The latest round of SPFL fixtures saw Celtic take on Heart of Midlothian whilst the latest Ibrox Saviour saw his carefully selected charges meet Hibernian.
The impact of big calls being incorrect can then be evaluated using the framework outlined here -> Honest Mistakes in the SPFL.
SPFL Game Week Nine
21/10/23 The Rangers vs Hibernian
Incident 1
| Referee | Don Robertson |
| Game Minute | 45th |
| Score At Time | 1-0 |
| Incident | Raskin scores for TRFC |
| Outcome | Goal to TRFC |
| Evidence | (4) Rangers 4-0 Hibernian | Philippe Clement Starts His Reign With A Bang! | cinch Premiership – YouTube
At 2:19 |
22/10/23 Hearts vs Celtic
Incident 1
| Referee | Nick Walsh |
| Game Minute | 46th |
| Score At Time | 0-2 |
| Incident | Kyogo goes down in the box under challenge from Cochrane |
| Outcome | Penalty to Celtic |
| Evidence | (4) Heart of Midlothian 1-4 Celtic | A Japanese Hat-Trick! | cinch Premiership – YouTube
At 2:01 |
| Yorkshire Whistler Verdict | Kyogo goes down under the challenge from Cochrane.
Initial on field decision: Penalty awarded to Celtic Ball is played into 18 yard box and Kyogo attempts to stretch for the ball ahead of Cochrane the defender. In real time there appears to be contact and the ref duly awards in Kyogo’s favour. However, on reflection, I feel the Celtic forward is fortunate here to win the foul. It appears he jumps to stretch for the ball but actually he jumps into the approaching Cochrane who makes no motion to tackle Kyogo. For me, Kyogo is trying to win penalty by putting his leg into the path of the oncoming defender. Again, as the previous decision, there is contact and I feel this is subjective decision, not clearly and obviously wrong – hence the VAR team felt this didn’t warrant an on-field review. Verdict: INCORRECT decision. For me no foul committed and if the referee had been recommended on field review, he would probably have changed his mind. |
| Expected Points
Outcome |
Celtic +0.2 xPts – remember – the xPts given the game state (Celtic were 2-0 up in the 46th minute) is calculated relative to the probability of scoring the resulting penalty which is 79%. |
Summary
My thanks as always to the Yorkshire Whistler.
A nice insight this week into how subjective decisions can be in football. What makes a referee fall one way or the other when they are so marginal? Sometimes it is just the best available evidence.
But it is Celtic who benefitted from a close call this week, and a rare disagreement from the Yorkshire Whistler in this season. Are the refs getting better?
In terms of the overall position:
The Rangers have 0.16 less points and Celtic 0.2 more than expected due to the impact of Honest Mistakes. The refereeing calls have given Celtic an estimated 0.36 xPts advantage so far this season.
Celtic lead by seven points after nine matches.
Benefit of the doubt doing a lot of heavy lifting this term , both irl and here too it seems.
I agree that the challenge leading up to the Raskin goal looked just about legitimate, but I’m surprised on the Celtic penalty verdict here. I thought that looked a pretty clear foul (Sutton didn’t; I wonder if the YW was listening to that commentary at all?).
I also thought that Alistair Johnston was quite lucky not to have been booked in the second minute of the game.
Yeah looked like he put his knee through Kyogo’s leg.
AJ was extremely lucky to escape that yellow. I think even 10 minutes later and he’d have been cautioned.