Lack of Penalty Decisions

[Ian M]

1 hour ago, ExiledAjax said:

 

I'm happy to have my mind changed, and ultimately I cannot offer a concrete answer to your final question. What I am trying to do is test the data, ask the questions, and dig beneath the headline figures in an attempt to find the reason beyond "referees hate Bristol City and demonstrate that hatred through the specific denial of penalties"

Snipped a lot sorry….

Do I think there’s a huge conspiracy to punish Bristol City? Of course not. But there seems to be some kind of factor. If we could learn what it is, we could actually take steps as a club to overcome that obstacle so that our future is rosy and full of penalty awards. 
 

One explanation could be that amongst referees, when they network, we may have gained a reputation as a team of divers and that on a subconscious level they aren’t saying “Bristol City must not get a penalty” but if they held that view from personal experience in their previous matches or anecdotal, they may take more convincing to award us one. Casting a spotlight on our lack of awards would help if this were the case as the narrative changes to “Bristol City are hard done by”

[sh1t_ref_again]

Perhaps part of the explanation is we don't dive enough compared to other teams, or we don't have players running at players in the box

[Davefevs]

Much as I love my data, there’s more than enough info / data in this thread already to conclude we are bloody hard done by! And some!!!

[GrahamC]

5 hours ago, Mr Popodopolous said:

We also got one- one that was deemed soft in a match report in the Times - v Swansea at home in 2020/21.

Recall it, a long ball played up to our strikers, Connor Roberts their full back lost his footing & in doing so inadvertently tripped Semenyo.

It was a foul, it was in the area, it wasn’t deliberate, but that’s not a criteria for a penalty.

Swansea moaned afterwards, the BBC report (although we were the home side, written as usual by someone from BBC Wales) claimed it was “contentious”, but it wasn’t.

All I would say is loads we have failed to be awarded since were more obvious, but it was still a penalty every day of the week.

Edited August 18, 2022 by GrahamC

[ExiledAjax]

2 hours ago, Olé said:

While you're busy looking at teams (you must miss the beach!!) have a look at Forest, Blackburn, and of course Preston.

Until Forest's promotion season we could reasonably say all these teams (and ourselves) were lower mid table also rans.

Yet to the extent that a) propensity for being fouled + b) taking shots in the box MIGHT have some link to penalty awards:

Isn't it odd we're consistently awarded below our ranking on those factors, while those 3 are consistently over their rank.

Preston's case in 19/20 was widely remarked on (@GrahamC called it out - they even had 2 against us up there in 2019).

#1 for penalties awarded 19/20 when only 16th most fouled and average attack. 5th most in 20/21 while tamest for both!

It's bizarre. No conspiracy, but just a good (literally) old fashioned question: do wholesome, historic clubs get more love?

 

How could I miss the beach when I'm enjoying sunny Burton-based 4-1 wins and riveting stat discussions?

I do think there is a lot of merit in your numbers, and yes it is interesting that some clubs seem to show a consistent and somewhat absurd set of numbers that suggests an unusual divergence from an expected normal patter. I well remember Preston's record that season. It was bizarre - but look, then they got just 1 penalty the following season, when they ranked higher for "box shots". Then they regressed from those two wild years to a normal 5, and yet that was the worst season for them in terms of box shots. I think that actually casts doubt on the inverse correlation that you see with us proving a causation. 

Blackburn broadly have an expected pattern in two of the four seasons, with only 18/19 and 21/22 being wildly disproportionate. 

Forest is odd I'll grant you. However just as our numbers alone don't prove a conspiracy or strangeness against us, neither do their numbers show a definitive favouritism.

Not sure I buy the historic club argument. Are Man City an historic, wholesome club? Or are they oil-jacked gymrats who until 10 years ago were nothing (bar the Mercer years). How many penalties do da famous Quarterz get a season? If based on wholesomeness alone then it's surely astronomical. Apologies, I jest poorly.

1 hour ago, Ian M said:

Do I think there’s a huge conspiracy to punish Bristol City? Of course not. But there seems to be some kind of factor. If we could learn what it is, we could actually take steps as a club to overcome that obstacle so that our future is rosy and full of penalty awards. 

And on this I completely agree. It's why I'm asking these questions. Is there an underlying reason in our patterns of play that mean we've had so few penalties. Looking at it I think it plays a part.

I'm going to raise the spectre of Andi Weimann again though. Here's his shot map from last season as of 30 March 2022 (so missing the final 7 games), a 39 game sample (source https://eflanalysis.com/analysis/andreas-weimann-efl-championship-2021-22-data-stats-analysis

http://eflanalysis.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/03/Weimann-Shot-map.png

That's a lot of box shots. 61 out of 71 to be exact. Yet no penalty appeals to think of. Should we not expect at least one appeal here? At least one clear cut scything down of our most dangerous goal threat? Yet it isn't there (unless someone corrects me). For me that says that honesty and integrity are part of this wicked conspiracy to deny us penalties.

Ultimately I suspect this is one of those combinational things. Partly we've attacked poorly, partly we've held our ground when in the box, partly yes perhaps referees have had issues giving us penalties, and partly we've had some rotten luck. Pile those things together and it can be a perfect storm of shite.

Finally, we should ask the question: has any club in history seen such bad luck before? The most recent answers I can find is form this Guardian piece inspired by a run of 44 penaltyless games from Leeds in 2017/2018. This was the discourse:

It’s not even a Yorkshire record. “My team Sheffield United beat it in 1991 and 1992,” says Darren White. “United were awarded a penalty on 23 March 1991 at Wimbledon and didn’t get another one until the first ever Premier League game – at home to Manchester United – on Aug 1992. That’s 50 games without a penalty. Incidentally, Brian Deane scored both.”

Two summers earlier, the England team ended a remarkable 53-game run without being awarded a penalty – a spell that lasted four and a half years. Bryan Robson scored one in Israel on 26 February 1986, and that was it until the World Cup quarter-final against Cameroon on 1 July 1990. No wonder Gary Lineker was so nervous: it was his first penalty for England in his 56th game. He equalised with seven minutes remaining, and then scored another penalty to win the match in extra-time. Insert your own London buses joke here.

Chris Rawson writes in to say that Burnley are currently on a run of 47 games without a penalty, while Sean DeLoughry has an even better example. “Galway United,” writes Sean, “can push the record up to an impressive 72 games.”

So it happens. We're not the first to go barren - I think our barren run of absolutely no penalties was January 23 2021 Millwall away FA Cup through to Nov 6 2021 Coventry away in the Champ - a mere 40 games. Our current run is 34 games without a penalty. Neither run is anywhere near notable in the above conversation.

Ps. @Olé my biggest problem with all this is that I can't buy you a vodka coke to get the conversation really going.

[Olé]

1 hour ago, BCFC101 said:

I wonder if in the absence of a stat for box entries we could look at how many of those shots from the box have come directly from crosses (what would be even better is if there was a stat for how many of those shots were on first contact by the player that took the shot).

I used FBRef mostly plus WhoScored (WhoScored more so for the shots data). WhoScored uses Opta which has a measure of "Key Passes" but that's any pass which led to a shot, so it's not much different to what I had. They do also have a number for crosses (which is a subset of Key Passes) so in theory it would be possible to measure proportion of key passes that are crosses to help  answer your question.

Some simple maths for this season and the prior two (from 2020) as follows:

• 2022/23 - City 6th for crosses as a proportion of key passes; City joint last (0) no penalties awarded = SOME correlation between use of crosses and lack of penalties (but small dataset) 
• 2021/22 - City 6th for crosses as a proportion of key passes, City joint last (21st) for penalties awarded = HIGH correlation between use of crosses and lack of penalties
• 2020/21 - City 21st for crosses as a proportion of key passes, City joint last (23rd) for penalties awarded = NO correlation between use of crosses and lack of penalties

Further:

• 2022/23 - Reading 1st for crosses as a proportion of key passes; and first (1) with a penalty awarded = NO correlation between use of crosses and lack of penalties (but small dataset) 
• 2021/22 - Cardiff 1st for crosses as a proportion of key passes, and joint last (21st) for penalties awarded = HIGH correlation between use of crosses and lack of penalties
• 2020/21 - Stoke 1st for crosses as a proportion of key passes, and joint last (23rd) for penalties awarded = HIGH correlation between use of crosses and lack of penalties

So @BCFC101- if you exclude current season for being too small a dataset (teams with 1 or 0 penalties) then over the prior two seasons in the examples above 3 out of 4 show a clear correlation with dependency on crosses and lack of penalties, and the exception (City in 2020/21) has a known explanation, which is that we were the most limited attacking team in the division (24th/24 on shots, all time record league low).

Sadly I don't think this is a slam dunk for you though: 21/22 2nd for dependency on crosses Millwall, 8th for penalties awarded; 3rd for dependency on crosses West Brom, 1st for penalties awarded --- 20/21 2nd for dependency on crosses Birmingham, 13th for penalties awarded; 3rd for dependency on crosses Rotherham, 5th for penalties awarded!! In this group the teams relying on crosses seem to do rather well, sorry!

 

[Pezza]

https://twitter.com/bcfcpezza/status/1560356699856408576?s=20&t=I13MPrMFxNs1P5gsaNIXPg

Alright guys, I have calculated the standard deviation as a result of this thread. It turns out to be 8.509172754 standard deviations away from the mean, this equates to a probability greater than 1 in 390,682,215,445 as thats the highest standard deviation to probability combination i could find on the internet (7 standard deviations). Whilst yes, i have used a particular date to set it from, it still shows something that should be almost nearly impossible. If you see that i've gone wrong on any of the maths feel free to correct me. 

[BCFC101]

4 hours ago, Ian M said:

One explanation could be that amongst referees, when they network, we may have gained a reputation as a team of divers and that on a subconscious level they aren’t saying “Bristol City must not get a penalty” but if they held that view from personal experience in their previous matches or anecdotal, they may take more convincing to award us one. Casting a spotlight on our lack of awards would help if this were the case as the narrative changes to “Bristol City are hard done by”

This certainly seems plausible to me and could explain some of the decisions. There's also probably various individual penalty shouts where there's an additional human nature element at play that led to that decision.

For example, the Atkinson incident on Tuesday. From our point of view it's immediately a penalty, but the refs thoughts might have gone like this - a centre back who isn't outstanding on the ball finds himself with it 30 yards from goal. There's no obvious passing options, it's unlikely he'll want to shoot, and he doesn't have the technical ability to dribble past a couple of players to make space for himself. The best option in this circumstance is for Atkinson to try get into the box and win a penalty, and the ref knows that before Atkinson even gets there. 2 seconds later the player does get into the box and is knocked down as soon as he's in there, by which point the ref may have already made up his mind that he's not going to give the pen because it's clear from the situation that's what Atkinson is after. 

Now I'm not saying it's right of the referee to think like that because they shouldn't, but his human nature and experience of previous similar situations will have kicked in. This also doesn't explain most of the clear penalties that we should have had that weren't given, but maybe explains the thinking behind some decisions. Either way, every time this happens we're being hard done by and it's incredibly frustrating.

2 hours ago, Olé said:

So @BCFC101- if you exclude current season for being too small a dataset (teams with 1 or 0 penalties) then over the prior two seasons in the examples above 3 out of 4 show a clear correlation with dependency on crosses and lack of penalties, and the exception (City in 2020/21) has a known explanation, which is that we were the most limited attacking team in the division (24th/24 on shots, all time record league low).

Sadly I don't think this is a slam dunk for you though: 21/22 2nd for dependency on crosses Millwall, 8th for penalties awarded; 3rd for dependency on crosses West Brom, 1st for penalties awarded --- 20/21 2nd for dependency on crosses Birmingham, 13th for penalties awarded; 3rd for dependency on crosses Rotherham, 5th for penalties awarded!! In this group the teams relying on crosses seem to do rather well, sorry!

Fair play for digging into it, thank you, I think we all owe you a pint for spending a bit of time to get the extra info! I think it's fair to say based on those findings that this particular piece might be playing a small part in why we have less penalties that average, but there's still more factors and we'll probably never find all of them.

Edited August 18, 2022 by BCFC101

[BCFC101]

31 minutes ago, Pezza said:

https://twitter.com/bcfcpezza/status/1560356699856408576?s=20&t=I13MPrMFxNs1P5gsaNIXPg

Alright guys, I have calculated the standard deviation as a result of this thread. It turns out to be 8.509172754 standard deviations away from the mean, this equates to a probability greater than 1 in 390,682,215,445 as thats the highest standard deviation to probability combination i could find on the internet (7 standard deviations). Whilst yes, i have used a particular date to set it from, it still shows something that should be almost nearly impossible. If you see that i've gone wrong on any of the maths feel free to correct me. 

Great job on putting together the graph and highlighting the stat, it's been a good source of discussion on here today as you can see! Good to see you join the forum as well.

As for your latest Tweet, well that's just getting more and more incredible.

[chinapig]

40 minutes ago, Pezza said:

https://twitter.com/bcfcpezza/status/1560356699856408576?s=20&t=I13MPrMFxNs1P5gsaNIXPg

Alright guys, I have calculated the standard deviation as a result of this thread. It turns out to be 8.509172754 standard deviations away from the mean, this equates to a probability greater than 1 in 390,682,215,445 as thats the highest standard deviation to probability combination i could find on the internet (7 standard deviations). Whilst yes, i have used a particular date to set it from, it still shows something that should be almost nearly impossible. If you see that i've gone wrong on any of the maths feel free to correct me. 

Blimey, as I recall 5 Sigma (roughly 1 in 3.5m) was sufficient to verify the existence of the Higgs Boson! I thought the maximum possible value was 6 Sigma, which is close to perfection.

But I am a bit rusty on probability statistics.

[E.G.Red]

28 minutes ago, BCFC101 said:

This certainly seems plausible to me and could explain some of the decisions. There's also probably various individual penalty shouts where there's an additional human nature element at play that led to that decision.

For example, the Atkinson incident on Tuesday. From our point of view it's immediately a penalty, but the refs thoughts might have gone like this - a centre back who isn't outstanding on the ball finds himself with it 30 yards from goal. There's no obvious passing options, it's unlikely he'll want to shoot, and he doesn't have the technical ability to dribble past a couple of players to make space for himself. The best option in this circumstance is for Atkinson to try get into the box and win a penalty, and the ref knows that before Atkinson even gets there. 2 seconds later the player does get into the box and is knocked down as soon as he's in there, by which point the ref may have already made up his mind that he's not going to give the pen because it's clear from the situation that's what Atkinson is after. 

Now I'm not saying it's right of the referee to think like that because they shouldn't, but his human nature and experience of previous similar situations will have kicked in. This also doesn't explain most of the clear penalties that we should have had that weren't given, but maybe explains the thinking behind some decisions. Either way, every time this happens we're being hard done by and it's incredibly frustrating.

Fair play for digging into it, thank you, I think we all owe you a pint for spending a bit of time to get the extra info! I think it's fair to say based on those findings that this particular piece might be playing a small part in why we have less penalties that average, but there's still more factors and we'll probably never find all of them.

I wonder if the fact that our goalkeeper is our captain means it takes longer for him to get to the referee to try and persuade him to change his mind . By the time Dan gets to where the ref is at the other end of the pitch the refs mind is well and truly made up. I also feel that the ref needs more help from his assistants. Other than on Tuesday night,  the assistants or the 4th official rarely get involved.

Edited August 18, 2022 by E.G.Red

[cityal]

1 hour ago, Pezza said:

https://twitter.com/bcfcpezza/status/1560356699856408576?s=20&t=I13MPrMFxNs1P5gsaNIXPg

Alright guys, I have calculated the standard deviation as a result of this thread. It turns out to be 8.509172754 standard deviations away from the mean, this equates to a probability greater than 1 in 390,682,215,445 as thats the highest standard deviation to probability combination i could find on the internet (7 standard deviations). Whilst yes, i have used a particular date to set it from, it still shows something that should be almost nearly impossible. If you see that i've gone wrong on any of the maths feel free to correct me. 

Thanks pezza - I am not a stats expert but that is a lot

This paper https://ui.adsabs.harvard.edu/abs/1993PhRvE..48.2547M/abstract lists the probability of a coin landing on the edge as being approx 1 in 6000

Therefore the probability of tossing THREE coins simultaneously and having them ALL land on the edge on the same toss is by my reckoning 1 in 216,000,000,000

Assuming normal distrubution and your figures for 7 standard deviations  - The probability of city having to play this long on average to get a penalty is more than1 in 390,682,215,445 so at least 1.8  times less likely!!

 

Edited August 18, 2022 by cityal
grammar

[cityal]

3 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

That's a lot of box shots. 61 out of 71 to be exact. Yet no penalty appeals to think of. Should we not expect at least one appeal here? At least one clear cut scything down of our most dangerous goal threat? Yet it isn't there (unless someone corrects me). For me that says that honesty and integrity are part of this wicked conspiracy to deny us penalties.

I am sure he has had some claims for handball in those shots? even if he has not been fouled/tackled poorly?

[ExiledAjax]

9 hours ago, Pezza said:

https://twitter.com/bcfcpezza/status/1560356699856408576?s=20&t=I13MPrMFxNs1P5gsaNIXPg

Alright guys, I have calculated the standard deviation as a result of this thread. It turns out to be 8.509172754 standard deviations away from the mean, this equates to a probability greater than 1 in 390,682,215,445 as thats the highest standard deviation to probability combination i could find on the internet (7 standard deviations). Whilst yes, i have used a particular date to set it from, it still shows something that should be almost nearly impossible. If you see that i've gone wrong on any of the maths feel free to correct me. 

You say in your Twitter bit that anything outside of the average +/- the standard deviation could be investigated. Rounded to represent whole penalties your Ave is 11 and SD is 9.

Correct me if I'm wrong but does that mean that any team waiting 20 or more games (or fewer than 2 games) to get a penalty is odd, or weird, or generally outside of the range we'd expect? How many other teams fall outside of that?

If so then right now, based on the past few seasons, we've got two teams - ourselves and Hull - worthy of investigation. Plus Huddersfield who are on 16 games per penalty. Looking at @Olé's numbers here - which I know are different to yours.

Is that right? 

Also, does the SD do anything more than confirm, again, that we've had very few penalties over the past few seasons?

To my mind there's one big real world application for these numbers: Pearson's employment. Were he to be on the verge of a sack then these numbers and his collection of referee apology letters go some way to mitigating any failure. He can probably fairly claim that he's been denied the opportunity of an extra goal every 11 games (being the average). Essentially 4 goals a season (or more accurately 4*0.8 given only about 80% of penalties are scored). An extra 4 goals is worth up to 12 points in a season. Would that be enough to earn a reprieve?

[Bristol Oil Services]

I don't have any stats to add here, just some ramblings on human nature and refs going about their work.

If I'm a Championship ref, then Ashton Gate is not the worst place to be sent to officiate. For referees, Ashton Gate is not a "difficult place to go." 

We all, in our work, have customers or clients we prefer and customers or clients we do not. Customers or clients that are easy or easier, customers or clients that are difficult, or a pain in the arse. If I am a Championship ref I prefer reffing at AG to say The Den (obviously) or Brammall Lane.

Ashton Gate is a nice place to go, with a nice owner, a nice ground, a nice crowd and often a "nice" (for nice, see also non-threatening) manager. Imagine being a Championship ref and making a poor decision: you then know you will be confronted by Lee Johnson. You prefer this to being confronted by Alex Neil, Neil Warnock or that spittly nasty Welsh fellow at Luton. Same under Deano. Nige? Not so much.

In the 1980s, we had to get one of those 'telescopic' tunnels to pull out to enable the officials and players to exit the pitch safely. It was tight and claustrophobic in the tunnel area, with an often rabid disgruntled mob around the vomitory, quite possibly often including Otib's @GrahamC. We gained notoriety for our "liveliness" shall I say, referees would've been aware of "incidents" involving officials and the crowd at AG back then.

I think the goal we scored v Doncaster in 1988 we can attribute to 1. What was at stake, and 2. The "liveliness" of the crowd and what they might do should things not go Bristol City's way that afternoon. And 3. A referee's very human preference for not making things difficult for yourself where you don't have to. 

Nowadays, the area around the tunnel is broad, spacious, and populated by a nice, docile crowd who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Added to this,  OTIB's own @GrahamC, a vitriolic heckler of hopelss officials, now watches from the other side of the ground.

And on top of all this is our anonymity at this level, our irrelevance to football beyond this region (compared to say another "nice" club with a "nice" crowd and owner like Norwich), our absence from the big moments and big discussions on a national level about football in the Championship. At this level, Bristol City don't really matter, so if I'm a Championship ref and I don’t give Bristol City a penalty, so what? 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Bristol Oil Services

[GrahamC]

@Bristol Oil Services I’m sure this amounts to defamation?

 

[EmissionImpossible]

Never seen quite so much nonsense in one thread before. Bravo.

[Sheltons Army]

1 hour ago, Bristol Oil Services said:

I don't have any stats to add here, just some ramblings on human nature and refs going about their work.

If I'm a Championship ref, then Ashton Gate is not the worst place to be sent to officiate. For referees, Ashton Gate is not a "difficult place to go." 

We all, in our work, have customers or clients we prefer and customers or clients we do not. Customers or clients that are easy or easier, customers or clients that are difficult, or a pain in the arse. If I am a Championship ref I prefer reffing at AG to say The Den (obviously) or Brammall Lane.

Ashton Gate is a nice place to go, with a nice owner, a nice ground, a nice crowd and often a "nice" (for nice, see also non-threatening) manager. Imagine being a Championship ref and making a poor decision: you then know you will be confronted by Lee Johnson. You prefer this to being confronted by Alex Neil, Neil Warnock or that spittly nasty Welsh fellow at Luton. Same under Deano. Nige? Not so much.

In the 1980s, we had to get one of those 'telescopic' tunnels to pull out to enable the officials and players to exit the pitch safely. It was tight and claustrophobic in the tunnel area, with an often rabid disgruntled mob around the vomitory, quite possibly often including Otib's @GrahamC. We gained notoriety for our "liveliness" shall I say, referees would've been aware of "incidents" involving officials and the crowd at AG back then.

I think the goal we scored v Doncaster in 1988 we can attribute to 1. What was at stake, and 2. The "liveliness" of the crowd and what they might do should things not go Bristol City's way that afternoon. And 3. A referee's very human preference for not making things difficult for yourself where you don't have to. 

Nowadays, the area around the tunnel is broad, spacious, and populated by a nice, docile crowd who wouldn't say boo to a goose. Added to this,  OTIB's own @GrahamC, a vitriolic heckler of hopelss officials, now watches from the other side of the ground.

And on top of all this is our anonymity at this level, our irrelevance to football beyond this region (compared to say another "nice" club with a "nice" crowd and owner like Norwich), our absence from the big moments and big discussions on a national level about football in the Championship. At this level, Bristol City don't really matter, so if I'm a Championship ref and I don’t give Bristol City a penalty, so what? 

 

Colin Gordons challenge in the keeper ?

Think you are right !

I was a tunnel hugger in the Enclosure back then , opposition and officials certainly got some back then !

 

He (Gordon) did alright for us didn’t he 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Sheltons Army

[GrahamC]

1 hour ago, Sheltons Army said:

Colin Gordons challenge in the keeper ?

Think you are right !

I was a tunnel hugger in the Enclosure back then , opposition and officials certainly got some back then !

 

He (Gordon) did alright for us didn’t he 

Apart from the fact he initially controlled it with his arm even before he kicked it out of the goalkeepers hands, I can’t think of any reason why that goal shouldn’t have stood..

Towards the end of the game Rufus Brevett who I think was making his debut for Doncaster (& went on to have an excellent career) was about to take a thrown in front of the Dolman & a fan who had joined the many who were on the touch line knocked it out of his hands & the ref who frankly by then was shitting himself, just told him to take it again.

As the great Stevie Wonder wrote, “you grow up to realise that kind of thing ain’t right” but it was an intimidating place at times back in the day.

[downendcity]

1 hour ago, EmissionImpossible said:

Never seen quite so much nonsense in one thread before. Bravo.

That's a brave call to make, with so much forum history to call upon!

[Aipearcey]

Does anyone think that a lack of strong leaders on the pitch and having Bentley as captain may be part of the problem? When a decision not to award a penalty is made how many of our players actually go in hard on the ref? Maybe Weimann, but just like in our play I feel we miss that nasty streak in our team. I’m not encouraging players getting on the refs back but it does make it an easier decision to make.

[1960maaan]

35 minutes ago, Aipearcey said:

Does anyone think that a lack of strong leaders on the pitch and having Bentley as captain may be part of the problem? When a decision not to award a penalty is made how many of our players actually go in hard on the ref? Maybe Weimann, but just like in our play I feel we miss that nasty streak in our team. I’m not encouraging players getting on the refs back but it does make it an easier decision to make.

There can be a problem with appealing. If the ball is still in play players can get distracted with what has happened, we have given away plenty of chances by losing concentration.
I do take you point though. Over the recent past we have been far too respectful to Refs. A quick hand up appeal , a grizzle and move on. The thing with Bentley being Captain doesn't make that much difference IMO. By the time that the "only Captains can talk to the Ref" comes into it, everyone else has already had a say. 

[downendcity]

55 minutes ago, Aipearcey said:

Does anyone think that a lack of strong leaders on the pitch and having Bentley as captain may be part of the problem? When a decision not to award a penalty is made how many of our players actually go in hard on the ref? Maybe Weimann, but just like in our play I feel we miss that nasty streak in our team. I’m not encouraging players getting on the refs back but it does make it an easier decision to make.

You thinking of this?

 

Seeing Roy Keane's face made me think of this.....

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by downendcity

[AppyDAZE]

As regards the penalty not given to Atkinson on Tuesday and in the referee's defence.

Whether you believe Rob was fouled or not, players DO go on long runs into the box with the ball, start to run out of steam and look for a penalty.

I'm not saying ours did that, but no one can deny that this happens A LOT.

I saw it once, as did the ref and I thought it looked like he went down easy (and that's not saying he did)

I didn't think it was a penalty.

The referee in this league sees it once and has to call it.

So I say this. If managers, players and fans want the referee to always get these thing right, players have to stop cheating.

I know many won't like hearing this, but it is a fact.

All teams do it, and all teams seem to want perfect refereeing.

Not happening, so give them a break and that's you too Nige.

Tuesday's ref was not anywhere near as bad as people are saying, and he isn't to blame for all the other decisions in other games that have affected us.

So when is it going to start? When are the players going to start to be honest?

Refereeing standards are seemingly dropping, but the players are NOT helping one little bit.

Edited August 19, 2022 by AppyDAZE

[AppyDAZE]

Notice how Giggs isn't right in the ref's face because the ref is a man.

 

[Aipearcey]

34 minutes ago, AppyDAZE said:

As regards the penalty not given to Atkinson on Tuesday and in the referee's defence.

Whether you believe Rob was fouled or not, players DO go on long runs into the box with the ball, start to run out of steam and look for a penalty.

I'm not saying ours did that, but no one can deny that this happens A LOT.

I saw it once, as did the ref and I thought it looked like he went down easy (and that's not saying he did)

I didn't think it was a penalty.

The referee in this league sees it once and has to call it.

So I say this. If managers, players and fans want the referee to always get these thing right, players have to stop cheating.

I know many won't like hearing this, but it is a fact.

All teams do it, and all teams seem to want perfect refereeing.

Not happening, so give them a break and that's you too Nige.

Tuesday's ref was not anywhere near as bad as people are saying, and he isn't to blame for all the other decisions in other games that have affected us.

So when is it going to start? When are the players going to start to be honest?

Refereeing standards are seemingly dropping, but the players are NOT helping one little bit.

I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with what you’re saying and it’s not even a dig at the ref from Tuesday. But if you’ve read the thread and seen the stat you’ll see that what people are questioning is how this near impossibility is happening and why. There just isn’t any explanation as to why, especially when we’ve had a fair share of times when we could’ve had one given.

[AppyDAZE]

Just now, Aipearcey said:

I don’t think anyone is disagreeing with what you’re saying and it’s not even a dig at the ref from Tuesday. But if you’ve read the thread and seen the stat you’ll see that what people are questioning is how this near impossibility is happening and why. There just isn’t any explanation as to why, especially when we’ve had a fair share of times when we could’ve had one given.

I agree, we have been on the end of it for a long time.

[chinapig]

4 hours ago, GrahamC said:

@Bristol Oil Services I’m sure this amounts to defamation?

 

The law allows for a defence that the claim is true though.

I'd save on lawyer's fees if I were you!

[chinapig]

10 hours ago, ExiledAjax said:

You say in your Twitter bit that anything outside of the average +/- the standard deviation could be investigated. Rounded to represent whole penalties your Ave is 11 and SD is 9.

Correct me if I'm wrong but does that mean that any team waiting 20 or more games (or fewer than 2 games) to get a penalty is odd, or weird, or generally outside of the range we'd expect? How many other teams fall outside of that?

If so then right now, based on the past few seasons, we've got two teams - ourselves and Hull - worthy of investigation. Plus Huddersfield who are on 16 games per penalty. Looking at @Olé's numbers here - which I know are different to yours.

Is that right? 

Also, does the SD do anything more than confirm, again, that we've had very few penalties over the past few seasons?

To my mind there's one big real world application for these numbers: Pearson's employment. Were he to be on the verge of a sack then these numbers and his collection of referee apology letters go some way to mitigating any failure. He can probably fairly claim that he's been denied the opportunity of an extra goal every 11 games (being the average). Essentially 4 goals a season (or more accurately 4*0.8 given only about 80% of penalties are scored). An extra 4 goals is worth up to 12 points in a season. Would that be enough to earn a reprieve?

First of all an impressive piece of work by @Pezza.

The problem is we can only look for statistical patterns as we can't really come up with a hypothesis to test, this not being science. So as you suggest we just end up confirming that we get an unusually low number of penalties and not establishing any cause.

Let's say my hypothesis is that referees are conspiring against us*. A statistical analysis neither confirms nor disproves that claim so we are no further forward.

I see Nigel says he has spoken to the people he needs to and hopes they will do their own analysis. Watch this space then.

*They aren't.

 

[Mr Popodopolous]

Told a couple of friends about our current travails- neither are from Bristol or support us, as one is a West Ham fan and one is a fan of Everton and quitelikes Tranmere.

Showed them the excellent graphs by Pezza from Twitter especially the bar chart- they were stunned. Couldn't believe it, yes I've moaned about refs to them from time to time but they in context of 1 penalty in 87 League games found it very unusual and the graphs really brought it home.

Edited August 19, 2022 by Mr Popodopolous