I'd say that anecdotal suggestions of refs being against us is more of an "unproven assertion" than offering even a rudimentary theory such as the law of averages!
That's what I thought! I usually can't be doing with whinging Scousers but it looks like they've got good reason so far!
Comparing penalties awarded for and against us is bollocks. On that comparison it would suggest it was fair if we were fouled 20 times in the area and got 1 penalty and we fouled the opposition once in the area and they were given the pen because we both got 1 pen. You need to look at the dodgy decision for and against us. You also can't play law of averages over a 38 game season. As the link sydney provided says it's actually the law of large numbers, and the basis is that the more times you repeat a fair experiment the more likely you are to have the results you'd expect. 38 games isn't a significant number of games for match deciding incidents to even themselves out. And it's based on the assumption of a fair experiment. Given we've had a video ref's decision go against us in the past despite the rules clearly forbidding video refs the experiment is far from fair. If it were we'd have been awarded a goal earlier in the same game rather than having it disallowed. (I've gone that far back as I wanted the most extreme example)
Why? What dicates that? So every team, in the history of football, has had exactly equal treatment at the hands of referees? Every decision which has been wrong has been ironed out to exactly the same value? If not, your belief is flawed.
Exactly and the results of the 38 games could near destroy a club. How about applying this rule to the World Cup. Are people saying that perhaps Lampard's 'goal' v Germany was things evening themselves out for '66? What about the 'Hand of God'? How about Henry's handball v Ireland? What did that even out? Or are they still waiting for that to happen? Probably quite comforting for them knowing they've got that to look forward to. When I was a child I used to trot out the 'everything evens itself out' line because I'd heard adults, pundits etc say it. Then, the first time I actually considered it for myself...
'Pretty much balance out' and exactly the same value are not the same thing.. The basic point of this is we only remember the negatively affecting us decisions, and not the times that things go our way, and love to moan about how unfair life is and how mean the refs are to us. There's always going to be things that go your way and things that don't, just get on with the game.
Fair enough - I hear what you're saying in response to the logic that myself and Syd are trying to apply here, but if you're going to suggest we've been getting a raw deal when it comes to penalties you're going to have to do better than simply referring to the bad decisions that we (and every club, I might add) find themselves on the end of from time to time. Try to be a bit more pragmatic yourselves; maybe look at how many debatable decisions have gone our way and how many have gone against us, and THEN compare that to how other clubs ave done when it comes to debatable decisions. If you can't do that, this debate is pretty pointless, really.
I don't know. I'm not an expert on how Ireland have fared when it comes to dodgy penalty calls over the years. Are you? Can you be certain that they've never had a debatable decisions go their way? And if you're going to start referring to bad decisions that other teams have found themselves on the end of you pretty much destroy your whole position, because for every team who receives a bad decision, there's one who receives a good one. If you want to suggest that City have had more bad decisions than other clubs then you have to be a bit more pragmatic than this I'm afraid. As I said; look into loads of dodgy penalty decisions and analyse which clubs get the rub and which don't. There's no point relying on anecdotal, emotional "evidence"!
I don't know if he still does it, but Jeff Winter used to do a revised league table based on corrected wrong decisions. It seemed to confirm these things don't balance themselves out.
It absolutely confirmed it. Not that it really needed confirming, anyone who watches a lot of football can plainly see that the bigger clubs get preferential treatment and that's nothing to do with watching City, watching a game as a neutral it's just as obvious.
Attwell aside, maybe it's something to do with having common names affecting their feelings of lack of self worth?
Polly wrote: “Over time, things will pretty much balance out” I wrote: “So every team, in the history of football, has had exactly equal treatment at the hands of referees?” Balance is a synonym of equal. If you think ‘things pretty much balance out’ is not equal treatment then you suggest an imbalance which means that you agree that decisions do not even themselves out.
You’re correct I cannot be certain on mistakes made with the Republic of Ireland; or any team throughout their history to see if it was equal or not. It would be practically impossible not to mention as most of it is subjective. In considering this, doesn’t it mean that likelihood of everything being ‘equal’ or ‘balancing themselves out’ highly unlikely?
There is probably some truth in the idea that referees subconsciously favour the Big Clubs, but the opening salvo in this thread was bemoaning the fact that we've got Mike Jones for a game against Sunderland. Are you saying that Mike Jones is going to favour Sunderland over us because Sunderland are the home team? Or are you saying it's because he'll be favouring Sunderland because they're a Big Club, when they're clearly not. Unless you look at how Sunderland have fared when Mike Jones has refereed them, what's the point in moaning about him? For all you know, 7 out of 10 decisions that he makes in Hull City games might go against us, but 9 out of 10 decisions he makes made in Sunderland's games could go against them! They could've had worse experiences than us with him in charge! How do you know Sunderland fans are not thinking he hates them too? How do you know they aren't saying the same thing? It's ridiculous! If you take it to its logical (or illogical?!) conclusion, then you find yourselves in the situation that some of the f**king thick rugby fans of this city were in a few years back. Both clubs reckoned that referee Steve Ganson was biased against them whenever they played the likes of Leeds, Wigan, St Helens etc.. they were convinced he had it in for them because they were from Hull. Then it was Derby day, Rovers v FC, and Ganson was ref. The sight of the HDM comments column, with fans of both clubs moaning about the fact that the ref hated them and would make it easier for the other side was a wonder to behold. Sadly, if you start moaning about refs in games like this one against Sunderland, you can soon find yourself in similar territory.
