Season Tickers, this. Fixture Difficulty Ratings, that. As FPL managers, we’ll use as many tools as humanly possible to stay informed and in control of what lies on the horizon for our FPL assets.
With so many of us well versed in fixture-centric strategies and with wildcards, the selection of rotating bargain couplets and captaincy choices affected, it certainly pays to do your research if your ambitions reach beyond filling your squads with assets from a Friday night match just to wake up with the leading Gameweek score on a Saturday morning.
A particularly hot district of hell awaits some.
But before settling down to bask in the hue of blue coded fixtures beaming out at you from behind your tablet screens and monitors, take heed friends – best-laid plans can so easily be affected by 10 critical decisions taken by a shadowy harem of black-clad men each and every preceding Monday morning.
The truth is, not many of us pay attention to who will take charge of officiating the games our prized assets are involved in, and those that do are limited to information only pertaining to a maximum of one round of fixtures.
But, engage in a touch of mindless stat porn in the Members Area of a Thursday morning and it’s not difficult to pick out a few interesting trends.
Over the course of the opening four weekends this season it’s been Wythenshawe whistler Anthony Taylor who has been the happiest of card-happy referees on show, dishing out 16 yellows and one red – that for Wily Boly in Wolves’ defeat at Everton last weekend – over his quadrivium of matches undertaken.
The Altrincham supporting Mancunian has also awarded two penalties this season – the latest when David Luiz decided to wrestle Mohammed Salah’s shirt from him during Arsenal’s doomed trip to Liverpool in Gameweek 3.
He was at it early doors also, awarding a spot-kick to Manchester United at Old Trafford on the opening weekend when Chelsea’s Kurt Zouma upended fellow Wythenshawe native Marcus Rashford before the England striker stepped up to fire the ball past Kepa Arrizabalaga.
But delving a little deeper into Taylor’s refereeing performances and what develops may be somewhat of a noteworthy pattern emerging in one of the Select Group’s leading lights.
There is evidence to suggest that Tony gets a little trigger-happy under the hot glare of the live camera.
The three aforementioned games have each been televised and have seen Taylor dish out 14 of those 16 yellows, the red card to Boly and the awarding of the two penalties. This has helped his cards to game ratio to a healthy 4.25 for the season thus far, decidedly above his career average of 3.60.
And whilst analysing four consecutive gameweeks of data in isolation for a man who has refereed some 230 Premier League games might seem a little short-sighted and unfair, in analysing his schedule from the previous campaign, the basis of the argument begins to form.
Taylor took charge of 32 ties last season, handing out 102 yellow cards in total as well as dismissing Lucas Torreira for flying into Danny Rose in the closing seconds of last season’s North London Derby at Wembley.
Whilst not altogether jaw-dropping, what is eye-catching, however, is when further research into Taylor’s 7 biggest caution gluts from 2018/19 reveals that they came in live televised matches, including the Arsenal midfielder seeing red against Tottenham.
In fact, the same guy seems to have become pretty excited in games featuring the Gunners last year, issuing seven yellow cards in Unai Emery’s side’s away match at Cardiff in September, before replicating the feat in the penultimate game of the season as the top-4 chasing outfit drew 1-1 with Brighton at the Emirates. Both goals in that game incidentally came as the result of the awarding of a penalty to each side.
In the interest of subjectivity, it is fair to say that by being one of the top referees in the country, Taylor will, of course, be in line to referee some of the more likely to be televised, more likely to be hotly contested games that the Premier League season has to offer.
That being said, it may be best to run a quick eye over the appointments for Gameweek 5 when they are released on Monday morning, and pray the 40-year-old ends up with one of the five 3 pm kick-offs on offer next Saturday.
