It's a foul you blind !*&$)£"

[Worthy4England]

Quiet news day...so...

As we've gone through a number of games this season, every match thread (as with probably every other club in the land) has lots of comments about the state of the ref, how he's bent towards the other team, how there's only us as a team that suffer this indignity etc. All valid in the heat of the moment, and even with hindsight, the subject of much debate after the match - as it always was.

So I thought I'd have a looksee how we stacked up. I've generally been of the opinion that we get our fair share, overall, and that there isn't a big swing against us.

Unfortunately no one seems to collect any stats about how many we should have had, had the ref not been a blind incompetent. Equally they don't collect how many they should have had given similar circumstances.

I think overall, our numbers were sort of reflective of what I expected. Broadly heads or tails and no large differences home or away. Some fare better, some worse - the ones notable for their aggressive tackling, overall look to get picked up more, maybe as you'd expect. Some surprised me - I sort of expected Sheff Weds, given they're top of the table to be getting some benefit (if only because if you're winning all your games, my head told me you'd probably draw more fouls.) - Not so they get less than 50/50 in all sectors - Home. Away and Overall.

A couple do stand out - Plymouth at home get 59% in their favour, but then again, they get roughly 50/50 away - maybe they're just cleverer at drawing fouls.

Foul Ref.jpg (132.68 KiB) Viewed 360 times

[Dave Sutton's barnet]

Cheers, Worthy, for the hard work.

Clearly implausible to answer the underlying question - "Are we swizzed?" - and darkly amusing to see that the comparatively-most-fouled teams are second-top and second-bottom of the real league, closely followed by the very mid-table Rovers...

You wouldn't get many (bar perhaps conspiracy theorists) who'd have predicted that we'd fouled more than Wycombe, but then that is probably driven by our different styles - we're high-press in-yer-grid, they're happy to concede possession.

As an aside, is the Kassam Stadium where referees' whistles go to die? 434 fouls - spilt almost precisely half-and-half - is a phenomenal number. Meanwhile their fellow yellows Burton have hosted a mere 288 pheeps, perfectly divided.