Manchester United

Number of Penalties given to United* : 4 League / 0 Champions League

—— Premier League ————-

1. Ronaldo (pen) 57 - Man Utd 5-2 Tottenham
2. Ronaldo (pen) 23 - Man Utd 1-4 Liverpool
3. Ronaldo (pen) 44 - Man Utd 1-0 Everton
4. Ronaldo (pen) 60 - Man Utd 2-0 Bolton

With the exception of Everton, United won every game they were awarded a penalty against by at least 1 additional goal.

Number of Penalties given against against United*: 3 League / 0 Champions League

—— Premier League ————-
1. Murphy (pen) 18 - Fulham 2-0 United
2. Gerrard (pen) 44 - Man Utd 1-4 Liverpool
3. Geovanni (pen) 82 - Man Utd 4-3 Hull

With the exception of Hull which united won by 1 goal, every penalty given against United resulted in the team losing the match.

No Penalties awarded against against United in the Champions League.

Number of United Players Sent Off: 5

—— Premier League ————-
1. Scholes 18 min - Fulham 2-0 United
2. Rooney 89 min - Fulham 2-0 United
3. Vidic 76 min - United 1-4 Liverpool
4. Vidic 90 min - Liverpool 2-1 United
5. Ronaldo 68 min - Man City 0-1 United

With the exception of Man City, United lost every game in which a player was sent off.

Number of Opposing Players Sent Off: 2

—— Premier League ————-
1. Robinson 40 - West Brom 0-5 United
2. Wilkinson 72 - Stoke 0-1 United

Now lets look at how much Liverpool has suffered at the hands of the refs.
Liverpool

League Games Played: 35

Number of Penalties given to the Liverpool*: 8 (4 in the League / 4 in the Champions League)

—— Premier League ————-
1. Gerrard (pen) 39 vs Villa 5-0
2. Gerrard (pen) 65 vs Villa 5-0
3. Gerrard (pen) 44 vs United 1-4 (A)
4. Alonso (pen) 77 vs newcastle 1-5 (A)

—– Champions League ———–

5. Alonso (pen) 28 vs Chelsea 4-4
6. Gerrard (pen) 28 vs Real Madrid 4-0
7. Gerrard (pen) 90+5 vs Atletico Madrid 1-1
8. Gerrard (pen) 32 vs Marseille 1-2 (A)

While not so significant in the league, penalties awarded to liverpool came in very handy in tight games against Marseille and Atletico Madrid. It almost gave them the edge over Chelsea as well.

Number of Penalties given against against Liverpool*: 2

—— Premier League ————-

1. Ronaldo (pen) 23 , Man Utd 1-4 Liverpool
2. Mido (pen) 83, Wigan 1-1 Liverpool (A)

Of the two penalties against Liverpool only Mido’s cost them points.

Number of Liverpool Players Sent Off: 0

That’s right. Zero! Only Lucas has been sent off this season for Liverpool, and that was against Everton in the FA cup. 0 players sent off in the league and the champions League. Now, lets see how many players have been sent off when playing against Liverpool.

Number of Opposing Players Sent Off: 10

1. Hull 1-3 Liverpool ( Sent off Folan)
2. Liverpool 5-0 Vila ( Sent off Friedel )
3. Utd 1-4 Liverpool ( send off Vidic )
4. Liverpool 2-1 Utd ( sent off Vidic)
5. Liverpool 2-0 Chelsea (sent off Lampard )
6. Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool ( sent off Adebayor )
7. Man City 2-3 Liverpool (sent off Zabelta )
8. Everton 0-2 Liverpool (sent off Cahill)
9. newcastle 3-0 (sent off Barton)
10. Wigan 3-2 (sent off Valencia)

10 Players have been sent off playing against Liverpool. Of these 10 games, Liverpool won 9 Matches and drew 1 (playing away).

Footnotes

* Only penalties that have been scored have been counted. I have no stats on penalties that were awarded but not converted. If you know where to get these stats feel free to add them in this thread.

Sources for all Stats:

Manchester United - BBC Match Results (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/m/man_utd/results/default.stm)
Liverpool - BBC Match Results (http://news.bbc.co.uk/sport2/hi/football/teams/l/liverpool/results/default.stm)
Source of article (http://soccerlens.com/manchester-united-v-liverpool-penalties-and-red-cards/27999/)

So to sum up:
United
Pentalies; 4 for - 3 against
Red Cards; 2 for - 5 against

Liverpool
Penalties; 8 for - 2 against
Red Cards; 10 for - 0 against

If the Refs really are systematically favouring United as many claim they're certainly being clever enough to do so in a way which doesn't show up in the stats.

Do we really need all that to tell us what we already know?

Everybody knows that you have to get decapitated before you get a penalty at Old Trafford

Number of Liverpool Players Sent Off: 0

That’s right. Zero! Only Lucas has been sent off this season for Liverpool, and that was against Everton in the FA cup. 0 players sent off in the league and the champions League. Now, lets see how many players have been sent off when playing against Liverpool.

Number of Opposing Players Sent Off: 10

1. Hull 1-3 Liverpool ( Sent off Folan)
2. Liverpool 5-0 Vila ( Sent off Friedel )
3. Utd 1-4 Liverpool ( send off Vidic )
4. Liverpool 2-1 Utd ( sent off Vidic)
5. Liverpool 2-0 Chelsea (sent off Lampard )
6. Arsenal 1-1 Liverpool ( sent off Adebayor )
7. Man City 2-3 Liverpool (sent off Zabelta )
8. Everton 0-2 Liverpool (sent off Cahill)
9. newcastle 3-0 (sent off Barton)
10. Wigan 3-2 (sent off Valencia)

10 Players have been sent off playing against Liverpool. Of these 10 games, Liverpool won 9 Matches and drew 1 (playing away).

.

Which also suggests that Liverpool have the most divers, are prone to cheating and are more likely to feign injury to get opposition players sent off.

Then again, with Gerrard in their ranks, is anyone surprised?

Everybody knows that you have to get decapitated before you get a penalty at Old Trafford
Geovanni and Gerrard were decapitated were they?

United have been awarded 4 penalties so far this season and had 3 given against them, 2 of them at Old Trafford.

Liverpool have been awarded 8 penalties and had 2 given against them not a single one being given against them at Anfield.

It would seem the facts don't exactly match your perception.

Geovanni and Gerrard were decapitated were they?

United have been awarded 4 penalties so far this season and had 3 given against them, 2 of them at Old Trafford.

Liverpool have been awarded 8 penalties and had 2 given against them not a single one being given against them at Anfield.

It would seem the facts don't exactly match your perception.



It interests me that you have spent such an obviously considerable amount of time compiling and analysing these statistics. It is apparent that you feel a great need to fight the overwhelming public belief that Man U are favoured by officialdom.

Surely, given your analysis, it should be obvious to the observant football fan that Man U are not in fact favoured, but hindered, by refs?

I put it to you that the reason the opposite groundswell has grown is that statistics can prove anything when given the bent by their partisan author. To get a real idea of what is happening, one would need to watch each of these games to see in what context the fouls were given, or not; how the game was panning out; the general leaning of the officials during the 90 minutes; etc.

Is it not acceptable that the overall feeling of most fans (both biased and non-biased) should be taken in equal weighting, if not more so, against a meaningless list of numbers?

You say that "the facts don't match the perception". There is your failing. Football isn't about facts and statisitics, no matter what sky will try and tell you. This is FOOTBALL, not baseball.

It interests me that you have spent such an obviously considerable amount of time compiling and analysing these statistics. It is apparent that you feel a great need to fight the overwhelming public belief that Man U are favoured by officialdom.

Surely, given your analysis, it should be obvious to the observant football fan that Man U are not in fact favoured, but hindered, by refs?

I put it to you that the reason the opposite groundswell has grown is that statistics can prove anything when given the bent by their partisan author. To get a real idea of what is happening, one would need to watch each of these games to see in what context the fouls were given, or not; how the game was panning out; the general leaning of the officials during the 90 minutes; etc.

Is it not acceptable that the overall feeling of most fans (both biased and non-biased) should be taken in equal weighting, if not more so, against a meaningless list of numbers?

You say that "the facts don't match the perception". There is your failing. Football isn't about facts and statisitics, no matter what sky will try and tell you. This is FOOTBALL, not baseball.

So you're saying that proper evidence should be disregarded in favour of biased and unbiased football fans? That's a sort of flawed logic isn't it? Ultimately if there was some sort of favouritism shown by match officials, then statistics would prove that - not hearsay.

So you're saying that proper evidence should be disregarded in favour of biased and unbiased football fans? That's a sort of flawed logic isn't it? Ultimately if there was some sort of favouritism shown by match officials, then statistics would prove that - not hearsay.

You have completely misunderstood the nature of my post. Next!

EDIT : Quickly looking at your profile, I see you are 22 and therefore must have been brought up in the premiership/sky era. I apologise for being so brusque. I didn't realise.

A list of ALL penalties awarded in the premieship this season.

http://i7.photobucket.com/albums/y256/alankearn/Clipboard01-2.jpg

Could not get a link to work
If its to small to read click on it

here is the web address Statbunker.com

You have completely misunderstood the nature of my post. Next!

EDIT : Quickly looking at your profile, I see you are 22 and therefore must have been brought up in the premiership/sky era. I apologise for being so brusque. I didn't realise.


I'm sorry I didn't realise I had - I thought that you said "football isn't about facts or statistics". So please explain where I went wrong, I'm 22 and therefore I lack the necessary knowledge to post on this subject - a current one.

I'm sorry I didn't realise I had - I thought that you said "football isn't about facts or statistics". So please explain where I went wrong, I'm 22 and therefore I lack the necessary knowledge to post on this subject - a current one.

I'm mearly referring to the notion that today football is being reduced to an annoying series of soundbites, swooshing music, stats reports, etc. I find this intensly irritating as football is nothing to do with who copmpleted so many passes. It's about the game. Simple as that.

Fair enough, bringing your age into it was innapropriate and rude. Apology offered.

EDIT - And I haven't answered you. You can't boil evidence down in a game of football like you can in a mathmatical theorem. It's just not like that.

Good post - saw this the other day, and sent it off to a Scouser I know.

I like all the petty ABU-ism. The day it doesnt then I'll worry.

I remember in the 80s, Pool had a reputation for winning pens at Anfield.
Its all about perception, not facts.

Bring it on the lot of you. We march on.

Good post - saw this the other day, and sent it off to a Scouser I know.

I like all the petty ABU-ism. The day it doesnt then I'll worry.

I remember in the 80s, Pool had a reputation for winning pens at Anfield.
Its all about perception, not facts.

Bring it on the lot of you. We march on.

"... and sent it off to a scouser to I know"

It seems you are more concerned than you let on? Why feel the need to defend what you see as only a foolish perception?

It interests me that you have spent such an obviously considerable amount of time compiling and analysing these statistics. It is apparent that you feel a great need to fight the overwhelming public belief that Man U are favoured by officialdom.
Seems to me you didn't even read the OP in which I clearly stated that I cited the source of the article (http://redirectingat.com/?id=203X323&url=http%3A//soccerlens.com/manchester-united-v-liverpool-penalties-and-red-cards/27999/) I simply cleaned the formatting up a little & added Liverpools 2 most recent penalties.

But hey why let a little thing like reality get in the way of personal attack in a pathetic attack to distract attention from the evidence :roll:

Surely, given your analysis, it should be obvious to the observant football fan that Man U are not in fact favoured, but hindered, by refs?
Not at all, you couldn't draw such grand conclusions from a simple comparison with a single team using only major decisions. My point is that the evidence doesn't seem to support the frequently repeated charges that United above all others are unfairly favoured by refs.

I put it to you that the reason the opposite groundswell has grown is that statistics can prove anything when given the bent by their partisan author. To get a real idea of what is happening, one would need to watch each of these games to see in what context the fouls were given, or not; how the game was panning out; the general leaning of the officials during the 90 minutes; etc.

Is it not acceptable that the overall feeling of most fans (both biased and non-biased) should be taken in equal weighting, if not more so, against a meaningless list of numbers?
No it isn't as fans perceptions are on the whole deeply partial and selective, they're right up their with theists when it comes to conformation bias. Football fans are pretty much by definition a deeply partial lot prone to irrationally favouring their own team and a hatred of local rivals and anyone who dominates, which at the moment I'm happy to say is United.

For example there was much complaint about the 5 minutes of extra time in the United Villa game yet not a murmur about the 5 minutes of extra time in the Villa Hull game last night. I put it to you this is because bitter fans notice and harp on about such things when they appear to favour United but not when they seem to favour the likes of Hull, thus reinforcing a perception that doesn't necessarily have any foundation in reality.

You say that "the facts don't match the perception". There is your failing. Football isn't about facts and statisitics, no matter what sky will try and tell you. This is FOOTBALL, not baseball.
What an absurd strawman, football obviously isn't just about the stats (when did I or anyone else claim it was?) but when the stats diverge so markedly from peoples perceptions it seems reasonable to suggest that those perceptions might well be erroneous.

And I haven't answered you. You can't boil evidence down in a game of football like you can in a mathmatical theorem. It's just not like that.


True, you can't. I don't think statistics do that in the modern game though, do they? Afterall you still see the match being played - it's not as if you turn on the TV to show a load of pie charts and graphs instead of the actual match.

What statistics do help with is showing viewers a few things they wouldn't usually pick up on. Things like workrate (where they show how far Player X has ran during the game in comparision to the rest of the team) or the percentage of passes completed are a great little bit of information that help you to form an opinion on how someone is playing.

Seems to me you didn't even read the OP in which I clearly stated that I cited the source of the article (http://redirectingat.com/?id=203X323&url=http%3A//soccerlens.com/manchester-united-v-liverpool-penalties-and-red-cards/27999/) I simply cleaned the formatting up a little & added Liverpools 2 most recent penalties.

But hey why let a little thing like reality get in the way of personal attack in a pathetic attack to distract attention from the evidence :roll:


Not at all, you couldn't draw such grand conclusions from a simple comparison with a single team using only major decisions. My point is that the evidence doesn't seem to support the frequently repeated charges that United above all others are unfairly favoured by refs.


No it isn't as fans perceptions are on the whole deeply partial and selective, they're right up their with theists when it comes to conformation bias. Football fans are pretty much by definition a deeply partial lot prone to irrationally favouring their own team and a hatred of local rivals and anyone who dominates, which at the moment I'm happy to say is United.

For example there was much complaint about the 5 minutes of extra time in the United Villa game yet not a murmur about the 5 minutes of extra time in the Villa Hull game last night. I put it to you this is because bitter fans notice and harp on about such things when they appear to favour United but not when they seem to favour the likes of Hull, thus reinforcing a perception that doesn't necessarily have any foundation in reality.


What an absurd strawman, football obviously isn't just about the stats (when did I or anyone else claim it was?) but when the stats diverge so markedly from peoples perceptions it seems reasonable to suggest that those perceptions might well be erroneous.

Sorry for missing your sourcing, granted, my mistake. I was not trying to distract to from evidence, however, or lack of.

So you agree with my second point that conclusions cannot be drawn on mere statistics? good.

Anyone who dominates? Why aren't Liverpool Aresenal and Chelsea the subject of such mass delusional perceptions then? Gerrard dives, drogba dives, arsenal get dirty when things don't go their own way, man u are favoured by officials. All generally perceived by the football watching public, and all generally accepted by all fans of opposing teams, except of course, the fans of the team under question.

Fans do not, week in, week out, see another game decided in the last few minutes of a hull game, or by another strange referring decision affecting
Hull's result. They do witness this with Man U however. The witness Gerrard and Drogab diving, hence these perceptions persist.

Bring into the equation stats showing free kicks awareded and not awarded in Man U's favour, show stats representing the yellow cards awarded and not awarded in Man U's favour. Even show corners. Of course, this will have to be backed up with videos references so that people can look and see if the call was made correctly. Then we can talk about 'a divergence of the facts'

What is offered above does not even scratch the surface of what fans (both opposing and non-partisan) have witnessed all season, and bourne the belief that Man U are favoured.

Me Thinks Flechers unfair sending off last night goes towards balancing the books. ;)

I have no time for Man Utd - but as with all conspiracy theories, there needs to be a rationale or motive assigned otherwise it is just a series of facts. What is it in this case? Genuine bias, the crowd, intimidation?

Sorry for missing your sourcing, granted, my mistake. I was not trying to distract to from evidence, however, or lack of.
Then what exactly were you trying to do? You did exactly the same things to Hallamton (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showpost.php?p=4979416&postcount=8), you knew the facts weren't in your favour and so tried to lead him off topic with a personal attack instead.

So you agree with my second point that conclusions cannot be drawn on mere statistics? good.
That simply isn't true, I said "you couldn't draw such grand conclusions from a simple comparison with a single team using only major decisions", to say that you can't draw conclusions as large as those you suggested from the limited data at hand is a world away from saying you can't draw any conclusions at all from statistics ever.

For one thing the data only covers United and Liverpool as such we couldn't possibly conclude that "Man U are not in fact favoured, but hindered, by refs?" as the Red card and penalty stats for the other teams could suggest that whilst United are favoured over them and only hindered in comparison to Liverpool.

Anyone who dominates? Why aren't Liverpool Aresenal and Chelsea the subject of such mass delusional perceptions then? Gerrard dives, drogba dives, arsenal get dirty when things don't go their own way, man u are favoured by officials. All generally perceived by the football watching public, and all generally accepted by all fans of opposing teams, except of course, the fans of the team under question.
Because United not Liverpool, Arsenal & Chelsea are dominant perhaps? Of those 4 only United has a chance of winning the league 3 years running and retaining the European Cup.

A few years back when Chelsea were dominant and grinding out league titles there was a marked drop in ABUism and some neutrals actually supported United hoping they'd stop Abrabovic's juggernaut. Now normal service has been resumed with United once again the most successful and most resented team in the land.

Fans do not, week in, week out, see another game decided in the last few minutes of a hull game, or by another strange referring decision affecting
Hull's result. They do witness this with Man U however. The witness Gerrard and Drogab diving, hence these perceptions persist.
How are you claiming all these fans "witness United"? Do they watch all United's games all the way through?

If not they are relying upon the likes of MOTD for their impressions upon United's matches, the MOTD which in the Spurs game didn't show Palacios' two footed lunge at Ronaldo at all never mind discuss it, even though Ronaldo was sent off against City a few years ago for less. The MOTD packed with ex-Liverpool players who talk up any kind of decision which advantages United and dismiss those that advantage Liverpool, as they did that same program for the dive and handball which enabled Liverpool to beat Hull.

Plenty of games not involving United have long periods of injury time but it goes largely unremarked upon by the media, however when a game involving United does the media go on about it and the fans remember it. Hence the fans perceptions of such things are inherently unreliable.

Bring into the equation stats showing free kicks awareded and not awarded in Man U's favour, show stats representing the yellow cards awarded and not awarded in Man U's favour. Even show corners. Of course, this will have to be backed up with videos references so that people can look and see if the call was made correctly. Then we can talk about 'a divergence of the facts'
And where exactly are we going to get this data from? The data I've presented obviously isn't perfect but that doesn't magically render it completely worthless, something you'd realise if you weren't such a bitter ABU.

What is offered above does not even scratch the surface of what fans (both opposing and non-partisan) have witnessed all season, and bourne the belief that Man U are favoured.
In what way does the fact that United have emphatically not been favoured in comparison to this season's closest rival when it comes to Red Cards and Penalties 'not even scratch the surface of what fans (both opposing and non-partisan) have witnessed all season, and bourne the belief that Man U are favoured'?

If as you claim they have been favoured then why aren't united atleast on something approaching parity with Liverpool? United are 0 penalties & 2 sendings off to the good in comparison Liverpool 6 penalties and 8 sendings off in their favour. If as you claim fans perceptions are to be trusted then why is it that they diverge so wildly from this reality?

I have no time for Man Utd - but as with all conspiracy theories, there needs to be a rationale or motive assigned otherwise it is just a series of facts. What is it in this case? Genuine bias, the crowd, intimidation?
One thing that's always amused me is the way that ABUs simultaneously claim that United crowds are a punch of prawn eating middle class glory hunters who don't sing but who still somehow manage to intimidate refs. Seemingly unawares that the two claims rather contradict each other.

And they also claim we are favoured away from Old Trafford, even though our fans are outnumbered 10:1. (Although the make up of the United fans away from OT is quite different to those who attend OT).

If United were mid table, and got 4 pens in successive games, no one would notice.

At the other end of the table it seems that Stoke City and Sunderland have a lot to be thankful for (http://www.rightresult.net/)

That's fairly significant in the case of the potters. And I can be fairly neutral about that since the 2 points difference is marginal despite a precarious current position - could still make a difference but overall it equates to one suspect goal being given against, so not that bad over a season (even if 1 or 2 points could decide it!:o)

posted in the wrong thread, ignore this

Usually do ignore anything you post plekhanov. ;)

Here's a few more stats from the statbunker site (http://statbunker.com/football/btb/index.php?PL=competition&CompID=243&statType=discipline) alankearn linked to earlier.

Bookings
__________Y__Yx2__R__Total
United_____61__3___2__66
Arsenal____53__2___1__56
Chelsea____49__0___3__52
Liverpool___48__0___0__48

Penalties
________For__Against
Liverpool__5___2
United____4___3
Arsenal___4___4
Chelsea___2___1

If the refs are favouring United they're certainly doing it in really devious manner.

Fans do not, week in, week out, see another game decided in the last few minutes of a hull game, or by another strange referring decision affecting
United played 4 minutes of injury time last night whilst defending a 1 goal lead, I've not heard anyone comment about this in the slightest. If fan's 'perceptions' are so accurate how do you account for this. If the situation had been reversed with United being given 4 minutes to equalise there'd have been all kinds of grumbling.