Stats prove referees are actually harming Arsenal's title chances this season
Arsenal fans won’t be best pleased about this… (Picture: Getty)
Nearly all football fans are convinced that referees in general have an agenda against their side – but on this evidence, Arsenal supporters may just have a case.
While video replays will surely come into use eventually, our officials aren’t blessed with them yet, meaning that nearly every week at least one side suffers a bad decision.
The old adage is that these decisions even themselves out over the course of a season, but what if they don’t?
Harry Pratt (@gharrypratt) has investigated that possibility, creating a ‘hypothetical league table’ to examine how the Premier League would look if officials had video replays to correct their erroneous decisions.
And the results make for interesting reading.
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The Hypothetical League Table (Picture: HPL.net)
Having analysed every ‘result-defining’ decision from each week (i.e. goals scored, penalties awarded etc), Harry has worked out that if video replays were being used to correct wrong decisions, Arsenal would be top of the league, as opposed to third.

How the Hypothetical Premier League works

The HPL reviews all major result-defining decisions: Goals scored are checked for legitimacy. Penalty appeals are reviewed. Violent conduct/mistaken identity, if directly altering a result, are included.
However, in a sort of real-life attempt not to slow the action down at all (please take note technology haters) free-kicks, throw-ins and corners, even if directly resulting in a goal, remain the sole domain of the on-field referee.
Any penalties awarded retrospectively by HPL are considered scored. Of course, at the end of the season, a team’s success/failure ratio from 12 yards will be introduced into the final calculations and standings.
While the Gunners would actually be on the same amount of points, it’s their title rivals that would be hit the hardest, with Manchester City, Tottenham and Leicester three, four and six points worse off respectively.
Hilariously interestingly, Manchester United would even worse off than they are now, while video replays would also make Aston Villa’s current situation even more dire than it is at the moment.
You can see Harry’s workings and a breakdown of all the decisions at his website thehpl.net, and one thing’s for sure – football really needs video replays very soon.