It is amazing how far we as human beings, including us football fans; will go to deny reality, specifically to deny facts that do not conform with our deeply held beliefs. Denialism is a very common element of human behavior and is defined by the psychologists as:
“…a person’s choice to deny reality, as a way to avoid a psychologically uncomfortable truth. Denialism is an essentially irrational action that withholds the validation of a historical experience or event, when a person refuses to accept an empirically verifiable reality.”
The problem however with calling anyone or group of people a denialist is we are all guilty to some degree or other. After all denial is a psychological defense we all use at times to reduce our anxiety when reality feels particularly disturbing. Short of being clinically diagnosed as suffering from paranoia or delusional disorder, we all have the impulse to be denialists.
Unfortunately most human beings refuse to accept we are all psychologically inclined to act irrationally. That is why the majority will always be victims of those forces in our society who happy to take advantage of our irrational fears and anxieties and our impulse to retreat into denialism.
In some of my previous posts (most notably Fear And Despair vs The Arsenal) I used the example of the stock market to highlight how Arsenal fans, in particular, are emotionally manipulated by the media to believe the club is on the verge of disaster, despite an unmatched history of consistency in the Premier League and the consequent massive growth in the fanbase during the Wenger era. As a result many fans, perhaps a majority, have the irrational belief that a self-sustaining club like Arsenal will somehow achieve better results by getting rid of arguably their greatest manager ever.
Yet it is almost an absolute certainty that Stan Kroenke will never pursue the “sugar-daddy” model to compete with City, Chelsea and United. Furthermore, as long as the club grows organically and the value of his investment increases, there is almost zero probability Stan will sell his majority stake to Usmanov or, for that matter, to the Chinese vultures who no doubt are circling in the hope of acquiring a flagship PL club to add to their portfolio. If Arsenal PLC was a liquid stock on Wall St, the professionals, who profit by betting against human psychology, would never tire of taking money from the lemmings who sell whenever the media is unanimous that disaster is near.
That was a somewhat long-winded introduction to my main subject which is the denialism when it comes to the facts I have unearthed and published re PGMOL referees. Despite the data and accompanying statistics which show a historical pattern of bias against Arsenal in Penalties-Against, there are a multitude of naysayers who pooh-poohed my findings as if they were the exception and not the rule. One wonders if they would be satisfied if, someone had the wherewithal run a parallel PL league on a neutral planet with neutral referees using VAR and testing whether the distribution of penalties for was correlated with a club’s league ranking.
Not having those resources, I decided to test my hypothesis of bias by observing whether the average number of penalties awarded was in any way correlated to league standing in the PL. Surely it is reasonable to assume that the best ranked teams get the most penalties and vice-versa. If there is such a correlation, does Arsenal’s average penalty count correlate with its average league position?
When the data is mapped graphically, we get a downward sloping graph from left to right which indicates the average 1st placed teams get 6 penalties per season and the 20th placed teams are down to just 2.6 pens. Obviously it is not a perfect slope. There is a lot of noise in the mid-table from 5th position downwards. This is partially explicable by the fact that these clubs are very inconsistent from year-to-year in contrast with the consistency of the historical top-4. But the pattern is unmistakable; over time, there is a negative relationship between league position and the average penalties a team earn.
To prove my point I did a statistical test to verify whether there was any correlation between the two variables. According to the Spearman test, (the data covers the past 11 PL seasons) there is a 84% correlation between average league position and Penalties-For. On the contrary, while Arsenal averaged 3.5 in the league between 07/08 and 16/17, there is only a 40% correlation between Arsenal’s league position and the penalties it has been awarded, a more than 50% difference from that of all PL clubs. This is a disparity which in my opinion cannot be justified by glibly saying Gooners are “making excuses”, “picking on the refs”, etc. This is a significant chunk of data spanning 11 years and covering 418 games. Something stinks and it is getting smellier.
Needless to say, the mainstream media and the major Arsenal bloggers, refuse to analyze and publicize the freely available data which reveals the PGMOL to be thoroughly biased and unfit for the purpose. By keeping quiet they are not merely in denial, they are very much aiding and abetting a corrupt, faulty system of officiating.
One wonders if the same PGMOL refs will be allowed to make the final penalty and offsides decisions when VAR is soon introduced into the PL.
Do football fans really believe that after making such a big show of using VAR in the recent Carabao Cup matches, the PGMOL and its allies in the football Establishment will meekly give up their power to influence games? If you do, then surely you have taken permanent residence in the State of Denial.
Positively Arsenal 
Top work here Shotta. As you say, Stockbrokers and Bookmakers know all too well how the average punter behaves and frame their markets accordingly. Notice too how quickly the fuss about referees that Arsene highlighted has been VARbrushed out of the narrative.
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Referees, for love of grace,
Lay not that flattering unction to your soul
That not your trespass but my failure to buy a defensive midfielder speaks.
It will but skin and film the ulcerous place
Whilst rank corruption, mining all within,
Infects unseen. Confess yourself to heaven.
Repent what’s past. Avoid what is to come.
And do not spread the compost on the weeds
To make them ranker. Forgive me this my virtue,
For in the fatness of these pursy times
Virtue itself of vice must pardon beg,
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Heady: As your comment and poetry suggests, the PGMOL would simply love all this attention to go away while they work on keeping that firm grip on the game.
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Did anyone find the “Dean admits mistake on penalty call against Arsenal in WhatsApp chat to mates” story in any way suspicious? I must admit I didn’t follow through and check how credible the source is, but when have you ever seen anything like this happen? When has a referee come out and said he had made a mistake, a mere few days after he incident?
I strive to be a rational person, and for the most part, as subjective as it sounds, I believe I am. Whenever a line of thinking can be described as wishful, whenever it would suit me to believe something, red flags go up and I analyze the situation with even greater scrutiny. For this reason, its hard for me to even entertain any conspiracy theories, but it simply does not compute for me how these things keep going against us, and seemingly ALL the time.
Can anyone honestly say, given the history in the game and all other leagues, as well as the money involved in the PL in particular, that the PL is free of corruption? To be sure, it would destroy me if it turned out that way, but, rationally speaking, its hard to be optimistic.
And if it turns out there is corruption? Not necessarily vs. Arsenal, but just general unwarranted, targeted influence on the outcomes? What then? Legacy of one of the greatest men in football tarnished forever? Countless careers ruined? How many days, weeks and months of the millions of Arsenal fans around the world ruined, with no hope or way of ever making it right. The fucking injustice of it all…Hopefully, it turns out we are all just biased to the core.
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great article shotta, sadly it will fall on deaf ears, there is neither the admittance of a problem or the will to fix it where Arsenal blogs and media are concerned. No we don’t get penalties cos our manager and players are naive, or just not good enough etc etc. And lets not forget their best retort, “Football is not about stats” and £Stats can prove anything”,
and Shotta I will shoot down your article with “what about the Burnley(or any other game we actually got a penalty) game”. Game set and match to me, no.
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I almost forgot, “Pires v Portsmouth”, how much more counter argument do you need Shotta
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Thanks for the favorable remarks Eddie. The world of data, which is quiet and remorseless just as the earth orbits around the sun, does not rely on the selective recall of certain events to deny reality. For example a lunar eclipse was used for centuries to defy Galileo’s scientific findings. Similarly we have many Arsenal fans joining the enemies of the club to select those incidents to deny referee bias. I have no doubt that my research only has resonance in a small audience but sooner or later reality triumphs over myths and lies.
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Good stuff Shotta.
I tried doing something once along similar lines with how goals scored related to pens won; and goals conceded to pens conceded. I had in mind the following quote on pens from ‘Soccernomics’ :
‘… in practice you will only get them if you have possession (or at least a decent chance of winning possession) in the opponent’s penalty area. Many a penalty is wrongly given. But it is almost always a reward for deep territorial penetration. That makes it, on average, a marker of the balance of power in the game. That’s why good teams get proportionately more penalties than bad teams, and why home teams get more penalties than away teams. On average, a penalty is given with the grain of the game.’
I didn’t even know where to start, really- on the goals for and against, let alone the idea to try bring possession into it- to put it into graphical form.
So the best I could do was compile our total goals for and against and those of rivals over a number of seasons. They were mostly similar. Utd, Chelsea and, if you kept it shorter, city, had better stats, but given our consistency not by that much.
But our pen figures were wildly different of course, by such a degree that both our goals for and against would be significantly altered if the pen figures were more in line with theirs, or of Liverpool below us!
To take the stats at face value the unmistakable impression is that we had an attack good enough- about 70 goals per year- to secure CL football every year, but with a big weakness in the penalty earning department; while our defence was also good enough- 35-40 mark- to secure CL football, but had this terrible weakness for conceding pens.
A strange and , I’m sure, literally unique in football ,worldwide and historically, combo.
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“Did anyone find the “Dean admits mistake on penalty call against Arsenal in WhatsApp chat to mates” story in any way suspicious?”
Suspicious ? No. Total bollocks yes.
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Dean admits he was wrong but wenger banned for telling him he was wrong. Oh and PGMOL don’t suspend him for being wrong
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Very interesting Shotts though I am not sure I follow parts of it. What you are saying is, as I understand it, that there is a link between the number of penalties a team is awarded ( though presumably also scored from) and their league position. The more penalties that a team are awarded/scores the more likely they are to achieve a higher league position ?
But in Arsenal’s case that pattern does not apply – we are not awarded the same number of penalties and there is another explanation for our league position. You says statistical evidence this cannot be dismissed glibly. What I don’t quite follow is what that other explanation is.
If the straightforward rule derived from statistics is “more penalties = higher league position”, and vice versa less=lower, then what explanation for the Arsenal anomaly is there ?
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Really good work Shotts. Just a thought…am I being irrational or denialist when I want to put a brick through my TV screen? Possibly I may have been on Sunday. 2 highlights in 94 mins compared with the game following was very scant return.
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As I recall eddy Arsene also admitted that his language and behaviour in the
officials’ changing room after the Baggies’ game was abusive, improper and questioned the integrity of the match referee.
And after ever so many years in the game Arsene knows what happens if you call a referee a cheat.
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well in fact Anicol we don’t know yet what exactly AW said, we don’t know if it was all or just some of those things, the FA for some reason have not yet released their report. the FA charges had a lot of and/or scenario’s in it, as they usually do. So all we really know is AW admitted to some of or all of the charges, as to what exactly he was banned for we are totally in the dark.
I do find it odd that nothing, as of yet, has come off all the stuff he said about it in his press conferences, where he did basically say Dean was bias, cheated us and that REfs have been doing it for a long time.
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Anicoll. Think it’s more that the better a team is the more likely they are to both score pens and finish high in the league.
A good team will spend more time in opposition boxes than the opposition spend in theirs, overwhelmingly so in case of teams good enough to reach top four.
Our pen stats over a long period very closely resembled those of Stoke, villa, Fulham, Sunderland; our goals scored and conceded, points total and league position of course didn’t.
The other regular top four contenders resembled each other in pen stats; we were utterly different.
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I think he should tell us – we should not be kept in the dark. As you say all is silence from both sides on the further comments which the FA I seem to recall he was asked to “provide his observations” or some such nonsense about about Dean seeing only what he wanted to see.
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wonder why Sanchez wud like to go to MU.
To play a counter attacking game Mourinhio plays?
Pep style does suit him.
i am sure he will never fit in Mournio game plan.
Why doesnt he stays at Arsrnal and become a legend for the club?
Arsenal style is afterall better than the game Mourinhio plays.
He will be a loser at OT.
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A5: Based on data over 11 years, the 80% correlation between penalties-for and league position speaks for itself.
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Thanks Rich – I have that bit (I think) – so what is the explanation for Arsenal, in spite of NOT getting the same number of penalties as the top four/or six still being in the top four ?
PS I can absolutely assure you without even looking at the stats our penalties for or against is nothing like Sunlun’s !!
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“A5: Based on data over 11 years, the 80% correlation between penalties-for and league position speaks for itself.”
So what are Arsenal doing, or possibly not doing, that breaks the formula of more penalties = higher league position?
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well Anicol the FA usually reveal a full report on bans, the whys and wherefore, what was said and done. Their Findings as such. Its odd it has not been done this time. Also seeing as AW only got a 3 game ban, when he was warned last season he was facing a stadium ban if he had any more run ins with Refs
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I find the concept Dean’s admission of being wrong is killer evidence, of bias or whatever, very odd.
It does happen occasionally that word is given a ref admits afterwards he got a big call wrong, and I don’t see how it can be interpreted as proof of anything other than him admitting a decision was wrong.
I don’t, of course, believe that’s the real story – that Dean just made a mistake he could have made for any team on any day, including in our favour at the other end- but I think if we are to hold beliefs which are massively unpopular, and improbable, we need to always be on the top of our game in our logic and arguments.
Not here but on twitter I’ve seen many take Dean’s admission as an admission of cheating, which is potty.
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Andy, Arsene does know the outcome. He also chooses his words, have you considered the possibility that Arsene believes Dean is actually a cheat? That would explain a lot?
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anicoll
ooh, you’re gonna make me have to dig through my old scribblings now aren’t you!
I meant the total figure- plus or minus- which I think is by far the best measure of how a team does.
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BBC reporting that Everton are close to signing Theo Walcott for £20M +£5M of add ons.
Also reports that Giroud might be going in part exchange to Dortmund for Aubameyang.
Alexis has agreed terms with Man U, and only hold up is AFC striking a deal with Mkhitaryan
now can we really see two part exchange deals in the one window, they are as rare as hens teeth
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In my second marrage I was guilty of cheating, I always said it was a mistake.
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R@A, actually think he’s perfect for a counter attacking team and will do very well under Mourinho. For all his hard running he’s never quite got the knack of playing in a team, either with us or at Barcelona (he’s still our best player of the last few years, mind). Let him worry less about playing intricate one-twos; keep him high and let him carry the ball into space and you’re playing to his strengths.
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Top 4 pens
16-17
Chelsea 4-2 +2
Tottenham 9-2 +7
City 9-4 +5
Liverpool 8-5 +3
15-16
Leicester 13-4 +9
Arsenal 2-1 +1
Tottenham 5-2 +3
City 8-1 +7
14-15
Chelsea 5-3 +2
City 8-4 +4
Arsenal 7-3 +4
Utd 5-4 +1
13-14
City 7-1 +6
Liverpool 12-4 +8
Chelsea 7-1 +6
Arsenal 3-6 -3
12-13
Utd 6-0 +6
City 6-2 +4
Chelsea 11-1 +10
Arsenal 5-6 -1
11-12
City 8-3 +5
Utd 11-3 +8
Arsenal 3-4 -1
Tottenham 5-1 +4
10-11
Utd 5-6 -1
Chelsea 8-3 +5
City 9-4 +5
Arsenal 7-9 -2
9-10
Chelsea 12-5 +7
Utd 8-2 +8
Arsenal 4-6 -2
Tottenham 3-9 -6
2008-9
Utd 4-3 +1
Liverpool 5-2 +3
Chelsea 2-1 +1
Arsenal 5-5 0
2007-8
Utd 6-0 +6
Chelsea 6-3 +3
Arsenal 6-3 +3
Liverpool 5-5 0
31 out of 40 in plus
Non plus Arsenal 6, Liverpool 1, Spurs 1, Utd 1
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Tony Cottee is rivaling Paul Merson as biggest fool pundit.
just hours after man city say they have pulled out of any Alexis deal, TC says Man City will sign Alexis this month.
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I’ve never read a detailed explanation from theFA or anyone else of a ban or a fine where the charge is admitted eddy.
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Hang on there Rich – whooooooaaah !!!
The top four has surely to be the same top four each season for the stats to be applicable?
As examples in 07/08 Citeh has only two penalties awarded to them, and four against ? in 11/12 Chels has five penalties for them, and six against.
You see the problem here in only looking at the top four teams if you then discard a team’s stats if they fall out of the top 4.
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Anicoll
‘PS I can absolutely assure you without even looking at the stats our penalties for or against is nothing like Sunlun’s !!’
Couldn’t find my old workings but a two min look at the trusty penalty page shows Sunderland in their latest seven year stint in prem recorded
Sunderland : 29- 33 Minus 4
Arsenal : we were 33-39 Minus 6
I’ll be annoyed if I counted wrong there, but did it in my head without the old paper as I should have. Think it’s right though.
http://www.myfootballfacts.com/Premier_League_Penalty_Statistics.html
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A5 at 11:11am – The last time i checked Arsenal was playing football not refereeing. 15/16 we only got 2 penalties, league position 2nd. What a strange number!
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anicoll
the top four stats made perfect crude sense to me as a measure of how any team finishing in top four tends to do on pens, normally- 31 out of 40- a plus figure.
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oh ok anicol, I thought they explained all bans.
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But Sunlun are utter shite Rich – this way lies madness
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“A5 at 11:11am – The last time i checked Arsenal was playing football not refereeing. 15/16 we only got 2 penalties, league position 2nd. What a strange number!”
We need to play more football – and score more goals
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I think the only time you get a detailed verdict is where you have a hearing and they publish the outcome, like Suarez eddy
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Media reporting that deal is agreed for Walcott to Everton and that he is undergoing a medical today in Liverpool
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Good for Theo – I wish him every success on Merseyside, may he remain fit and score a few goals for the Toffees. The AFC bench is no place to waste his few remaining footballing years.
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anicoll
Don’t get the comment about Sunderland. I know they’re shite. Their attack generally poor, their defence average and under huge pressure each year. A moribund club struggling for survival each season.
It’s exactly why our pen stats over 7 years should be quite a bit better than theirs.
Is the madness my noticing it or questioning it?
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Raiola: “Manchester United is not going to sign Sanchez unless Mkhi agrees to join Arsenal.”
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Good little review of Theo’s best moments over the past decade with us.
https://twitter.com/hmafc/status/717402030197768193
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The comment about Sunderland was just a reaction to the ( undeniable) data that such a truly awful club could have similar penalty stats to us. Given their unending season by season battle to escape the drop by the skin of their teeth the penalties awarded = league position seems incredible.
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first Alexis, then Theo and now we might be losing Giroud too, seems Dortmund want him plus £35M for Aubameyang
Alexis, Giroud, Theo — out
Mkhitaryan, Aubameyang, Malcom — in
it would be so un arsenal like to see a transfer merry go round like that.
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I’ll be most upset if Giroud goes….
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anicoll
Ok, I misunderstood. I’ll try say no more- haven’t even been in that mood for a while to think about it- but those figures are just inexplicable to me.
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i hope Giroud stays.
He is a top striker from the bench.
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I fancy that a reason why the top teams seem to get more penalties than those lower down is that they spend more time playing in the opposing goal area.
That is why our figures are so unusual because we spend a lot of time attacking there, and yet seem to have so few penalties.
Does that make sense?
What is stranger is that we regularly are in negative figures when it comes to penalties.
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good job on calculating the correlation
and thank you Rich for providing a bit of raw data
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