refereeing mistakes and adjusted finishing positions

of course you could argue about this all day but this guys research was interesting....


Arsenal, Blackpool 'robbed' last term

According to a newly adjusted table, Arsenal would have been runners-up in the Premier League last season and Blackpool wouldn't have been relegated if match officials hadn't made mistakes.

Extensive new research conducted by broadcaster and journalist Tim Long for his radio documentary 'Beyond The Goal Line: Football's Technology Debate,' re-examined 731 ‘significant' incidents - penalties, goal line incidents and offside goals - across the Premier League's 380 games in 2010-11.

The Gunners finished fourth on 68 points but if the decisions had have gone the correct way, they would have finished second to Manchester United on 72 points.

Blackburn and Birmingham would have also avoided relegation while Wigan and Wolves would have suffered the heartbreak of relegation along with West Ham.

He stated that the research wasn't conducted to be critical of referees but to illustrate how even the simplest of technological advances can highlight erroneous decisions.

Long spent 250 hours analysing the 713 incidents, each of which on their own could or did lead to a goal. Of these, 361 involved penalties given (or not), and 152 involved goals given (or not) as a result of offside calls.

"That isn't a massive amount of incidents when you think about it, fewer than two per game on average," the journalist said.

"So supposing there was a system that allowed the video evidence to be reviewed at the time, looking at these things wouldn't necessarily take a long time.

"I wanted to explore the extent to which decisions about offside goals or penalty calls did, in fact, even themselves out or not, and how they made a difference to the end of season table."

How the adjusted table would have looked

http://a323.yahoofs.com/ymg/world_o...ort-792408930-1314024534.jpg?ymWBAiFD28JfQThP

 

**** me it's a good job Mc Cabe isn't Birmingham or Blackpool's chairman ! #courtactionagogo