Alex Ferguson is wrong – It’s Arsenal who suffer most from bad decisions
MANCHESTER United boss Sir Alex Ferguson says Manchester City’s Patrick Vieira is wrong and United are not helped by favouritism from referees. Says he:
“It evens itself out over a season and that will never change. You get breaks here and there. Every club gets good breaks, bad breaks.”
Really? The website Debatable Decisions looks at “The Real Premier League Table” – “It’s calculated using the decisions that directly affect goals e.g. goals ruled out for offside, corners incorrectly given that lead to goals, whether or not the ball has crossed the line, penalties etc.”
Man United would still be top of the table with an increase on their current 73 points to 76 points. Man City would be on 71, up one from 70. Third-placed Arsenal would be on 62 points, a rise of fours points on the actual Premier League table. Spurs would be fifth and Chelsea fourth.
The ‘real’ bottom three would be Bolton, Wolves and QPR and not, as is now, QPR, Wigan and Wolves.
In 2011, Sam Harris investigated:
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.
Arsenal came fourth.
Manchester United would still have won the leaue. But Manchester City should have won nine fewer points than they did and finished fourth.
Blackpool and Birmingham should have avoided relegation while Wigan and Wolves should have been relegated along with West Ham.
So. Decisions average out, do they? No. They don’t.
Posted: 30th, March 2012 | In: Sports Comment (1) | TrackBack | Permalink
