The shocking figures that show the Premier League is bent « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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Victory Through Harmony
By Walter Broeckx, the trend watching ref
As you may know (and most of you appreciate my work on reviewing the refs) I try my best to keep records of each game and how the ref has done his job.
But I also try to keep things in perspective a bit. I try to see a bigger picture. So I also look at differences in games and see if there are any trends visible. And the long term readers also know that half way in the season I made a first round up of the refs and tried to gather some conclusions. At that time I noticed some kind of trend. And some of you told me that this trend was based on not enough games. Which was a fair comment at the time.
I then stated that since the time we became title contenders there was a change in the refs’ approach. It is in the article I called conspiracy theory or practice. Which you can read again if you click on this.
I said that I had noticed a drop in the level of referees when you look at the global picture. So if we say that it was not until after 15 EPL games that we could really be considered real title contenders I now have the data from 10 games since then in the EPL.
So let us start with the beginning: the first 15 games in the EPL. The ones everyone laughed at us for saying we would be in it with a chance.
| Games | cards | penalty | goals | other | total |
| Total EPL includes A Villa | 897/1500 | 824/1500 | 1384/1500 | 424/1500 | 961/1500 |
| % | 59,80 | 54,93 | 92,27 | 28,27 | 64,07 |
Now this is the result and in fact I think this result itself is a poor result. We are talking about professional refs in the best league in the world. So only getting 64 % of the decisions right is shocking. This should be at least higher than 70.
And let me add that I didn’t invent this 70% myself. No this is the average score a ref must have in the Belgium Jupiler league to retain his status. They give the score on 7/10 but this only gives a difference in the numbers you use. We use a score based on 100.
And if a ref doesn’t give a red card (like Dowd managed to do twice in the Newcastle game ) then he will always have a score below 70. Not giving a red card when the rules say you must give one gives minus 3 points. So Dowd would have lost 6 points just for not red carding Barton and Nolan in Belgium and could have had a maximum of 4 on 10. If all his other decisions would be correct. Which in Dowd his game was not the case.
So in fact this would mean that almost all the refs in the EPL would fail this test! Almost none would be in the EPL next season. A shocking thought isn’t it?
But let us move on to the next 10 games. The games since Arsenal has been very much in the title race.
| Games | cards | penalty | goals | other | total |
| After Villa | 538/1000 | 250/1000 | 787/1000 | 398/1000 | 521/1000 |
| % | 53,80 | 25,00 | 78,70 | 39,80 | 52,10 |
| Total EPL includes A Villa | 897/1500 | 824/1500 | 1384/1500 | 424/1500 | 961/1500 |
| % | 59,80 | 54,93 | 92,27 | 28,27 | 64,07 |
Just look at those numbers and compare them.
The decisions on the cards have gone down from around 60 to 54%.
The penalty decisions have gone down from around 55% to just 25%.
Before around 1 goal in 10 was wrong awarded or cancelled. Now this has gone down to 2 goals out of 10.
And then you could say that the other decisions have been better. Unfortunately this hasn’t been the case at all. Yes in numbers and yes in %. But this all is the result of me changing this system a bit.
As you know when I started this review I didn’t know which problem would come above the waterline. And the one I found that needed justification was the foul and a card decision. If there is a foul and a ref gives it he has done the right thing. But if he has to give a card and he does it he has taken 2 good decisions so I had to evaluate them both. Also if he didn’t give the card (red/yellow) I took points away from him but just calling a foul was still a good decision.
But as a result the “good” decisions in the other category has got higher. But even with this new approach the final outcome is that the total score of the refs who was 64% in the first 15 games has gone down to 52%.
Is this a coincidence? After seeing the last two games I think it is a trend. In those 10 games we had 2 good refs (Mariner at West Ham and Clattenburg against Chelsea) and the rest was poor and much below the average in the first 15 games.
8 refs out of 10 who are having a bad day? A collective bad day I would call it. Why? Is there someone out there who doesn’t want us to win our games? Why this drop in points since we are in the title race?
Do you find this strange? You just wait till I come up with the next numbers. Because I also did take the cup games and put them in a separate table. And if you have just heard something it is only me falling of my chair. And after picking myself up I can show you the numbers:
| Games | cards | penalty | goals | other | total |
| After CC Wigan | 538/1000 | 250/1000 | 787/1000 | 398/1000 | 521/1000 |
| % | 53,80 | 25,00 | 78,70 | 39,80 | 52,10 |
| Just cup games | 494/800 | 567/800 | 721/800 | 429/800 | 567/800 |
| % | 61,75 | 70,88 | 90,13 | 53,63 | 70,88 |
In the first numbers in bold after the % line you have the very low and totally unacceptable average numbers of our last 10 games in the EPL.
And the second % line are from the cup games we had of which many have been played in the same period of time. Can anyone explain me a drop in quality of the refs of almost 20% ? This is at first sight inexplicable. These are the same refs and yet they perform rather fine (even above the 70% mark which is good enough in Belgium) and yet in the EPL they suddenly under perform?
My first thought was: in the cups there is no or less influence on the refs. Because in those cup games the only game that is important is the final. And in cups you also have a draw to live with and this is (I really hope so) something you cannot get in your hands. So could it be that the forces that are at work in the EPL don’t work in the cup games? Or just until the final? Food for thought I would say.
Come back in the next days for more if you are interested in my view on why the games in the EPL have such a drop in quality when it comes to the refs. This series isn’t over yet.