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.
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After having dealt with the different teams and after having examined all the Premier League refs (leading to the best ref of the season according to the views of our referee reviewers) we now will bring you something that will be an easy manual to see who is good or bad for each individual team.
We will of course bring you this in order so that from now on if you see that your team is playing and there is a certain ref assigned you can see in a blink of an eye if this ref has a bad or a good history with your team. At least in the season 2012/2013. And if all goes well we will even try to add the bias from the season before in to each article. And that way you can see if there are any possible situations that return from one year to the next.
And we do this because it might well be that some referee performances are a one off. But if a ref has the same bias against a team it might show something more. For if a ref has a big bias in favour of a team it also is saying something about that ref.
A little word of explanation about the graphics below. The ultimate referee performance would be that the bias score (which is based on the wrong decisions) of around zero. Alas you will find very few of those scores in the total series. So the zero line will be the middle line of each graphic.
If a ref has positive bias score for the team involved you will see a name (of the ref) and a green line and a number. That is the bias number for that ref.
On the other hand if the ref had a negative bias you will once again see a name but then with a red line and a number. The negative bias score for that ref.
The longer the lines, the higher the number and the higher the bias that ref produces. Short lines are better and would be nicer for us all, if only the world worked that way. I also included a little table in the graphic just with the names and with a red or green label. This is for any readers who want to have a quick look at the names as sometimes the numbers can get in the way.
Next in our series is Stoke
We have covered 11 different refs in the games we reviewed when Stoke were on the field last season.
And amazingly there were three refs with a zero bias score in those games. That was the case with Lee Probert, Jonathon Moss and Howard Webb. Well done for those refs and Stoke is the luckiest team as they have the most refs with a zero bias score.
And only two refs with a negative bias score against Stoke. Taylor had a small negative bias. The negative bias score from Marinner is a lot higher. Or should I say lower?
Refs with a small positive bias were Friend and Clattenburg. Those numbers are still a bit acceptable. But the positive bias from Atkinson, Oliver, Foy and Mason is way too high.
So now let us see if we can find a pattern if we look at the numbers from last season.
The season before we had seven refs in the Stoke games we reviewed. And two of them had a negative bias. But it seems they weren’t sent back or at least not in games we could review. So we cannot jump to conclusions about the negative refs.
So let us turn our attention to the positive refs.
Clattenburg and Webb had a positive bias in that season and a zero bias in the last season. So surely not really bad for Stoke.
And the refs with a big positive bias in the season 2011/2012 weren’t sent over in games we could review. So again we cannot look in to the numbers and compare them.
Sorry for this so we cannot really look for patterns.
And in the absence of this I will only point at the fact that in both seasons they seemed to have a lot of refs with a positive bias in general.
- 1. Who reviewed the games
- 2. What we did and what next
- 3. All the decisions in numbers
- 4. The first, at times astonishing, numbers
- 5. Home and away bias
- 6. It all evens out in the end – Wigan last season
- 7. West Ham: Life with a positive bias
- 8. West Brom and the Referees
- 9. Tottenham, penalties and some amusing comments
- 10. Swansea City and a change this year
- 11. Sunderland, a positive bias
- 12. Stoke, where refereeing is different.
- 13. Southampton – how did they ever survive?
- 14. QPR – a strange case
- 15. Norwich – more errors than acceptable
- 16. Newcastle United – again, more errors than there should be.
- 17. Manchester United: 70% of wrong decisions in their favour.
- 18. Manchester City: unlike their neighbours a very small bias.
- 19: Liverpool: you should blame the refs
- 20: Fulham – it all evens out in the end
- 21: Everton: a slight bias in favour
- 22: Chelsea: an occasional bias against
- 23: Aston Villa: a huge bias in favour
- 24: Refs give opposition freedom to kick Arsenal off the park.
- 25. The complete league bias table
- 26. Untold has said it for a long while, others follow
- 27. Andre Marriner; a good ref but 10% of his goal decisions are wrong!
- 28: Anthony Taylor: Disastrous when it comes to penalties
- 29. Chris Foy: Very bad on cards and fouls
- 30. Howard Webb, an amazing score
- 31: Jonathon Moss: Over 90% right.
- 32: Lee Mason, the ref with penalty area fever
- 33: Kevin Friend: the red card disaster
- 34: Lee Probert: This is not acceptable
- 35: Mark Clattenburg: good on red, poor on yellow
- 36: Mark Halsey: under half his penalty decisions were correct
- 37: Martin Atkinson. This is not a Fifa ref
- 38: Michael Jones: Poor discipline
- 39: Michael Oliver: This doesn’t look too clever
- 40: Mike Dean – an unacceptable bias.
- 41: Neil Swarbrick. Every goal right but oh the bias
- 42: Phil Dowd: After a good year, a year in decline
- 43: Roger East a short term solution
- 44: The Referee Competency League Table
- 45. The most unbiased referee in the PL
- 46 The best ref of the season 2012/13
There is a pattern : L.Mason + C.Foy
Know not all of them are perfect but maybe we need some foreign refs, maybe to get away from the perception that the more extremes of the English physical game, as practiced by the likes of Stoke are acceptable in the modern game……or maybe they are only acceptable agains some teams and not others? Certainly seems we have always been fair game.
Did anyone see today’s Daily Mirror….apparently VP has some ongoing feud with Shawcross, which came to a bit of a head this weekend…….far being it from me to defend him, but does VP have just a little bit of Arsenal left in him….as he suggested after his final game with us?
Mandy, no swearing in the Untold church please 😉 Maybe he is preparing a come back.. LOL
Mandy Dodd.
You saw the Daily Mirror. Sorry to learn you had a bad day at the office day.
I wonder what the feud was about. I can’t believe Hughes’s disclaimer
This just shows that something is deeply flawed in the way games are reffed in the epl; the team that committs the highest number of fouls in the league has the least number of biased refs against it.
I don’t know if it’s just me but I always viewed Stoke as an extension of united, the same way allardyce’s Bolton & Blackburn sides also appeared to be an extension of united. What I mean is these sides would rough pretty much everyone up but roll over when united came to town. So perhaps they were deemed to be doing united’s dirty work hence the favoritism from refs despite the obvious thuggery. I just hope tony pulis doesn’t land the palace job.
Just to add to my point above allardyce’s sides were famous for high scoring losses to united, home or away. Stoke also, even though the margins weren’t as high, seemed never able to win against united.
Interesting, who knows on that feud…ok take your point on the mirror. Sorry for swearing, as for him coming back, he wishes….especially if reports he does not get on with moyes are true… bet him, or for that matter his striking partner , by his own admission would love the be playing up front of the likes of Ozil, and for that matter, Ramsey…who myth says vp once suggested was not good enough. But we don’t need him!
There was some interesting footage on Sky of the RVP & Shawcross bust up, but no follow up, if van Pursey was still with Arsenal there would have been a major investigation.
My impression was that van Pursey’s ego was going out of control before he left, maybe now he considers Moyes is not good enough to manage him. I would not have him back.
To follow up on Al’s point, does Riley have a favourite appointment for MU against Stoke?
Oh…a final point, Dermot Gallagher admitted this morning that the Spuds penalty against Stoke was a mistake.
Dermot Gallagher….bloody hell, that man yields serious influence, he seems to speak when for whatever reasons Riley will not. Wonder if the ref Oliver will be punished or if he was just working to what this season is beginning to seem like an agenda with the spuds? Three dodgy penalties in one nil wins, as someone on another site suggested, has penalty become the new Bale?
Sorry Mandy – Hull not Stoke.
Just in case:
“Emmanuel Frimpong @IAMFRIMPONG26 2h
Look what ever you read tomorrow has majorly been twisted.
Is a joke what people will do to start controversy goodnight people”