When Howard Webb was announced as the referee for this weekend’s fixture between Manchester United and Liverpool, the usual comments about his bias towards Manchester United were made, but is the referee from South Yorkshire really biased towards the Red Devils?
To determine this we have taken a look at every Premier League game that Howard Webb has officiated which has featured either Manchester United or Liverpool since the start of the 2008/2009 season. We have calculated the amount of fouls per match he has awarded to each team, the amount of cards, the amount of penalties and win percentages for each team, and compared these data.
We have also created a head-to-head comparison for the three matches that Webb has officiated between these fierce rivals.
Howard Webb officiating Manchester United games
First of we take a look at Manchester United’s stats with Webb officiating.
Key – M: Matches | FW/M: Fouls Won Per Match | FL/M: Fouls Lost Per Match | YC/M: Yellow Cards Per Match |RC: Red Cards
As you can see, Howard Webb has taken charge of 21 of Manchester United’s matches since the start of the 2008/2009 season with 8 of them taking place at Old Trafford and 13 taking place elsewhere.
Manchester United have won 14.1 fouls per match at home when Webb has been in charge and lost 12.3 fouls per match compared to winning 11.1 fouls per match and losing 10.1 fouls per match away from Old Trafford. It is not a surprise than Manchester United are awarded more fouls at home as they will have a higher percentage of possession and teams will generally sit back against them.
In total United have won 12.2 fouls per match and lost 10.9 fouls per match when Webb has refereed, winning 1.3 more fouls than they have lost per match.
Webb has given United 2.4 yellow cards per match at home since 2008 and 1.9 yellow cards per match away from home. In total he has given Manchester United players 2.1 yellow cards per match in the 21 matches he has officiated. Webb has also given United two red cards in the 13 away matches he has taken charge of (Nemanja Vidic against Liverpool in 2008 and Cristiano Ronaldo against Manchester City in 2008) showing that he is not afraid to make important decisions in big games.
Manchester United have been awarded 5 penalties by Howard Webb in his 21 matches in charge (3 in their 8 home games and 2 in their 13 away games) while the opposition have been awarded 2 penalties – surprisingly both at Old Trafford.
In terms of results Manchester United have won 100% of their home games, won 54% of their away games and won 71% of their overall games when Howard Webb has officiated.
Howard Webb Officiating Liverpool games
Howard Webb has taken charge of 20 of Liverpool’s matches since the start of the 2008/2009 season – 10 at Anfield and 10 away from home.
Key – FW/M: Fouls Won Per Match | FL/M: Fouls Lost Per Match | YC/M: Yellow Cards Per Match | RC: Red Cards
Liverpool have won 13.3 fouls per match at home when Webb has been in charge and lost 12.1 fouls per match, compared to winning 13.1 fouls per match away from home and losing 12.4 fouls per match. As you can see, these statistics, home and away are very similar. Webb cannot be accused of being influenced by the home supporters when officiating Liverpool.
In total Liverpool have won 13.2 fouls per match and lost 12.3 fouls per match in Webb’s games.
Liverpool have received 1.2 yellow cards per match from Webb at home and 1.7 yellow cards per match away from home, but have failed to receive a single red card in the 20 matches he has taken charge of.
Webb has awarded Liverpool 3 penalties (1 at home and 2 away) and awarded the opposition 2 penalties (1 at home and 1 away) in the 20 matches he has officiated, which is a penalty to either Liverpool or the opposition every 4 games.
Liverpool have only won 30% of the 20 matches that Howard Webb has officiated, winning 40% of their home games and 20% of their away games. It is also worthwhile mentioning that Liverpool haven’t won any of their away matches that Howard Webb has officiated since the start of the 2009/2010 season.
Comparison and Head to Head
Liverpool have won 1 more foul per match than Manchester United in total when Howard Webb has been in charge but lost 1.4 more fouls per match. Liverpool have also won 2 more fouls per match away from home than United, but United have won 0.8 more fouls per match when playing at home.
Manchester United and Liverpool have both lost a similar amount of fouls per game at home (United – 12.3 and Liverpool – 12.1) while Liverpool have lost 2.3 fouls per match more than United when away from home.
Webb has given Manchester United 0.6 more yellow cards per match than Liverpool in total, 1.2 more yellow cards at home and 0.2 more yellow cards per match away from home. However, Webb has awarded United 2 more penalties than Liverpool and has given both Manchester United’s and Liverpool’s opposition 2 penalties each.
Manchester United have won 41% more games than Liverpool have when Howard Webb has been referee winning, 100% of their home games compared to Liverpool who have won 40% of their home games.
Manchester United and Liverpool have faced each other three times since the start of the 2008/2009 season with Howard Webb as the referee – one match at Anfield and two matches at Old Trafford, with the home side winning on each occasion.
Key – FW/M: Fouls Won Per Match | FL/M: Fouls Lost Per Match | YC/M: Yellow Cards Per Match | RC: Red Cards
Howard Webb has awarded both teams a penalty in the three matches and sent off Nemanja Vidic in 2008 in the 90th minute for a second bookable offence. Webb has awarded Liverpool 2 more fouls per match in these three matches and given Manchester United 1.4 more yellow cards per match.
Conclusion
Based on these statistics it cannot be claimed that Howard Webb has been more biased towards Manchester United than he has been to Liverpool since the start of the 2008/2009 season.
However, a lot more variables need to be taken into consideration to make a sound conclusion, such as looking at each decision Webb makes for or against United and Liverpool individually and seeing whether these were in fact the correct decisions, although this may be down to interpretation as people will always disagree on the major talking points in big matches.
It would also be important to compare Howard Webb’s statistics to the other referees in the Premier League to see whether Webb awards more fouls and penalties to United than other Premier League referees do. This is something I will be looking into in the coming weeks.
All of the stats from this article have been taken from the Opta Stats Centre at EPLIndex.com – Subscribe Now (Includes author privileges!) Check out our new Top Stats feature on the Stats Centre which allows you to compare all players in the league & read about new additions to the stats centre.
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Categories: EPL Index Featured Article, EPL Index Player Profiles, Liverpool, Manchester Utd
Tags: "Manchester United", EPL, epl opta stats, EPL Referee, EPL Referee Stats, EPL Stats, Howard Webb, Howard Webb bias, Howard Webb Liverpool, Howard Webb Liverpool Stats, Howard Webb Man United, Howard Webb Manchester United Stats, Howard Webb United, LFC, Liverpool, MUFC, opta, Opta Stats, Premier League Referee Stats, Premier League Stats, Referee Stats
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You should mainly look at the controversies surrounding the penalties given or not given, the red cards given or not given, offside decisions leading to goals given and not given.. It is not the amount of red card/ yellow cards / penalties that matter.. It is actually the controversies surrounding those decisions..
I actually mention that in the last few paragraphs and this is a stats website but thanks for your comment
I agree with SL in the fact that these stats do not really reflect on how the games have been refereed. Giving a foul on the half way line is not the same as giving a foul on the edge of the area with a shooting opportunity. Maybe the area the fouls were awarded would be a good stat to look at if this data is present?
I understand that James can only use the stats he has to present his findings and i’m aware what i have asked for above probably wont be available.
I totally agree with you but unfortunately that data is not available, it may be possible to get that data for this season but not going back to 2008.
I also agree that the type of foul and whether the decisions Webb made were correct as being important factors but the type of foul data is unavailable and the analysing Webb’s decisions is open to interpretation – maybe i need a referee to analyse all of Webb’s decisions like skysportsnews do each monday!
Whether those data are available or not, this statistic is reliable enough to judge. Other things happening on the field of play are not exclusive to Man United alone, last FA cup match, Suarez uses his hand to control the ball be he scored the goal, none of the liverpool fans saw that as a manipulation by the refree but if it had happened to Man United now, they’ll start raising unnecessary alarm. Liverpool should focus on how to deal with Van Persie and the United Attacking force instead of focusing on Refree.
Of course we will. It’s happening every premiere league game that errors in favour of mufc are happening. Maybe accidentaaaaaal? You’re all a cheat
No let’s call them coincidental.
But honestly…. I can only think of one possibility but don’t call me superstitious .
It must be the work of The Red nosed Devil. He exist doesn’t he ? Huuuuuu…………………………..
Dude don’t go anywhere please but stay between LFC Man U.
I can help as I have access to every game in the sample. I could watch every incident and make a report.
There were too many wrong calls against Liverpool n calls not made for Liverpool. The stats don’t suggest the actual incident n the stat in a game don’t determine the outcome of the game at the final whistle. So I totally agree wiith you. And the comparison here is the side Liverpool or Man U Webb sides n not others,one or two who favors Liverpool. Lets not even call it siding. It’s just coincidences that some like to think.
Your final paragraph says it all. The stats you have used for this article could all be explained by the different styles of football that MU and LFC play. Until you compare Webb’s stats with those of other refs for the same scenarios there is nothing to be said on the bias issue.
James is working on this (he is collecting stats – going one by one through each match and totalling Referee stats) and this article wasn’t going to be published today but James had completed his Howard Webb collection so had time to write this up.
I have to say that this is a fantastic job by James because the data collection he’s doing right now is a lot of hard work and he’s no where near completing it. Once he completes it we will have data for each Referee for and against each team too since 2008/09 and we’ll publish stats pages of these on EPLIndex.
Hopefully we’ll get Debatable Decisions involved as they collect all of the debatable calls by referees and again we’ll set up some analysis on this for you all to write about and judge. It’s a long way away but just to let you know that James is working very hard on this for us.
“Based on these statistics it cannot be claimed that Howard Webb has been more biased…”
The argumentation from the beginning, different styles of football encourage different trends to develop e.g. a fast, pacey team might induce more fouls.
I suspect you can only really look at individual decisions one-by-one (and many of them) and then make a conclusion.
So based on these home/away win averages, if Howard Webb officiated every game Man U would average 29 wins per season. A figure they have never yet managed to achieve during the period considered.
More disturbingly however, Liverpool would only average 11 wins per season under Webb. This is way down on their actual average since 2008. This suggests Webb slightly favours Utd and hates Liverpool.
with carroll and henderson in your team, no one needs to hate you……… and that is not counting downing.
Howard Webb’s penalty stars for top teams, if anyone’s interested:
http://basstunedtored.com/2012/10/03/howard-webb-penalties-and-manchester-united/
Appears to favour United…
Crazy Horse: Not really as the stats do not take into account Liverpool’s on and off pitch problems in recent seasons. When you have been a club in crisis/difficulty it doesn’t matter who refs, the fact is you’re not going to win many games.
There is a huge contrast between the faults/cards etc. part of stats and the winning stats. Liverpool’s balance is clearly worse with respect to wining stats. There could be all sots of reasons for this including the possibility that there is indeed a ManU bias. I am not claiming anything pro or con but I am trying to highlight the fact that a smart referee should favour a team in a smart way. Faults and cards could be given in an unbalanced way. A red card in the last minute does not hurt much a team (this happened a few times in Spain recently – red cards given in the last few minutes for Real when the card did not make any difference – and the red card was well deserved earlier – I am talking about El Clasicos during the Mourinho era). Similarly, yellow cards in the early phase of the game could be game changers by forcing a player to play cautiously. Then when the game is already decided (ManU is [I should say used to be] very good in holding to a winning position) the fault and card stats could be “balanced” overall. If one is looking for stats there are potentially more revealing once may look for other issues such as extra time. I recall a few strange extra long extra time for ManU when they were fighting for point(s). Finally, as an Arsenal fan, I would find it much better and revealing if one would do a comparison on ManU and Arsenal stats.
Sorry James Amey , i think it is a misleading or wrong conclusions from your part. These statistics
- DOES show Howard Webb provided MU and Liverpool a similar amount of yellow and penalties when they officiated them both
- DOES NOT show that: Howard Webb has been more biased towards Manchester United than he has been to Liverpool.
- DOES NOT show that: it cannot be claimed that Howard Webb has been more biased towards Manchester United than he has been to Liverpool since the start of the 2008/2009 season.
In another word, if using the amounts of yellow card and fouls as evidences, there is a clear absence of evidences here (as you admitted, you only can hand on stats that are available) that can prove Webb’s biased . But here does not show such evidences does not exist (“evidences of absences” thank Rumsfeld!). And before you knows it, the idiot from Eurosport already has quoted your blog as “there is no the evidence that ref favour United”.
Good luck on not getting your stats to be misinterpreted
Thanks for the comment and the time you’ve taken to type that gg but can you tell me where James has said that Howard Webb IS biased? Can you read the article before you say anything in future. The title of the article asks the question and in the first line of the conclusion you will see what James has found:
“Based on these statistics IT CANNOT be claimed that Howard Webb has been more biased towards Manchester United”
Thanks
Try refereeDecisions dot co uk, they have every decision of each game reviewed by a referee rather than just what is on match of the day (like debatable decisions, obviously what match of the day shows is only a subset of the decisions and I find that it often misses some of the controversial ones and those that the commentators didn’t pick up or incorrectly dismiss).
Pretty sure untold Arsenal has shown he has some bias towards Man Utd, but you would have to check that.
it’s really great analysis.
Only losers would say craps about referee. he’s a world cup final and champion league final ref. enough said..
especially when Webb sent off Vidic in 2008-9 season against Liverpool, i don’t see anyone complaining LOL
Why publish an incomplete piece of work?
I thought Howard Webb had a good game and allow the game to flow but it did not need any intervention unlike the City game which highlights a possible need for some law changes, What do other people think ?