How the adjusted table would have looked. According to a newly adjusted table, Arsenal would have been runners-up in the Premier League last season and Blackpool wouldn't have been relegated if match officials hadn't made mistakes. Extensive new research conducted by broadcaster and journalist Tim Long for his radio documentary 'Beyond The Goal Line: Football's Technology Debate,' re-examined 731 âsignificant' incidents - penalties, goal line incidents and offside goals - across the Premier League's 380 games in 2010-11. The Gunners finished fourth on 68 points but if the decisions had have gone the correct way, they would have finished second to Manchester United on 72 points. Blackburn and Birmingham would have also avoided relegation while Wigan and Wolves would have suffered the heartbreak of relegation along with West Ham. He stated that the research wasn't conducted to be critical of referees but to illustrate how even the simplest of technological advances can highlight erroneous decisions. Long spent 250 hours analysing the 713 incidents, each of which on their own could or did lead to a goal. Of these, 361 involved penalties given (or not), and 152 involved goals given (or not) as a result of offside calls. "That isn't a massive amount of incidents when you think about it, fewer than two per game on average," the journalist said. http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/blogs/world-of-sport/article/65340/
You can't make a league table of teams removing referee mistakes. Depending on the score teams change tactics etc. Meaning a hypothetical table is absolute nonsense if it that is part of the argument to bring in goal line tech then that is even more ridiculous. Cheers for the thread OP but for me it is almost comical that people would buy into this.
Really? I thought we would have been relegated without the officials on our side according to some idiots.
How do you define a wrong decision though? they are mostly an interpretation of circumstances. There are only a few that you can call as definitely wrong, such as a ball crossing a line when it didnt (or vice versa) or offsides.
There are just too many variables in a game for this to be considered serious. eg what about free kicks/corners/throw ins not given, there is no way of knowing if teams would have scored from them. Who decided what was a "significant" decision? Total waste of time.
Of course you'd have to prove that Blackpool were actually in the PL based on correct decisions, too. Then you'd have to do the season before that and so on. Before you know it Maradona's playing for Scunthorpe and Les Dawson is running FIFA.
Bingo. You never can tell. It is useful to use to make a point though. What it also doesn't take into account are yellow cards given or not given (that affect how risky a player plays). Red cards. For example- we got the penalty against the suds- but would it still have been a draw if we had a man advantage like most people believe we should have. I've seen games where referees are throwing free kicks with almost every challenge- that disadvantages teams (usually the better smoother passing team) no-end. £ for £ - this isn't the whole impact that referees had- and as Skylarker said it doesn't account for changed strategies.
i agree, its all very subjective. In the end the thing is blackpool were relegated beacuse they lost form and didn't get results, not beacuse they got one or two decisions... it was close i nthe end so of course it looks like its easily tipped, anything thats marginal or so close can be tipped one way or the other. same for arsenal... neither nasri nor fabregas care if they could have been second.. .they were still also rans and would have left.... end of. this is why football works, sometimes you get a bad call and its how your character handles it.... eg. ud lost the league to leeds then came back and won it... they could have fallen apart but they didn't.. thats character. we came out at 3-0 down in instanbul and showed character... bad calls are a part of the game. That said adding technology to quickly and efficiently get things better thats a good thing
Well of course they did nobody would have the time to analyse all the s***e decisions they get,Anyway they have Howard Webb and Fergies watch on their side.
The one that sticks out to me, is how Citeh were well up compared to any other team. Does anyone else think the "hospitality" shown to the officials at Eastland maybe a little too good?
Alan Wiley says both Liverpool goals were good: http://uk.eurosport.yahoo.com/football/premier-league/video/allvideos-22327918/26386939
