Was Steve Bruce Right? Do Refs Favour The Big Teams?
This weekend saw Steve Bruce charged for comments he made about referee Michael Oliver after Hull City’s game at Spurs. Former referee Graham Poll claims the reason Bruce was charged was down his inference that had the penalty been at the other end it would never have been given. Now i’m not one to bat around footballing conspiracies but it does seem as though incidents like this seem to be cropping up quite regularly. Is it purely down to managers of smaller teams clutching at straws to find excuses for their bad results? Or is there more to it than that?
Last season Spurs failed to receive a single penalty, making them and Swansea city the only sides to not get one all season. To put this into perspective, Chelsea received a whopping 11 penalties. This year has been a complete reversal for Spurs as they have already been awarded 3 penalties and top the league on that statistic. Steve Bruce’s side have fared relatively well in the penalty department so far, conceding 2 and winning 2. However Bruce’s statement that it wouldn’t have been given if roles were reversed does have some statistical backing. Of the 22 penalties awarded this season at the time of writing this, 14 of them have gone to the home teams and only 8 to the away teams. Thats around 63%. For a larger sample size we look at last season’s data. 83 Penalties given, 53 to the home side and 30 to the away team. Which is once again 63% of the share. In none of the last 10 Premier League seasons have away teams won more penalties than the home side. In some years the disparity has been even greater. In the 2008/09 season, nearly 70% of all penalties awarded were for the home team. It could be argued that home teams win more penalties simply because they are on the attack more and spend more time in the opposition’s penalty area.
Bruce’s comment also seemed to imply he thought the larger sides were getting favourable treatment by receiving more penalties than the smaller teams, especially when they played each other. The counter to this argument is usually that the larger teams attack more often whether they are at home or away so spend more time in the penalty area and therefore are likely to win more penalties. We’ve put together a handy table that compares the number of chances a team has created compared to the number of penalties they won last season.
| Team Name | Chances Created | Penalties Given | Average Chances per Penalty |
| Sunderland | 280 | 4 | 70 |
| Chelsea | 444 | 11 | 40.36 |
| West Brom | 385 | 7 | 55 |
| Fulham | 342 | 6 | 57 |
| Liverpool | 550 | 6 | 91.6 |
| Manchester City | 509 | 6 | 84.8 |
| Manchester United | 438 | 6 | 73 |
| Arsenal | 462 | 5 | 92.4 |
| Stoke | 281 | 5 | 56.2 |
| Newcastle | 390 | 4 | 97.5 |
| Reading | 287 | 4 | 71.75 |
| QPR | 371 | 4 | 92.75 |
| West Ham | 375 | 4 | 93.75 |
| Aston Villa | 340 | 3 | 113.3 |
| Southampton | 367 | 3 | 122.3 |
| Norwich | 294 | 2 | 147 |
| Everton | 483 | 2 | 241.5 |
| Wigan | 383 | 1 | 383 |
| Swansea | 378 | 0 | N/A |
| Tottenham | 516 | 0 | N/A |
Now obviously the above table doesn’t take into account where these chances were created from so it’s not an exact science by any means. What it does show is that Chelsea were far more likely to win a penalty last season than any other team in the league. It also shows how surprising it was that Tottenham didn’t win a single one despite creating over 500 chances (Chelsea would have won at least 12 had they created that many). What’s interesting though is that the next two best off teams were Fulham and West Brom, two of the less glamorous sides, yet they were capable of winning plenty of penalties. This is an area that clearly needs to be looked into further to really attempt to find any patterns. It is worth pointing out that Fulham and West Brom won the majority of their penalties at home whereas Chelsea’s record is more or less 50/50. It would be very interesting also to see statistics showing against which teams those penalties were won before we can draw any conclusion.
Obviously penalties are not the only contentious issue. Which is why starting from the beginning of next season we are going to be running an experiment. We are going to be tracking all the controversial decisions referees make. To see whether there is any correlation between the larger teams and their ability to influence decisions. It will be an interactive experiment also, as we plan to open it up to voting on the decisions to get a better idea of football fans views on the decisions rather than just our own. More news on that to come at a later date.
Photo by Acroamatic
About the Author
SYC Matt A football fan just like the rest of us. Battling with the usual ups and downs that come with supporting one of the less glamorous teams. Crusader for footballing justice.
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