Foy because he declared himself to be an Everton supporter and Dean because he is from Wirral which is close enough to be defined as offering a conflict of interest. So for Everton this means that they only have 14 refs available to handle their games. This is clearly not enough refs as it will have as a result that the influence of each ref becomes bigger.
Now what refs can be classified as “good” refs for Everton when we look at the overall win percentage in the league? The best ref for Everton seems to be Kevin Friend with a win percentage of 70%. That is the double of their average win percentage. And this number is based on some 10 games so you could say that this looks rather a nice trend for them.
The other “good” refs are Moss, Oliver, Probert and Swarbrick. So you could say that Everton have five refs under whom they perform better than average.
So under whom do Everton perform as average? Clattenburg, Dowd, Halsey, Marriner, Mason, Taylor and Webb can all be looked upon as being refs under whom Everton come close to their overall league average. That’s seven refs out of the 14 refs they have.
This leaves us with two “bad” refs for Everton. One of them is Atkinson. But the worst ref for Everton is Mike Jones. Only one win in 10 games is very much below their league average. A very different score compared to all the other refs in fact. One could say that Jones is for Everton what Dean is for Arsenal.
As this is an Arsenal supporting website we maybe could introduce a new football expression. Up to now people use the expression ‘he is their bogey ref”. Maybe we could change this in to “he is their dean-ref”. So Jones is the dean-ref for Everton.
But what is the influence of each referee on Everton? When we ask this things start to look a bit better for Everton. Because their dean-ref is only sent to 4% of their games so he will have a maximum influence of six points in a season. That is rather nice of the PGMOL to only send a “bad” ref only for so few games. I think some Arsenal fans would like to see the same low number of influence for the Arsenal dean-ref, who is, well, not to put too fine a point on it, err, Dean.
The influence of the other dean-ref for Everton is a bit bigger. Atkinson does around three games in a season. But his deanishness is not as big for Everton as Dean is for Arsenal.
The good news for Everton is that the refs they have most Everton games all fall in to the “average” category. Dowd, Halsey and Webb do around 43% of the games in total of Everton and as they have an average win percentage score it means that Everton is rather lucky with this. Of course there will have been games when Everton will have been unhappy with a ref but in general one could say that this is a situation many other teams would give an arm and leg for.
Another thing I want to point at is the fact that Everton both had their “good” ref and their dean-ref for the same amount of games. So one could say that as they both did 10 games they cancelled each other out.
- So what is wrong in the PL? Case study 2: Chelsea
- What’s wrong with the refs in the PL: Case study Aston Villa
- Is it right to have refs doing two PL games over a weekend?
- So what’s wrong with the Premier League – the opening part of the story
The books…
- Woolwich Arsenal: The club that changed football – Arsenal’s early years
- Making the Arsenal – how the modern Arsenal was born in 1910
- The Crowd at Woolwich Arsenal FC: crowd behaviour at the early matches
- Royal Arsenal: from the Common to the Manor. Coming next.
The sites from the same team…
- Referee Decisions – just what are the refs up to this season?
- The Arsenal History Blog from the AISA Arsenal History Society
- School sports minibuses: providing your child’s school with a bus
- Parent News – what is going on in schools these days?
- Teacher News – UK schools from the teachers’ perspective
- UK Education News – rolling news service
- The weight loss programme: The only guaranteed way to stay fit
- Untold Dylan – the music, the lyrics, the meaning
Interesting that Everton seam to be unaffected. I always thought of Everton as the Northern Arsenal. By that I mean often let down by the ref.
This article is a waste of time. I dont believe the writer understands even fundamental statistics. There are so many variables and the number of games are so small these numbers mean nothing…Imagine Jones has mostly refereed matches of everton vs big clubs, the fact they lose those games doesnt mean hes screwed them over. If they mostly refereed games when everton were crap, comparing to evertons average win % means nothing. Garbage
Interesting to read as an Everton supporter, but flawed in its analysis for a major reason. In order to get a clearer picture, one must include all three officials. And an analysis needs also to be made of the bad decisions. To give you a couple of examples:
1. Perfectly good goal disallowed against Newcastle at home this season due to the linesman getting it wrong;
2. Man City home. Mirallas goal, again disallowed due to incorrect offside decision by linesman. Fellaini penalty in the first half when he was deliberately blocked off in the area by a Man City defender who had no chance of reaching the ball. Dzeko (already booked) diving just outside our penalty area – should have been second yellow and balanced things up at 10-a-side. Fellaini handball in our penalty area.
And don’t get me started on Clattenberg in the derby at Goodison a few years ago when Carragher disembowelled Lescott in the 6-yard box in the last minute in full view of him and he said play on!
Hahaha
I love the “dean ref” expression…..
Good article as always, keep up the good work, mate…
You need to look at individual decisions to see how badly we get dicked over by the referee.
MC shd have had apenalty in the game.I don’t know. Had it been awarded it could have changed the game.You never know. The refs want red faced to be 100% sure of winning the epl.Thats
why I am very happy he was knocked out of the cl.
Everton could be back in the cl reckoning. Arsenal have
tricky games against Everton and Fulham.Both Berbatov and Fellaini will be higly motivated .
Will be interesting to see how many teams have dean refs. Can think of one that certainly does not.
These figures don’t look so bad for Everton. But maybe they would change, for the worse, if they started challenging for a top four finish every season. I must admit though out of the trio of united, Liverpool & Everton its Everton who get a raw deal with the refs.
I had read all the previous articles when they were published, but have just gone back and re read them again in chronological order in one go, and I must say this is brilliant stuff Walter. Amazing, eye-opening. I remember when the first article came out questioning why some refs do two games per weekend some of the posters accused you of clutching at straws. Really? Wonder what they think now.
A lot of people attacking this insight. If the fa made the same effort then they could analyse linos as well.
Also the point of the study is the overall picture not individual errors.
Great stuff again. Bring on the utd results.
Pointless exercise as it doesn’t mean anything.
What it doesn’t say is when a game was won or lost despite poor refereeing decisions. It’s ref decisions that mean most and so far this season we are tilting backwards not forwards on bad decisions.
Then Pedro, as it is Referee Decisions that mean the most, perhaps you should read the Referee Decisions web site. It is always listed on the home page, and after all our articles.
matt March 18, 2013 at 9:11 pm – is correct in what he says I’m afraid Walter, although he could have been more polite, and he could have gone on to explain exactly why these statistics do not bear out the main thrust of your conclusions.
I did statistics at University as part of my Psychology degree, and I found it mind numbingly tedious, but the basics of it seem to have sunk in.
What i am trying to say is, the spread of results you have, from a ludicrously small sample, shows a variation that would be expected beforehand.
You would expect most results to be in the middle, which they are, and a few either end of the spectrum – so you would have just about every team you analyze to have one or two “Mike Dean’s”, and one or two “anti Mike Dean’s” – which is what you have found in all 3 studies so far. This is statistically normal, and does not show any referee bias in itself, quite the opposite in fact.
I predict just about all teams will mirror these results, and this will be fine with the PGMOL.
EVERY football club has fans who will swear blind certain referees are biased against them, and this is because statistically, there will be referees who will have more poor games whilst in charge of them, just by chance, and some who will have better games, by chance, and the majority who are inbetween.
I’m not saying no referees ever are unbiased, I’m saying your stats don’t show that conclusively, and that the spreads so far are actually acceptable, they seem to even the good and bad performances out over the season.
If you present this data to a neutral professional statistician, I am sure they would broadly agree with me, I’m afraid you are interpreting the data to suit your pre-formed opinions that the Arsenal are the target of an organised plot to destabilise them, rather than just the victims, or benefactors, of Lady Luck.
Don’t shoot the messenger by the way, consult a professional statistician first, then you can respond as you see fit.
It’s grim up north,
Of course for most teams there will be some kind of mirror effect. But that is why I put in the last column and that is where the PGMOL trick might be.
If a ref like Dean with a 9% win percentage when doing Arsenal games in the last 5 years does 2 games a year I have no problem with this. But when they send him every month at least once (it has happened they send him with only 3 weeks in between) it gets messy.
You must look at the combination of the two: how average a ref is and the dirty game on how many times they send him.
Most of all like in the case of Arsenal when Arsenal can get 16 refs and yet they send one ref for 16% of the games. That is where I think the PGMOL and Mike Riley are playing a dirty game.
Everyone knows the refs in the prem are rubbish; for instance they apply the law selectively (a foul that gets called for someone like Mikel wouldn’t even be considered a foul if committed by someone like say from the trio of Rooney, Gerard or Lampard, or if it gets called the punishments are different) and these figures confirm what we all know. Penalties are never awarded to visiting teams at certain grounds. Ask any fan who Webb’s favorite team is and you will find one answer. When these figures point to the same results, are we honestly going to try and sit here debating all day that these figures are meaningless, stats or staticians say this or that, when they confirm what any man on the street would tell you?