Some analysis on our no penalties statistic

I've had an hour or two spare this afternoon so decided to see whether I could find any statistics to establish whether we have or haven't been hard done by this season.

Finding the number of penalties awarded to every team in League One was easy enough and tje first thong to report is that like us, Morecambe have yet to get one this season. Additionally, Cheltenham have had just one. At the other end of the spectrum both Exeter and Bolton Wanderers have had 8. The average across all teams is 4.625 per team.

My aim was to compare this number for each team against the number of times they had been tackled / challenged in the opposition area but I've been unable to find any statistics relating to that. I then looked for touches in the opposition penalty area or perhaps % possession in the final third as potential indicators of how often the opportunity to get a penalty has arisen. Unfortunately I haven't been able to find any stats for those either.

I was able to find shots inside the opposition penalty area, which I accept is imperfect. I also included total shots taken (inside and outside the penalty area) primarily because I was interested in whether a higher percentage of our shots come from outside. I thought they might and that is the case, only Accrington seem to take a greater proportion of their shots from outside the box than us.

For some reason I can't post an image of the graph summarising this data. But in summary re penalties, it shows that we are the biggest outlier. Much more so than Morecambe because we've had 37.5% more shots inside the penalty area per game and a similar percentage more shots in total. Unsurprisingly given their league position they have the fewest shots inside the penalty area (4.8) per game of any team in the division. Forest Green Rovers are next (5). The teams with the most shots inside the penalty area and the penalties they've had so far this season are as follows:

Ipswich Town average 10.2 shots per game (Penalties 5)
Sheffield Wednesday 9.0 (Penalties 7)
Derby County 8.8 (Penalties 7)
Plymouth 8.4 (Penalties 6)
Bolton Wanderers 7.6 (Penalties 8)
Peterborough United 7.2 (Penalties 6)
Fleetwood Town 7.2 (Penalties 2) - one of the highest % of shots inside the penalty area compared to total shots and somewhat of an outlier re penalties - on the low side
Portsmouth 7.1 (Penalties 7)
Port Vale 6.8 (Penalties 5)
Wycombe 6.8 (Penalties 2) also an outlier on the low side
Barnsley 6.6 (Penalties 0)

Interesting that with excepting Fleetwood and Port Vale, the other teams make up the upper part of the table. This suggests perhaps not unsurprisingly, that shots inside the box is to an extent correlated to league position. And also that there's a correlation, not as direct however, with penalties awarded - except for Barnsley. It should also be noted it's not for Exeter (shots 6, penalties 8), Accrington (shots 6.1, penalties 7)), Shrewsbury (5.8, 6 penalties) and Bristol Rovers (5.7 and 6 penalties). Those four sides are outliers on the upside, Barnsley the biggest on the downside. This is confirmed when calculating the standard deviation from the mean which is 2.359.

This doesn't of course explain why we are such an outlier, but it does confirm that we certainly are.

I also then looked at referee stats. These show that across all referees and matches, the average number of penalties awarded per referee is 0.230 per game. And for red cards, 0.14 per game. Adam Herczeg, the referee on Friday has awarded zero penalties and has not yet sent anyone off, admittedly he has only had 5 league one fixtures this year but others have fewer and have made those big decisions. I'm therefore wondering if the size of the decision on Friday was just too big for him at this stage in his career. I'm actually thinking slightly differently as I'm not questionning what the EFL or Professional Game Match Officials Ltd are doing to prepare referees properly. Yes, experience helps but how can they be better prepared beforehand. For example, do they undertake video training, watching challenges and making hypothetical decisions, do they sit with assessors to do the same, do they receive coaching to help them with judgement and decision making in the moment etc?

I wondered about whether newer officials should be given matches with something riding on them such as Saturday's but on reflection think it'd be unfair to effectively prioritise some clubs in that way.

But I wonder if refs are left to make mistakes and take learning from them, themselves? EFL clubs and fans deserve better decision making, we've all been saying it this season. But I'm now thinking that it may be instead that clubs, fans and the officials themselves, particularly those in the early part of their career, are being let down by the Governing bodies. The club and the press should be putting that question to them.

Btw, this is the website I found re club stats - some an interesting data on it: https://www.whoscored.com/Regions/2...1/TeamStatistics/England-League-One-2022-2023
Click on 'Referee Statistics' for the refs data.

 

I ant read your post. Let it go. It's a short life and you aren't gunna change owt. Gave you a like for effort mind .

 

There’s a phd in there, if you can be bothered..

 

Hey West Brom err soz I mean Wolverhampton Tyke, I lost interest after the second sentence. But hey I'm sure it was an exciting read nonetheless.

 

How many have we had given against us?

Would be interesting to compare us to other teams.

 

I bet there's a few.

 

5. All of which have been scored. We're about mid-table in that stat - Derby and Morecambe have both conceded 9. Portsmouth and Exeter just 1.

 

TLDR - its clearly cheating.

 

Excellent analysis - I mentioned this (much more briefly!) in another post.

Good teams are likely to spend time on the attack, around the box and get fouled, and therefore win penalties. Therefore, Wednesday, Plymouth and Ipswich all being there or thereabouts in a list of who's had the most isn't surprising, they're all playing really well this season.

However, the fact that we haven't had a single penalty while in fourth place, after 40 games, is a real statistical anomaly.

I don't think it's anything like a stitch up or conspiracy etc, probably closer to ten heads in a row, with a few crap decisions such as Friday's thrown in.

 

It's late, so I'm not going to find the file on my laptop (with each goal and freeze frames etc), but we've also had six perfectly good goals ruled out for offside. Norwood has four of them. And we've conceded four goals that were offside. No idea if that's normal or otherwise.

The way I judge all this, is to ask myself, "when have we benefited from an incorrect decision, and when have we suffered?" and then try to balance it out.

You can't balance it. At all. We've been absolutely shafted all season long.

Yet we are 4th and in with a shout.

If my aunty had balls and all that.

 

I can, thank you very much. Cheers easy

 

Yeah if your or my auntie had a set of b*allacks, that really would be a story wun't it.
Seriously though as much as it annoys me, I also do keep asking what if ?. What can we do about it ehh, these non-penalties and other decisions that we think are bad and biased against us ?.

 

Great analysis, thanks @wolvestyke

I think you have an interesting point about how inexperienced refs gain experience. Obviously there aren't many games each year with nothing riding on them, so getting them to learn in dead rubbers isn't an option, but I do wonder if we could extend your idea by more carefully considering appointments at the business end of the season. That said, even experienced refs are prone to howlers, it's just a tough gig.

I'm not sure though that there's much non-game learning they can do. For a ref that reaches pro status, they're every likely to have seen pretty much everything they can possibly see in the grassroots/lower league game. I don't think repeated exposure to the same scenario really educates, but doing it under pressure and in front of a big crowd clearly has a psychological effect that influences the decisions.

As others have said, we've very clearly ended up on the wrong end of too many decisions this season. I don't think for a second it's any kind of conspiracy, but it's reasonable to look for explanations as to why we've been so much on the rough end of decisions.

 

If you don't want to read it then don't. Honestly, I don't know whether your post is intended to be an insult or humorous but it does seem an unnecessary jibe.

 

Hey kid I have read it and its not a criticism, you've written a really impressive piece there. Im just being sarcy about how long it is that's all.
And I just couldn't resist the Wolves/West Brom thing lol.

 

No, it probably wouldn’t be these days

 

These days your Aunty could have balls lol

depending what she/he/they, transgender gender fluid plus anymore I've missed identify as, on a particular day...
I know my mates Aunty has balls....she's got his uncles were she wants them , ever since she caught him rug surfing their next door neighbours cleaner ...lol

 

Be good to see a compilation video of every decent penalty shout we’ve had since we got our last one. Annoyingly if we’d received the penalties we should’ve and the disgrace of a decision at Fratton Park we’d still be well in the hunt for the top 2. As it stands I think we’re a little too far off.

 

This would be a great post-season compilation to go out! 'posted without comment' as the title, I don't remember a season like it.

 

Yeah like said you should make a video reel of it all.