It recently occurred to me that there are common themes running through all the refereeing analysis I’ve done for the last few years: certain refs; certain situations; certain oddities.
It all just clicked. And I wanted to make one more attempt to sum it all up, in a way that is both readable and also full of the details.
In almost every metric of officiating, Liverpool are massive outliers, treated differently, clear in the data, to all clubs.
But before I tie myself into the straightjacket and lock myself in a padded cell, I thought I’d try and make sense of it all one more time, complete with added video and less waffle, albeit the waffle follows later for those who want the deeper analysis. (I also re-cover some old ground later on, to tie it all together.)
Please feel free to share this article or any of its findings, should you find it helpful or interesting.
(Note: this is not a podcast! But that’s the template it’s in and won’t let me change it, or copy it over to the correct template. I uploaded a BBC podcast on Jürgen Klopp just to allow me to publish!)
Horrors!
Let’s just get right in with a selection of videos, with an added photo or two to help clarify.
First, look at these initial eight incidents.
(Videos and images sourced from across the internet.)
In no particular order, but all since VAR was introduced:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
8.
The connection?
All eight are Stuart Attwell.
ALL OF THEM!
There are seven where he was the VAR, and recently, as a ref in the League Cup semi-final, his unsurprising failure, via his data doing Liverpool and all refs doing Liverpool, to give a clear second yellow (Paul Tierney was the VAR).
Attwell and Tierney are the two officials who VAR Liverpool the most, at approaching 30 each. As the VAR and or ref, they have done c.90 of Liverpool’s 210 Premier League games since the introduction of VAR, or 40%.
Neither has ever given Liverpool a meaningful overturn as the VAR (but half a dozen against).
Next, a bit of David Coote.
A couple more where Paul Tierney was the referee, Chris Kavanagh the VAR.
(On Jota not winning a penalty and Klopp being booked, Klopp said: “Mr Tierney told me Diogo stops on purpose because he wants the foul. First and foremost, if you want to shoot you have to stop because you cannot do both.”)
These were just some of the incidents that stood out and that we could source video for. (Also, I wanted to publish this ASAP.)
But these are all linked in different ways.
This one below is not as clear in terms of other patterns in that it was the 45th minute, but did come after Jürgen Klopp was suspended for insulting John Brooks, the 4th official, and John Brooks reffed this game, one of his first, a few weeks later. Also, Liverpool were 1-0 down to a swiftly Brooks-given Kop-end Aston Villa penalty, so it fits with Liverpool not getting decisions when narrowly losing.
While this one, below, was just insane.
Constantine Hatzidakis was recently brought back to do Liverpool games in … the League Cup semifinal. Liverpool could have made a lot more of this, with Hatzidakis the constant match companion of Tierney.
The Bigger, Concerning Themes Running Through All These (And More)
Okay, let’s look at this purposefully eye-popping graphic of all the VAR overturns in the first 25 minutes of Premier League games. There are almost 60 overturns, once you strip away the more objective offsides and other line-calls.
Big Six clubs are in red, the rest in grey, with the overturn minute added. Which ones are Liverpool?
The answer, of course, is none of them.
These and a few more all occurred before Liverpool’s first subjective overturn by match-minute.
Okay, let’s look at the earliest penalties – before match-minute 15, and going back to 2014, so 11 years; exactly twice as long as the VAR era, to give a bigger sample size.
These are just the Big Six penalties, which make up almost half of the 50+ I found (but I didn’t check all clubs).
Which ones are Liverpool?
The answer, of course, is none of them.
These and a few more all occurred before Liverpool’s first penalty award; apart from 2020/21, when there were no crowds, and then Liverpool had not one but two entries, which in itself shows the parts crowds play on warping referees’ minds around Liverpool. (Lots of other clubs got additional early penalties in 2020/21, also excluded.)
This is the nearly-full list, albeit I didn’t check the clubs who spent little time in the Premier League, or who were relegated a long time ago. (All penalty data via Transfermartk.)
Obviously the Big Six are all Premier League regulars, but some of these clubs’ penalties were in the Championship, where, presumably, the same rules apply.
(A lot of Arsenal’s and Chelsea’s early penalties came quite a long time ago, in the 5.5 years before VAR, albeit they do get a healthy number of VAR overturns.)
And below is a list of the VAR overturns by minute since 2019, and it cuts off before the final entries, all of which occurred before the next Liverpool overturn in the 42nd minute, overturn 114. (Text and data referenced from ESPN.)
In other words, out of over 350 subjective overturns from minutes one to 90+, Liverpool had just two in the first 42 minutes of games. (Click to enlarge.)
And, with some explanations on why the VAR errors were indeed errors, if the video wasn’t enough; as well as placing them in the list, where they should have appeared as overturns for Liverpool.
Where It All Starts To Make Sense
The first link was Stuart Attwell, albeit he was not the VAR for the ludicrous Harry Kane ‘clear red’; indeed, all of these incidents were labelled as mistakes by senior ex-refs and in some cases, the PGMOL themselves.
But there are two killer facts:
Time of incident
Game-state.
As established, Liverpool have zero VAR overturns in the first 27 minutes. It’s as if there’s a forcefield around the first third of the match, via the videos at Stockley Park (and 15 minutes for refs in terms of penalties).
If just a few of the first nine incidents (minutes 1-26) were correctly called by the VAR, Liverpool would then be more in line with other clubs; if six of the nine were called, they’d be more in line with the clubs who have received the most earlier calls.
But none were correctly called by the VAR.
Why?
Minutes one, eight, nine, nine, seventeen, nineteen, twenty, twenty and twenty-six; all earlier than the Reds’ earliest overturns.
Then, the later calls, which were often blatant.
Again, game-state plays a big part. Sometimes the ref is to blame; Michael Oliver against Man City, when he can’t have seen the contact properly, but insists he has. The point of VAR is to interject and say no, that’s six studs in the chest! We get “they both come in high” when Mac Allister’s feet are on the ground.
Paul Tierney has never given Liverpool a VAR overturn in nearly 30 games (three against, all for Manchester clubs, two of which were very dodgy even according to Manchester United pundits*, and as VAR he missed the incorrect sending off of Alexis Mac Allister by a rookie ref at Anfield, which is another problem entirely).
(Roy Keane: “Why he’s disallowed that goal is beyond me. How they see that as a foul is beyond me. I can’t get my head around it,” when Virgil van Dijk jumped alongside David de Gea, who dropped the ball. Gary Neville agreed.)
Attwell has an additional one overturn against Liverpool, but the two for the Reds are essentially meaningless.
One overturn was in the second half when the Reds were 5-0 up at Man United (albeit still 100% correct and easy to give), and the other was when 4-0 down at Man City and the ball struck a hand when City scored a fifth in the 90th minute (2nd July 2020, and Liverpool were also already champions.)
So, unless Liverpool are 5-0 up or 4-0 down, the two VARs who have done almost 60 games in that role for Reds’ matches will not give a thing.
All other clubs get early penalties and early beneficial VAR interventions. Liverpool do not.
Even though refs are generally less likely to make Big Decisions in the first 20 minutes of matches, the VAR should still be able to intervene; and also, it is a ‘rule’ applied most stringently to Liverpool.
We can speculate on the reasons, but let’s look at another area where refs are terrified of giving something meaningful to Liverpool.
Why Didn’t Bergvall Get Sent Off? It’s Obvious!
This one is simple.
It was 2025, not 2023.
(In the graph, 2015 appears twice, as the second time is once Jürgen Klopp arrived.)
Of the mere three 2nd yellows since 2016 (all in 2023), one was in the 95th minute.
(Bergvall also bafflingly escaped a second yellow in the late 2024 league game, which even Gary Neville found inexplicable. But it’s part of the pattern.)
Between 2015 and 2023, to show that these things were possible:
Opposition 2nd yellow vs Crystal Palace – 14
Opposition 2nd yellow vs Tottenham – 11
Opposition 2nd yellow vs West Ham – 11
(No ever-present had fewer than five. Liverpool had none at that point. There may now be more than 11-14 opposition 2nd-yellows for these clubs.)
Everything shows that officials are scared to make Big Decisions around Liverpool, especially early in games, late in games, and when the opposition is leading or doing well.
Foul Balance
I recently looked at Foul Balance, and that’s another area where the better Liverpool play, the worst the Foul Balance. In terms of game dominance (a balance of +15 on shots+corners), Liverpool are totally hammered; as seen by Chris Kavanagh at Nottingham Forest last night, albeit he’s one of the ‘fairest’ refs in that he only averages around -1.
But against a very physical side who had about just 30% possession, he penalised Liverpool more.
The article can be found via the link below, but it’s worth sharing a couple of graphs.
But in six game-dominance states, ranging from neutral to über-dominant, Liverpool are below average compared to all other clubs, and have a minus Foul Balance in five of the six game-types. In four of these, it’s severely negative.
The next two graphs compare the foul balances with similar styles of team: Man City and Spurs (possession-based, hard-pressing, attack-minded).
The timelines are all 7-game rolling averages. (Red line denotes BrooksGate, when it all kicked off with Jürgen Klopp and the PGMOL.)
The next is a timeline of Liverpool’s game dominance vs Foul Balance in each game.
The more dominant Liverpool are, the more fouls are given against them; but the better other teams are, the more fouls they tend to win; even those who press as hard or even harder than Liverpool.
I showed a few years ago that Mo Salah just doesn’t win free-kicks, as well as showing that foreign players are treated worse in both boxes (they win fewer and concede more than expected based on % of minutes played, based on 600+ penalties from 2011 to 2019).
When Salah is sandwiched between three Forest players and tripped, then he is “looking for it”, when anyone else is just running fast with the ball towards goal. (Ex-Liverpool players in the media don’t help as their income depends on them looking unbiased, which is part of the nonsense that goes on, including with refs.)
Just as several DOGSOs involving him are ignored, one as recently as David Coote’s final game in football (thank god). Pretty much everyone agreed that Coote was wrong to wave “no foul” twice before Darwin Núñez thankfully scored. Leon Bailly only grabbed him about three or four times before bundling him over.
To me, there is a wild sense of outrage whenever Liverpool get any kind of decision, and I’ve said for years that the hoary old English managers and ex-officials often talk about the Kop winning penalties (latest example: Alan Pardew, when Michael Oliver didn’t give the handball against Man United, and the VAR correctly intervened).
The conspiracists are not people like me, but people who incorrectly feel that Liverpool (or big clubs) get everything.
In terms of VAR overturns and penalties, for example, Brighton do extremely well; but less well for Foul Balance when they’re playing well at home.
Bournemouth, Leicester, Crystal Palace, Newcastle (since the Saudi takeover) and various other clubs are flying when it comes to all manner of decision-types compared to Liverpool. Even Forest, who think everything goes against them.
Sometimes these clubs have 4-5x as many decisions compared to the Reds, apart from all the cases where Liverpool have none, and then you can’t multiply. (Fans of smaller clubs will only call their club a smaller club if in opposition to the Big Six, and feel their clubs don’t get Big Decisions. They do, by the bucketload, in many cases.)
There is #LiVARpool, because of a lot of offside calls early in the usage, despite two of the worst being David Coote disallowing the Mersey derby winner in the last minute the very game after he’d just been filmed calling Jürgen Klopp a ‘German cunt’ and his companion said “we all hate Scousers”; and the one where Roberto Firmino’s armpit was deemed offside. But generally, the lines tend to do their job, and so can be labelled Objective.
Then you have Coote, Tierney, John Brooks and others who had arguments with Klopp, and then, after the biggest one, Liverpool started getting even more punished by refs on red cards and Foul Balance. (After BrooksGate, Brooks gave nothing to Liverpool and various decisions against, until Klopp was gone.)
Andy Madley, who in August 2022 was asked by Klopp (via Jon Moss of the PGMOL) to keep out the way of his team’s attacks.
How did Madley respond? Let’s see:
(As noted under the graphic, Michal Oliver and Anthony Taylor did tighter games, albeit on average, Liverpool were the better side in all games bar the three Darren ‘Good Process’ England reffed.)
So, who is reffing the Reds at Brentford at the weekend?
Oh look, Andy Madley.
Who is VAR?
Well, I would have said 50-50 between Paul Tierney and Stuart Attwell. This time, it’s Tierney.
So, a ref who punishes Liverpool for fouls at a ludicrous rate (remember, better teams can average +2 or +3 per game, including Spurs under the entire tenure of Ange Postecoglou), and a VAR who has never given a single overturn to Liverpool in approaching 30 games now.
Also, just listen to how quickly “the referee’s a Scouser” gets aired and how quickly refs buckle; see Attwell in the cup semifinal at Spurs.
Part of the problem is the lack of alternatives, and how new refs are even worse to Liverpool, especially at Anfield.
Peter Walton said it all:
“During my time as a Premier League referee we were given tuition to make us aware of risks of this kind. One obvious factor is a big partisan crowd. It is a massive challenge for someone who has never experienced 60,000 people screaming at them to give a penalty to go through that for the first time. But that is why referees are developed over a long period, so when it happens, they are ready.”
Again, it mostly seems to apply to Anfield, not other Big Six stadia. It seems even worse at the Kop-end, with clear handball penalties frequently denied, but unlike fouls, the VARs will intervene. They seem trained to fear Anfield, and to ignore genuine penalty shouts as, well, the Kop are always trying it on, aren’t they?
Just as Mike Dean recently said “it’s too early”, or “not in this type of game”, or about Bergvall in the league game, “I think, in isolation, it’s a yellow card, Gary.” (Whatever that means.)
They brought Darren ‘Good Process’ England back the other week, and the guy who elbowed Andy Robertson in the cup semifinal, and they brought Coote back to referee and VAR whenever Liverpool were going well.
Coote came back as a ref against Brighton last season (his second game), around the last time Liverpool were still top. He gave Brighton 14 more free-kicks than Liverpool, which was a 1-in-2,000 occurrence (it hadn’t happened to a home team in the previous 2,000 games, but has now happened twice). Liverpool made 19 tackles but committed 20 fouls, while Brighton made 28 tackles yet committed only six fouls. Liverpool dominated every metric.
His third and final game saw him wave no foul repeatedly when Mo Salah was repeatedly fouled.
Again, just two foul penalties by all VARs for Liverpool in 210 games now; the Manchester clubs have 17 between them; 23% of them given by David Coote, who worked at the Manchester FA between 2013 and 2016 at the Man City complex, and who was investigated in 2017 for something relating to a local FA.
He only reffed Liverpool three times and VARred 13; he did 25 games as VAR for the Manchester clubs, giving four foul penalties. Coote also gave the Manchester clubs most of their first overturns in the VAR era.
I created this graph just for him, as foul penalties are fairly rare for most teams, and especially Liverpool.
In Summary
• Liverpool are the only club not to get penalties before the 15th minute of Premier League games (since 2014, excluding the empty stadia season), when all rival clubs get plenty, and most other clubs get plenty.
• Liverpool are the only club to not get any subjective VAR overturns (since its introduction in 2019) before almost half an hour of a match, when other clubs get plenty. Liverpool should have had 5-10, with the incidents outlined. (Four overturns against Liverpool prior to their first for.)
• Liverpool therefore essentially play with a Decision Forcefield, that stops referees and VARs intervening before and after certain points in matches, and in certain game-states.
• This cannot be said to be one of those things, or just random, as it literally only seems to apply to Liverpool, who have been the 2nd-best team in the VAR era, and an attacking force since 2015, when Klopp arrived.
• Since 2016, the year 2023 is the only time when an opposition player has received a second yellow card against Liverpool.
• Mo Salah averages less than one free-kick won per game in his time with Liverpool.
• Opposition straight red cards at Anfield are almost never given by the ref. Either they just don’t get them, or the VAR has to intervene, which is rare. I make it Funes Mori of Everton in April 2016 to be the last opponent straight red-carded by the ref. (A couple were 2nd-yellows in 2023, one of which was the last kick of the game.)
• The two VARs who do the most Liverpool games (55 combined) have never given an overturn for Liverpool, with the exception of two when the game-state was as dead as possible (5-0 up, 4-0 down in the 92nd minute), despite averaging an overturn every 7-8 games as VARs in 300 games between them. But they have given five against Liverpool, with a 6th a sin of omission.
• Liverpool’s Foul Balance is far, far worse than any other major club, and unlike other clubs (including those with similar styles), gets worse the better they play. The better other teams are, the more fouls they tend to win; even those who press as hard or even harder than Liverpool (based on PPDA, the widely accepted best pressing metric).
• Simon Hooper gave a Foul Balance of -11 by the 50th minute of Arne Slot’s Reds’ visit to Crystal Palace, and Andy Madley had it as 9-0 in favour of Everton until Everton took the lead at Goodison last season just before half-time. In his first-ever Liverpool game, when Liverpool bossed Leicester in the fog, Darren Bond gave a home foul balance of -12, which is a 1-in-600 occurrence (17 fouls by Liverpool and only five by Leicester). Slot’s Reds started with a -9 balance away at Ipswich. Madley was at it again in the Newcastle 3-3 this season. So it’s not just a Klopp thing, as I had had hoped; indeed, assumed.
• Of the Main Five clubs (the Big Six, minus Spurs) since 2019, Liverpool have three of the nine earliest red cards against: Andrew Robertson 15th minute, Curtis Jones 25th minute, Virgil van Dijk 27th minute.
• David Coote … wow.
• Only one opposition player has been sent off against Liverpool before the 28th minute of a match since 2019: Nick Pope, for handball outside his box, in the 22nd minute, which was bordering on objective rather than subjective – as a) he clearly handled, and b) he was miles outside his box. Go back to 2015, and only Ahmed Elmohamady was red-carded before the 45th minute (like Reece James, for a handball on the line). And I can’t find a foul DOGSO at Anfield for an opponent in ten years.
• It remains impossible to get everything from my head, and from the thousands of and thousands of rows and columns of data, into something readable and understandable; this is the best I can do in the circumstances. I’ve tried my best to avoid apophenia (the tendency to see patterns and connections between things that are actually unrelated), but at some point you have to look at the data and say what it says. Sometimes, patterns are patterns for a reason.
• I don’t have all the answers, but suspect refs are under a ton of pressure to not be seen to be ‘generous’ to Liverpool, and that Anfield and the Kop, and Klopp, all played a big role. As do foreign players, and refs from areas where they don’t like Scousers, and the repeated appointments of weak officials, and perhaps a PGMOL desire to get some kind of revenge, as they pit themselves against a big club they don’t like. Plus, social media backlashes, as everyone in the modern age cowers in front of the baying online mob.
• At some point I will stop writing these and
DISCLAIMER: all data sourced from Transfermarkt, ESPN, Andrew Beasley, football-data.co.uk, or where otherwise stated. Videos sourced by Daniel Rhodes from the wilds of the web. LSD supplied by John Lennon. Apologies for any typos.
Listen to this episode with a 7-day free trial
Subscribe to The Tomkins Times - Main Hub to listen to this post and get 7 days of free access to the full post archives.
