Yesterday Ange Postecoglou observed that he was managing a team in “a weird league”.
Well mate, it might get a whole lot weirder if your Celtic team finally get their act together and start notching up a run of wins.
This season the riches of the Champions League will go to the SPFL winners.
Moreover, John Dahl Tomasson’s cheeky aside in the presser last August remains pertinent at Sevco.
Therefore, how matches are officiated might carry even more importance than normal.
What follows is a guest post by Alan Morrison of Celtic By Numbers.
Just like Rugger Guy’s forensic number-crunching skills on year-end accounts the footie data stuff is an undiscovered country for me.
However, I know that there is important information there that I have no idea about.
Consequently, I ask folk who do.
For the avoidance of doubt, I asked him to put this together a couple of weeks and had nothing to do with the events at Parkhead yesterday.
What follows in italics is all Alan’s work and I am merely the grateful publisher.
So, I hope that you get something out of it dear reader:
Comparing Refereeing Outcomes in Europe vs the SPFL (2017 – present)
This analysis is a simple comparison between fouls awarded for and against for Celtic and TRFC in Europe and in the SPFL.
Data goes back to the 2017/18 season, which was TRFC’s initial foray into Europe – the epic encounter with Progres Niedercorn.
The total match sample size is 342 matches.
Publicly available data (via UEFA.com) is limited to fouls and cards. Possession% data is only available for Group Stage matches for some reason from UEFA.
“Possession Adjustment” is an important concept here.
Simply, if every match had ball possession at 50% for each team, then you would expect, over a large sample, that fouls would be awarded broadly 50% to each team. There are caveats here around playing style (high pressing versus passive low block for example).
Possession Adjustment (PAdj) presents the values AS IF the match had been 50%/50% possession. A fuller definition is provided by Wyscout.
In summary: I looked at fouls awarded for and against 2017/18 to present. I then adjusted the number of fouls awarded as if each match saw 50% possession for each side.
Funnily enough, the average number of minutes of play between each foul being awarded is 3.8 minutes in both Europe and SPFL.
There is very little difference in the regularity fouls are awarded for or against TRFC in Europe – just over 5% variance.
Celtic are penalised around 25% more than their opponents in Europe.
Some of this variance may well be due to the standard of opposition. Celtic’s data includes a Champions League campaign as well as Europa League group opposition from “Top 5” Leagues (Top 5 = England, Germany, France, Italy, Spain until 21/22 when Portugal overtook France as 5th highest UEFA ranked country for club performance).
The hypothesis is that you concede more fouls against stronger teams. Celtic have had much stronger opponents in recent seasons in their European ties (PSG, Bayern Munich, RB Leipzig, Valencia, Lazio, Rennes, AC Milan, Lille, Real Betis and in future Bayer Leverkusen). Whilst TRFC have only faced Villareal and Bayer Leverkusen from a Top 5 league in last 5 years. This may account for some of the Celtic variance.
In the SPFL, as Celtic and TRFC are the dominant teams, but counter-intuitively they both foul more than are fouled on a Possession Adjusted basis. This may be due to playing style and the fact both sides tend to press opponents aggressively rather than “sit in” as many of their opponents tend to do.
TRFC are penalised with a foul for every 3.2 mins of opposition possession, whilst being awarded a foul every 4.2 mins of their possession. A 30% difference.
Celtic are penalised every 2.8 mins of opposition possession whilst their opponents are penalised every 5.1 mins of Celtic possession. This is a 79% difference.
Bear in mind a couple of other factors:
- Celtic are by far the more dominant side in 3 out of the 4 seasons sampled.
- Team style needs to be considered. Celtic were “high press” under Rodgers and Postecoglou but less so under Lennon whilst TRFC were high press under Gerrard until this season where they are a bit more passive. High press style can be expected to lead to more fouls against.
But over a significant sized sample, and benchmarked against European refereeing, there appears to be a difference in how Celtic are refereed in the SPFL as regards the awarding of fouls for and against.
SPFL 21/22
The context of this season is that barring a very unlikely event (the Champions League winner 21/22 does not automatically qualify for the 22/23 Champions League), then the 21/22 SPFL winner will get straight into the 22/23 Champions League Group Stages.
For a Scottish club, assuming only 1 club qualifies to the CL Groups, this may result in a bounty of £30-40M.
Game changing, potentially!
With so much at stake, has the refereeing changed?
This season, there is a real change in Celtic’s numbers in particular.
There is a huge 284% difference in number of fouls awarded against Celtic compared to their opponents on a Possession Adjusted basis.
Celtic are penalised every 1.9 mins the opponent has the ball. Meanwhile, their opponents are only penalised every 7.3 mins Celtic have the ball.
TRFC numbers are also “up” slightly in that their opponents are now being penalised every 5 mins of TRFC possession whilst they are penalised every 3.2 mins of opponent possession.
But Celtic appear to be a real outlier.
For 21/22 this is a VERY small sample (6 matches). But bear in mind 3 of these Celtic games have been highly one sided (2 x 6-0 wins and 1 x 3-0 win all at home).
Another factor may be Celtic’s more aggressive pressing regime under Postecoglou. And the fact the team may not have perfected it yet. For example, Kyoko gives away 2.09 fouls per 90m whilst Edouard was nearer 1.5. Rogic tends to give away more fouls (1.56 per 90m) than most attacking midfielders (more clumsy than aggressive).
But I would be surprised if this accounted for all the variance.
One to continue monitoring, for sure.
Ok, dear reader, I hope that worked for you.
Alan is a top guy and knows his stuff for sure.
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Actually i forgot Frimpong and Christie so it’s almost 100m yes 100m in talent sold. Our board is not fit to wear the shirt. Leave now in shame.
As a mathematician this is all good stuff. But Celtic’s demise in the park is due to Celtic getting worse and Rangers getting better. Mainly due to Rangers Board putting money in and Celtic Board not spending. Celtic have sold a load of class players for 80m plus and replaced them with Barkas Ajeti Starfelt Etc. We need to buy a left back a centre half and a defensive midfielder of the right standard. The Rangers squad is now more valuable than the Celtic squad. Everyone of the Rangers defence and goalie with the exception of Juranovic are better than our current first team.
Good stuff Alan and Phil, get it out there early 👍
The shift in referee ‘influence’ last season was stark to watch… we know the referees have been wearing blue specsavers issue for decades…. But with no fans in the grounds to react … the honest mistakes were easier to get away with. They became more blatant, more frequent, and more crucial.
The LRA approach has continued into this season and in a very cunning manner. It only takes one well timed red card (even yellow) or a sending off to turn a game and make zero points into one point, or one point into three. It’s been happening every game along with the ‘Fergie-time’ principle when Sevco need that last minute help from the clock.
The old nonsense about these errors balancing out over the season is just that… for the same decades it’s been the media mantra to excuse what they know is bias/favouritism. Their new addendum to this falsehood is that ‘it’s just poor refereeing not bias’. It’s both …. In fact it’s gross negligence and possibly even fraudulent if the financial consequences are considered.
We continue to ask why SFA referees don’t have to declare their club affiliations… although we know the answer. Or would they all be St Mirren fans?
Known OO members and former Rangers season ticket holders, Sevco supporters club members all stepping into the pitch and officiating in games where they have the opportunity to both favour their chosen Klub AND to influence the results of Celtic and any other team that is a challenge.
What’s that saying again?
Oh yes! “Only in Scotland.”
Yes it’s a weird league when a Celtic opposition player is assaulted in the box for no penalty. DDutd should have won that game, but once again the officials step in to help.
So, there’s hard statistical evidence confirming what we see on the pitch. It will be interesting to see the results at the end of the season.
Funny when Fergie (along with Jock Stein best ever Scottish/British manager) became manager of Aberdeen he identified referees as a major factor especially in Glasgow – hence Willie Miller refereeing games and it worked. Same time Dundee Utd meekly accepted Glasgow bias and they hardly won anything despite having a talented team. The problem of bias starts and ends in Glasgow as they are biggest clubs – referees are only human and are affected by crowds and media consciously for weak referees and subconsciously for stronger ones.)
As a supporter of a so called Soddy club who has suffers Old Firm bias all his life I am considering referring comments by Celtic fans on this subject to the Paranoid Society.
For your information I do not support either of Old or New Firm but have observed Scottish footballl I’m passionately for more than 50 years.
Get a life and get some perspective on life.
Thank you
I would love to see how stats work out for Dundee United & St Johnstone after yesterday’s bizarre penalty decisions?
Funny how last season was first ever season neither Celtic or Rangers reached semi finals in both Cup & League Cup just when there were no fans in stadium – do not require any fancy analysis – referees are influenced most by bigger teams with bigger supports – human psychology – this is where VAR can help.
When bigger teams do not win it is a big news story and referee’s performance will be examined in depth. If smaller ‘diddy’ team loses nobody bothers because it is only to be expected.
Would agree from about 50 years observation that Rangers benefit most of all from this effect in Scotland – but it happens elsewhere e.g. Man Utd rarely get penalties given against them at OT.
Very interesting and clever , good to see the data to back up what we all suspected.
Last year the refs never had go overboard as Celtic managed to screw it up all by themselves.
If Celtic can get their act together and put up a challenge these honest mistakes will go through the roof as when the old rangers were going for 9iar, some crazy decisions that year.
The area of the pitch where fouls are awarded might be worth analysis. My impression is that Celtic,( when they get one) are awarded fouls in non dangerous areas and opponents are awarded fouls in goal scoring areas much more frequently.
I was on a Celtic blog recently ( sorry I can’t remember where ) and there was another “set of statistics ” regarding our
“Away ” fixtures relative to Sevco’s over the coming months.
To say it was “slanted ” in their favour wouldn’t do it justice…It’s a disgrace.
Question is…
Why does our Club put up with this obvious bias …??…Why aren’t we highlighting it and asking questions …?
Oh silly me…
I forgot…We don’t do anything like that.
We don’t like to upset the Govan Club.
Celtic FC have a support that they don’t deserve.
Also, Ajeti can miss an open goal from two yards.