What’s wrong with PL refs: a case study. Oliver

by Walter Broeckx

In our series to find out with which ref some teams perform better than average we have referee Michael Oliver next.

But first let me explain in short the average, under and over thing that you will see in the last row. This is for new readers of course. Regular readers can skip this text and go to the table.

When you see “average” it means that the results of the team in general are not that far away with the results when the ref is in charge. It is in fact what one should hope to see most.

When we see “over” it means that the team in question is doing much better and in some cases much much better than they usual do.

And when you see “under” it means that the team is doing bad compared to their usual win percentage.

Just as with Moss we must warn you about the fact that this is a rather new ref and a young one with for some teams a rather low number of games. So once again I warn you to be careful when looking at the stats from this ref.

So let us see the results of the teams under referee Oliver.

	Total	won	draw	lost	won	draw	lost	Achieving
Arsenal	797	426	212	159	53,45%	26,60%	19,95%
Oliver	6	2	1	3	33,33%	16,67%	50,00%	Under
Aston Villa	797	287	249	261	36,01%	31,24%	32,75%
Oliver	10	3	3	4	30,00%	30,00%	40,00%	Average
Chelsea	797	414	206	177	51,94%	25,85%	22,21%
Oliver	4	2	1	1	50,00%	25,00%	25,00%	Average
Everton	797	282	230	285	35,38%	28,86%	35,76%
Oliver	9	5	3	1	55,56%	33,33%	11,11%	Over
Fulham	443	137	128	178	30,93%	28,89%	40,18%
Oliver	6	1	2	3	16,67%	33,33%	50,00%	Under
Liverpool	797	389	203	205	48,81%	25,47%	25,72%
Oliver	9	5	3	1	55,56%	33,33%	11,11%	Average
Man City	607	226	159	222	37,23%	26,19%	36,57%
Oliver	5	5	0	0	100,00%	0,00%	0,00%	Over
MU	797	520	165	112	65,24%	20,70%	14,05%
Oliver	5	3	1	1	60,00%	20,00%	20,00%	Average
Newcastle	717	284	192	241	39,61%	26,78%	33,61%
Oliver	No games
Norwich	227	68	72	87	29,96%	31,72%	38,33%
Oliver	11	3	2	6	27,27%	18,18%	54,55%	Average
QPR	227	71	57	99	31,28%	25,11%	43,61%
Oliver	6	0	3	3	0,00%	50,00%	50,00%	Under
Reading	101	31	21	49	30,69%	20,79%	48,51%
Oliver	7	3	2	2	42,86%	28,57%	28,57%	Over
Southampton	531	155	146	230	29,19%	27,50%	43,31%
Oliver	3	0	1	2	0,00%	33,33%	66,67%	Under
Stoke	177	53	54	70	29,94%	30,51%	39,55%
Oliver	9	4	2	3	44,44%	22,22%	33,33%	Over
Sunderland	443	119	112	212	26,86%	25,28%	47,86%
Oliver	No games
Swansea	63	20	21	22	31,75%	33,33%	34,92%
Oliver	6	4	2	0	66,67%	33,33%	0,00%	Over
Tottenham	797	307	210	280	38,52%	26,35%	35,13%
Oliver	6	3	1	2	50,00%	16,67%	33,33%	Over
WBA	253	62	64	127	24,51%	25,30%	50,20%
Oliver	11	3	3	5	27,27%	27,27%	45,45%	Average
West Ham	641	210	164	267	32,76%	25,59%	41,65%
Oliver	5	2	2	1	40,00%	40,00%	20,00%	Average
Wigan	291	81	73	137	27,84%	25,09%	47,08%
Oliver	10	3	4	3	30,00%	40,00%	30,00%	Average

The first thing we see is that ref Oliver doesn’t do Newcastle or Sunderland games. Probably a local boy.  And that leaves us with 18 teams to look at.

First let us look at the teams who over perform when ref Oliver is around. Everton, Manchester City (5), Reading, Stoke, Swansea and Tottenham are the teams who do better than usual. I put a (5) after the name of Manchester City. This is to indicate that the other teams have had him more than 5 games and that we can take the numbers as they are.  That are 6 teams who do better than usual when he is in charge.

Let us check the teams who do average when he is around. Aston Villa, Chelsea (4), Liverpool, Manchester United (5), Norwich, WBA, West Ham (5) and Wigan. That is 8 teams of the 18 he does who can be considered as doing average.

And who are the under performing teams? We have Arsenal, Fulham and QPR with each 6 games played under him. And we also have Southampton but he only refereed them for 3 games when we took our numbers. So it is difficult to judge this result completely for the latter team. The other all London teams don’t do that well. Tottenham being the only London club to over achieve in these stats from this ref. So 4 teams under achieving and Arsenal being one of them.

And if you allow me to point not just at the low win percentage but also point you at the unexplainable high loss percentage when ref Oliver is in charge it shows that he is not very favourable to have from an Arsenal point of view. Not only we don’t win as much as can be expected but we also lose almost 3 times as much when he is around.

Most Arsenal supporters who do their homework know that Dean and Probert are the bogey refs but this ref isn’t that far of being one. So something to keep in mind in the future and to have a closer look when we do the end of the year calculations.

The most detailed study of Premier League Refs ever:The referees 2013.