Friday, December 17th, 2010 « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News. Supporting the Lord Wenger in all he does
RefWatch – Arsenal v Stoke City (18/12/2010 15:00)
By DogFace
- Referee: Lee Mason
- Assistant 1: Mick McDonough
- Assistant 2: Patrick Keane
- 4th Official: Keith Stroud
Good morning stat-fans and welcome to what is a rather threadbare RefWatch. The reason being that we have on our hands a couple of new(ish) boys – the up’n’comers and movers’n’shakers in the ‘Select Group’ in the PGMOL… ones to keep an eye on – know what I mean? Something tells me that these lads are going to be made of the ‘right stuff’ to fit into the mould of what a EPL referee should be i.e. coupon busters and generally inconsistent randomisers of form. Lee Mason has actually been around a while and has been introduced quite gently into his role – but what with the departure of Styles, Riley, Wiley and the imminent departure [no doubt] of Foy, Halsey, Walton and hopefully Dowd, who clocking on a bit and appear to be struggling for fitness, these are the guys who will be stepping up.
I would like to digress here to make, or at least argue, a point… there are currently only 16 referee’s in the ‘Select Group’ – this number seems shockingly low to me, if a team were to gain influence over 1 or 2 referees then, statistically speaking, the advantage gained in the competition would be all the higher because of it [the low number] i.e. 1 referee = 1/16th or 6.25% of all matches – although this assumes that each referee will get the same amount of matches – which they don’t. It seems that referee like Mike Dean, Howard Webb, Mark Clattenburg, Phil Dowd and Martin Atkinson not only get more matches but are also chosen for the more ‘high profile’ games i.e. Sky matches and the games that involve the teams considered as ‘title contenders’.
So – it follows that if a team, a ‘title contending’ team, were to gain influence over one of these referees the actual % of influence on their chances of success would rise significantly – not only in the games that they played under that referee but also the games their competitors played under him. If I were a cynic I would look at my data for these referees and try to work out whom, out of the ‘title contenders’, is doing rather well… or bucking the trend in a positive manner; it would go a little something like this:
- Mike Dean: Tottenham Hotspur
- Howard Webb: Manchester United
- Mark Clattenburg: Manchester City
- Phil Dowd: Manchester City
- Martin Atkinson: Chelsea
This is not only in terms of positive results for that team but also negative results against that teams rivals… there are also other referees, lower down the food chain, who have shown a positive influence against the handicap for these teams – and this worries me… it speaks of their ambition and would also explain [in my mind] the reasons for the dissolution of the ‘Top 4’ in recent seasons – add to this the financial fair play rules and the global depression hitting clubs like Liverpool, Chelsea and Manchester United and you have – well, you have what we see – a competition and/or brand that is losing its credibility among the fans of football – but, through its seeming unpredictability against the betting line (or handicap), gaining huge interest from the fans of gambling – particularly in massive underground markets in Asia.
I’ve tried searching for some kind of regulatory structure around the PGMOL and/or a system of meritocracy or ‘performance based’ selection – but this is either non-existent or totally void of transparency other than the results i.e. Howard Webb is considered the best referee… but we won’t tell you why!
This self regulatory nature of club/fan based ‘trust’ would be fine if the PGMOL were fit for purpose – unfortunately I am coming to the conclusion that it is not and this ‘trust’ is breaking down so fast that no amount of censorship through initiatives such as the ‘Respect’ campaign can disguise the tacit agenda for corruption or paper over the gaping cracks in the systems integrity… not that the bookies or the ‘new wave’ of club ownership give much of a toss about the scarf-waving fans – the big money is in the global markets and media rights; and these markets have a firm foundation in gambling liquidity and the influx of mug money; with the globalisation of our sport, integrity, local community and club history mean nothing.
Let’s have a look at 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: 69
This’ll learn you Mason for giving us nowt!
Ahh… look at that picture – Lee tries desperately to protect his testicles when indulging in a bit of ‘creative obstruction’ while Stoke retaliate by upping their game and do a bit of the old ‘rotational fouling’ on him. Stoke lost this match 2-0 (26/12/2009) and hopefully Lee will cherish this memory and it will subconsciously influence his decision making process on Saturday!
Lee Mason has not been great for us, although this can partly be explained by the fact that he has only ever refereed Arsenal ‘away’ games – although only a small part as we have seen a higher than average number of uncharacteristic underperformances from Arsenal with him at the whistle. Most notably, during the 2009/2010 season, we lost 3-2 to Wigan Athletic (18/04/2010) and, before then, during the 2006/2007 season we were defeated 1-0 to Sheffield United (30/12/2006).
Two defeats wouldn’t be ‘that bad’, but it is if you consider our form under Lee Mason consists of only 5 games, consisting of 1 win, 2 draws and 2 losses… that’s relegation form!
Therefore it is no surprise that Arsenal currently languish in 19th place in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League (for matches in the EPL), with an average of only 1.00 PPG. In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League (for matches in the EPL), Arsenal comes a lowly 13th with an average negative swing of -0.20.
Arsenal currently resides in 26th in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League, for matches in the EPL, with an overall average of 2.80 BPM. In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League, for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 28th with an overall average of 3.50 FPB.
You can see from the graph above that Lee’s intolerance for Arsenal in the challenge is not consistent with that of our opposition and last season this flipped the other way (the Wigan Match) – although one would suspect that the actual fouls given against us (bookings or no) benefited Wigan in a physical game consisting of territory being gained through free kicks and set pieces.
Let’s move the statistics on now and see what effect Lee Mason has on Stoke City’s form:
Stoke City fair considerably better under the whistle of Lee Mason, having had 8 games consisting of 3 wins, 3 draws and 2 losses. This seems on the generous side of ‘about right’. This normality continues when we see that Stoke City are currently in 10th (9 places above Arsenal) in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League, for matches in the EPL, with an average of 1.50 PPG. In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League, for matches in the EPL, Stoke City came in at 11st (2 places above Arsenal) with an average positive swing of 0.19.
Stoke City are currently in 18th (8 places above Arsenal) in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League, for matches in the EPL, with an overall average of 2.00 BPM. In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League, for matches in the EPL, Stoke City are 18th (10 places above Arsenal) with an overall average of 6.13 FPB.
So, overall, Stoke City can have absolutely no complaints with the appointment of Lee Mason for this match… although it seems that, of late, Lee has been clamping down a tad on Stoke in the challenge (possibly due to that hoof in the knackers he took) – and this is about the only good news we can gleam from his stats.
Our fourth official for the afternoon is one Keith Stroud… we have no pretty graphs for Keith as he’s only refereed 14 EPL matches including one match each for Stoke City and Arsenal – we won and Stoke drew – but our respective form is not really worthy of much more analysis than that.
Let’s have a look at our Rev Vs EPL Asian Handicap Swing graph for Lee Mason… just to make sure that there are no other interesting trends sailing under the radar there that may have an effect on our game (I’ve only included teams with enough data to count):
What’s interesting here to note is that both Arsenal and Stoke have near identical swing figures for the most recent seasons so, upon initial inspection; there are no clues there with regards to which side of the betting line to take. Aston Villa seems to have done quite well with him against the handicap… and oh look – there is a meteoric rise of Manchester City in his numbers from the 2008/2009 season onwards – this season they currently stand at an incredible +3 against the handicap – although the sample data is low, the trend so far seems clear.
And this is yet another in a long line of worries for me as we, along with the other ‘title contenders’, represent a clear and present danger to their [Manchester City’s] Premiership ambitions and avaricious lust for silverware.
So – in conclusion I would say that we, as fans, we can either face the facts here and attempt to claim our game back by calling for regulation and change to a system that is tailor made for corruption; the game has changed, globalisation is swamping us and what currently stands in terms of the self regulatory establishment is archaic and no longer up to the job – or we can internalise the issues relating to our underperformances, kick the cat and just blame it all on Wenger… I’ll leave it for you to decide where the more constructive path to enlightenment lies
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