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Craig Thomson


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Recent chat got me interested in the actual facts about referees and perceived bias of certain officials.

First of all I looked at win ratio against referee in charge.

Over the last 4 seasons, not including this season, we played 179 domestic matches with a win ratio of 36.8%.  Therefore I expected most referee's to be roughly around the 35% mark.  I've excluded referees who officiated less than 5 matches.

FINNIE        P6 W4 D0 L2 66.6%
WALSH        P7 W4 D2 L1 57.10%
MUIR        P11 W5 D2 L4 45.4%
CLANCY        P14 W6 D1 L7 42.0%
MADDEN        P21 W8 D0 L13 38.0%
ALLAN        P8 W3 D1 L4 37.5%
DALLAS        P8 W3 D1 L4 37.5%
McLEAN        P17 W6 D4 L7 35.2%
THOMSON    P17 W6 D2 L9 35.2%
ROBERTSON    P12 W4 D2 L6 33.3%
ANDERSON    P9 W3 D1 L5 33.3%
AITKEN        P6 W2 D1 L3 33.3%
BEATON        P10 W3 D2 L5 30.0%
COLLUM        P16 W3 D6 L7 18.7%

So as you can see most of the referees didn't fall far below our overall win ratio, with two exceptions.  Beaton who was almost 7% lower and Collum who was a massive 16% off of where you'd expect.

Out of interest the referees who didn't make the 5 match cut were....

COOK        P4 W2 D1 L1 50.0%
MURRAY        P4 W2 D0 L2 50.0%
CHARLESTON    P2 W1 D0 L1 50.0%
DUNCAN        P2 W1 D0 L1 50.0%
COLVIN        P4 W 0 D1 L3 0.00%
CRAWFORD    P1 W0 D1 L0 0.00%

I intend to look into cards issued against us by referees and against opposition by referees but that will have to wait for now.

 

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The referee could greatly influence a game without causing a win so hard to quantify this really. As always stats don't take into account alot of different variables. The most noteworthy thing is that the more high profile guys generally get the bigger games.

Regardless of stats I'm not really buying a team having a genuine bias against Motherwell. On the whole refereeing is pretty bad but I put the majority of the mistakes down to general incompetence. Make them go professional, if they are training day in, day out they should improve.

Whilst I don't think there is anyone 'out to get us',  there is definitely still a few who concisiously favour either side of the Old Firm. I also believe that given the support and pressure by both the fans and the media that some referees often give wrong decisions in favour of the Old Firm rather than the smaller team. This may be a subconscious thing but I am 100% sure this still happens.

A classic example of this was McGregor at Fir Park last year to save the timmy unbeaten run. Collum in that case either had a severe biased towards Celtic or felt the pressure to 'save' the situation at hand. Following the incident we were fed obscure camera angles filmed on a pizza to justify the decision. Ultimately the reverse angle and view that Collum had that day showed that it was a ridiculous decision. This is the sort of decision that I think frustrates most of us. Given the David against Goliath situation we face against the Old Firm I think we all just yearn for someone who can call it straight down the middle and isn't pressured by the fans/media in the ground.

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1 hour ago, daver said:

Collumtends to be awarded a lot of the higher profile games which we are less likely to win. That would partly explain the low percentage of wins with him involved. 

To be honest, I don't really think there's bias involved, just incompetence. 

I looked into that.

Collum has only officiated three Motherwell vs Celtic/Rangers matches.  One of those was the infamous last minute penalty match that was drawn.

Collum's matches - 2 Aberdeen, 2 Celtic, 2 Hamilton, 1 Hearts, 1 Inverness, 2 Kilmarnock, 1 Rangers, 2 Ross County, 3 St. Johnstone.

Doesn't look especially 'high profile' to me.  Most of the matches are against non city clubs.

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28 minutes ago, weeyin said:

I was concerned he'd throw Rangers a bone in the play-offs, but in fairness, he didn't really put a foot wrong from our perspective.

Hope he does the same tomorrow.

 

To be fair, there weren't many situations where he could have given them anything. Don't remember any incidents in the game where a ref could have gone for them...

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1 hour ago, MelvinBragg said:

To be fair, there weren't many situations where he could have given them anything. Don't remember any incidents in the game where a ref could have gone for them...

I remember one incident in the in the first half of the 2nd leg where Kenny Miller threw himself to the ground in a pathetic attempt to win a penalty (more contact in that incident than Kipre's in the LC Final tbf) but surprisingly Thomson never bought it, sitting in the Main Stand it was this incident that led to many Rangers fans blowing their cover. But as you said not much else Statement FC could have claimed in this match. 

I know it wasn't Thomson that gave the decision, but the last game at Fir Park it was ridiculous the amount of times they took dives in the box before they finally got a penalty after Frear fairly won the ball, I wouldn't be surprised to see a similar strategy deployed tomorrow.

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Guy is totally anti Mothetwell and must add not 1 decision changed game so not saying this after a decision changed game . To book Hartley (rightly) for kicking ball away 5 yards then 1 minute later allow a Rangers player to kick ball 50 yards away to stop quick throw says it all . He then lets Lafferty  walk away from ball in injury time instead of giving it back which is not an offence I must add but when Motherwell player runs to get it he kicks it over his head and nothing . To me showed his attitude against Motherwell once again and can say this without blaming him at all for result as not 1 of his decisions affected game yet he still seems to have rules fir us and different rules for opposition. I don’t buy this referees are honest and only make mistakes as he is certainly imo anti Motherwell but if anyone disagrees fell free to convince me otherwise 

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56 minutes ago, wellowell said:

Guy is totally anti Mothetwell and must add not 1 decision changed game so not saying this after a decision changed game......  To me showed his attitude against Motherwell once again and can say this without blaming him at all for result as not 1 of his decisions affected game yet he still seems to have rules fir us and different rules for opposition. I don’t buy this referees are honest and only make mistakes as he is certainly imo anti Motherwell but if anyone disagrees fell free to convince me otherwise 

 Don't know about being dishonest but he certainly seems to be biased.  Totally inconsistent today.  He only spoke to one player today for time wasting (Carson in the first half) but let MacGregor off with far worse in the second. There certainly seemed to be 2 different sets of rules in operation.   Penalised Main for dipping his head slightly and getting a kick in the head from a player whose boot was at least chest height. Just couldn't fathom out many of his decisions today.   

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56 minutes ago, wellowell said:

Guy is totally anti Mothetwell and must add not 1 decision changed game so not saying this after a decision changed game . To book Hartley (rightly) for kicking ball away 5 yards then 1 minute later allow a Rangers player to kick ball 50 yards away to stop quick throw says it all . He then lets Lafferty  walk away from ball in injury time instead of giving it back which is not an offence I must add but when Motherwell player runs to get it he kicks it over his head and nothing . To me showed his attitude against Motherwell once again and can say this without blaming him at all for result as not 1 of his decisions affected game yet he still seems to have rules fir us and different rules for opposition. I don’t buy this referees are honest and only make mistakes as he is certainly imo anti Motherwell but if anyone disagrees fell free to convince me otherwise 

Overall no better or worse than other refs up here where the standard is pretty low anyway, not a fan of the whole anti Motherwell thing unless someone can explain why he would be ?

The  Rangers player should certainly have been booked but he did book Halliday for a similar thing, think the other booking they received was for a late tackle with Campbell maybe slightly unlucky when he was booked for catching the guys foot but hardly an outrageous decision. Aldred was given lots of chances before his booking so again fair enough for me. There was a hell of a lot going on from both sides in my view and it was a pretty high tempo game.

Not an easy game to ref and yes he got things wrong but overall I thought he did ok.

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8 minutes ago, Yorkyred said:

There was a hell of a lot going on from both sides in my view and it was a pretty high tempo game.

A really fair point. Considering the number of decisions that had to be made, I think he's had a decent one if all we've got to grumble about is a bit of inconsistency around time wasting. 

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at Aldreds booking he pointed out 3 occasions where he had fouled previously yet Morelos was fouling persistently all game without a word being said to him.

As said in another post there were 3 occasions when Rangers players raised their hands to Well players with nothing said.

The number of decisions he had to make is irrelevant the whole point is he has to be consistent and he never is as far as Motherwell is concerned

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Anyone who thinks refs are interchangeable or neutral needs to wise up.

Today we got the best we could expect from Thomson but he still favoured the bigger name players - Morelos, Lafferty, Goldson - and obviously kept his cards in his pockets  first half because he didn't want any more high profile decisions at Fir Park.

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