RefWatch – Everton Vs Arsenal (21/03/2012 – 20:00) « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
Untold Arsenal on Twitter @UntoldArsenal
- Referee: Lee Mason
- Assistant 1: John Flynn
- Assistant 2: Mick McDonough
- 4th Official: Jonathan Moss
Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch… A bit of a lazy one from me today as, rather inconsiderately, I have loads of work on at the moment.
Here’s how the markets read it:
Asian Handicap (betting line) market:
| Home | Handicap | Away |
|---|---|---|
| 1.900 | 1/4 – 0 | 2.000 |
The Under/Over market:
| Over | Handicap | Under |
|---|---|---|
| 1.975 | 2 1/2 | 1.925 |
The betting line is interesting with Arsenal giving a quarter ball (one quarter of a goal) – I would say that on a level playing field we should be better than that – more in the region of 1 and a half goals… alas I am not an Asian Bookie and these guys make their markets very carefully indeed.
Let’s have a look at the Referee:
- Full name: Lee S. Mason
- Date of birth: 29-Oct-1971 (Age 41)
- Place of birth: Bolton
- Resides: Lancashire
- EPL/ECH Referee Since: 2002/2003
- EPL/ECH Games to date: 180
Lee Mason… with his face on.
It’s Lee Mason again… you remember him from the referee reviews – although I can’t seem to find links for them, I do have the results:
Let’s check out his stats!
Lee Mason has had 15 games for Everton consisting of 7 wins, 5 draws and 3 losses.
Everton are currently in 9th in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an average of 1.73 PPG.
In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Everton come 6th with an average positive swing of 0.23.
Everton are currently in 7th in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an overall average of 1.33 BPM.
In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Everton come 2nd with an overall average of 10.20 FPB.
Up until last season Everton and Lee Mason seemed to get on extraordinarily well – the 2009/2010 season particularly stands out as Lee let Everton get away with more fouls than my graph can comfortably handle. This is reflected in Everton’s massive over performance that season… although the following season the trend was reversed somewhat and Everton performed poorly i.e. there seems to be a good correlation between what Lee Mason let’s Everton get away with inn the challenge and their average Points Per Game and swing against the handicap. There is a distinct trend from 2008/2009 of Lee becoming more punitive towards Everton’s opposition (as can be seen in the orange line getting lower and fatter to indicate more Fouls Per Booking and Bookings Per Match respectively).
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Everton took all their bookings under Lee Mason.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Everton’s opposition took all their bookings under Lee Mason.
Lee Mason has had 8 games for Arsenal consisting of 4 wins, 2 draws and 2 losses.
Arsenal are currently in 8th in Lee Mason’s personal Points Per Game League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an average of 1.75 PPG.
In Lee Mason’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Arsenal come 10th with an average positive swing of 0.03.
Arsenal are currently in 29th in Lee Mason’s personal Booking’s Per Match League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, with an overall average of 2.38 BPM.
In Lee Mason’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the EPL/ECH, Arsenal come 30th with an overall average of 4.16 FPB.
Our record under Lee Mason used to be pretty bad and we can see from the graph that we have some large under performances in the 2006/2007 and 2009/2010 seasons. This has changed recently though and we can see a good return in points from the 2010/2011 season onwards. Although let us not forget the Saha offside goal in the 2010/2011 season against Everton that first gained him some notoriety among the Arsenal fanbase… we went on to win that match anyway and that was in no small part due to the crowd who turned on Lee, scrutinising every decision, after seeing the instant replay.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal took all their bookings under Lee Mason.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal’s opposition took all their bookings under Lee Mason.
Let’s move on now to check out how Lee Mason performs against selected teams in the EPL:
Lee Mason’s EPL graph doesn’t really show much in the way of clear trends in terms of bias – in the 2007/2008 season Lee didn’t have any games for Arsenal/Everton/Chelsea/Manchester United and this confuses the graph slightly. The poor results for Arsenal and good results for Everton in Lee Mason’s history do worry me slightly, especially as I find Lee Mason a difficult referee to read in terms of ‘style’ and also because this is an away game and we won’t have the noise on our side.
Saying this we should have an advantage due to our long rest period in the run up to this game. Everton are in the middle of a very heavy schedule at the moment so they will do doubt tire in the second half.
If we go at this match at a high pace, keep patient and take our chances I think we could take something from it – we’ll see how Everton set themselves up… if they are allowed to get away with a lot in the challenge and break up the play then they may well look to defend, hitting us on the break and look to nick it.