RefWatch – Chris Foy, Arsenal Vs Sunderland (18/08/2012 – 15:00) « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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- Referee: Chris Foy
- Assistant 1: Simon Beck
- Assistant 2: Stephen Child
- 4th Official: Trevor Kettle
Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch and my gosh – it’s been a while. In fact time seems to have stretched over the summer (RefWatch wise) due to the quite excellent Referee Review 2011/2012 which has well and truly set the benchmark when it comes to referee analysis. I will of course be attempting to integrate what we have learned over the summer (and it’s not over yet) into the Ref Watch series, but for now I will stick with last season’s format, look to the horizon and slowly evolve… for that is what we do here.
Asian Handicap (betting line) market:
| Home | Handicap | Away |
|---|---|---|
| 2.000 | 0 – 1 1/4 | 1.900 |
The Under/Over market:
| Over | Handicap | Under |
|---|---|---|
| 2.000 | 2 3/4 | 1.900 |
Let’s have a look at the Referee:
- Full name: Christopher J Foy
- Date of birth: 20-Nov-1962 (Age 50)
- Place of birth: St. Helens, Lancashire
- Resides: Merseyside
- EPL Referee Since: 2000/2001
- EPL Games to date: 254
Chris Foy – Strike a pose…
It’s Chris Foy again… you remember him from the quite excellent Referee Review series – here is some of the open source data:
Let’s check out his stats!
Chris Foy has had 20 games for Arsenal consisting of 16 wins, 3 draws and 1 loss.
Arsenal are currently in 1st in Chris Foy’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an average of 2.55 PPG.
In Chris Foy’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 9th with an average positive swing of 0.14.
Arsenal are currently in 3rd in Chris Foy’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 Chris Foy’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Arsenal come 7th with an overall average of 10.78 FPB.
As you can see from the graph we have done very well points wise from Chris Foy although we have never really over performed – the average swing against the Asian handicap betting markets of +0.14 is as close as you can get.
From the FPB and BPM (Fouls Per Booking and Bookings Per Match) lines we can see that on the face of it we get away with slightly more than our opposition under Chris Foy – but these figures only tell half the story – we need to know if a foul was indeed a foul or in fact a ‘free’ free kick. This is where our new Referee Review data will come invaluable in the future.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal took all their bookings under Chris Foy.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal’s opposition took all their bookings under Chris Foy.
There is not much worthy of note with the booking figures for Arsenal… nothing too early and not any more than you might expect. For our opposition we can see a slight trend towards earlier bookings but they are getting less frequent. I have memories of Chris Foy being a fairly lenient referee and this can certainly make things difficult when we play more physical teams.
Let’s move on now and see how Sunderland fare under the whistle of Chris Foy:
Chris Foy has had 26 games for Sunderland consisting of 5 wins, 5 draws and 16 losses.
Sunderland are currently in 29th in Chris Foy’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, with an average of 0.77 PPG.
In Chris Foy’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Sunderland come 19th with an average negative swing of -0.66.
Sunderland are currently in 24th in Chris Foy’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 1.65 BPM.
In Chris Foy’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL, Sunderland come 25th with an overall average of 7.33 FPB.
Sunderland had a very bad spell under Chris Foy from the 2008/2009 season to the 2009/2010 season – the 2010/2011 season however it ‘all evened out’ with a big over performance. The figures don’t lie though and with regards to Sunderlands average PPG (Points Per Game) they lie in 29th position and carry a negative swing against the betting line of -0.66 of a goal.
The FPB/BPM figures look fairly well matched and correlate with their PPG/AHS figures in that when they get more in their favour than their opposition – they, on average, do well. There is a slight trend in Sunderland’s favour of late but nothing significant.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Sunderland took all their bookings under Chris Foy.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Sunderland’s opposition took all their bookings under Chris Foy.
Sunderland’s bookings have trended slightly to later in the game – but also so have their opposition. On the face of it there is nothing remarkable in terms of disparity about the bookings for Sunderland or their opposition under Chris Foy.
If we look at the incorrect calls for Arsenal and Sunderland from last season we can see that Arsenal get a pretty rough time of things under Foy and for Sunderland, it all evens out:
However – we must take into account that our 2 games under Foy last season were Away games and Sunderland’s game was a Home game. So we will look now to Chris Foy’s entire data set for last season to find out his home/away bias to see if we can learn anything more:
OK – now we see something interesting – Chris Foy is a big referee for home advantage, and his weighted scores average around -10.778 decision points – not that far off the 13.5 that we see for Arsenal – in contrast the +10.778 decision points makes Sunderland’s home game bias swing under Foy of 0.000 look a bit anaemic.
Let us hope that for tomorrow the trend for home advantage continues under Chris Foy.
Let’s move on now to check out how Chris Foy performs against selected teams in the EPL:
Manchester United are the consistent performers under Foy – Arsenal do well, and Sunderland are sine waving all over the shop… Tottenham have crashed over recent seasons – which is nice.
The Predictortron gives Arsenal a 2.552580 goal advantage… but don’t trust that – it’s hopelessly flawed, but I will improve it – oh yes!
So – what can we expect from tomorrow? As I’m sure we [Arsenal fans] all feel, the team will have to prove itself tomorrow as much as anything – we have been knocked down and kicked over the last week with all the transfer drama. Now is the time to respond and come back fighting.
Let’s get a solid 3 pointer – no excuses!