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Benny’s honesty was so refreshing and also hilarious. Not liking something you’re very good at that makes you insanely rich is something I’m extremely jealous of. I hate my job but equally I’ll never be insanely rich from it too.
I have a god given talent for something quite mundane and really don't enjoy it. Sadly it's not anything that would earn me much money if I did.
 
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I saw some foul to booking stats on X earlier today that I thought looked unbelievable so what with it pissing down with rain all day and being at home I thought I would do some digging of my own.

Now I know that it easier to defend for Arsenal at the top of the league and that Saliba and Gabriel are better defenders than Romero and VDV, but the stats are still I think quite amazing - The Arsenal pair played 63 matches, they committed 43 fouls and got 6 yellow cards (Saliba 2,
from 22 fouls 1 of which was for delaying the restart towards the end of the West Ham match, and Gabriel 4 from 21 fouls). Romero and VDV played 57 matches, they committed 58 fouls and got 19 yellow cards and 3 red (1 of which was for 2 yellows). That equates to the Arsenal pair getting a booking every 7 fouls and ours every 3.

I do understand that this will have something to do with the perceived severity of the fouls being committed and both Romero and VDV can be a little reckless at times, but twice as many times? So what if as a control we look at a mid table team with a poor disciplinary record Chelsea fit the bill, Fofana and Chalobah played 59 matches and committed 47 fouls from which they got 10 bookings 4.7 fouls per booking almost exactly in the middle of the Spurs and Arsenal figures.

I suspect that over the seasons :

1. a rank correlation analysis
(fouls per player position vs their club table
placing) would show a negative correlation
(top dog incur least, relegation-ensnared
being the worst) .

2. the fouls by player position would be a
left-skewed Normal distribution
(with MF being the significant offenders) .


All of which would be easily explained by
the on-pitch realities (and not officials
bias/incompetence) .
 
The issue is that it's working on the basis that the PL wasn't corrupt AF prior to Uncle Roman pitching up

Howard Webb casually admitting to receiving a £20,000 watch from Alex Ferguson one season, plus various comments from ex-refs about gift bags left in the referee's room, say the corruption has always been there
 
The issue is that it's working on the basis that the PL wasn't corrupt AF prior to Uncle Roman pitching up

Howard Webb casually admitting to receiving a £20,000 watch from Alex Ferguson one season, plus various comments from ex-refs about gift bags left in the referee's room, say the corruption has always been there

How far back can they go though?
 
How far back can they go though?
As tempting as it is to give a flippant answer like 1992, it has to be said Dave Elleray at least had the balls to send off Roy Keane for challenges that van Dijk or Gabriel habitually get away with in 2026

If in doubt, suggest around 2000: that's when Graham Poll disallowed an Everton winner in the Mersey Derby claiming he'd blown the whistle, when replays showed that he hadn't, which at the very least is an early example of referees having Main Character Syndrome

Failing that, I'll just mention Howard Webb became a PL ref in 2003 and Mark Clattenburg in 2004...
 
As tempting as it is to give a flippant answer like 1992, it has to be said Dave Elleray at least had the balls to send off Roy Keane for challenges that van Dijk or Gabriel habitually get away with in 2026

If in doubt, suggest around 2000: that's when Graham Poll disallowed an Everton winner in the Mersey Derby claiming he'd blown the whistle, when replays showed that he hadn't, which at the very least is an early example of referees having Main Character Syndrome

Failing that, I'll just mention Howard Webb became a PL ref in 2003 and Mark Clattenburg in 2004...

26 years? Far too long
 
26 years? Far too long
The generation of Webb, Clattenburg and Atkinson were added to the PL list between 2003-5, and that's probably a good starting point to look at

Especially given most refs before that (i.e. Elleray, Poll, Gallagher) pretty much faded away after retirement, on the other hand Webb and Clattenburg got elevated to plum roles