Arsenal v Stoke City: the pre-match review of the ref « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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RefWatch – Arsenal v Stoke City (23/02/2011 19:45)
By DogFace
- Referee: Peter Walton
- Assistant 1: Martin Yerby
- Assistant 2: Patrick Keane
- 4th Official: Phil Crossley (Who?!)
Good morning stat-fans and welcome to the best damn pre-match statistical based (with a dollop of cynical/satirical opinion) EPL Referee analysis for Arsenal games there is on the internet ever.
FACT!
Today we face Stoke City… under Peter Walton and, it’s fair to say, we have a bit of history.
With that in mind, let’s have a look at Referee:
- Full name: Peter Walton
- Date of birth: 10 October 1959 (1959-10-10) (age 51)
- Place of birth: Long Buckby, Northamptonshire, England
- EPL Referee Since: 2003/2004
- EPL Games to date: 143
Another nice young English lad sent off for doing what he does best.
Ok, the picture is evocative, has something of the da Vinci about it and there is not much of Walton in there – to be fair, I do not blame Peter Walton for this sporting atrocity, I rather blame the Stoke manager, the thrall of SAF and the apologist gray-train riding media for not only promoting the violence and the Arsenal ‘soft lad’ myth but for also reacting with spectacular stupidity to the Shawcross incident by suggesting that we [the credulous mugs] should sympathise with young Ryan because his mammy had to drive him home as he cried and cried into her big floppy tits for ‘what he gone done’ – casting him as something akin to Steinbeck’s ‘Lennie Small’…
“Won’t you tell (us) ’bout those rabbits, Tony [Pullis]?”
…Hmmm – where as I’m prepared to accept that Ryan Shawcross is something of a ‘weak willed footballing retard’; I am not prepared to forgive (and certainly not to forget) and neither should Peter Walton – no referee wants that on their record and no league wants incidents like this in it – they rock the aforementioned gravy train by stretching the credulity of the mugs with the type of Orwellian mental gymnastics the media have to then promote and spin to divert from their agenda and lull us back into our now troubled sleep.
What was that TalkShite? His leg would have probably broken anyway you say and you can tell all that from a fuzzy picture in the Daily Telegraph?
Righto then, with the authority of the pundit invested in me, I’ll be sure to mention that one down the pub… but first, just to be sure, let me run it by my 3 y/o daughter:
“That man kicked the Arsenal man and hurt his leg”
Conflicting opinion there – who to trust… just who to trust?!
As you can probably tell – I’m still pissed right off about this and I’m using this soap box (that Tony kindly lets me borrow from time to time) to indulge a bit of self-therapy… you may recall that I once told you that I [the DogFace alter-ego] was born on the 23-02-2008 (3 years to the day today); Mike Dean was the midwife to my awakening and subsequent research… which reminds me, wait just a minute there – who are we playing next and under who? That’ll be Birmingham under Dean for those of you who aren’t paying attention – what are the chances eh? What are the odds? And what is that dreadful smell?
Our buttons are being pushed – remember, recognise, speculate and discuss!
The Shawcross/Ramsey incident, although very different in many ways to the Taylor/Eduardo incident, reminded me that I must never stop my quest to investigate, calculate and, hopefully, educate.
Anyhoooo – let us examine now Peter’s numbers for both Arsenal and Stoke to see what lessons have been learned over the last year or so.
Peter Walton has had 10 games for Arsenal consisting of 7 wins, 3 draws and 0 losses – get in!
Arsenal are currently in 2nd in Peter Walton’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an average of 2.40 PPG.
In Peter Walton’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 2nd with an average positive swing of 1.00.
Arsenal are currently in 2nd in Peter Walton’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 0.90 BPM.
In Peter Walton’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 4th with an overall average of 9.56 FPB.
You can see from the chart that the Opposition FPB figures under Peter Walton have crashed since the last time we played Stoke City – this would indicate a perhaps slight paranoia from him in the protection he gives us. This is good, in fact all our numbers look good… and I remember off the top of me head a few controversies under Walton in our favour – I think Hleb slapped some geezer called Murty once while Walton looked the other way and he also denied fat Sam a ‘clear penalty’ (was it) when we done his cloggers 6-2, that match brings back particularly happy memories for me as I got (and took) the opportunity to tell Sam exactly what I thought of him and his ‘work the wings and hoof it at big man’ tactics… right into his ear no less! Ahhh – a story for another time.
Peter Walton has had 9 games for Stoke City consisting of 1 win, 1 draw and 7 losses… oh fuck yes!
Stoke City are currently rock bottom (21st) in Peter Walton’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an average abject relegation form of 0.44 PPG.
In Peter Walton’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Stoke City come 19th with an average negative swing of -1.17 – ha, bloody ha!
Stoke City are currently in 20th in Peter Walton’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 2.11 BPM.
In Peter Walton’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Stoke City come 21st with an overall average of 4.89 FPB.
So again, since Ramsey’s injury we can see in the graph Walton taking a more punitive approach to Stoke’s tactics… and although their handicap form has risen slightly – they still remain sub-zero while their PPG figures this season have dropped to 0.5 per game!
If we look now at the handicap swing figures for Peter Walton Vs. the EPL (selected teams) – we can see a few encouraging things – the first being that he does no favours for Manchester City (which is always a relief) and second the fact that, of late, Manchester United’s figures look entirely realistic – the same can be said for Chelsea although Chelsea have done very well across the board under Peter Walton (much better than Arsenal) and this may be due in part to a slight Southern bias in his data.
I would say that this match is a good 3 pointer for Arsenal, we should keep some stars on the bench, saving them for the Wembley Quagmire, and bring them on in the second half if needs be and I would expect Peter Walton to explain the rules clearly and concisely to both teams before kickoff – after all, we don’t want any drama on the Wednesday night before cup final weekend do we?
Match fixing scandal…