Arsenal 3rd, Tottenham 10th, Newcastle still crap, West Ham relegated? What’s the right result?
Throughout the 2006/2007 season we kept talking about poor refereeing decisions and how they were costing teams valuable points.
And from the whining / ranting of the managers, you’d have thought that refs were killing people, not just being crap.
Some bright folks launched a website called ‘The Right Result in August 2006 - and I’ll let them tell you the next part of the story:
The Right Result website was launched in August 2006 with a view to creating an alternative Premier League table based upon how things would look if the referees got all the key decisions correct.These decisions relate to penalties that aren’t given when they should be, and those that are awarded dubiously, whether a ball did or didn’t cross the line, goals disallowed for questionable offside and so on. Decisions are made virtually every week that not only can affect the scoreline of a game, but actually alter the outcome.
Each week the Right Result panel selects the key controversies that have happened during the course of the week’s matches, applies the strict rules of the game to them and passes judgement on whether or not those decisions should stand. If not then the match results are adjusted accordingly (rules governing decisions).
The panel is a neutral and independent body comprised of members from the Association of Football Statisticians.
I’ve personally been following RR throughout the season, and despite a few reservations, I quite like the format. I think it’s important to globalise this but in the right way - to create pressure on the FA to help referees but not to harass or criticise referees themselves.
Refs have a torrid time anyway, they are under pressure at all times and it is a big ask to get every decision right. And they’re not helped with aggressive players and lack of technical support (I fully believe in bringing in video technology and even more officials to help referee games).
Anyway, here’s the ‘right result’ - what the Premiership would have looked like this season if the refs had gotten every decision right (according to the folks at 11v11, that is):
Some interesting stats:
- 91 wrong decisions have affected the scoreline of games this season.
- In the Right Result league table overall there would be 20 additional home goals scored and 37 extra away goals.
- Being at home clearly makes a difference to the scoreline.
- This data supports the contention that better refereeing will lead to more goals, especially for away teams.
- Mike Riley (10), Phil Dowd (9), Alan Wiley and Mark Clattenburg (8 each) made the highest number of ‘critical’ mistakes.
- Graham Poll and Rob Styles only made 3 critical mistakes each.
- West Ham got 2 undeserved home wins, without which they would have been relegated.
- Sheffield United were still crap even if the refs had gotten it right.
- Chelsea and Newcastle were very lucky with ‘home draws’.
- Tottenham and Manchester United were the luckiest ‘away’ sides (with the Spurs essentially swapping places with Aston Villa in the table).
For the full press release from RightResult.net, download and read this PDF.
And make sure you join us and RightResult from August 2007 as we kick off the next season with a closer-than-ever look at how the FA and the Premier League is shortchanging fans by refusing to help the referees.
- Arsenal 2nd, Chelsea 3rd, Everton 4th, Liverpool 5th - How much of a difference did bad refereeing make this season?
- Right Result Premiership Table
- How Sheffield and Wigan can get West Ham relegated on Sunday
- Could Gudjohnsen be a first-teamer for West Ham, Newcastle United or Manchester City?
- Wigan, Sheffield United, Fulham and Charlton are not good enough to stay up on their own
Discussion - 41 Responses
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Not too sure about this, as we (Spurs) had a lot of dodgy free kicks around our area that led to goals.
I’d like to actually see which decisions they are talking about.
Sour Arsenal fan?
Defo sour gooner
if only the league table was based on our preferred positions and favoured clubs rather than points accumulated via a win/lose/draw system eh.
aint life a bitch
clueless/witless/bitter end of (obviously a scum article)
Its easy to say a penalty should have been given so you automatically award a goal? Doesnt work that way. Its very interesting to see the stats though.
What about the West Ham decisions that went against us; Newcastle’s offside goal when we were 2-0 up, and Fulham scoring a last gasp equalizer after a blatant foul?
People talk about the 2 decisions that went for us but had the others’ gone for us earlier in the season then maybe we wouldn’t have been in that position come the Blackburn and Aresenal games.
Some people have too much time on their hands…
are you saying poll made all 3 mistakes against tottenham when they were playing his beloved arsenal? adebayor 1st goal (was it offside? can’t remember?) 2nd goal no penalty (contact was made with the ball) 3rd goal (no penalty, RVP handballed it before)
what a waste of time and webspace:)
Arsenal were given 12 penalties (2 againts spurs in home game) mostly by clear diving and you said Arsenal has been cheated…obviously you are a gooner.
You seem to have forgotten the dodgy decisions against West Ham at Newcastle and at home against Fulham. Still who cares about the facts when it comes to West Ham, seems we’ll have to borrow a song from our “friends” across the river…”no-one likes us, we don’t care”.
This article is written by a Man U fan, so I don’t think theres any sourness involved. The stats don’t lie lol
And I believe the writer did not consider all the diving-Ronaldo’s penalties too. John Terry dropping like jelly, Gerard ‘intentional touch by oppnents’ penalty, all the penalties that Arsenal got for free.
Oh yeah! big headed top four always being ‘victimised’ by the refrees…..the fact is you all lot ‘pay’ the refree.
personally i hope we have had better luck with refereeing decisions than any other team, because it’s about bloody time. How many games have we lost in the past 3 years because of shocking referees. Mendes against United. When Styles came to the lane, the list goes on and on and on.
I must say, considering the decisions weve had go against us this season it does seem a surprise, particulally as mentioned the huge amount of dodgy free kick decisions weve conceded from. But if this was our season to get lucky then good.
Also nice to see the spammers in the relegation places, exactly where they would have been if there was any justice in the world.
The article is probably not meant as an attack - though the headline reads that way and perhaps people didn’t read further.
having said that - the idea of the ‘right result’ website is weak.
for a start it is weighted towards discounting. So ‘unfairly’ awarded penalties that go in are taken away - but those wrongly not awarded are ignored.
and of course one decision can change a game completely, making a close encounter into a rout that the website can’t cover. (remember Essien not being sent off against Bolton?)
This won’t have any impact of referees, and will just be used as a stick by some fans to beat others with. And oddly the biggest downward mover (spurs) were also top of the fair play league this year.
85.9% of stats are made up, everyone knows that…
I don’t go to away games but have only missed one at the Lane this season, and this is weird.
Like most football fans, I hate referees; they are intrinsically crap as they only do the job because they are failed footballers.
I have seen numerous ridiculous decisions go against Spurs, especially by linesmen, and can’t imagine how you’ve managed to deduct 7 points from Tottenham to give 6 back to a very average Villa?
Please let us use cameras to help out these feeble souls.
A complete waste of time . I.’s only an opinion on certain decisions and random to a great extent/ A sign of arrogance and self opionated delusion. Lies,lies and statistics. I’m sure viewing random decisions you could put Watford in the Champions League.
Oh, and keep your mucky paws off Berbatov - not for sale at any price.
I am a west ham fan, and i think that this table is a load of rubbish. We had more things go against us this season than things for. For example West Ham drew with Newcastle when a goal was clearly offside. We drew with fulham because bobby zamora was sent off. Spurs got a free kick when it actually was a dive which led to there equaliser. We were 3-2 up at the time, and then the fourth wouldnt have counted cos we wouldnt have gone for a winner. All of these factors you have not involved. You have just looked at taking points away from us not infavour of giving. Pricks.
omg you tottenham fans, i remember seeing so many decistions going your way, so many penaltys that where dives and so many offside goals it was unbelievable!
haha lol Arsenal 3rd and Tottenham 10th?? I agree with Paul, the Right Results Committee is headed by a sour Arsenal fan!
Are you mad? how did u figure out that Spurs get alot of decisions their way. They’re the most disrespected team in the premiership by referees. Also, how many more decisions did you want to go in Arsenals favor, i recall 90% of games at the emirates having penalties for Arsenals and red cards to the opposition. 2 pens v Spurs, the robbery against wigan etc
You are a joke, who let you write articles for everyone to read
Isn’t it just that you are all sour Spuds fans?
Give Arsenal the blatant penalty against West Ham and Arsenal would most probably be 3rd … !
This is rubbish. You cannot possibly predict the outcome AFTER the ‘right’ decision was made! Players will to win or confidence lost after conceding or scoring has not been taken in to account - which is a major driver in the result by the time the final whistle goes! Also you haven’t deducted enough points from Ar***al for being twats!
Does this not assume that every penatly given would be scored? or that every freekick would be a goalscoring opp. Surely this is flawed, as you can see from recent misses pens dont always go in. Further, you cannot really say how a goal will affectt a game, look at what happened for man Utd against blackburn, 1-0 down then came out and blitzed them second half. This is a silly idea.
To Danny Mackay:
Have a look at the Right Result ‘rulebook’ page on the website and you’ll see that penalties not only get chalked off and also awarded when they should have been, so it does work both ways.
Who decides whether the decision is right or wrong? What one might see as a correct decision, another might see as a wrong decision.
The Premiership has, and always will be, about ifs and buts, that’s what makes it so special.
Referee’s are only human, they try their best but will make mistakes, THAT’S RIGHT, they WILL make mistakes, you cannot change this without changing the game.
The only thing I would like to see changing is the blatant cheating. Punish individuals diving or tackles such as Ben Thatchers with heavy fines AND big bans, this is what we need to eradicate from the beautiful game first and foremost.
I simply cannot stand players who cheat, even going down ‘cleverly’ as some pundits put it, IT’S CHEATING, whether you con the referee blatantly ot tactfully, the act is still as filthy.
It’s an interesting idea. Of course there’s methodological problems besides the fact that all of these calls are arguable; a more prominent issue is that whether a goal in the first half is allowed or not will probably significantly change the way the teams play in the second half, and so you can’t really say “if the team had gotten a penalty in the 40th minute, they would have ended up drawing instead of losing by one goal.”
That said, I like these alternative tables. And Bolton still make the UEFA Cup, so that’s good.
You can see the full list of decisions at http://www.rightresult.net/blogs
i think spurs deserved to finish 5th i mean its not coincidence we clearly have the talent.
At least Newcastle finished above Middlesbrough…
Guys, think about it, bad refereeing is as much part of the game as goal celebrations, it makes that victory all that much sweeter, it let’s you breathe a sigh of relief when it goes against the opposing teams and it allows every fan the right to the indignation caused by a loss. Honestly, the sport just wouldn’t be the same if not for it. It would be like watching golf. There are no controversies in golf and you just watch those guys swing and swing, the ball will either be in the hole or out, there are no dubious decisions. From a media perspective, there would not be a backpage, sports stories in newspapers come from the occasional scandel, the big transfer, or the game fraught with poor decisions on the referee’s part. Without the bad referees, we would not have the amusing rantings of Mr Jose Mourinho, the sports section would be the weekend’s scores and a brief round-up. Thouroughly unappealing. So think twice about whether or not you want perfect referees, because you just might…
Khaled - thanks for dropping by.
aleons - yes, they should have, you’re right
Sorry guys, was out all day so couldn’t get to this.
Yes, the title was bait, and it’s further proof that people don’t read the article, they just go by their first impressions, and as soon as I put the words ‘Tottenham 10th’ in there I knew I was going to get whiny Spurs fans knocking on the door saying ‘why us’?
Danny Mackay and everyone else who thinks RR is flawed:
There have been a few decisions on which I haven’t agreed with the panel - and I also think that they should be putting up videos of the incidents alongside their findings so that people can see for themselves as well. It’s not perfect either (penalties can be stopped, goal scored can change momentum, etc) but it does take care of one thing - identifying match-changing decisions.
Overall though, it’s a big step in the right direction. We don’t need wrong refereeing calls to ruin the game for us.
west ham sam… the foul on taarabt was a blatent foul… glad you aint a ref if you can’t even award a correct decision after watching it on tv more than once!
Any league that gives Watford 34 points must be flawed - they didn’t even deserve the 28 points that they actually did get.
Anyone that believes that Arsenal and Liverpool are within eleven points of the title are seriously misguided (even with their respective clubs tinted glasses on).
Maybe they should do a league table where long balls that lead to goals are discounted, where would Chelsea & Liverpool be on that table????
at the end of the day ,you have to take your chances in this league,and not rely on refereeing decisions,something my club (ARSENAL) didnt do.
every club has loads of contraversial ref’ing decisions going for and against them in a season,you cant always blame the ref,they need help,linesmen should be more brave and also pentaly box refs should be introduced.
I did not realise Aston Villa had so many decisions against them this season.
hey you guys don’t appreciate just how hard it is for refs. I am a ref and its harder than you think!
They’ve got it wrong about West Ham- under the ‘justice rules’ West Ham would not be relegated. They should finish with 38 points.
The reason for this is that 3 goals were scored against them AFTER injury time had expired by over a minute in 3 games:
a 3-3 home draw with Fulham
a 1-0 away loss to Tottenhan
a 3-4 home loss to Tottenham
I’d say adding too much time on would count as a ref error.
Newcastle will finish in top 6 next season - at a minimum - well maybe i’ll just stick with top six.
Refs,just have to be fair in their decission making as these will imrove the game off football.