“Refereeing is now an impossible job owing to the culture of micro-analysis the Arsenal manager has helped to create.” Which is interesting given that many media outlets have put a lot of the accusation of multiple fouling at Arsenal’s door. Now we are told it is the “micro-analysis” of refereeing behaviour that Arsenal are to blame for, and supporters of other clubs lap that up. The notion that Arsenal are the club that has been at the heart of trying to expose the short-comings of refereeing in the PL doesn’t get mentioned.
And yet the micro-analysis of players and clubs is what the papers have done for decades. The one thing they hve NOT analysed is referee accuracy. We have suspected for years that has been because of an arrangement between PGMO and the mainstream media: you don’t comment on the refs, but things are hard to prove when no one will talk.
However some data is available and most clubs now study the results of the referee that they have for their next game to see what sort of results he gives, what he likes, what he doesn’t like, what errors he makes. They also study the referee’s level of foul-calling, card waving and so on, and we will I am sure, present these again as we have done before, not that this makes any difference to the behaviour of PGMO.
Bt for now let us consider just the results.
Basically if referees are not biased in any way then roughly speaking over a period of time their percentage of results should be much the same as each others, in terms of home wins, away wins and draws. Now the only reasons for that not being the case would most likely be…
a) the referee is influence by the crowd
b) the referee is biased
So to take a look at this we need some data, and these figures are only from games this season and come from the reliable [Who Scored](https://www.whoscored.com/regions/252/tournaments/2/seasons/10743/stages/24533/refereestatistics/england-premier-league-2025-2026)… which is the only website that carries a lot of referee statistics data. The games all come from this season in the Premier League.
Referee
Games
HomeWin%
AwayWin%
Draw%
Jarred Gillett
22
22.7%
45.5%
31.8%
Andy Madley
21
33.3%
**47.6%**
19.0%
Thomas Bramall
22
40.9%
18.2%
**40.9%**
Peter Bankes
22
**68.2%**
18.2%
13.6%
The difference level shows that a home tem is three times more likely to have a win if Peter Bankes is the referee than if Jarred Gillett is the referee, and that surely can’t be fair, right or reasonable.
If Andy Madley is a referee the away team is two and a half times more likely to win than if either Thomas Braeall or Peter Bankes is a referee.
If Thomas Bramall is the referee the result is three times as likely to be a draw as if Peter Bankes is a referee.
But there is more to it than that. Many clubs (not all, but quite a number) know the figures above about each individual referee and study them with the players before each game. So players then logically adjust their approach for each game based on the statistics relating to the referees. It makes sense.
And there is more to it than this. Certain approaches are picked up as fouls by referees much more than others. Some clubs study such issues and adjust their play deliberately. It is not how it should be, but it is how PGMO have made the game with their limited number of referees and their refusal to allow refs to debate any issue in public.
SoArsenal work with the information they have – and by and large tend to be better at this than most other clubs..