A West Ham recovery or is there something behind the numbers?
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By Sir Hardly Anyone
One thing one has to say positively about West Ham, is that they do give a lot of information on their website about the officials. If only PGMO themselves would take a look and then do something radical like, oh I don’t know, maybe, have a website….
Referee: Anthony Taylor
Assistant Referees: Gary Beswick and Adam Nunn
Fourth Official: Bobby Madley
VAR: Michael Salisbury
Assistant VAR: Mark Scholes
The WHAM site then goes into a lot of depth about the referee including this rather astonishing fact: “Taylor refereed his 37th fixture involving West Ham United against Ipswich in October, when goals from Michail Antonio, Mohammed Kudus, Jarrod Bowen and Lucas Paquetá earned the Hammers their first home three-point haul of the season….
“The Arsenal clash is the 12th Premier League match in which Taylor has held the whistle in the 2024/25 season, with his most recent appointment coming in Ipswich’s 1-1 draw with Manchester United last weekend.”
That is a lot of repetitive work for one referee. Our campaign remember is that each referee only sees each club twice in a season.
But let us look at him in comparison with some other referees, and this time in the last row we’ve shown how much more the most active referee in that area does things than the least active referee.
Apps Fouls pg Fouls/Tackles Pen pg Yel pg
1.Anthony Taylor 11 21.09 0.55 0.27
1.Robert Jones 9 27.00 0.72 0.33
16.Stuart Attwell 7 19.71 0.55 0.14
3.Samuel Barrott 8 21.63 0.57 0.25
% difference 37% 31% 136%
So Anthony Taylor shows 37% more cards per game than Stuart Attwell… Robert Jones see 31% more tackles as fouls than Attwell or Taylor, Jones gives out more than twice as many penalties as Attweell. While Barrott gives out 53% more yellow cards than Taylor or Attwell.
In short, how many cards a club gets and how many penalties a club gets for or against them depends totally on which referee the club sees. And indeed clubs must obviously be looking at the referee and advising the players which tactics to adopt in relation to this referee.
Of course it shouldn’t be like this, but it is.
Now we have already seen that it takes fewer West Ham tackles to get a yellow than Arsenal tackles. Arsenal can commit 17% more tackles than West Ham before getting a yellow. What’s more, Arsenal can commit over 8% more fouls before the card is waved than is the case with West Ham.
So overall this should be a favourable refereeing approach for Arsenal. But let’s check Taylor as a home referee or an away referee.
In fact in his 11 games this season Taylor has had 18.2% as home wins, 54.5% as away wins and 27.3% as draws. Again a favourable approach as far as Arsenal is concerned. We will of course welcome that for a change, but really this level of difference is odd. By and large regular referees’ results ought to reflect the overall national results. Except that the overall national results should not show the bias in favour of home teams, that they do (given that this disappeared when there were no crowds present).
Back to the clubs, and one thing to notice about West Ham is that they are one of a select group of clubs that do better away from home than at home – which makes it seem as if the crowd really can get on their backs.
For while Arsenal h\ve gained 64% of their points this season at home, West Ham have only gained 47% of their points at home. That’s what they get for having a ground funded by the poor taxpayers and then given to the club.
In terms of goals scored, Arsenal have scored 71% of their goals at home – the second highest figure in the league (only Brentford is higher), but Arsenal concedes an equal number of goals home and away. This table taken from data provided by Soccer Stats gives the details.
Games Points Goals scored Goals conceded
Home Away Home Away Home
Arsenal 12 64% 36% 71%
West Ham 12 47% 53% 53%
But in case that is a worrying factor we might remember recent events…. In the past five games away to West Ham Arsenal have won three and drawn two. The goals for Arsenal number 16 and for West Ham number seven.
Date Game Res Score
09 Dec 2019 West Ham United v Arsenal W 1-3
21 Mar 2021 West Ham United v Arsenal D 3-3
01 May 2022 West Ham United v Arsenal W 1-2
16 Apr 2023 West Ham United v Arsenal D 2-2
11 Feb 2024 West Ham United v Arsenal W 0-6
Here’s the video from Sky Sports – you might have to sit through an advertisement first.
So really I think we can say that this looks like a possible winner.
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A West Ham recovery or is there something behind the numbers?
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