Ref Watch: Welcome Mark Clattenburg! (?)

Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal

Untold Arsenal on Facebook here

RefWatch – Arsenal v Chelsea (27/12/2010 20:00)

By DogFace

  • Referee:              Mark Clattenburg
  • Assistant 1:         Scott Ledger
  • Assistant 2:         Martin Yerby
  • 4th Official:         Lee Probert

Good morning stat-fans.  I have dog-flu… Christmas has not been relaxing; it’s a time for children (especially if you have them) and today the smegging outlaws invited themselves over with their kids to trash my house and empty it of food/wine – so, I’m wrecked, it’s 21:49 and it’s off to the match time tomorrow therefore I’m giving myself 45 minutes to write this article before hitting the irish-lemsip and dozing off.  Tomorrow (today) we have Mark Clattenburg (again – remember that thing I was saying about the referee pool being too small?).  We’ve actually had Marky C ref an Arsenal Vs Chelsea match before back in the 2007/2008 season – we played the Chavs at the bridge on the 23/03/2008 and lost 2 – 1… I recall not being happy at a few decisions pertaining to offside – but my memory is a bit fuzzy.

So let’s have a look at Mark Clattenburg again:

  • Full name:                           Mark Clattenburg
  • Date of birth:                     13 March 1975 (1975-03-13) (age 35)
  • Place of birth:                    Consett, County Durham, England
  • EPL Referee Since:          2004/2005
  • EPL Games to date:         131

Howard Webb told me that this stops you going bald…

Seeing as we’ve had Marky C before I’m just going to brush over his stats… Mark Clattenburg has had 16 games for Arsenal consisting of 10 wins, 1 draw and 5 losses; he has been good for us this season and has a good overall score in Walter’s Ref Review – and we can see this reflected below:

Arsenal are currently in 3rd in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an average of 1.94 PPG… which seems there or there abouts (if you consider Arsenal to be a top 3 team).

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 1st with an average positive swing of 0.90 – which is great news as a +0.90 of a goal is strong.

Arsenal are currently in 8th in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an overall average of 1.69 BPM – again this seems quite normal.

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 14th with an overall average of 6.11 FPB… hmm – we have been punished in the foul and this is not with any kind of consistency – if you look at the FPB lines for (us and our opponents) you can see a distinct crossover – but again, these figures are not always black and white… if Marky C were [this season] calling the match properly then you do see a lot of small and rotational fouls against us to break up play and stifle our game – so it’s not always that we are ‘punished more’ as it were.

From the figures here we have no complaints – on to Mark Clattenburg Vs Chelsea:

Mark Clattenburg has had 13 games for Chelsea consisting of 10 wins, 2 draws and 1 loss.

Chelsea are currently in 1st in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an average of 2.46 PPG (WOW!).

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Chelsea come 4th with an average positive swing of 0.48… shit.

Chelsea are currently in 2nd in Mark Clattenburg’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, with an overall average of 1.23 BPM – bollocks.

In Mark Clattenburg’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Chelsea come 3rd with an overall average of 8.38 FPB – fucksticks!

So, overall, Chelsea can also have absolutely no complaints with the appointment of Mark Clattenburg for this match… in fact – their numbers look great; which is a great shame for us!

Our fourth official for the afternoon is one Lee Probert.  He’s only had 2 games for Arsenal consisting of 1 win, 1 draw and 0 losses.  Lee has also had 5 games for Chelsea consisting of 4 wins, 1 draw and 0 losses – not much data there, but Chelsea are riding depressingly high in all his figures… apart from their performance against the handicap – i.e. good results but hard fought.

Before I go off and indulge in a Paracetamol/Phenylephrine/Lemonyish flavour/Honey/Whisky binge I’m going to drag out a few figures relating to Mark Clattenburg’s performance against the EPL (a few selected teams) – to give us a bigger picture of any seasonal bias or trends:

What’s interesting here to note is that both Arsenal and Chelsea have sky rocketed against the handicap… Man City who were doing brilliantly under Marky C have crashed (our game against City gave that negative figure this season and I fully expect City to pick that figure up towards the end of the season).  Tottenham have struggled out of negative territory to zero – it’s fair to say that, in regards to the season so far – things seem to be taking a rather different and interesting tack.  So I’ll be watching Mark Clattenburg’s numbers very closely from now on.

In conclusion – I hope Drogba has an ‘off day’ and we win… a Chelsea fan once told me (mid diatribe about ‘that f&*king Drogba’) that that’s exactly how he used to feel about Thierry Henry – although Henry, I think you’ll agree, had way more class.

Feeling bored?  Maybe no one gave you Making the Arsenal

Time to kill?  The biggest puzzle on the Arsenal blogs – the Untold Index

Don’t know what to do with yourself?  What’s the matter with you?

12 Replies to “Ref Watch: Welcome Mark Clattenburg! (?)”

  1. After a weekend of wine and overdosage of food ;waking up groogy
    this morning ;driving in heavy traffic and starting work on a busy Monday morinig ,and just about to reach for the paracetamol
    to relieve the headache ,I chanced upon this article .
    Lo and behold !And presto !I was cured !I,m sober !Those vivid colours , beautiful lines and sexy shapes did the trick.The word were good too !We are going to win, aren’t we ?

  2. thank you again for the stats and picture, canine features
    alternative caption- dont mention the war/ is that my business partner’s young son i see in the distance.

  3. Nice article and good analysis. I want to point out that if our players can have the same believe as some of us the supporters do, we will definitely win this match irrespective of the man at the center.
    Chelsea is not unbeatable as we have all seen in the last few weeks. They are not going to use us for their revival. Our players must believe. Even if Chelsea score first, we will still beat them.
    Enjoy the game everyone.

  4. we are in a process.success is imminent. IN WENGER I TRUST…..MERRY XMAS GOONERS AND GOONERRETTES

  5. It will be our third game under Clattenburg this season. And we are not even half way the season! At this tempo we will have Clattenburg some 6 or 7 times.

    And any ref will agree with me that this is not good. Not for the teams but certainly not good for the ref itself.
    The fact that in Europe you see the refs only one time in a season is far better. It helps the refs to be less biased. Like I said on a few occasions before if you have a difficult game and you have to go back to the same team a few weeks later you might be a bit biased. A normal human reaction but one that should be avoided by the governing body in the EPL, FA and Pogmol.

    And I’m not saying Clattenburg has had bad games with us but it is not a good thing that we have the same refs over and over again.

  6. mmm

    why are you are wasting your time with those worthless stats about a ref being good to us? it’s simply pathetic imo.

    i don’t want us to win because the ref is “good to us” i want us to win proving we are the better team on the pitch and the pride of London, all those stats only bring controversy to the mix. wipe the floor with the chavski that’s what really matters tonight. up the gooners

  7. Gooby,

    I think you are missing a point. One of the things you can find by having these refwathc is to see if a particular ref gets you lesser points in the games when you compare it to the global points we get and compared to other refs.
    If we get an average of 2 points per game in the league and with one ref you get 0 points after 3 games, this could indicate that there is something wrong with that ref. That could be just bias, following some instructions, or just bad luck. If you compare this to the same thing season after season you can find some things that are a bit suspicious.

    And mostly in my ref review after the game you can find why the ref was good/bad and how he did it compared to the ref preview in this refwatch series.

    If you put both of them together you can find why some refs do some things. And then again it can go from biased refs to totaly unfit to be a ref or to good refs.

    Not even halfway the season and I can tell you that with some refs we will winn no game this season. Or we should have a day when all goes our way when we touch the ball and goals fly in as if it was nothing.

  8. WalterBroeckx

    so the point is some ref are biased and the FA never noticed this kind of stats, you think some ref loves a team more than others and make the game “easier” for them?
    I know Webb loves united it’s obvious but stats on such a small amount of game isn’t in indicator, look at statistic rules, it clearly isn’t enough

  9. Well if no one started these statistics, no conclusions could be made.
    As Dogface told us on a few occasions: the gambling industry wants to keep its risks as low as possible so they do know the importance of a ref and how it can affect the outcome of a game (and their profit or loss).
    For the gambling industry it is about the money, for us the fans it is about having fair refs.
    I wouldn’t want us to win games by a biased ref. But I sure don’t want to lose one single point because of a ref that is biased against us.
    In fact, I think all everyone who loves football want is fair refs. But since the 2007-2008 season I have lost my faith in fair refs completely. I have seen things in the second half of that season that well, was not of the standard one should and could expect in the EPL. Was it a run of bad luck or ordered? No one will ever know. But I have my thoughts on the whole matter.

  10. @Gooby

    If you consider this article to be a waste of time, what are the kind of topics that you feel this site should be covering instead?

  11. Hello all – thank’s for the comments and your tolleration of Gooby. BTW Gooby – 16 and 13 games under a referee are an adequate sample group for trend analysis considering the vast amount of data each match generates.

    The statistics I provide are not only for your consideration but also to raise the profile of the Select Group among the fanbase. The ‘Vs EPL’ graphs that I provide at the end of each article represent a huge amount of information in, what I consider, an easily digestable format for someone of normal intelligence and little/no experience of statistics.

    I have very little statistical training myself and I would welcome the advice or critical analysis of somebody more knowlegable than myself – unfortunately you do not come close to this… but you may prove me wrong – please feel free to explain your comments in detail:

    “I know Webb loves united it’s obvious but stats on such a small amount of game isn’t in indicator, look at statistic rules, it clearly isn’t enough”

    For one, quote your sources for this revelation, the reasons why exactly Webb ‘loves united’ and then apply them to what I have presented in a manner that is relevent – the trouble is that, if you don’t do this, you simply come accross as being pig ignorant.

    BTW stat-fans, RefWatch has been cancelled for today due to a plumbing disaster.. that and we don’t have much of a past under Probert anyway (see article as he was the 4th official in this match)!

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *