It’s taken a bit of effort to bring you the penultimate instalment of this column, but never fear, we’ve still trawled through the stats to dig out the following nuggets for your perusal.
A glance back through the recent past shows exactly why we’ve been struggling, as since the four penalties dished out in Gameweek 33, we’ve stumbled upon the leanest few weeks of the season for the “Men in Black” – just three penalties coming in the subsequent 31 fixtures, and while this wasn’t too unexpected for the truncated Gameweek 34 schedule, the referees across the bumper 35-36 run have been a particular disappointment.
| # Fixtures | # Penalties | Details | Referee | |
| Gameweek 34 | 6 | 1 | Rooney (scored) vs Aston Villa | Mark Halsey |
| Gameweek 35 | 11 | 1 | M Petrov (scored) vs Aston Villa | Chris Foy |
| Gameweek 36 | 14 | 1 | Jelavic (scored) vs Fulham | Phil Dowd |
To the untrained eye, three in three weeks might not seem so bad, but when you consider that the previous 33 Gameweeks delivered a whopping 93 spot kicks, then you can see why we’re feeling hard done by.
Lee Mason
Through this fallow period, we’ve seen Jonathan Moss (previously seven in nine) add two blank games to his card, and even stalwart Mike Dean clam up as the season draws to a close – his 12 in 23 up to Gameweek 29 followed by six consecutive games without a spot-kick – but in Lee Mason, we still have a referee willing to influence a game in this fashion. His three penalties in his last six games (and five in nine) betters any of his colleagues and with Everton visiting bottom of the table Wolves under his supervision, we fancy his hand to be forced again. Especially when you consider the last time he refereed this weekend’s visitors away from home (vs Blackburn in Gameweek three) he managed a season high three spot-kicks in the game – the first two awarded to the home side for fouls on the tricky Mauro Formica, but missed first by Hoilett (saved) and then Formica himself (hit post), and the final one deep into injury time converted as a parting gift by the Arsenal bound Mikel Arteta to win the game.
Once again, the tricky wingers of Wolves – in full flow for the second half of their 4-4 draw at Swansea may give Stephen Hunt (if he starts) a chance to add to his tally, while Nikica Jelavić of Everton, fresh from his effort last week, is in the form to take advantage for the Toffees.
Martin Atkinson
With the dearth of penalty stats to pick through, our other selection this week falls unsurprisingly on the other side of the tracks. And when you’re looking for a referee to dish out a red card or two, then it’s even more unsurprising to see we’ve turned to Mr. Atkinson. With nine red cards in his 25 Premier League fixtures to date (including 5 straight reds), Atkinson has shown three more than his nearest rival for this crown, and with him just having completed a full month away from the top level domestic spotlight – since the back to back dismissals of Pepe Reina and Mario Balotelli in gameweeks 31-32 – he’ll no doubt be chomping at the bit to get stuck in.
Afforded the mid table clash between Fulham and Sunderland, we can see the last time this Fulham team came under his stewardship resulted in a the most yellow cards Atkinson has shown in a single match (with eight cards shown in total during their visit to Stoke in October) and with Lee Cattermole in town, alongside the previously dismissed Craig Gardner, Phil Bardsley and Stéphane Sessègnon, you can see where we’re headed with this one.
