by Andrew Crawshaw
I have just checked my database and Man United also joined Chelsea in the “SIXER” club last weekend having had Craig Pawson in charge of six games this season.
Tonight’s match is the rescheduled game from matchweek 31, deferred due to cup commitments (Leicester, not us).
- Referee – Graham Scott Age 49 from Oxfordshire
- Assistant Referee 1 – Lee Betts from Norfolk and FIFA accredited
- Assistant Referee 2 – Marc Perry from the West Midlands
- Fourth Official – Craig Pawson Age 38 from South Yorkshire and FIFA accredited
So Graham Scott steps up from fourth assistant at the Emirates last week to referee for this game. You may recall from my referee preview of Sunday’s game that Graham was in charge of one previous match for us this season.
Arsenal v Huddersfield 29 November (5 – 0). A good game and one where we played well enough to take matters out of the referee’s hands. He made one wrong Important Decision when he failed to award us a penalty for a foul by Quaner on Giroud in Minute 24 but that made no difference to the final result.
Prior to this season Mr Scott seems to have never been given an Arsenal match so there is no prior history to consider. He is too old for FIFA accreditation and so should be relatively immune from external inducements to adjust his performance to gain further promotion.
He has been given 19 matches this season (along with Bobby Madley and Kevin Friend) and so is mid table in terms of games supervised. Michael Oliver has 29, Jonathan Moss has 28 and Martin Atkinson 27, whilst at the other end of the table Mike Jones has 13, and both Lee Probert and Stuart Attwell have 14, Andy Madley, Simon Hooper and David Coote make up the numbers but have each only done a solitary game.
In his 19 matches he has overseen Bournemouth and Leicester on 4 occasions and both Spurs and Watford three times. Of the other top six clubs he has had Liverpool and United twice and City once.
His three earlier games involving Leicester were:-
- Bournemouth v Leicester 30 Sept (0 – 0)
- Leicester v Man City 18 Nov (0 – 2)
- Leicester v Huddersfield 1 Jan (3 – 0)
So an away draw against Bournemouth (three points behind Leicester in the league table), a home loss against the champions (not unexpected) and a home win against Huddersfield (again not unexpected given the difference in league places). Nothing there to suggest any kind of bias.
Summary
- Two matches by Mr Scott this year, one at home and one away – exactly as it should be!
- There is only one game to judge his Arsenal performances on and we won that one so comfortably for it not to provide a precedent.
- It will be interesting to see how he does tonight
COYG
Leicester v Arsenal: remember the days when Arsenal allegedly had the most injuries?
Leicester v Arsenal: what the form book tells us – it’s a little more encouraging perhaps
The Wikipedia page has the remainder as: Dean, East, Kavanagh, Marriner, Mason, Pawson, Swarbrick, Taylor and Tierney.
This group at 1 game (or very small) would seem to be substitutes, not full fledged officials. So that splits the PGMO Select into 2 groups. Does the “real group” show as a single distribution, or is it two modes (one of “super” referees at near 30, and one of “average” in the high teens)?
@Gord,
I’ll do a complete breakdown once the weekend matches are over and I can think how best to present the data – the spreadsheet is 61 columns by about 28 rows. Giving Home, away and total games for each team by each referee.
Surely Dean, Moss, Mason, East, Marriner, Swarbrick and Probert are all retiring at season’s end?
Non of them are fit, and fail to keep up with the game, thus making numerous errors.
Without VAR next season, keeping any of them on would be farcical?