RefWatch – Arsenal Vs. Sunderland (16/10/2011 – 13:30) « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger; coach of the decade
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- Referee: Howard Webb
- Assistant 1: Darren Cann
- Assistant 2: Jake Collin
- 4th Official: Peter Walton
Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch… I’ve got to keep it short and sweet today I’m afraid – so please feel free to chew over the numbers yourself and make whatever casual observations you will… and perhaps, if you’re feeling cheeky, make a comment?
Let’s have a look at the Referee:
- Full name: Howard Webb
- Date of birth: 14-Jul-1971 (Age 40)
- Place of birth: Rotherham
- Resides: South Yorkshire
- EPL Referee Since: 2003/2004
- EPL Games to date: 211
Say hello to my little friend.
It’s Howard Webb again… you remember him from THAT GAME WE NEVER TALK ABOUT… and the world cup final – not sure which one was more embarrassing?!
I would normally ramble on at this point but it’s been a very long week and I’m approaching burnout… also it’s another early start tomorrow so I need to get some sleep. When was the last time we played at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon eh… these games give us maximum market exposure. Does this have significance; in that it is somehow detrimental to our form (and if so what does that say for the PGMOL officials and our team), or is this just a case of synchronicity?
Inquiring minds need to know!
Anyway, we all know who Howard Webb is so let’s check out his stats!
Howard Webb has had 22 games for Arsenal consisting of 8 wins, 8 draws and 6 losses.
Arsenal are currently in 10th in Howard Webb’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 1.45 PPG.
In Howard Webb’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 18th with an average negative swing of -0.34.
Arsenal are currently in 24th in Howard Webb’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 2.45 BPM.
In Howard Webb’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 24th with an overall average of 5.17 FPB.
Right – quick overview of the graph… it’s not great – you can see by the wobbly blue line that we are barely breaking even on the handicap and this season we crashed to an underperformance of -5 goals in that game which is lost to memory.
If we look at the FPB/BPM for us and our opposition we can see that, excluding the 2009/2010 season, we have been treated more harshly than our opponents under Howard Webb – our line [red] is fat and low indicating that we get booked a lot and for fewer fouls than our opposition [orange] who sail high and thin.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where we took all our bookings under Howard Webb – you can see this season (that game) we were booked very early in the midfield and later on extensively throughout our defence.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where our opposition took their bookings under Howard Webb.
Let’s move on now to see how Sunderland fair under the whistle of Howard Webb:
Howard Webb has had 12 games for Sunderland consisting of 4 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses.
Sunderland are currently in 12th in Howard Webb’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 1.42 PPG.
In Howard Webb’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Sunderland come 11th with an average positive swing of 0.13.
Sunderland are currently in 25th in Howard Webb’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 2.50 BPM.
In Howard Webb’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Sunderland come 20th with an overall average of 5.87 FPB.
OK – what is very obvious here is that since the 2010/2011 season, Sunderland have done badly under Howard Webb – you can see the blue line crash to a negative handicap swing and the PPG dwindling to a spindly zero this season… there are also distinct changes in the FPB/BPM lines and you can see a clear crossover – could this be the Steve Bruce effect? I’ve run the manager data for Steve Bruce against Howard Webb and the only time that Webb and Bruce ever really clicked was when he was at Wigan – other than that, not much luck.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Sunderland took all their bookings under Howard Webb… we can see pretty constant bookings around, on average, the half way mark for the midfield and defence.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Sunderland’s opposition took all their bookings under Howard Webb… we can see that most of the time they have been fairly meaningless late bookings, quite bizarrely, focusing mainly in the substitutes – although this season these have migrated to earlier bookings in the midfield.
Let’s move on now to check out how Howard Webb performs against selected teams in the EPL:
Right – now we can see a little more of the makeup of Howard Webb against the EPL – the solid performers of late are Manchester City – Manchester United also do very well across the seasons and even when they do show an underperformance against the handicap under Webb – they still rake in the points. Sunderland’s line under Webb was riding unusually high considering their relative overall performances in that time under Roy Keane and Ricky Sbragia – I would say that this was odd. Chelsea we can see never really get on very well with Howard Webb and Arsenal as of this season have fallen off the chart (as Manchester United have broken through the roof) – but this is only due to that game which… well – you know the one.
The Predictortron gives Arsenal a 1.792857 goal advantage… I have a feeling that we will do the business.