Or: Why do they hate us so? We know historically how decisions have gone against us, and again this weekend we saw a soft penalty given against us , so I wanted to delve deeper. I looked at penalties for and against during premier league era, and guess what! Penalties for: Well, one would expect the tables to be led by the 6 ever presents seeing as they have played more games. And lo and behold we are 7th behind the the other 5 and also behind Man City (top of course are 'pool then Utd. followed by Chelsea, Aresenal , City and Everton ). Penalties against is even better. It's a table we of course lead with the ever present spread out and Manchester United 13th!!!! In my eyes this proves beyond doubt that we regularly get decisions against us. We'll get told we are paranoid and the reason we get fewer penalties is because we are not such a good team as the others- but with due respect, have Everton always been better than us? And has our defence always been bad at tackling? The reason we get fewer wins is because we don't get the decisions. ( an overall difference of more than 80 in UTD's favour) This is just the penalties but it is true with free kicks all over the pitch. ( you just blow in the direction of Grealish and he goes over and wins a free kick). In pre-VAR days we would have lost Friday's game because of a referee giving easy penalties against us. Compare the Pogba fall with Kane's against Newcastle or Arsenal earlier in the season which of course we didn't get. AND WE GET ACCUSED OF DIVING! Referees simply don't give us the decisions. I preferred it when we didn't have football. Didn't need to rant.
We were recently below Newcastle in the Penalties For table, who've spent several years outside of the Premier League and been largely ****. Take away all of Spurs and Man Utd's penalties this season and we don't lose a point. Man Utd lose 7 and drop below us. The league's bent.
Every team gets a measure of borderline decisions for and against them, it happens and I don't think VAR will eliminate that in the long term. Spurs players have dived, simulated contact, and exaggerated fouls, and Spurs players have had that happen against them as well. I don't think anyone could paint any team as whiter than white. But hearing those stats, you can't help but feel that there has been something amiss. A widespread conspiracy and collusion is fanciful of course IMO, but systematic unintentional bias towards a team seen, for a lot of the PL era, as soft touches and a bit hapless? I could buy that.
Remember the 2012/13 season, when we finished 5th with 72 points and finished a point behind Arsenal and the CL places? 0 penalties. None. Chelsea finished 3 points ahead of us and got 11. We've been screwed over on them for years.
That was the season where it was open season on Gareth Bale after Brendan Rodgers said he dived Strange that Rodgers ventured no opinion whatsoever about players in his team such as Luis Suarez and Steven Gerrard...
Yep, totally agree, I`ve been saying it for years and the stats back it up. Here are the Premier League all time penalty statistics for the 6 ever present clubs in the PL era: Penalties for: Penaltypool - 155 Pen Utd - 144 Chelsea - 132 Arsenal - 126 Everton - 112 Spurs - 110 Others worthy of a mention Man City 116, Newcastle United 108 Penalties against: Spurs - 117 Arsenal - 108 Everton - 104 Liverpool - 94 Chelsea - 70 Man Utd - 64 Others worthy of a mention Aston Villa 112, Newcastle 106, WHU 105 Difference between penalties for and against: Man Utd +80 Chelsea +62 Liverpool +61 Arsenal +18 Everton +8 Spurs -7
