Matchweek 26 – The games and officials; phantom fouls and time under caution

by Andrew Crawshaw

Here, courtesy of premierleague.com, are this weekends fixtures and appointed match officials.  Please note that kickoff times are 15:00 (UK time) unless otherwise noted :-

Saturday 9 February

12:30 Fulham v Man Utd
Referee: Paul Tierney
Assistants: Eddie Smart, Mick McDonough
Fourth official: Graham Scott

Crystal Palace v West Ham
Referee: Craig Pawson
Assistants: Lee Betts, Ian Hussin
Fourth official: Andy Woolmer

Huddersfield Town v Arsenal
Referee: Jonathan Moss
Assistants: Marc Perry, Andy Halliday
Fourth official: Andre Marriner

• Huddersfield Town v Arsenal: how Town can get a point – or maybe three.

Liverpool v AFC Bournemouth
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistants: Gary Beswick, Adam Nunn
Fourth official: Mike Dean

Southampton v Cardiff
Referee: Martin Atkinson
Assistants: Stephen Child, Harry Lennard
Fourth official: Tim Robinson

Watford v Everton
Referee: Lee Probert
Assistants: Adrian Holmes, Derek Eaton
Fourth official: Roger East

17:30 Brighton v Burnley
Referee: Stuart Attwell
Assistants: Constantine Hatzidakis, Simon Long
Fourth official: David Coote

Sunday 10 February

13:30 Spurs v Leicester

Referee: Michael Oliver
Assistants: Simon Bennett, Stuart Burt
Fourth official: Lee Mason

16:00 Man City v Chelsea

Referee: Mike Dean
Assistants: Darren Cann, Dan Robathan
Fourth official: Paul Tierne

• Manchester City v Chelsea: the predictions and the psychology

Monday 11 February

20:00 Wolves v Newcastle

Referee: Graham Scott
Assistants: Daniel Cook, Richard West
Fourth official: Simon Hooper

As a matter of interest I thought I would have a look at the numbers relating to fouls, cards, minutes under caution etc for Manchester United under their two managers this season. Mourinho and Solskjar

	Mourinho (17 fixtures)		Solskjar (7 League games)
	Total	Average per game	Total	Average per game
Fouls called	212	12.5	79	11.3
Yellow cards	36	2.1	15	2.1
Red Cards	2		0
Minutes under Caution	1503	88.4	606	86.6

In essence the numbers haven’t shown any significant change, so we can assume that their improvement in form has not been prefaced by a change in treatment from the referees.

For comparison here are the figures for the other top six clubs (the top figure is the total, the second is the average per game)

	Liverpool	Man City	Spurs	Chelsea	Arsenal
Fouls called	223	219	245	219	279
	8.92	8.76	9.8	8.76	11.16
Yellow cards	23	32	33	31	42
	0.92	1.28	1.32	1.24	1.68
Ref Cards	2	1	1	0	0
Minutes under Caution	873	1408	1,338	990	1949
	34.92	56.32	53.52	39.6	77.96

Manchester United (see top table) have had more time under caution (time remaining in a game following cards and penalties) than any of the other members of the top six, we aren’t that far behind.

Manchester City and Tottenham are close together at two thirds the level of United and us and Liverpool and Chelsea have the lowest at half or less of our value.  Effectively United and ourselves are playing under caution from the first whistle, City and Spurs for the second half of each match Chelsea for some of the first half and Liverpool for all but the first half hour.

Chelsea, City and Liverpool all have been called for 30% fewer fouls than us and Liverpool have half the number of yellow cards that we have (but 2 red cards to none for us)

On to this weekend and we have Mr Moss for the second time in a month and the third time this season for Huddersfield he has only done one other game.  So far this season :-

Arsenal 2 v Everton 0 22 September – Two yellow cards (min 15 & 30) from 17 fouls against Arsenal and one card (min27) from 13 fouls for Everton.

West Ham 0 – Arsenal 1 12 January – No yellow cards for either team, West Ham 7 and Arsenal 10 fouls.

Man United 3 – Huddersfield 1 – One yellow card to United in Min 30 from 9 fouls and one for Huddersfield in Min 23 from 13 fouls

• No obvious reason for any refereeing discrepancies, other than the usual nagging doubt with Mr Moss that he can usually be trusted to deliver a result for his masters.  We should be on the look out for the usual sorts of things…
• Mr Moss not being sufficiently up with play to really see what is going on
• Phantom fouls to break up our play and hand Huddersfield additional chances to put balls into our box.
• Inappropriate waving of arms indicating advantage when there is none
• Any contact from an Arsenal player being called a foul whilst the same contact on our players being ignored.

COYG