RefWatch – Manchester City Vs Arsenal (18/12/2011 – 16:10) « Untold Arsenal: Arsenal News, supporting the club, the players and the manager
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- Referee: Phil Dowd
- Assistant 1: Mick McDonough
- Assistant 2: David Richardson
- 4th Official: Michael Oliver
Good morning stat-fans and welcome to RefWatch…
This match day we face Manchester City away and the Asian markets are showing an interesting ‘quarter ball’ market with Manchester City giving a ¾ of a goal to Arsenal; and Arsenal priced as the long odds:
| Home | Handicap | Away |
|---|---|---|
| 1.925 | 0 – 3/4 | 1.975 |
I say this is interesting as ¾ of a goal handicap in City’s favour seems very tempting… I mean – City would only have to beat Arsenal by 1 goal and you’d be quids in; and with City offering 1.69 on the Fixed Odds market [as opposed to Arsenal’s 5.07] – they are the clear favourite.
Sounds a bit the kelong one to me what?!
The Under/Over market is also showing a ‘quarter ball’ market here [at 2 ¾ ball] with 3 goals total (or over) being the long odds:
| Over | Handicap | Under |
|---|---|---|
| 1.825 | 2 3/4 | 2.075 |
This match is also the 16:10 fixture (that stands on its own) which means high exposure and very high liquidity.
You can find a breakdown on the Asian markets and why they are important in our calculations here and a breakdown on the calculations themselves here.
Let’s have a look at the Referee:
- Full name: Phil Dowd
- Date of birth: 26-Jan-1963 (Age 48)
- Place of birth: Staffordshire
- Resides: Staffordshire
- EPL Referee Since: 2001/2002
- EPL Games to date: 217
Here’s one for you; a Referee, a Manager and an Asian Bookie walk into a bar…
It’s Phil Dowd again… you remember him:
Let’s check out his stats!
Phil Dowd has had 22 games for Manchester City consisting of 7 wins, 5 draws and 10 losses.
Manchester City are currently in 16th in Phil Dowd’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 1.18 PPG.
In Phil Dowd’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Manchester City come 13th with an average positive swing of 0.03.
Manchester City are currently in 14th in Phil Dowd’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 2.00 BPM.
In Phil Dowd’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Manchester City come 17th with an overall average of 6.61 FPB.
Wow – look at that wobbly blue line! Like a rocket from the crypt Manchester City have gone from somewhere around -4 against the handicap to +4. This will cause problems with our final graph as Manchester City’s line under Phil down will blow both the top and the bottom off.
Bear in mind that this relates to relative performance and not general performance – so this an incredible turnaround and the most marked I have ever seen.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Manchester City took all their bookings under Phil Dowd.
Manchester city’s bookings under Phil Dowd concentrate very early in the game and mainly around the defence up until the 2009/2010 season where we see a change with some late bookings to the substitutes and attack. This season we have also seen a few early midfield bookings thrown at city – but over all these are few and far between.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Manchester City’s opposition took all their bookings under Phil Dowd.
Manchester city’s opponent’s bookings under Phil Dowd also concentrate very early in the game and mainly around the defence up until the 2009/2010 season (sound familiar) where we see a change with some heavy booking to the midfield around the 65 minute mark. These bookings get progressively earlier up to the current season.
Let’s check out how Arsenal do:
Phil Dowd has had 18 games for Arsenal consisting of 10 wins, 6 draws and 2 losses.
Arsenal are currently in 2nd in Phil Dowd’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 2.00 PPG.
In Phil Dowd’s personal Handicap Swing League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 15th with an average negative swing of -0.04.
Arsenal are currently in 12th in Phil Dowd’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 1.78 BPM.
In Phil Dowd’s personal Fouls Per Booking League (for teams with a minimum of 5 matches played), for matches in the English Premier, Arsenal come 19th with an overall average of 6.47 FPB.
We can see that overall, under Phil Dowd, that we have done ok in terms of our PPG. Our relative performance has gone from about even to a hefty over performance in the 2009/2010 season. The 2010/2011 season, however, was one to forget under Phil Dowd as not only did we underperform massively but we also got the rough end of the cards (with a low fat red line).
This season however has seen a flip back to a good return of points, an even performance and no bookings.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal took all their bookings under Phil Dowd.
There’s a clear change here and it kicks in around the 2009/2010 season where we took some horrible bookings – our defence and midfield were taken out of the challenge early in the second half… before that season everything looked great, we took our bookings late [on average] and they were therefore fairly meaningless.
This season – as you can see, we are yet to take a booking.
Above is a seasonal breakdown on how, when and where Arsenal’s opposition took all their bookings under Phil Dowd.
Due to a technical fault – our oppositions bookings for this season are not showing – this (off the top of me head) is probably due to a bug in my SQL where as we have 0 bookings a Null value is fucking the ‘where’ clause… might even be in an ‘In’ (always catches me that one). But seeing as it’s 23:08 on a Friday night [and none of that made any sense to you] – you’re going to have to put up with that until I fix it.
Other than that; our opposition’s bookings under Dowd are fairly consistent but are trending slowly towards later in the match.
Let’s move on now to check out how Phil Dowd performs against selected teams in the EPL:
Right we can see Chelsea’s relative performance merrily sine-waving under Dowd (curious) and, as I said earlier, Manchester City ripping right through our graph from the gutter to the stars. Manchester United tend to under-perform under Dowd but still bring in some points and Arsenal, who were doing rather well, have definitely bounced.
Is this a sign of performance recovery or just a ‘dead cat’ as they say in the markets?
The Predictortron gives Manchester City a 0.802083 of a goal advantage Which pretty much reflects what the markets are giving in the east (3/4 ball) – so not much in the way of glaring opportunity there to make a quick buck… flip a coin if you must gamble.
And, if you must gamble, then [as part of my recent pact with Beelzebub] I must offer you an opportunity to support this site by pissing your cash up against the wall here. But remember – even though The Predictortron ™ has verily nailed it of late – you can never beat the bookie… ever. And if you do – then they will just close your account.
Bastards.
My gut feeling is that this is going to be as tricky a fixture as it looks but I will watch it with extreme interest and wait with baited breath for the Referee Review. This game will answer for me a lot of questions I have about Phil Dowd.