Paul Tierney Refereeing Liverpool – Just the (Grim) Facts [FREE READ]

A deep dive into the Wigan referee's data, and weirdness at the PGMOL

I didn't want to write about the dreaded Paul ‘Teapot’ Tierney again, but obviously he was the main talking point yesterday, Richarlison's blushes aside.

He may be a lovely bloke. I don’t think he’s corrupt or necessarily anti-Liverpool. But it seems clear that he hates Jürgen Klopp, and that he may indeed bear a grudge.

In this piece I’ll share the data, which is objective, and also add my own subjective thoughts.

This past weekend, Tierney broke the record from recent years when officiating Liverpool for a 7th (SEVENTH) league game this season; no ref had ever done a single team more than six times in a season in the past five years (and there were only three other instances of that), with data collected by Andrew Beasley; even in the Covid seasons, when refs stayed local, for exceptional circumstances. (Kevin Friend did Norwich seven times that season, but that was the only other example of a ref doing the same club seven times in a single season.)

Otherwise, five times is almost always the most any ref will do any team, across 38 games, and the average is just over two games per ref per club.

You might expect to get a high-status ref more often near the end of the season in a title run-in, but even then, it would never take the number of appearances above six.

So, Tierney's seven from 33 games is a massive outlier.

There is clearly an increasing paranoia about officiating by all fans, in an era of conspiracy theories; and so often they seem so bad they feel corrupt. But it’s usually much simpler than that.

It’s really hard to talk about a subject like this without people assuming you’re a conspiracy theorist. Which is why I turn to data. (Even so, there will be a biased reaction to this from those biased against Liverpool FC.)

I analyse tons and tons of refereeing data, that builds up every year, and from this I have 'exonerated' someone like Mancunian (why are so many of the refs Mancunian?) Anthony Taylor as being a bad ref for Liverpool, in that his data on Big Decisions seems fairly balanced; even if people remember the travesty of Vincent Kompany not being sent off by a Mancunian ref in Manchester in a decisive title-race game.

Overall, Taylor gives Liverpool only a fraction fewer Big Decisions than against my Expected Big Decisions model.

(Big Decision = penalty, straight red card and 2nd yellow card. More on Expected Big Decisions later in the piece, which factors in team quality.)

Data helps us to see the overall picture, and not the events that stick most in our mind; so Taylor, while not generous to Liverpool, is only very slightly negative. And that's okay – certainly compared to most refs.

I also ask questions about gaping holes in refereeing data, just as you would with a footballer's data.

If the data said a footballer wasn't touching the ball at all in games, you'd ask why. Or if a defender scored seven own goals in a season, you'd ask why

Yet even doing this with refs can make people accuse you of being conspiratorial. I get it; most of the time refs make honest mistakes. But refs are also human, and some refs are likely to be very petty and resentful. The ego is a powerful thing; a bruised ego can create havoc. It need not even be conscious, albeit it must be on some level.

My entire reason for analysing as much data as possible is to show unusual patterns; again, like you'd expect to see if a large number of suspicious bets were placed (and I'm not correlating the two.)

Even if you're like me and not a neutral, this, at the very least, shows that Jürgen Klopp has it harder from refs than other Liverpool managers have, and that needs to be taken into account when judging his outcomes.

My theory is that certain refs, like certain judges, police officers and other authority figures, bear grudges and are prejudicial.

(I read a lot of the better type of true crime books, especially about miscarriages of justice, and the number of prejudicial and biased judges, police officers and authority figures never ceases to astound me, even if they do not represent the average judge, police officer or authority figure. Often it's petty, ego-driven spite, or confirmation bias, or to get revenge for something else; and sometimes bad decisions are to appease the media and avoid a backlash, for reaching what would the correct, honest conclusion as, y'know, the optics.)

For refs with petty grudges (and how can they not have petty grudges, as the game’s admittedly well-paid punching bags?), my sense is that they will give 50-50 decisions against you any time they can, if they dislike you. That’s human; flawed, but human.

Maybe even 70-30 ones in your favour will be overlooked. They can't do much about the stonewallers, most of the time.

They are massively prejudicial. They even admit as much.

Ex-ref and now refereeing analyst Peter Walton noted a couple of years ago:

"Referees do study players and formations ahead of a game. They are aware that certain players need to be dealt with proactively. Kane [who went in two-footed on Andy Robertson at Spurs, about which Walton was writing] does not fall into this category. It has been more than ten years since his last red card — for Leyton Orient away to Huddersfield Town in League One."

And this is my issue, in a nutshell.

As such, Walton seems to be saying that as no ref ever punishes England Hero Harry Kane, England Hero Kane has a clear record; and thus no ref will ever punish England Hero Harry Kane, as England Hero can literally do no wrong.

Which is like not arresting a criminal for each of 37 crimes, because he's the son of the Mayor, and then saying “look, he's got a good a clean record! Never been arrested!”

Basically, refs are prejudiced for and against certain players (and managers); reputations count. This is not therefore fair officiating but biased officiating. Refs are guessing at who the divers are, who the foulers are, and so on, based on priors. And priors can be wrong.

Then there’s inattentional blindness – how you can miss things if you’re not expecting to see them. This links to prejudice, i.e. what you expect to see or to happen; prejudging something.

A lot of the time, in the heat of the moment, refs don't have either the time or the various angles (unless it goes to VAR) to do anything other than guess.

And hence, it’s all about perceptions and biases (and things like inattentional blindness).

You ‘saw’ Harry Kane plough six studs into Andy Robertson’s shin, but you couldn’t have seen it, as it was England Hero Harry Kane, and he doesn’t do that kind of thing.

My view is this: ‘Not that kind of player’ should not matter if he committed ‘that kind of offence’ (Kane in the 2021 game.)

If someone headbutts someone else, then it should not be “but that can't be a headbutt as he's not that kind of player”.

And again, my data from a previous study showed that across seven full Premier League seasons, and over 600 penalties, British players were treated more generously in both boxes to statistically significant degrees.

Foreigners are obviously believed by people in and around English football to be divers, while English defenders, in particular, are less likely to be punished for fouls in the box (all conclusions based on decisions relating to the percentage of playing time for homegrown vs overseas players; race was not factored in, but maybe someone could do that one day – but there did seem to be a big favouring of England internationals.)

I did start to wonder if Tierney is given Liverpool games as he's from Wigan, to be more ecological and reduce carbon footprints (as with Covid times when the spread of the disease was the reason to limit travel).

But then the PGMOL sent Michael Oliver to Saudi Arabia last week, where all the oil and the money is.

(Oliver also rabidly supports Newcastle, which might be why the Saudis specifically requested him, or it may just be that he's the best ref, which I always believed he was. Either way, it was very, very weird, and not exactly encouraging that a referee is apparently being paid £3,000 to ref a game in a country that owns the club he supports, even if he can’t ref Newcastle directly, he can ref their rivals.)

Plus, Tierney has done Liverpool away in five of his last nine Liverpool fixtures (one admittedly at Everton). He did the game in London versus Spurs where he had a shocker so bad that he was panned by ex-refs. And while people can care about the environment (without being hysterical and thinking the world will burn up in the next 57 minutes), refs should travel all over the country, otherwise they limit the clubs they can do.

As I've been saying every week that Tierney does yet another Liverpool game, refs need to be mixed around, to stop grievances building; and also given that some refs average a penalty or red card every three games, and some every 10 games, to mix the styles.

The consistency of refereeing approaches varies so wildly – a major issue in itself – that there's no integrity if referees are not randomly chosen. As such, who you get affects the type of game you get and the likelihood of Big Decisions, whether they mean to or not.

It's very rare for a ref to do the same team five times in a season, but seven is insane, especially as it's clear that Tierney and Jürgen Klopp hate each other.

So then you wonder, is it because they hate each other?

Man City hate Michael Oliver. They’re always moaning about him. He’s done them just three times this season, despite being the top-ranked ref and their games relating to the title chase. (He’s nearly done as many games in the Saudi league.)

Tierney is at seven for Liverpool, and there are still five games left.

Tierney could do four of those, as Stuart Attwell, another from the ranks of refs who give more Big Decisions against Liverpool than for Liverpool, is doing the Fulham game; his 4th of the season for the Reds.

Balance

Almost all the big clubs have a positive balance of Big Decisions from officials, as they dominate games, spending up to 70% of each match with possession and dominate xG for and against.

(Albeit mid-table clubs tend to do better for penalties than all clubs bar the Manchester duo.)

But in 16 games during the Klopp era, Stuart Attwell is on -1 for Liverpool; the same as Paul Tierney was going into the Spurs game.

Overall, Attwell has awarded Liverpool just two penalties in 21 games since 2009, and four against them. So his entire Big Decision balance for the Reds is actually -2.

In the same number of games, Attwell's record for Man City is +2, a swing of four major decisions compared with Liverpool. His decisions for Manchester United are +4, a swing of six decisions better than Liverpool, from just 17 games. (And the balance for Chelsea is +1).

I noted before how Liverpool this season keep getting refs who have a negative Big Decision ratio.

In a recent deep-dive piece on the entire Reds’ season I looked at how Liverpool are frequently given refs who have 'harmful' Big Decision ratios against the club.

Looking at the data again now, perhaps the main concern – amongst many – is how many referees have a balance of more than +1 for big decisions for the big clubs they officiate.

Shockingly, the Reds had 10 of the 17 referees who actually had minus figures in their games, from -1 to -5.

So, almost two-thirds of officials punished Liverpool more than rewarded them, which went against both the trend and logic of a team that, for a lot of the period covered, was one of the best English football has ever seen (and in some seasons, merely a good top-four side).

Look at these for the number of referees who had a balance of two-or-more Big Decisions for each team in that time:

• Man United 10

• Man City 9

• Leicester 8

• Chelsea 7

• Spurs 6

• Liverpool 4

It suggests that, aside from Michael Oliver, Andre Marriner, Kevin Friend (now retired) and Bobby Madley ('sacked' in 2018 and only back in the top league in 2023, and yet to do Liverpool again I believe), the Reds will, on average, get 'nothing' (or worse) from referees.

Several of the worst offenders – Martin Atkinson, Lee Mason, Mike Dean, Roger East and Jonathan Moss (the worst of the worst at -5 big decisions for the Reds) – have retired. They were largely a sorry bunch of officials, old and out of shape for much of the period covered (many were in their 50s last season), before they were put out to pasture.

Mason became a VAR, but did so badly he didn’t last long.

Yet still the Reds have a negative penalty decision balance this season (two won, three conceded, which goes against the attacking/defending balance), and no one gets a second yellow against the Reds; the last one being Sadio Mané, for Southampton, in Klopp's first home game, it was that long ago.

Liverpool are now back to zero balance for the season on penalties, at three won, three conceded. Yet this is poor for a top five side.

The Reds are now up to 10th in the league for penalties won, but 5th in the actual league.

As something I always track, Liverpool's penalties-won ranking is always well below their league table position when the manager is either Klopp or Rafa Benítez; but was always above it when it was Roy Hodgson, Kenny Dalglish and Brendan Rodgers.

Here are the penalties this season

• 1. Manchester City 9

• 2. West Ham United 8

• 3. Brentford 8

• 4. Fulham 7

• ...

• 10. Liverpool 3

Again, Liverpool are -5 for actual league table position vs penalty ranking.

Tierney History – Get Over It!

From the Echo at the time, back in July 2021, Tierney

"…took charge of the Reds' meeting with Aston Villa and clashed with Klopp.

"The German objected to Tierney failing to spot a foul on Georginio Wijnaldum, leading to a verbal altercation partway through a match that Liverpool would eventually win 2-0.

"According to the Echo, the official responded to Klopp's criticism by saying: "I missed it Jürgen. I’m like players, I’m going to make mistakes. I missed it. Get over it."

Here are the north-west's Big Three clubs and win percentages when he does their games:

• Manchester City – 20 games – 90.0% won

• Manchester United – 18 games – 61.1% won

• Liverpool FC – 23 games – 56.5% won

(Bear in mind Liverpool have generally been much better than Man United in the period covered, with virtually all games since 2017/18. And that as good as they've been, City don't normally win 90% of their games. Pep Guardiola's win-rate is 72.7%.)

This alone doesn't prove anything, as there will be caveats for each game, and a referee doesn't have full control over results – just over how a game flows and in some games, the major calls; but it's interesting all the same. And that's just outcomes as the ref.

Remember, Tierney has also given subjective calls (fouls and overturns that were not just offsides) against the Reds as the VAR, but never for the Reds (just offsides, which are objective).

In addition to the pressure about a ref from Wigan officiating Liverpool, Tierney just constantly puts in bizarre performances, and the data doesn't lie – albeit what conclusions you draw from the objective data then becomes subjective.

Prior to Tierney's assistant elbowing a Liverpool player 1.5 games ago, Tierney had never given Liverpool a penalty in 23.5 matches.

There was a sense of closing ranks in the moment the linesman elbowed Andy Robertson; as with the police investigating the same police force, there was nothing to see, move along.

The linesman got a one-match sabbatical, not a three-game ban that a player would get, and where officials (while they need protecting from physical attack) should set higher standards.

Tierney had also only sent off an opponent once against Liverpool – or rather, he actually gave a yellow card and was asked by VAR (Michael Oliver) to look at it again as it was a last-man foul, and he upgraded it to a red via the monitor, as it was a clear red card offence.

(But essentially, Tierney was forced to do so. It wasn't a big mistake on his part, as he was 50 yards behind play as Liverpool broke quickly on Chelsea, but he erred on the side of caution with a yellow. He did then give Chelsea a soft second-half penalty.)

In the 1.5 games since his official elbowed Andy Robertson – for which the official personally apologised to the player (but did not get a three-game ban as would a player) – Tierney chose to book Robertson and not, as he was allowed to do, censure or dismiss his own assistant.

Since that moment, however, Tierney has reversed a 23.5 game trend to give Liverpool two penalties in 1.5 games.

He was superbly placed to give both, in fairness; and both were clear and utterly obvious, and he gave them.

Still, by this point Tierney was perhaps feeling anxious about 'elbowgate', and under pressure to hide the fact that he sided with his assistant who was massively in the wrong (even if Robertson should not have approached the linesman, the lino reacted in an insanely aggressive manner; he was right to apologise, but he also got away with violent conduct).

But there's a dividing line in all of this: the moment when Klopp first criticised Tierney, after an incident in 2020, against Aston Villa.

“Get over it”, Tierney is quoted as telling Klopp. Yet it would seem that it’s Tierney who cannot let it lie.

Prior to then, Liverpool were averaging 2.75ppg when Tierney reffed, albeit he never gave a big decision for or against the Reds in those games.

It was a sample of eight games. Six were at home, and in fairness, most were winnable at a time when Liverpool were at their peak, 2017-2020.

Then, the Villa game, and the “get over it, Klopp”.

Since then, 15 games, 46.7% at home – and a measly 1.6ppg to Liverpool, even after beating Spurs yesterday.

It was a game in which Liverpool had a stonewall penalty given, and two more possibles not given; and Spurs had a possible penalty not given. Both teams escaped red cards, but Diogo Jota's high boot was to bring down a ball that he touched, whereas Oliver Skipp's challenge on Luis Díaz was reckless and dangerous. It was far from Tierney's worst game doing the Reds, that's how bad he usually is.

Even now, for Tierney reffing Liverpool, that's three Big Decisions for Liverpool and three Big Decisions against Liverpool, for a balance of zero; which is low for a Big Six club. And as one of the Big Decisions for Liverpool was a VAR overturn, he's still essentially on -1, but we can be generous and make it zero.

One red card was Andy Robertson's soft 'kick' at a Spurs player (not dangerous but petulant and a deserved sending off), but in a game where Harry Kane's two-footed lunge, off the ground and out of control, onto Robertson's shin was deemed only a yellow, and when Diogo Jota was sideswiped in the box and nothing given.

"If Harry Kane’s lunge on Andy Robertson isn’t a red card then I’m not sure what is,” ex-ref Mark Clattenburg wrote.

Peter Walton, who contorts himself on a weekly basis to side with refs, said in the Times:

"What saves the England striker is that Robertson’s foot was not planted. The Liverpool man’s raised leg limited the force of the tackle... "

Er, that's what saved his leg from being broken, you utter spanner. (No one said refs need to have an IQ above 85.)

It should not be up to the smartness of a player to avoid a broken leg if the tackle was a leg-breaker. Just as ducking a punch doesn't mean the punch was not thrown, and the force of the punch was somehow lessened. Physics doesn't work that way. The bus travelling at 100mph that doesn't hit you is still travelling at 100mph.

The force of the tackle was the same regardless of impact.

Walton continued, as a reminder from earlier:

"Referees do study players and formations ahead of a game. They are aware that certain players need to be dealt with proactively. Kane does not fall into this category. It has been more than ten years since his last red card — for Leyton Orient away to Huddersfield Town in League One."

Ex-head of referees, Keith Hackett, was clearer:

"How can Harry Kane stay on the pitch after that reckless challenge that endangered the safety of an opponent. Excessive force. Serious Foul Play challenge RED CARD -another refereeing error."

And as for the Jota penalty that wasn’t given in that game…

Tierney is also the only ref to give more fouls against Mo Salah per 90 than for him.

See this latest example that had Klopp prostate on the ground:

Salah was blocked off by Ben Davies with a grab at the front of his shirt (left picture), then dragged back by the back of his shirt, before Salah shrugged him off … and was penalised!

The reason Klopp was apoplectic, as he was in other games, was that it was so clear and blatant and right in front of the ref and the linesman. Salah gets very few decisions as he’s prejudged harshly; perhaps as he’s not an England player, and Tierney is the worst when it comes to giving Salah free-kicks.

Time’s Up!

Anyway, as well as the nose-dive in points-per-game for Liverpool since Klopp clashed with Tierney in July 2020, we've also had the issue in the 2020/21 season when Tierney blew six seconds early for half time early as Sadio Mané was racing in on goal with only the keeper to beat.

This was fairly incredible – a ref doing a DOGSO, almost as if he himself was the last man, to deny the goalscoring opportunity.

Plus, there was the last-gasp non-handball for Everton that effectively handed Man City the title last season. Everton got an apology; Liverpool did not. Everton did not suffer any lasting consequences; Liverpool did.

There have been many other weird moments from Tierney. This is Anfield has a nice summary here.

Something similar to Tierney happened with Martin Atkinson.

For all his career, Atkinson made a Big Decision every three games, for or against Liverpool. Then in 2015 Steven Gerrard released a book saying how much he hated Atkinson (or words to that effect), and Klopp took charge of the Reds.

By the time he retired, Atkinson had given 15 Big Decisions for Liverpool and 15 against. Which is a distorted balance as bigger clubs should expect more Big Decisions, but even so.

Anyway, in total, 14 of those decisions for Liverpool came before the point in 2015 when he had reason to have an agenda. (This again is not smoking-gun proof, but part of a pattern of circumstantial evidence.)

Atkinson gave more decisions to opposition after that point, but it was more that he just stopped making Big Decisions in general.

When Liverpool players were clearly hacked over the box (such as Naby Keïta in a key game against Leicester in 2019), nothing. Atkinson just walked around the pitch and took his money. He gave Liverpool just one Big Decision in his final 29 games (and two to the opposition). It seems impossible for there to be so many incidents in games up to 2015, and so few incidents thereafter.

Bad apples are bad apples; it takes just one or two to spoil the barrel.

(While I was writing this I received an email from a Liverpool fan, Daniel M, who had scoured WhoScored for some stats. I’ll share it here albeit I haven’t double-checked the data, although the data on win percentages matches mine:

“The feeling on him is backed up by data.

- Gives 0.75 fouls against us for every tackle (0.6 fouls per tackle for us).

- .04 pens per game (.09 against)

- 1.74 yellows PG (1.55 for opposition),

- .09 reds per game (.04 to opposition).

Nearly every stat for the opposition is in line with average for refs across the league, stats for Liverpool outliers. From last 15 games our win percentage with him is 40% (6 from 15). Previous to that we won 7 from 8 with him.

The stats above are across all 23 games, so while I don’t have a breakdown, it is likely that the stats for and against were pretty even until the last 15 games when they would have widened considerably.”)

Expected Big Decisions Per Game

I've already mentioned Big Decision balance. That’s just the raw number of Big Decisions for and against.

One other thing I've tracked for several years is all Big Decisions per game, adjusted to an xG 'goal difference' ratio.

Or, Expected Big Decisions, relying on the law of averages and the balance of play.

I.e. Man City's ratio was 2.6:1, meaning they created 2.6x as much xG as they conceded in the time covered, which was 2015-2021, and as such, par for Man City would be to get 2.6x as many Big Decisions as they conceded; Liverpool were second, at 1.8:1, and other big clubs tended to be 1.2:1, so much nearer to cancelling out xG created with xG conceded.

Big Decisions were then weighted by this xG ratio.

(This was for a minimum of 5+ games in the Premier League per Big Six club per referee, from 2015-2021; plus Leicester as champions in that time.)

And obviously it only counts actual decisions made, not decisions that should have been made, which can work for or against clubs in different quantities, and will generally be more ‘debatable’ if refs are vaguely competent.

I haven't had the chance to update everything since 2021 (maybe this summer), albeit I have updated the refs who have done Liverpool games, and added the new refs this season, even though they haven't done the 5+ games.

So this includes a few retired refs, and a few new refs.

I could find just five refs who give Liverpool Expected Big Decisions (per game) than otherwise might be expected:

• + Michael Oliver +0.27

• + Bobby Madley +0.20 (partially retired)

• + Andre Marriner +0.16

• + Kevin Friend +0.16 (retired)

• + Graham Scott +0.09

(John Brooks, the 4th official Klopp berated against Spurs, has done Liverpool once and awarded the Reds a penalty, so he'd also be positive next time he does the club; albeit the penalty was actually awarded by the VAR, which is a general issue in assessing the data in the VAR-era. It gets very difficult to separate the two, especially as the ref is almost certain to agree with the VAR if asked to view the monitor.)

However, a total of 15 refs give Liverpool less than their Expected Big Decisions (per game).

• - Craig Pawson -0.03

• - Anthony Taylor -0.03

• - Chris Kavanagh -0.08

• - Simon Hooper -0.08

• - Martin Atkinson -0.12 (retired)

• - Stuart Attwell -0.12

• - Paul Tierney -0.17

• - Neil Swarbrick -0.17 (retired)

• - Mark Clattenburg -0.19 (retired)

• - Lee Mason -0.20 (retired)

• - Andy Madley -0.25

• - Jonathan Moss -0.37 (retired)

• - Mike Dean -0.41 (retired)

• - Darren England -0.41

• - Roger East -0.48 (retired)

To give the full context, these are the top 10 refs and the additional Big Decisions per game (against expectations) for the sides they reffed:

• 1 Graham Scott, Leicester +0.56

• 2 Roger East, Man United +0.48

• 3 Andre Marriner, Leicester +0.42

• 4 Neil Swarbrick, Man United +0.40

• 5 Stuart Attwell, Man United +0.36

• 6 Stuart Attwell, Chelsea +0.34

• 7 Neil Swarbrick, Leicester +0.33

• 8 Graham Scott, Man United +0.31

• 9 Roger East, Leicester +0.29

• 10 Michael Oliver (2023), Liverpool +0.27

And eight of the bottom 15 – the harshest refs to a particular club – involve Liverpool, out of the sample of 99 ref/club combinations.

So far this season, Liverpool have had seven games reffed by officials with a + or neutral balance going into the games, and a whopping 27 games officiated by refs with a negative figure for the Reds on Expected Big Decisions.

With Liverpool, a top-five team, having both won and conceded three penalties – a balance below expectations – it shows that Liverpool are given historically unfavourable refs, and remain below what their Expected Big Decisions balance should be.

All of this may merely be coincidental; as might Tierney giving the Reds nothing between the 2020 fallout with Klopp and the moment Tierney's own assistant elbowed a Liverpool player last month, before showing an abrupt change in his approach to penalties; as might Martin Atkinson's staggering change of style when reffing Liverpool games as soon as Steven Gerrard lambasted him in print at the time Klopp took charge at Liverpool.

But too many coincidences can count as circumstantial evidence to show that a majority of refs “don't favour” Liverpool, and some may dislike Klopp. Other times, odd refereeing choices are made.

Relative rookie Simon Hooper was strangely given the game at Man City, where he ignored a second yellow for Rodri at a key stage of the game (albeit the fact that virtually all refs fail to give Big Decisions early in games is itself a problem; we don't ideally want the contests "ruined", but the laws are the laws.) It seems to be partly as Man City object to Oliver, who now rarely does their games.

It's every official’s right to dislike Klopp, of course, especially if he has shouted at them (and he does shout at them, but so do most managers, including baby-faced Ryan Mason, or grim-reaper-faced David Moyes).

But if those refs with grudges are then not setting aside their issues, it damages the integrity of the league.

Again, Tierney may be a nice guy. No one should abuse or hassle him. But he should not be reffing Liverpool; certainly not at record-breaking frequency.

Given the well-known issues between Tierney and Klopp, Tierney has been appointed a record 7th time to do Liverpool games in the same season, which no other club in recent years has had with any referee (bar once, as mentioned, for Norwich in the Covid season). And it's only 33 games into the season.

Klopp should be fined and punished when he steps out of line; but the officials he falls out with seem to get given to Liverpool more often, and they seem to bear a grudge.

(Edit: Indeed, Klopp’s reactions – certainly over the top yesterday – seem to be that of a man who feels like he’s being gaslit. It’s the buildup of pressure, as Tierney keeps getting given Liverpool games at an unprecedented rate in recent years for any referee overseeing any club, and it doesn’t feel accidental, to reach this stage. Once you're up to almost a quarter of a club's games, you're partly controlling their season; and he’s also been the VAR in other games, too.)

So, who makes the appointments? The Premier League states:

"Appointments are made by the Professional Game Match Officials Board. They take into account several factors, including the referee's overall experience, their current form, how often they have refereed the clubs involved, which team the referee supports and any forthcoming international appointments."

In which case, for whatever reason, the PGMOL are clearly taking the piss 🤷‍♂️

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