First Half of the Season – Referee Analysis – who’s been where and how often

by Andrew Crawshaw

Covering the first half of the season here is a list of the games done by each referee and the top of the table for the Assistant Referees.

A total of 18 different referees have been used so far but with vastly different workloads.

Referee Games Assistants Games
Anthony Taylor 17 Simon Bennett 18
Martin Atkinson 16 Gary Beswick 18
Michael Oliver 16 Scott Ledger 17
Andre Marriner 15 Lee Betts 17
Mike Dean 15 Adam Nunn 17
Jonathan Moss 13 Simon Long 16
Kevin Friend 13 Ian Hussin 16
Craig Pawson 14 Stuart Burt 15
Paul Tierney 12 Stephen Child 15
Chris Kavanagh 12 Mick McDonough 15
Stuart Attwell 10 Richard West 14
Lee Probert 10 Eddie Smart 14
Lee Mason 9 Darren Cann 14
Graham Scott 7 Simon Beck 14
David Coote 4 Dan Robathan 14
Roger East 3 Constantine Hatzidakis 14
Simon Hooper 3 Matthew Wilkes 13
Andy Madley 1 Andy Halliday 13
Adrian Holmes 13
Marc Perry 13

The number of games by the bottom four referees is 11; much less than the top referees.  Effectively there are only 14 referees undertaking matches which is far too few – whatever happened to the 24 the PGMO were supposed to provide when they were first appointed to the job?

This lack of referees reflects in the number of repeat visits teams are seeing.

Team Number of referees seen this season Referees with repeat visits
2 3 4
Arsenal 13 Martin Atkinson

Andre Marriner

Paul Tierney

Chris Kavanagh

Anthony Taylor
Brighton 12 Martin Atkinson Anthony Taylor

Kevin Friend

Chris Kavanagh

Burnley 15 Anthony Taylor

Martin Atkinson

Jonathan Moss

Graham Scott

Bournemouth 13 Mike Dean

Craig Pawson

Stuart Attwell

Lee Mason

Lee Probert
Cardiff 13 Martin Atkinson

Jonathan Moss

Kevin Friend

Lee Probert

Michael Oliver
Chelsea 12 Michael Oliver

Mike Dean

Jonathan Moss

Martin Atkinson

Craig Pawson

Crystal Palace 10 Martin Atkinson

Andre Marriner

Mike Dean

Lee Probert

Anthony Taylor Michael Oliver
Everton 14 Jonathan Moss

Kevin Friend

Craig Pawson

Paul Tierney

Lee Mason

Fulham 12 Anthony Taylor

Martin Atkinson

Andre Marriner

Mike Dean

Paul Tierney

Lee Probert

David Coote

Huddersfield 13 Anthony Taylor

Stuart Attwell

Michael Oliver

Chris Kavanagh

Leicester 11 Michael Oliver

Andre Marriner

Craig Pawson

Chris Kavanagh

Lee Probert

David Coote

Mike Dean
Liverpool 11 Martin Atkinson

Andre Marriner

Chris Kavanagh

Stuart Attwell

Michael Oliver

Paul Tierney

Man City 11 Martin Atkinson

Kevin Friend

Stuart Attwell

Lee Mason

Michael Oliver

Andre Marriner

Man United 11 Anthony Taylor

Michael Oliver

Andre Marriner

Mike Dean

Jonathan Moss

Kevin Friend

Newcastle 12 Martin Atkinson

Andre Marriner

Craig Pawson

Chris Kavanagh

Lee Probert

Anthony Taylor
Southampton 13 Anthony Taylor

Jonathan Moss

Chris Kavanagh

Stuart Attwell

Lee Mason

Craig Pawson

Spurs 11 Anthony Taylor

Chris Kavanagh

Martin Atkinson

Mike Dean

Craig Pawson

Watford 12 Anthony Taylor

Martin Atkinson

Mike Dean

Paul Tierney

Lee Mason

Jonathan Moss
West Ham 13 Anthony Taylor

Martin Atkinson

Michael Oliver

Mike Dean

Chris Kavanagh

Graham Scott

Wolves 12 Kevin Friend

Craig Pawson

Stuart Attwell

Andre Marriner

Mike Dean

David Coote is a surprise in this table – he has only been in charge for four games and yet two have involved Fulham.  Mind you, given the season that Fulham have had, they will probably want to see him more often as they have won one and drawn the other.

Graham Scott with seven appearances has two for each of Burnley and West Ham

As interesting as this table is the omissions may well tell another story.  Chelsea haven’t had Anthony Taylor yet this season – given that he has only missed two rounds of matches this is surprising.  Liverpool haven’t had Mike Dean; I wonder what is going on there as well.

How come Crystal Palace have seen fewer referees than any other Club and why are they the only club with four visits from a referee?  That represents 25% of Michael Oliver’s workload do far

Arsenal have only seen one of the ‘part time’ referees at the bottom of the table in terms of matches allocated in Graham Scott, – Lee Mason, David Coote, Roger East, Simon Hooper or Andy Madley are as yet unseen.

18 Replies to “First Half of the Season – Referee Analysis – who’s been where and how often”

  1. The biggest mover in the referee rankings from week 16 to week 17 was Kavanagh, moving two rankings. The biggest mover from week 17 to week 18 was Mason, moving two rankings.

    The 3 referees who have overseen the largest number of treatments are Atkinson (33), Taylor (28) and Marriner (28).

    The referee who has overseen the most short-handed play due to treatments it Atkinson, at 76 minutes. No other referee is over 1 hour, next highest might be something like 50 minutes.

    The referee who has overseen the largest number of substitutions form treatments, is (wait for it) Atkinson at 9. Oliver and Kavanagh are at 8 substitutions.

    I believe there has been 354 of these longer term treatment sessions so far this season. There has been 38 occurrences of the home team having to substitute a player due to a treatment infliction by the away team, and 50 occurrences of the away team needing to make a substitution due to the home team inflicting a treatment.

    Of those 354 treatment sessions, only 13 involved the issuing of a card (12 yellow and 1 red). Eleven of those 13 cards were involving treatments where the player did not need to be substituted. The other two required an almost immediate substitution (1 minute).
    _Friend 3
    _Attwell 2
    _Marriner 2
    _Pawson 1
    _Scott 1
    _Oliver 1
    _Moss 1
    _Probert 1
    _Dean 1

  2. In the last week or so, someone (Hackett? Others?) have said that Atkinson and Oliver are the two “elite” referees.

    Atkinson leads every category in being a bad referee: most treatments, most time short-handed, most substitutions. And he has not handed out a single card from treatments. Oliver has handed out a single card.

    Elite?

  3. There has been one circumstance where a player had a treatment inflicted on them, needed substitution, but all substitutions had already been made. So that team had to play short-handed for a while (1 minute I think).

  4. Some of the treatments are goaltenders who have been hurt. There is no playing short-handed without a goaltender, either the goaltender returns to play before play resumes, or the goalkeeper is substituted.

  5. I had to go through the data twice (collecting how long each short handed was). I missed a yellow card. Atkinson issued on in GD17 with no substitution.

  6. For treatments where no substitution was needed, the raw data (bins) is:
    0 50
    1 79
    2 80
    3 29
    4 13
    5 5
    7 2
    9 2
    10 1
    11 1
    20 1

    I am going to suggest all the data listed as no 0, should be regarded as no 1, so that bin should have 129 items.

    The ratio of how many N minutes to N+1 minutes is about constant down to 5 minutes. Which is kind of what I was expecting. All treatment times longer than 5 minutes are picking off extreme values.

    I wasn’t expecting a treatment time of 20 minutes, maybe that is a typo? Some other kind of error.

  7. If a substitution needs to be made, the usual situation is that the medical people work on the player for N minutes (could be 0) and the player never returns to the field of play. Instead, a substitute directly replaces them.

    Anything involving treatment or delay in replacing the treated player over 4 minutes, is extreme value in behavior. Again, the longest time I have is 20 minutes.

    Situations where the player was treated for some length of time, returned to the field of play, and was subsequently deemed unable to continue were less often. Probably less than 1/4 of the work on player for N minutes and replace without returning to field of play.

    —–

    There were 2 circumstances I noted, where a player could not be substituted as all substitutions were used up. These resulted in playing short-handed for 2 and 4 minutes. As these situations involve time added on for stoppages, you need to take those time estimates with a grain of salt.

  8. As near as I can tell, all cards issued as a result of a player having treatment inflicted on them; were cards for rough play. No cards related to simulation were seen.

    The longest length of time that a team had to play short-handed when a card was issued as a result of the collision, was 4 minutes. There were 24 treatment incidents, where players were worked on and teams played short-handed longer than 4 minutes. Why were there no cards for these situations?

    Do the referees not care? Well, for me it was obvious a long time ago they don’t care to be professional in attitude or performance.

  9. Sorry for “raining on you parade” Andrew. But this is following a similar vein to your work, and maybe this gives you ideas. 🙂

  10. I’m annoyed at myself for som many typos. Oh well.

    There are medja crap (sometimes called articles) where coach is warning blah about blah.

    Give me a BREAK! The manager is not warning players about just about everything that these mental giants in the medja produce. The manager may talk to players about things that a player doesn’t normally think about. And they talk to player about things the player expects to be talked about.

    There is no conspiracy. The players are not idiots.

    There are conspiracies and idjuts, but that is all on the medja side in these CRAP articles.

    This particular crap article was talking about Torreira picking up a yellow resulting in a ban, so he couldn’t play against Liverpool!!!!!!!!!!

    Xhaka has seen the same thing. He could breathe on an opponent and be carded. If Torreira is in that starting XI of comes on as a substitute at some point, the PGMO idjut in the middle will give him card.

    But the job of Torreira in this next game, is to help Arsenal win this next game; regardless of if he is in the startign XI or on the bench.

    I think UE’s job will become a little easier once VAR comes in. I can’t imagine the job of being Arsenal manager ever becoming easy, with idjuts like 😈 Mike Riley involved.

  11. With the PGMOL being so blatant with their cheating, what’s to say they will not manipulate VAR? These PGMOL cheats are shameless.

    I’ve seen the cricket referral system being manipulated where Kohli was given caught when the ball clearly bounces into the fielders hands. There should not be any doubt about a catch or a foul when using TV replay.

    Gord, your stats on treatments reveal a multitude of sins. If you include player names/clubs with the stats it will show further sins & bias.

    The Mkhitarian foot injury (caused by spud Moura) was not called a foul so should be investigated by the EPL & FA. There is no mileage in it for them but if Arsenal push, it might just start a revolution.

  12. Seems a shame, that considering all the hard work put in for this post that so much of it is obscured by brainless adverts.
    A common theme on this blog…

    Merry Christmas.

  13. @allezkev

    I’m sure Tony and Walter would be happy for you too pay for the costs of running this site if that’s what you prefer

  14. Menace,

    The so called “foul” on Mkhytarian by Moura wasn’t a foul at all. Lucas clearly won the ball. Fair and square. Mkhytarian actually hurt himself because his effort to shoot was a fraction too late and, instead of the ball, he ended up kicking Lucas’s shin.

  15. The best defence I’ve seen offered on behalf of the PGMO is that to critique this rotten structure that is palpably unfit for purpose is:

    “Anti-(Northern) English.”

    And that is because there is no reasonable or rational defence of this organisation that can be supplied.

    It is in the interests of English football that this inept organisation whose structure and performance led to not one English referee being selected by FIFA to go to the last WC is relegated as per their overall performance, into the bin.

  16. The cards issued with a treatment. It looks like one of these in an error on my part.

    no substitution yellow (Y43) Friend no 0
    Bournemouth v Cardiff 2018/8/11 15:00
    Charlie Daniels on Junior Hollett
    2nd treatment of 3 (in game) to Cardiff (#33)

    no substitution red (R40) Pawson no 4
    Wolves v Everton 2018/8/11 17:30
    Phil Jagielka on Diogo Jota
    1st treatment of 2 to Wolves

    no substitution yellow (Y41) Scott no 4
    Arsenal v StateAid 2018/8/25 15:00
    Issa Diop on PEA
    2nd treatment of 7 (in game)

    no substitution yellow (Y55) Attwell no 0
    Everton v Huddersfield 2018/9/1 15:00
    WRONG hurt player is Walcott of Everton, booked player
    is Holgate of Everton?
    3rd treatment of 5 (in game)

    no substitution yellow (Y45) Oliver no 0
    Cardiff v Man$ity 2018/9/22 15:00
    Joe Ralls on Iker Gundogan
    1st treatment of 2 (in game)

    no substitution yellow (Y51) Marriner no 3
    CPalace v Newcastle 2018/9/22 15:00
    James Tomkins on Ayoze Perez
    only treatment of game

    no substitution yellow (Y51) Attwell no 4
    Wolves v Southampton 2018/9/29 15:00
    Diogo Jota on Mario Lemina
    only treatment of game

    no substitution yellow (Y45) Marriner no 1
    Leicester v Everton 2018/10/6 15:00
    Tom Davies on Jamie Vardy
    1st treatment of 2 (in game)

    subbed1 yellow (Y68) Moss subbed1 1
    Watford v Bournemouth 2018/10/6 15:00
    1st treatment of 2 (in game)
    Jose Holebas on David Brooks
    Second treatment resulted in short, as Away out of substitutions
    Is the booking of Doucoure part of this incident?

    no substitution yellow (Y41) Probert no 1
    Bournemouth v Southampton 2018/10/20 15:00
    Mario Lemina on Joshua King
    4th treatment of 7 (in game)

    no substitution yellow (Y22) Friend no 2
    Chel$ea v Everton 2018/11/11 14:15
    Yerry Mina on Eden Hazard
    1st treatment of 5 (in game)
    subbed1 yellow (Y87) Friend subbed1 1
    Chel$ea v Everton 2018/11/11 14:15 (same game as above)
    Alvaro Morate on Richarlison
    5th treatment of 5 (in game)

    no substitution yellow (Y85) Dean no 2
    Arsenal v Spuds 2018/12/2 14:5
    This is Jan Vertongen’s second yellow card in game on Alexandre Lacazette
    2nd treatment of 2 (in game)

    The “missing” Atkinson card
    no substitution yellow (Y40) Atkinson no 2 GD 17
    Liverpool v ManU 2018/12/16 16:00
    Romelu Lukaku on Naby Keita
    1st treatment of 2 (in game)

  17. If people want to comment on those incidents, that would be wonderful.

    I have a question on another.

    Newcastle v Leicester 2019/9/29 15:00 Hooper
    Vardy requires a treatment at 61m (of 2m duration) and returns to play
    he is substitutued 11m later (so 13m after incident), but unsure that
    reason for substitution was injury. No card on incident

  18. Thanks Andrew:

    “English refereeing is at it’s lowest ebb in decades”
    -Totally Football podcast with James Richardson

    “Theatre…& Game Management”
    -the PGMO, a private company employed not be the FA but the PL who’s new boss is a TV executive/storyteller. No conflict of interest there then…

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