Were refs biased in Tottenham’s favour last season? The Ref Review continues

Posted on by WalterBroeckx

By Walter Broeckx

This article is part of the series of the Referee Review 2013. You can find links to earlier articles on the bottom of this article.

———————————————-

In this part of the series we have a look at each team and see how the bias panned out for each team. This is based on the decisions themselves without putting any weight on each decision. A total table will be published at the end of this and then you can compare each team with the other teams.

And it will be an interesting table I can assure you that.

First we are providing a table for each team highlighting each type of decision. This gives the totals as for when the team in the article got a favourable decision and when they got it against them.

If the traditional mantra “it all evens out at the end of the season” is true it should show in these statistics – and indeed for some clubs we have already reviewed, that is the case.

But as I said, in the table we just show the decisions as a decision and we didn’t put any weight on the decisions. That is something for later on. Now we just take each decision at the same value, which is of course not saying all because a wrong penalty call is a bit more important than a wrong throw in decision.

But now let us move to the fourth team in our survey:  Tottenham Hotspur.

Last season we undertook referee reviews of  33 games of Tottenham which was  86.84% of their games.  This is the second highest number of games we did of any team in the PL. So I think this looks a very reliable amount of data and we can consider these numbers as good as they can get.

In case you are concerned about a possible anti-Tottenham bias from our review team you can read the article in this series where we let you know which teams our reviewers support.   All the data is gathered, reported and analysed on www.refereedecisions.co.uk    At the end of this article you will find the commentaries and background published on this site.

tottenham hotspur

In the second column we see the type of decision. And in the column headed “favoured” we see how many decisions favoured Tottenham when we reviewed them. And in the column headed “Penalised” we see how many times a wrong decision went against them.  The total swing is the difference between the favoured decisions and the penalised decisions.

A negative number in this column means that the total was against the team and a positive number means that the total decisions was in their favour.

In the last column we see the average swing per game based on the games we reviewed. And this gives an indication on how many decisions went against a team or were in favour of a team. The lower the number the lower number of decisions that were wrong. And a positive number indicates that in each game they get some decisions in their favour and a negative indicates how many decisions the team has to overcome.

In the 33 Tottenham games we did there were 403 wrong decisions in total. That is 12 wrong decisions per game in total.  227 wrong decisions went in favour of Tottenham and 176 went against them. That is a positive difference in favour of Tottenham of 51 decisions. If we look at the numbers of games you can say that they have an advantage of around two decisions per game, in the games our referees reviewed of course.

If we look at the decisions in detail we see that the foul/free kick decisions are largely in favour of Tottenham.  Also the wrongly allowed goals are very much in their favour and the same goes for the penalty decisions. I think if we give the weighted bias numbers later on this might have a big influence on their bias result.

The only big negative bias we could find was the red cards. That was something that had a bias against Tottenham. Other negative bias results could be found in the advantage, corner and goal kick decisions, decisions which we think are less important. In the important decisions things went more Tottenhams way.

But even without weight it is clear that the refs gave more wrong calls to them than against them.  Not many – just two a game – but it could make a difference.

Footnote: (added after publication).  As a result of the comments by many Tottenham supporters who have written in to point out that Tottenham did not get any penalties last year I’ll explain – although I must say when editing this piece I thought it was fairly clear.   An incorrect call for a penalty can mean a penalty being given when it should not, or a penalty being not given when it should.   Tottenham’s incorrect penalty calls came from situations in which the opposition had valid claims for a penalty that were turned down.   I will continue to publish comments that point this out, since people are taking the trouble to write in, but I am editing out quite a few that are so abusive that I really can’t see the point in publishing them.  Tony.

Earlier articles:

Recent posts

The books…

The sites from the same team…

Recent Posts

94 Replies to “Were refs biased in Tottenham’s favour last season? The Ref Review continues”

  1. Really?? You do know that Spurs didn’t get given ANY penalties last season and replays show that at least 3 of Bales bookings for “simulation” were incorrect. So, no, Spurs weren’t favoured by referees last season.

  3. Did you count how many times we were awarded penalties last season? Let me refresh your memory – NOT A SINGLE ONE. In fact, if even ONE of the incorrect calls against Gareth Bale was given, it is very likely that you gooners would be playing Europa League football and we would be where you are, in the Champions League. Very lopsided report, I am afraid. COYS!

  4. Are you actually having a laugh I watched every arsenal game last year , arsenal scored so many offside goals last season that one them the games , 21 points worth they shouldn’t had last season which would had put them like 8 th , I can tell one right off my head QPR vs arsenal at the beginning of the season arteta scored the goal that was offside n if they didn’t happen guess what spurs would of finished above you , only if all the descions was fair

  5. Seems ironic that there waa a penalty bias in spurs favour seeing as they werent awarded one all season!

  6. How many penalties did Tottenham have last season? How many times did Bale get booked for ‘simulation’?

  7. Interesting theory… Except as always, you are assuming referees don’t ‘level’ out their decisions and red cards and, as you point out, ‘game changers’ are far more important than throw-ins.

    How is an own goal a refereeing decision though?

    And remember… This is a spurs team that were not awarded a single penalty all season….

  8. Seems to me like a completely cack-handed, non-scientific and unintelligent methodology to me. The statement “In the important decisions things went more Tottenham’s way” requires some sort of qualitative or quantitative evaluation, and without it the entire study is questionable. I’ve looked at the site pretty hard and though I admit I might be wrong in my understanding of your interpretation, I’d suggest that you’ve equated, for example, being favoured at a throw in decision to being favoured at a penalty decision. Likewise the nature of a foul needs to be considered. A cynical, tactical foul in the centre circle doesn’t equate to an innocuous foul in the same place. Likewise a foul on an attacker on the edge of the defending team’s penalty area doesn’t equate to a foul elsewhere. And what’s this own goal statistic? What does that mean?

  9. maybe i’m reading this wrong- but you have 10 incorrect penalties in tottenham’s favour last season? tottenham didn’t have a single penalty awarded to them in the league last season

  10. As a Spurs supporter I feel there are a few problems with these statistics. There are a few confounding factors that are not reflected within this, for instance; yes the three minus figures associated with with the red cards are there but they do not show how losing Bale for three games affected the rest of the team. Several of our penalised offsides involved game changing goals that after the event were shown to have been quite legal.
    I suppose I am as biased as any fan in favour of my team and do not ‘see’ when we are lucky, more often grumbling when we are penalised. For this to really tell us if one team is favoured over others would be to have refs do this for all teams and see where on the scale we all come?

  12. I can’t believe my spuds friend will believe that he gets a plus from the refs. He will say that it us trying to prove that they were only 5th because of the refs help.

  13. What a load of shit we had so many desion against us it certainly out weighed outweigh ed the ones in our favour I mean probably should of had a bout 10 pens for a start crap article but someone who don’t know what there talking about

  14. HAHAHAHAHAH. REFS BIASED IN OUR FAVOUR?!?!?!?! ONE OF TWO TEAMS IN THE PREMIER LEAGUE TO HAVE NOT BEEN AWARDED A PENALTY THROUGHOUT THE SEASON.
    ARSENAL WERE REWARDED AT LEAST 5. FUCKING GUNNERS..

  15. I’m not sure how this data is gathered or points been given, but the part about 10 penalty decisions going in Tottenhams favor, and 5 against seem odd, since Tottenham was’nt give a single penalty all season. Only thing i can think of is that Tottenham should have had 5 penalties and other teams should have had 10 more against us, but even that seems a odd.
    Maybe the answer lies in the matches not included in the table

  16. Probably means they could have given away 10 penalties but the decision went in their favour?

  17. Ha ha, so refs are biased towards Spurs? How many penalties were they awarded last season then? That’s right – NONE. The first time that’s happened and the only time in Premier League history that a team towards the top of the league hasn’t had a penalty all season.

    Bale got booked for diving several times last season, when he was in fact fouled.

    I could mention some of the dodgy decisions Arsenal got in crucial games towards the end of the season but that would probably be me showing some Spurs bias and (unlike the author of this rubbish) I’m not going to stoop that low.

  18. I agree with Jamie tottenham were not given a single penalty in the league all last season. This seems to need fact checking.

  19. This is one of the worst articles ever published, spurs didn’t receive any penalties last year – get your facts right mug!

  20. errr tottenham didn’t get awarded a single penalty last season so how you can suggest referees were biased towards them is a joke. Let me put your mind back to 1-0 down to norwich in the 85th minute at the emirates stadium. how do you explain that decision??? idiot.

  21. Utter rubbish. Your stats state there are 10 penalties awarded to Tottenham last season incorrectly, and yet Spurs didn’t receive a single penalty.

    Not only are your stats made up, you failed to notice such a glaring error!

    Idiot.

  22. Jamie, I think what it is saying that there 10 incorrect penalty calls in our games – this could include those not given but which should have been as well as those given that shouldn’t. This is at both ends as well – eg a penalty not given for the opposition counts as a decision for Spurs.
    In any event, plenty of penalty decisions are far from clear cut so that kind of call becomes a matter of opinion, as do the numbers relating to fouls, free kicks and cards given.
    What isn’t a matter of opinion is that Spurs definitely didn’t have any penalties awarded incorrectly last season 🙂

  23. errr tottenham didn’t get awarded a single penalty last season so how you can suggest referees were biased towards them is a joke. Let me put your mind back to Arsenal 0-1 Norwhich in the 85th minute at the emirates stadium. how do you explain that decision??? idiot.

  24. NO penalties awarded to Spurs last year ….. make your own mind up… how many did Arsenal get and how many of those were dubious and changed the outcome fo the game– thats real important not if one team got more dubious throw ins or fouls.

    Statistics are as good as you want them to be

  26. Surely the relevance is how many times did this affect a game. If the dodgy decision went for Spurs late in a game they were already winning comfortaby then it would be of no consequence. If however if went against them 5 minutes from time in a game they were winning or drawing then it could cost points…………. more work need on this analysis methinks??

  27. If refs had an agenda to favour Spurs, then not giving them one penalty all season completely undermines such a suggestion. There were plenty of opportunities too as Bale got booked as a result of some penalty icidents – some we’re proven incorrect.

    Article is a wind up – bite away….

  28. There seems to be a major glaring flaw in your statistics,
    for instance How can you class a wrong RED card with the same wrong decision weighting as a free kick ????????? A free kick may or may not have an impact on the result of a game a RED or Penalty invariable does!

  29. Interesting reading. But I would be curious to know this: how many crucial wrong decisions had an impact on the result? Wrong penalty, wrong offside, wrong freekick and so on.

  30. Penalties can be given both ways. Your team can give them away and be awarded them. Decisons occur in both boxes. So that means that 10 wrong penalties went the way of Spurs, so this must mean in the Spurs defensive area i.e 10 decisions that went the way of Spurs that should have gone to the oppostion by way of a penalty kich awarded to them. That’s good for Spurs. The article is about referees not Spurs as such.

  31. Just to add a couple of points. Concerning the penalties I have added a footnote to the article in the light of the many comments from Tottenham supporters (not all of which I have published) on the issue.

    Also, this is a publishing of the first set of data from each club. We do this because having the raw data published as a summary seems important to all of us. The weighted data will follow.

    Thanks for reading.

  32. I couldn’t read your pathetic piece of rubbish! HOW DARE YOU EVEN ATTEMPT TO TRY AND SAY SPURS GET HELP FROM REFS. You’ve definitely claimed the worst article of pre season, regardless of all the Madrid crap. How many times were clear blatant penalties not given to Spurs and instead we received yellow cards for diving? WHO THE HELL DO YOU THINK YOU ARE? Coming from someone who supports one of the most corrupt teams in the PL, I hope your nasty little club dies a horrible death! F-you!

  33. If only it was a wind up – there really is a web site behind all this that claims to measure bias. as the table above shows – it is produced by statisticians (not very good ones) rather than people who know anything about football. To get to the positive bias suggested above – they claim the net three throw in decisions that went in our favour – compensate the net three red card decisions that went against us. A quick look at the web site shows that the underlying data is also crap. they acknowledge that Larsson fouled in the infamous incident in the last game of the season but do not recognise that Bale should not have got a yellow and Larsson should have got a red. In short – this is meaningless random garbage.

  35. What is the point of this article ??
    Is it…
    The only reason spurs were close to arse is due to bias/cheating officials ?
    That being an arse fan is so dull that you result to counting and judging referee decisions in other games?
    That everybody loves spurs ?
    Is it that you are preparing an excuse for this seasons underachievement ?
    If im honest, this article makes me feel quite ‘smug’ as a spurs fan, because it reflects so badly on you arse fans.
    Anyhow, if watching your lot is as bad this season, then you are once again welcome to watch our entertaining brand of fussbal. Only this time you dont have to do it under the guise of ‘ref reviewer’. Just put on that blue and white scarf and sing my brother… “When the spurs…”

  36. what is this fixation with Spurs for Arsole fans? Do they not have anything else to worry about?? They should be worrying about the future not the past!

  38. Tony, Walter,
    I’ve been suggesting for a while that the data needs to he broken down into ‘incorrect for’ and ‘incorrect against’. This method of representing the data proves very little and as evidenced, most don’t understand.
    If the data is presented correctly, your blog would gain lots of credibility among the people who have posted above and likely convert new readers. Unfortunately, you are now alienating people – these people will never be hack and the point you are trying to make will not get out there. A waste of yours and the reviewers time and resources.

  39. Yeah the record amount of penalties awarded for the 2nd consecutive season proves refs favours Spurs.

  40. I usually am very open to a nice debat.
    But I do wonder how one can argue with people who are either too fixated on their own prejudices or are too dumb.

    1. If you would use your brains and your eyes you would see that our referee reviewers judged that Tottenham should have had 5 (five) penalties in the games we reviewed. That is even 2 more than some of you claim. If you do want comment you could try to understand matters before you write in.

    2. Under the article you can find a link and there you can see that most refs were not Arsenal supporters. For those who worry about bias.

    3. About us being fixated on your former Middlesex team: If you would open your eyes and use your brains you would see that we have started with Wigan and we are running the teams in alphabetical order from Z to A. We had Wigan, West Ham, West Brom and none of them suggested that we are fixated on their team. I think most of them were satisfied that we even covered those teams even though they might not agree with some results.

    Now as I said I do like a debate so is there any intelligent Tottenham fan out there who has anything interesting to say? Please step forward.

    Rant over 😉

  41. Matt,
    thanks for your answer.

    In this article we just show the decisons and count each decision as a “1”. Of course we know that an incorrect penalty decision is much more important than a wrong given throw in. That is why we also have put weight on the decisions when we did the reviews.

    And after having done all the teams we will give a table with the bias decisions as counted for 1 point each AND we will add the weight to the decisions.

    One of the reasons we did it like that is that the weight decisions table is a table that doesn’t fit on the web page.
    But don’t worry we will show you how much weight the decisions had.
    We will even come up with a table on each important decision and show the decisions and the teams involved later on. So we will show teams that had benefited most of some decisions and teams who have suffered most of some decisions.

    We are only at the start of showing things.

  42. You forgot to mention Spurs didn’t’ get a single penalty awarded last season so a bit of a poorly weighted argument.

  44. Jimmy, I don’t think that’s right at all. I wonder if you read the final part of the article, or the comment I made recently on penalties.

  45. Walter – I admire what you’re trying to do, but I would recommend hiring a pro statistician to help you present the data. You can do it cheaply online.

    As for the spuds fans complaining, a couple of points:-

    1. If the monkey/human hybrid wasn’t such a blatant cheat, then you’d find refs cutting you some slack.
    2. We ARE in the CL, and you are not. End of losers.

    Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah. Pause to prevent sides from splitting. Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha. Fuck the lot of you.

  46. Sybrian – well, I think if you read the article you would see that it is one of a series in which the Referees Decision team is reporting back on their findings with every club. But the notion of ignoring the past and focussing on the future only is a rather interesting, if narrow, one.

  47. Betty Suarez. The point is that the Referee Decisions team of referees watched a massive number of Premier League games last season and reported their findings on them. We’re making those findings available.

  48. Even If bale has been wrongly penalised a couple of times he is still clearly the author of his own misfortune a bit like mr suarez

  49. Not quite sure what you are talking about with that reference to the guy in Australia. I live in Northamptonshire. Not quite sure about the “ha ha” either. Are you laughing at yourself?

  50. As the saying goes, “There are lies, damned lies and statistics.” Like the Carling Optima index, it’s only a set of figures using the given parameters. I too am a Spurs fan and went to most games last season and this study is not at all objective as it’s based on the opinion of an Arsenal fan as to what constitutes an incorrect decision. Quite laughable really when you consider how many ‘game changing’ decisions go in their favour time after time. Norwich is a prime example and certainly not an isolated one!

  51. Why not complete the review? What were the 5 games omitted?
    Weighting should be given to the type of decision. An error on a goal decision is very different to a free kick in midfield. A red card error is very different to a 1st yellow card error.
    Please explain the “Own goal” error decision – and game.

  52. To Spurs fans who are outraged at not getting any penalties awarded against you last season…

    …please understand that it that very type of injustice that this series attempts to discuss.

    So, come on!, Calm down. You should be praising Untold for all of their hard work and wondering how to take it further – towards a proper system of refereeing in England.

  55. Tony, Walter,
    I’ve been suggesting for a while that the data needs to he broken down into ‘incorrect for’ and ‘incorrect against’ As well as ‘incorrectly called’ and ‘incorrectly not called.’

    This method of representing the data proves very little other and as evidenced, most don’t understand.
    If the data is presented correctly, your blog would gain lots of credibility among the people who have posted above and likely convert new readers. Unfortunately, you are now alienating people – these people will never be hack and the point you are trying to make will not get out there. A waste of yours and the reviewers time and resources.

  56. It would be nice to see some input from Tottenham fans who have bothered to put any work into investigating the type of issues raised by these reviews (and the Referees Decisions site).
    Then again I suppose it’s much easier to be reactive rather than being proactive or even putting effort into understanding what has been written.
    None of them seem to have bothered to understand the context of the statistics so far presented.
    Talk about seeing only what you want to see.

  57. what a pointless system, all teams get wrong calls against them, the only ones that are important are ones that lead to goals or players being sent off.
    The figures do not show how many decisions could have been called 50/50, your swipe at Spurs is a cheap shot as over the years gooners have had a lot of wrong decisions favouring them, nothing ever said, then a few go against the gooners and all hell brakes loose, Wenger apitomises this with his near superhuman eyesight on a gooner being allegedly fouled at a full pitch length away from him, then any foul by a gooner Wengers eyesight matches that of a mole, or it would be the only second of the game he was not watching.
    Which games were conveniently missed out would it be the Stoke type games or Chelski type games, the stats DO NOT show decisions not given, only ones given the wrong way. so actually totally pointless.You really need to get out more.

  62. The trouble with this kind of representation is that, whilst you think by including all types of decisions you’re making it a more thorough, detailed evaluation it only serves to cloud the issue even further. By making a statistical interpretation of refereeing decisions in the first place you’re trying to show as black and white an issue which has many, many shades of grey. You’re not the first to do so, and won’t be the last, either.

    I mentioned this on your first installment that it is completely misleading to include ‘minor’ decisions alongside ‘major’ decisions – you say you’re going to address this at the end. Fine, but don’t act surprised when people get annoyed when you present what you now admit is only half the figures.

    Even so, I’m curious to know how your weighting will manage to closely represent the bigger picture. At the moment your data could say “Team X were wrongly given a penalty against them, but were wrongly awarded two throw ins, therefore the bias swing went for them.” Yet we all know a throw in is unlikely to influence the game on the same level as a penalty. What isn’t taken into the equation is whether or not those two throw ins were given because the referee realised he had make a mistake on the penalty decision.

    It also doesn’t give any acknowledgement to other factors such as; diving/simulation like Cazorla v WBA or Suarez v Stoke; home or away fixtures and pressure from the home crowd; pre and post-match comments from managers such as Rodgers’ fixation with mentioning Bale every week to draw attention away from Suarez or Fergie’s ‘he didn’t give us enough time to win the game’ which got Foy demoted to refereeing Accrington Stanley; genuine instances where the referee didn’t see an incident (as opposed to Wenger pretending he didn’t); at what stage of the match did the incident occur, and what the scoreline was at the time (a wrongly awarded penalty in the 89th minute has much more significance if the score is 0-0 than 3-0); anomalies of refereeing interpretation, such as players interfering with play or fouls that would be given outside the box but not inside.

    There’s probably even more than those, but as you can see a mere statistical presentation of “they got 10 bad decisions against them, but 12 in their favour therefore referees were biased towards them’ really doesn’t go anywhere near providing a definitive analysis.

  65. Geoffrey Soupe,
    I get what you are saying and think you might be interested in the later series of releases which include weighting the decisions.

    I think what this does highlight is that the officials DO make mistakes and regardless of what they are, they shouldn’t happen. You can say they are only human etc… but that only highlights the need for a fairer system (ie video replays) that ensures the bits the average human would miss, don’t get missed.

    You might also start to notice some unusual patterns amongst the results which would be a cause for concern for most football fans. Infact if my memory serves me correct, the summary from the 11/12 seasons findings concluded that Tottenham were hard done by (again, this is from memory which has been known to play tricks on me before). Once the weight goes onto these figures, the same might be apparent for this seasons release.

  66. Lastly,
    This is not a dig at Tottenham and the other articles are not a dig at the respective teams. This is a presentation of ALL the data and how else would you logically release it other than on a team by team basis?

  67. It’s not a pointless system, but its far from being accurate as well. What it should do is raise the issue as to what constitutes a foul or a wrong decision. I’ve scanned the information and it makes no difference between highly contentious issues and blatant mistakes. Gareth Bale getting booked for diving against Fulham was given as a correct decision whereas most pundits and ex-referees agreed it was an incorrect decision. Tussles in the box before corners are treated in the same manner as open play, whereas the reality is everyone knows referees do not punish these offences in the same way.

    Its shortfall is it offers no corrective measures – The highly emotive reactions to dives without properly analysing what constitutes fouling or impeding the player highlights this to the upmost.

    In short, this analysis does have merit to show what areas fans reactions differ from the officials. It should not be used to analyse which teams got more or less favoured by refs.

  68. I think a lot of Tottenham fans are letting the rivalry rule their senses on this one.

    As always I tip my hat to Walter and all others involved in this mammoth project. A fair officiating system is the aim of this project and that revolves around all competing clubs and needs the support of all fans.

    I really don’t think Tottenham fans realise how similar we are on this as we only see the bad officiating from our club of choice’s perspective.

    The biggest concern for me is the lack of officials from the south of England, especially London, not a single official.

    So Tottenham fans are outraged at not getting a single penalty last season even when playing attacking football. Similar to Arsenal two seasons ago.

    So much doesn’t make sense when we feel hard done by. But this is going on all the time, but only effects small parts of the whole football fanbase on individual occasions. so we forget and don’t unite against this.

    Tottenham fans will moan this week, we will whinge another, West Ham fans will whinge another time. We need all fans to get on board with this project, otherwise nothing will change. As fans of London based clubs we are being ruled over by an Northern Old Boys club.

    Whinge at this site if you want too, or you can do something about the shite officiating we have to endure.

  69. @ Adam – No matter what is presented here , ‘they’ will always try to bring it to their gutter level .This quote says it all for me !

    Anyway, no drug, not even alcohol, causes the fundamental ills of society. If we’re looking for the source of our troubles, we shouldn’t test people for drugs, we should test them for stupidity, ignorance, greed and love of power.
    P. J. O’Rourke

    Once the Medical Division of UA get the right funding ,we
    will make sure that everyone coming onto this site is tested . Its the least that we can do !

  72. I think if you post the Tottenham stats on an Arsenal based web site you can probably expect the sort of response you have got.

  74. Surrey, the information is out there brother, you have just displayed the bias of rivalry and not the camaraderie of football fans trying to achieve something for the good of the game.

  75. What a total pile of festering donkey poo.

    Where did we get 10 penalties last season? Spurs and Swansea were the only teams in PL not to be awarded a penalty.

    What a bitter bitter man wrote this rubbish, absolutely pathetic.

    Why even bother debating what is factually incorrect. More to the point that someone has wasted so much of their time writing this.

    I just don’t know whether to laugh or cry, as it is falsehoods like that the sheep believe, start talking crap, which them makes football supporters as whole look like dump stupid twats.

    Here is a FACT, most of Bales yellow cards where actually wrongly given and were in FACT fouls on the player. But most would choose not to believe due their pathetic biased views despite the fact that ample replies are on the internet that proves them wrong.

  76. Adam,

    No I am not displaying anything , I am just commenting on the replies received to the post. I have no bias at all. I am just commenting that it will be seen that way as the rivalry / tribalness of local rivals will dictate this in most cases.

  78. I’m not going to lie, when I opened the link I was already thinking “not possible” we never get any penalties aha, but, having looked at your results table I’m amazed anyone would need the footnote…

    First arsenal blog I have read that was unbiased in my opinion, but, then I only read the ones that appear in the spurs media watch section for obvious reasons and maybe this is unbiased because you have a variety of writers and not just Arsenal fans!? 🙂 (too lazy to read the previous article you referenced)

    I am surprised you would go to such lengths and not do the last 5 games, but, since all you did was present the findings I am equally surprised people have been slagging you off. The joys of the Internet hey, amazing how brave people can be when hiding behind computer screens…

    Harsh reality is we didn’t get any penalties last year because we rarely had anyone in the box, Gareth bale should have been awarded a few but with his reputation for diving is it any wonder the ref’s favour defenders when they aren’t sure? With a few weeks rest and an off season to think about it, I would have to say no…

    I hate rugby and cricket fans who bitch about fans and players of the worlds greatest game not showing respect and am now bored of trying to explain “it’s because they get so much wrong”

    This article highlights the level at which it is happening and anything that can be done to reduce the number of incorrect decisions is worth a punt in my book. Much easier to accept a decision and keep your mouth shut when you know it’s the right one…

  79. Stuart, yes that is the match I was referring to. If I’m reading that correctly and the conclusion is that the referee was biased against Arsenal then that’s pretty much stripped any credibility from this experiment.

    Move along everyone, nothing to see here.

  81. Geoffrey Soupe,
    What are you indicating to be wrong about it? Could you specify what is inaccurate in the review?

  82. Stuart, I think he is looking at the ref review from a purely Tottenham point of view and not looking at the mistakes or omissions of officials for both teams during a match?

    As you know most fans will not consider a mistake or omission in their own teams favour they just view it as justice for past mistakes so we have a perpetual problem of fans judging justice via more mistakes. Hence the perpetual problem we face in fans uniting to rectify this problem.

  83. Hot Truth, apart from the FACT that I am always a little ill at ease with people who write FACT in emails, you haven’t read the article. Try again, and try getting to the bottom of it. Always amusing though to read emails from people who haven’t read the original. Keeps me going through the boring days.

  84. Magic Jonson,
    More people like you please. WRT the last 5 games, I believe these were not covered purely due to resources and a couple of the refs from the panel having to drop out for personal reasons.

  86. DogFace,
    Really? Funny how that wasn’t possible last season when I asked for it.

    Back to my comment though, I still think it is important for Tony and Walter to represent the data correctly in their OWN articles to save upsetting people. That is not saying I want to do an article (don’t have the time right now) although I have done several in the past, it’s just more like a constructive criticism.

  88. That’s a no for now DogFace. I can’t help but take your comment to be a snide dig at me for suggesting to make changes to the way the data is represented, maybe it’s just the wording.

  89. You are wrong – I have already given the data to Walter generated in the way you suggested, so it caught my attention.

    Feel free to call my bluff though if you think I’m being snide.

  90. OK fair enough but I did ask for data last season and received none despite chasing it a couple of times. Never mind, I can’t use it now anyway.

  91. Stuart;

    There are two issues to address regarding the problems I have with that particular match analysis.

    Firstly, as I have mentioned before, the way all types of decisions have been weighted and combined together to present one overall score is misleading and I think will distort a lot of your match reports. By ranking decisions on red cards, penalties and goals as a numerical value of five whilst in the same report ranking decisions on throw ins and goal kicks with a value of one you are – perhaps unintentionally – allowing for five incorrect decisions on throw ins and goal kicks to effectively cancel out a decision regarding a key, game changing decision. In the overall scheme of the game those throw ins and goal kicks most likely had very little impact on the result whereas the red card, penalty or goal did.

    Secondly, having looked through that report you seem to list both the awarding of a free kick and the taking of the free kick as two separate incorrect decisions. This subsequently gives more weight to free kicks awarded incorrectly which again distorts the analysis. Can you explain why these have been listed like this? Also, on 54 minutes you have listed the award of a free kick against Gibbs twice, as well as the subsequent taking of the free kick whereas in other instances they are only listed once. Is this a mistake, or was there any specific reason why it was listed twice? This again distorts the analysis in Arsenal’s favour. It says the free kick shouldn’t be awarded because Norwich player tripped himself up, rather than being fouled. It then states he should be booked for a dive. If he tripped himself up, that is not a dive. Which is it?

    Thirdly, and this is where it becomes a matter of subjectivity. From my own memory of the match, and reinforcing it with the aid of some highlights of the goals, I disagree with the report’s interpretation of the first two Arsenal goals, views which were also shared by television pundits and newspaper reports.

    Regarding the award of a corner, the report says ‘there was no conclusive camera angle to prove the ball had crossed the line before Snodgrass touched it’. This is wrong, as there was at least one angle which did clearly show the ball going out of play with the last touch coming off the Arsenal player. As for the award of the penalty, the report says ‘Kamara pulled the shirt of Giroud… It was a foul and you could see his shirt clearly being pulled on the replays… a correct decision’. Whoever compiled this report was obviously too focused on Kamara pulling Giroud’s shirt to completely miss Giroud also pulling Kamara’s shirt. A penalty should not have been awarded as Giroud was fouling Kamara, but this is ignored in the report.

    Giroud is also fouling the defender again in the build up to the second goal. In fact if he wasn’t pulling the defender’s shirt he probably wouldn’t have got to the ball. A free kick should have been awarded to Norwich, but again, this is ignored in the report.

    At least the offside for the third Arsenal goal was duly noted.

    So as you can see, whoever compiled the match report was very selective about which incidents they saw (sounds familiar) and the overall summary is pushed further in Arsenal’s favour by either mistakes or entries which have been deliberately repeated.

  92. In every fairness, this team had done a good job and we can only give further advice for improvement. Condemning them without giving a credible alternative is stupidity at the highest level. But please let all fans of every club who are concerned with fairness and equity note that;-
    1). The two penalties scored by Tothenham representiing all they have managed to score this new season are largely undeserved. A very disciplined and eagle eyed referee would have ruled them as simulations.
    2). The present collection of Tothenham’s players are good bunch and referees should not take away credits from their good performance through biased officiating to favour the team.
    3). The way that man who referred Arsenal vs Aston Villa match performed was a disgrace. He did not care if Arsenal players are killed or maimed. He gave Kos an unnecessary first, yellow and then a right 2nd yellow with automatic red as if he was implementing an already written script. His performance was shameful.
    This is not to excuse that Arsenal boys performed a little below standard but when you realized that the power that be wanted you to lose at all cost what do you do? give up of course and hope for better day which they had proved creditably.
    4). If all that Tothenham’s chairman was alleged to have done to prevent Oxil from coming to Arsenal was true, then I would not doubt his influence in this particular match
    All I will advice is that all Arsenal players should put in the best performance of their lives this year so as to counteract the effects of biased officiating.
    It,is no gain saying, that this present Arsenal team contains the largest collection of most gifted players of British origin but what pains me most is that the PFA is yet to come to the understanding that Wenger is trying to build the core of the expected new and exciting England National team.
    As a last plea, let all faithful Arsenal fans rally round the manager and the players, support and encourage them home and away. Stop all abuses, insults and name callings. These Boys are fantastic and can beat any team in this planet.

  93. I truly cannot wait for the analysis of the Sunderland game today. Let me guess, Altidore should have been sent off for not relinquishing the ball to Sagna and Arsenal should have had a penalty for the inconvenience?

    Amos, re point 1, which eagle eyed referee would have deemed the handball at Palace as ‘simulation’? Or did you not even see it but just decided to spout a load of biased, made up crap? The latter? Ah yes, I thought as much.

  94. Stuart,

    I’ve also pointed out the problem a few times last year. Specifying by using ‘incorrect for’ and ‘incorrect against’ makes it so much more clear, but the problem is yet to be addressed. Easy fix, but clarity remains to be seen.

    Still better than any other sites analysis.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *