by Andrew Crawshaw
So here we are a quarter of the way through the season – or at least we will be once Kevin Friend blows his whistle at the end of the Spurs v Man City game on Monday night.
From premierleague.com here are all of the matches:-
Saturday 27 October
15:00 Brighton v Wolves
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Stephen Child
Fourth official: Roger East
Fulham v AFC Bournemouth
Referee: Andre Marriner
Assistants: Scott Ledger, Harry Lennard
Fourth official: Darren England
Referee: Stuart Attwell
Assistants: Constantine Hatzidakis, Adrian Holmes
Fourth official: Craig Pawson
Southampton v Newcastle United
Referee: Chris Kavanagh
Assistants: Daniel Cook, Sian Massey-Ellis
Fourth official: Kevin Friend
Referee: Mike Dean
Assistants: Dan Robathan, Mark Scholes
Fourth official: Lee Probert
17:30 Leicester City v West Ham United
Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistants: Simon Bennett, Mick McDonough
Fourth official: Lee Mason
Sunday 28 October
13:30 Burnley v Chelsea
Referee: Craig Pawson
Assistants: Ian Hussin, Richard West
Fourth official: Lee Mason
13:30 Crystal Palace v Arsenal
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: Lee Betts, Adam Nunn
Fourth official: David Coote
16:00 Man Utd v Everton
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Assistants: Eddie Smart, Andy Halliday
Fourth official: Paul Tierney
Monday 29 October
20:00 Tottenham Hotspur v Man City
Referee: Kevin Friend
Assistants: Stuart Burt, Matthew Wilkes
Fourth official: Andre Marriner
Here is a table showing which referees have been worked hardest and least in terms of blowing their whistle. I have also added a listing of how many times fourth officials have been used as this might give a clue as to whom might be entrusted with a whistle in the future (my bet would be on Oliver Langford and Darren England).
| Games as referee | Games as fourth official | Outings | |
| Martin Atkinson | 10 | 5 | 15 |
| Anthony Taylor | 10 | 1 | 11 |
| Andre Marriner | 9 | 6 | 15 |
| Michael Oliver | 9 | 2 | 11 |
| Jonathan Moss | 8 | 5 | 13 |
| Mike Dean | 8 | 3 | 11 |
| Craig Pawson | 7 | 5 | 12 |
| Kevin Friend | 7 | 5 | 12 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 7 | 4 | 11 |
| Stuart Attwell | 5 | 7 | 12 |
| Paul Tierney | 5 | 6 | 11 |
| Lee Probert | 4 | 3 | 7 |
| Lee Mason | 4 | 5 | 9 |
| Graham Scott | 3 | 4 | 7 |
| David Coote | 2 | 9 | 11 |
| Simon Hooper | 1 | 7 | 8 |
| Roger East | 1 | 5 | 6 |
| Oliver Langford | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Darren England | 0 | 3 | 3 |
| Robert Jones | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Tony Harrington | 0 | 2 | 2 |
| Andy Davies | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Andy Madley | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Gavin Ward | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Jeremy Simpson | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| John Brooks | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Peter Bankes | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Steve Martin | 0 | 1 | 1 |
| Tim Robinson | 0 | 1 | 1 |
So far Martin Atkinson and Andre Marriner have been the busiest with each having officiated at 15 matches (one and a half per weekend).
The Busiest Assistants have been:-
| Appearances | Assistant 1 | Assistant 2 | |
| Simon Bennett | 10 | 5 | 5 |
| Gary Beswick | 10 | 10 | 0 |
| Stuart Burt | 9 | 7 | 2 |
| Stephen Child | 9 | 6 | 3 |
| Simon Long | 9 | 4 | 5 |
| Scott Ledger | 9 | 8 | 1 |
| Lee Betts | 9 | 7 | 2 |
| Ian Hussin | 9 | 8 | 1 |
| Adam Nunn | 9 | 0 | 9 |
| Richard West | 8 | 2 | 6 |
Southampton remain the only club who have had a different referee every week and Liverpool remain the only club to have had a referee three times (Michael Oliver in three away matches; Palace 0 v Pool 2, Spurs 1 v Pool 2 and Huddersfield 0 v Pool 1)
Mind you they also won away at Leicester under Paul Tierney but only drew at Chelsea under Andre Marriner.
On to our game on Sunday and we have the pleasure of:-
- Referee: Martin Atkinson
- Assistants: Lee Betts, Adam Nunn
- Fourth official: David Coote
This is the second time we will have had Mr Atkinson this year and yes I agree with you that in an ideal world that would be two times too many. He was in charge of our away match at Chelsea in week 2 where we lost by two goals to three. A master in the black arts of refereeing the last thing we should expect is a level playing field.
Young Mr Zaha has been complaining for weeks that he is targeted by opposition players, I think that on Sunday he could well get maximum protection and our players will be called for fouls as soon as they breathe on him. He is also quite likely to be awarded a penalty or two where against other teams he would probably get yellow cards for diving.
The other officials all feature as amongst the busiest so all are clearly trusted by the PGMO which is a somewhat worrying thought.
I hope that our players escape from Portugal unscathed (I’m writing this Thursday afternoon) and that we will be able to count on our best attacking lineup to outscore Palace.
Finally our Women are also in action on Sunday – they kick off at Stoke Gifford Stadium at 15:00 against Bristol City.
COYG
It’s the level of assaults he will let go on our players that worries me.
I haven’t finished up Game Day 8 statistics. I had noticed that some of the treatment times were “long”, or that a player was subbed directly. To me, that speaks to the severity of knock that required treatment.
Andrew and I have both noticed oddities in cards for some teams. Man$ity at home I believe is one Andrew noticed. The spuds anywhere is another. The worst team in the inflicting treatment on other teams is CPalace at 15 (up to Game Day 8). Following them are the spuds (14), ManU (14), Everton (14), Southampton (13) and Man$ity (13). I am inclined to call all of those teams dirty. In terms of man-minutes of caution, CPalace is 15th (597), spuds are 7th (416), ManU are 10th (509), Everton are 16th (599), Southampton are 19th (747) and Man$ity are 5th (370). Six dirty teams, two of which are seeing very little by way of caution.
In the news, is that one of the treatments from last Game Day that required immediate substitution, was Yarmolenko of State Aid (inflicted by a spud). He has had Achilles tendon surgery since the game, and may miss the rest of the season. There was no card to the spud for this incident, I don’t know if there was a foul called.
Who was the referee overseeing this incident? Atkinson!
oops.
s/up Game Day 8/up Game Day 9/
Gord, that is very worrying indeed.
@Gord, Man City picked up their first two home bookings last week, they don’t stand out quite so much. Ow.
Probably due to City meeting the refs last year
Game Day 9
===Top-6===
Caution (man-minutes)
Liverpool 287
Chel$ea 336
Spuds 416
Man$ity 468
ManU 672
Arsenal 673
Treatments Needed
ManU 4
Chel$ea 5
Man$ity 5
Spuds 8
Liverpool 11
Arsenal 14
Treatments Inflicted
Chel$ea 6
Liverpool 7
Arsenal 10
Man$ity 15
Spuds 16
ManU 17
===Rest of the Pack===
Caution (man-minutes)
Wolves 297
Cardiff 396
Newcastle 399
Bournemouth 460
Huddersfield 469
…
Burnley 666
Brighton 667
Fulham 688
Everton 701
Leicester 742
Watford 788
Southampton 852
Treatments Needed
Watford 2
CPalace 4
…
State Aid 14
Southampton 15
Bournemouth 16
Brighton 18
Everton 20
Cardiff 21
Treatments Inflicted
Wolves 3
Burnley 5
Huddersfield 7
Leicester 7
Brighton 8
…
Everton 15
CPalace 16
Southampton 16
===Referees Overseeing Treatments===
Simon Hooper 1
Roger East 3
David Coote 5
Chris Kavanagh 6
…
14 Lee Mason
15 Lee Probert
16 Anthony Taylor, Jonathon Moss
17 Andre Marriner, Michael Oliver
18 Kevin Friend, Martin Atkinson (20?), Mike Dean
22 Craig Pawson
What is amazing is the fact that there is no representation in the PGMOL of the ethnic minorities that play & officiate the game at the highest level. It is a Trumpesque representation of the corrupt.
The FA are the most racist biased unsporting organisations in the world. Their choice of PGMOL is in line with their corrupt make up.
CPalace (636:04:-15) v Arsenal (673:14:-10) under Martin Atkinson (2nd with 18 treatments). Both teams tend to play with about the same amount of over-average caution. CPalace tends to kick the other team more than Arsenal, and CPalace tends to not get kicked much. PGMO loves to let teams kick Arsenal.
Liverpool! (287:11:-07) v Cardiff (396:21:-12) under Stuart Attwell (12th with 10 treatments). Liverpool sees little caution and Cardiff is probably under average as well. Cardiff gets kicked by everyone, and they like to kick teams more than Liverpool! does.
Burnley (666:06:-05) v Chel$ea (336:05:-06) under Craig Pawson (1st with 22 treatments). Neither team has been getting kicked, or kicking the opposition much. Burnley plays with substantially more caution than Chel$ea. Somehow I don’t think Pawson will see many treatments this game.
ManU (672:04:-17) v Everton (701:20:-15) under Jonathon Moss (7th with 16 treatments). Both teams see lots of caution and kick the opposition. Everton tends to need a lot of treatments.
Spuds (416:08:-16) v Man$ity (468:05:-15) under Kevin Friend (2nd with 18 treatments). Both teams like to kick the opposition and play with little caution. There are probably going to be a few treatments this game, possibly no cards though (medja darlings both of them).