By Walter Broeckx
Next in our series as we cover each and every Premier League team we have Norwich.
Now before any Norwich supporters comes on here and suggest that it is not the averages but the actual decisions that count (as some fans of other clubs have done) may we suggest you take a look at both the introductory articles which you can find here and here. You may also enjoy our other site: Referee Decisions.
And if you have done that you can come back and have a look at the statistical pointers we have found when we compare the overall results of Norwich with the results of each ref when he does Norwich games.
Of course you might have bad experiences with some refs in some games but who, after seeing the statistics, you find are not really that bad in general. You can share your experiences 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.
After my angry rant last article when looking at the numbers from Newcastle let us have a look if things can be different? Let us look at the numbers from Norwich
|
Total |
won |
draw |
lost |
won |
draw |
lost |
% games |
|
|
Norwich |
227 |
68 |
72 |
87 |
29,96% |
31,72% |
38,33% |
|
| Atkinson |
7 |
4 |
0 |
3 |
57,14% |
0,00% |
42,86% |
5,19% |
| Clattenburg |
8 |
2 |
3 |
3 |
25,00% |
37,50% |
37,50% |
5,93% |
| Dean |
4 |
2 |
0 |
2 |
50,00% |
0,00% |
50,00% |
2,96% |
| Dowd |
7 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
28,57% |
28,57% |
42,86% |
5,19% |
| Foy |
10 |
3 |
5 |
2 |
30,00% |
50,00% |
20,00% |
7,41% |
| Friend |
8 |
1 |
5 |
2 |
12,50% |
62,50% |
25,00% |
5,93% |
| Jones |
9 |
1 |
2 |
6 |
11,11% |
22,22% |
66,67% |
6,67% |
| Halsey |
6 |
0 |
2 |
4 |
0,00% |
33,33% |
66,67% |
4,44% |
| Marriner |
9 |
4 |
2 |
3 |
44,44% |
22,22% |
33,33% |
6,67% |
| Mason |
5 |
1 |
1 |
3 |
20,00% |
20,00% |
60,00% |
3,70% |
| Moss |
13 |
5 |
3 |
5 |
38,46% |
23,08% |
38,46% |
9,63% |
| Oliver |
11 |
3 |
2 |
6 |
27,27% |
18,18% |
54,55% |
8,15% |
| Probert |
12 |
6 |
2 |
4 |
50,00% |
16,67% |
33,33% |
8,89% |
| Swarbrick |
8 |
2 |
2 |
3 |
25,00% |
25,00% |
37,50% |
5,93% |
| Taylor |
9 |
1 |
5 |
3 |
11,11% |
55,56% |
33,33% |
6,67% |
| Webb |
9 |
3 |
3 |
3 |
33,33% |
33,33% |
33,33% |
6,67% |
Norwich have a win percentage of around 30% and that is where we will look at to decide if the refs are good, average or bad for Norwich.
It seems that there are no refs who cannot do Norwich games. And that is a good thing. So all 16 refs have done games.
First of all there is one ref I could exclude from this survey and that is Mike Dean. He only has done four games so far. And that is a little bit surprising to be honest. They seem to send Dean to each and every Arsenal game but for some reason they don’t send him to Norwich games. Or hardly sent him to Norwich games. What are the odds of having him in the next Norwich game? If so make your bets. Now the win percentage under Dean is 50% for Norwich so not that bad in fact. But I will leave him out of the conclusion part of this article.
But who are the refs under whom Norwich perform better than usual? Look at Atkinson. That is almost the double win percentage compared to normal. And look at Probert; also very much above average. And finally Marriner also has a rather good win % in Norwich games. So that is 3 good refs out of the 15.
Who stays within the average win percentage in Norwich games? Clattenburg, Dowd, Foy, Mason, Moss, Oliver, Swarbrick and Webb. That is eight refs of the 15 under whom Norwich perform more or less as can be expected.
And then who are the bad refs? Friend, Jones and Taylor are not really great when it comes to win percentages. They are bad. With Jones being really bad as they lose most of their games when he is around. As for Friend and Taylor they don’t win much but also don’t lose much. They are the draw-refs one could say. Still one name missing. And that is Halsey. Six games and no wins. Nothing, zero, nada,… That is a bad win percentage one could say.
So that makes it 4 really bad refs for Norwich.
But now I want to turn my attention to how the games are divided for Norwich between all those refs. And then we can see that the PGMOL can do it. If they really want it, it can be done for Norwich is one of the teams which has all 16 refs for their games is a team where the biggest influence by any ref is lower than 10%.
The highest influence is 9,36% to be exact and that means that this ref does around 3 games in a season. That means 9 points. Still not the 6 points I think is acceptable but my god this does sounds great to me. So all the refs who are currently active in the PL will do 2 games and a few of them will do 3 games in a season.
THIS IS HOW IT SHOULD BE DONE FOR EACH AND EVERY TEAM!!!!
The influence of their Dean-ref (local expression for bogey ref) who is Halsey is no more than 6 points in a season. Compare this with the fact that Dean has an influence of 18 points a season for Arsenal. I think you can see the picture. So can I Mike. Can you?
So Norwich has good refs. They have average refs. Norwich has bad refs. But the overall distribution of refs makes sure that at the end of the season the influence of each of those refs is minimal.
And that is the best news for Norwich. They will have complaints at times, as any team. But there is no particular ref that screws them over and over and that they will see coming back again, again and again and again to perform his dark arts.
So once more I would like to say: well I wonder Mike, what are you waiting for? Just do it like this for all the teams.
The referee analysis
- Episode 7: Newcastle United
- Episode 6: Manchester City
- Episode 5: Liverpool
- Case Study 4: Fulham
- Case study 3: Everton
- 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
This is interesting stuff… Halsey is always awful for us – I wonder what Andy D’Urso’s figures were like for us in the Championship?
The difficulty I have with this analysis is that Prem refs are by and large biased against what they view as a “smaller” team like Norwich. So comparing the different refs doesn’t show this general bias as it is comparing them against an average which is depressed by that general bias.
To show referee bias against Norwich you could look at the penalties awarded to Norwich away from home over this season and last season. Oh, wait – there haven’t been any…
@Boskone
By saying that there is a bias against smaller teams like Norwich you imply there is a bias in favour of bigger teams (like Arsenal?) and you quote your lack of penalties as an example. It may interest you to know that Arsenal went well over a season without a single penalty at home and it hasn’t been much better this season (only one I think) so at least as far as Arsenal are concerned your theory doesn’t stack up.
Boskone, you will have to confirm this with Walter (the author) but I think these are all the results of these particular officials whether picked by the PGMOL or League to officiate over Norwich no matter what league they was playing in.
There are 98 National referee’s 16 of these are of the select group which leaves 82 referee’s to officiate over the remainder of the professional pyramid. so we have 72 teams with 82 refs available but in the prem we have 16 refs for 20 teams, yet in some cases (teams like Liverpool and Everton) they only have 14 refs available to them.
If you did compare the appearances for officials when in the lower leagues you will find that not many officiated over the same sides as regularly as they do when in the select group and this can be seen in the stats above.
If a referee is good enough to officiate over Reading and Norwich whilst they play each other in the championship then they can do the same game in the premiership. Also there are some big teams in the championship and I personally see no reason why an official cannot do both leagues on a permanent basis.
If Norwich do stay in the prem for the next ten years you will probably have the same issues we have, with having to put up with the same refs week in week out which breeds contempt through familiarity.
Norwich have had Mike Dean 4 times whereas Arsenal have had Dean in excess of 40 times, ten times the amount you guys have had the privilege.
and at the other end we have Swarbrick who has actually officiated over Norwich more than Arsenal. You have had him 3 times this season but we are yet to have him? This referee got his first Old Trafford game a little while ago against you guys. So its no wonder this bias you allude too actually (in my opinion) does exist when some teams including Arsenal are held in such high regard, and at the top of that list we have Old Trafford games.