Tuesday, February 1st, 2011 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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Victory Through Harmony
RefWatch – Arsenal v Everton (01/02/2011 19:45)
By DogFace
- Referee: Lee Mason
- Assistant 1: Stephen Child
- Assistant 2: Patrick Keane
- 4th Official: Kevin Wright [who?!]
Good afternoon stat-fans and welcome to your favourite time of the week; it’s Ref Watch time! This week we have Lee Mason – who you may recall we were going to have for the Stoke game before it was cancelled due to snow… he brought Patrick Keane along that day too – what are the odds eh! Anyway – now he’s back and he has a job to do. Some bloke called Kevin is the 4th Official – I’ve never heard of him (he’s a ‘National Group’ ref rather than a ‘Select Group’ one) and I have no data about him with regards to Arsenal or Everton so I’m assuming he is along for the ride as Mason’s gimp, y’know – so he can keep his gob shut, do what he’s told and see how things are done in the Select Group… so to speak.
Let’s have a look at Referee Free Mason… sorry, I mean ‘Lee Mason’:
- Full name: Lee S Mason
- Date of birth: 29 October 1971 (1971-10-29) (age 39)
- Place of birth: Bolton, Lancashire, England
- EPL Referee Since: 2005/2006
- EPL Games to date: 73
If I were facin’ t’ map o’ t’ England, this would be me top team!
Yes – he’s a northerner and from Bolton; from whence the maternal side of the DogFace clan hails from – although they started out in Merseyside [as an aside] after getting off the boat from Ireland… he looks a bit Irish come to think of it; I wonder who his dad supported?! Anyway – I’m sure it’s unrelated BUT Lee studied at the Liverpool Institute of Higher Education; which is an institute with a Catholic history.
Want me to join the dots up for you too?
What… you do? OK – let’s do just that and check out how Arsenal perform under the whistle of Free, I mean Lee, sorry – of course I mean Lee:
Lee Mason has had 5 games for Arsenal consisting of 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses.
Arsenal are currently in 10th in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an average of 1.00 PPG.
In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 7th with an average negative swing of -0.20.
Arsenal are currently in 13th in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an overall average of 2.80 BPM.
In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 14th with an overall average of 3.50 FPB.
So all in all that’s pretty shocking – if we had Lee every game we would be looking forward to a relegation battle – we are way down on his foul tables too… although these figures are misleading when not taken into context, it is positively outrageous when you consider how the Catholic side of Liverpool [Everton] fare under the whistle of Lee Probert:
Lee Mason has had 11 games for Everton consisting of 6 wins, 4 draws and 1 loss.
Everton are currently in 2nd in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an average of 2.00 PPG.
In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Everton come 4th with an average positive swing of +0.70.
Everton are currently in 2nd in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an overall average of 1.00 BPM.
In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Everton come 2nd with an overall average of 13.73 FPB…. yeah that’s over 10 more than Arsenal – and that’s just the ones he called as a foul; as we have seen from Walter’s recent astute analysis into this – these can be way off the mark. Check out the 2009/2010 season where he blew the roof off the chart by letting Everton get away with an eyebrow raising 34 [and counting] FPB… they got 3 PPG that season – so put that into context and smoke it.
No surprises here then – Liverpool do total shite under Lee and Everton do really rather well… although they are down this season due to losing 1-4 to West Bromwich Albion [27/11/2010] in which Lee panicked and sent off a player from each side; bad day at the office maybe – oh well, I’m sure he’ll make up for it in the next match.
In other news Manchester City are doing quite well under him recently… which is surprising really when you think about it, wonder what could have caused that!? Oh and Arsenal’s form has been rubbish.
Well, what to expect from this ref? To be honest with you I’m not exactly brimming with confidence that we’ll get anything close to a ‘home advantage’, which is nothing new – the Emirates isn’t exactly Old Trafford in that respect – so we’ll have to put out a strong side to play an interception and possession game giving Lee no excuses to card us out of the challenge, send a player off or give a penalty.
I can see Everton players being cynical with the small stuff to break up play and given ‘carte blanche’ to go into the challenge [in a more English than French way] without repercussions and flinging themselves to the floor to win a free kick whenever they lose the ball.
They will get everything, we will get nothing – the ‘fans’ will proclaim we are useless (using among other words ‘pathetic’) and reiterate that Wenger should have bought that mythical centre back [that the tabloids insist we are missing]… and, no doubt, the Everton fans will no doubt start singing at some point “Same old Arsenal always cheating” as our players go down with bleeding shins. Do they do this ironically or do they really believe it I wonder?
Perception is a funny old game, as is received wisdom – a bit like football really!
But that is a worst case scenario – we can win this but we must prepare for this game knowing what we are going into, keep it tight, check our heads and believe in our ability to kick against the pricks and kick hard.
Come on Arsenal!
Snooping around the Everton blogs
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