You're a great poster Mark but don't take it personally. Remember that we're City fans, who have seen corruption with our own eyes for over 10 years.
The first time I got suspicious was when Graham Poll refereed us v Arsenal, when Arsenal were in danger of missing out on top 4. That was the penultimate game in 2005/6, when Arsenal were 4 points behind Spurs with a game in hand, that game in hand being at the Etihad. It was very subtle but anyone who was there will remember it. Virtually every decision helped Arsenal in some way. There were a couple of occasions where we'd broken away after an Arsenal foul, and looked likely to have a great scoring opportunity, only for Poll to pull the play back for a free-kick to us, rather than play a clear advantage. I know
@East Level 2 has the same view of that game.
In 2011/12, when we were neck-and-neck with united, Mike Riley came up to the Etihad to do a Q&A for an invited audience. I was one of those and you'd think that this sort of thing would be great PR, with maybe a handful of invited journalists there but we were told in no uncertain terms to keep it quiet. I couldn't really understand why but then just before that meeting I was told by a source, with great contacts in Abu Dhabi, that the owner had paid a considerable sum for a report detailing links between certain refs, controversial decisions and suspicious betting patterns. It named 4 refs specifically, one of whom by then (already infamous to City fans) had left PGMOL to go abroad. Another was taken off our games for a while, the third did one of our games after that but booked a City player for a dive when it should have been a clear penalty. The last is still involved at the highest level.
That offered a clear explanation to me of why Riley had made that trip but it wasn't until the end of the season that a second source, who could not have had any connection with the first confirmed that story. I'm always a bit suspicious of information that gets quietly passed to me by a club-connected source but a second, quite independent source was the clincher.
My understanding (although I've never quite got conformation of this) is that a similar dossier was presented around 2007. Around that time, Mike Riley was parachuted into PGMOL and Keith Hackett, who had no intention of retiring, forced out. Rob Styles resigned in a huff, mid-season, claiming he wasn't being supported. Steve Bennett went to the English Cricket Board and Mark Clattenburg was suspended, sacked, then reinstated. That may be coincidence of course but I'm not convinced.
Riley and Clattenburg were both already controversial, with them presiding over two of the most infamous refereeing performance in PL history. Riley at Old Trafford in 2004, the 'Pizzagate' game, and Clattenburg at Goodison in the 2007 Merseyside derby. Clattenburg also refereed that Spurs/Chelsea game in 2014, when he booked nine Spurs players but should have sent three of those off. He later admitted that he didn't want to risk being blamed for Spurs not winning the title so went into the game with the intention of not doing anything precipitous.
One of the sources I referred to above, who told me about the 2011/12 report, also mentioned that Clattenburg was seemingly quite close to our former owner Thaksin Shinawatra. So I did a little exercise, looking at Clattenburg's record in our games pre, during and post Thaksin's ownership. Don't forget were were a mid-table (at best) PL club pre-Thaksin so no threat to the established order. Both before and during Thakin's ownership, we had a good points-per-game record with him in charge, above our average. After the ADUG takeover, Thaksin was kept on for a while, with a 10% shareholding and honorary Vice-Presidency or some other title. But then he was ditched completely, about 9 months later and Clattenburg's attitude to us changed. You can see it in the data. I wrote about this in King of the Kippax in 2020:
From 2004/5 up to the end of the 2009/10 season our record with him as ref was P12 W9 D3 L0. Considering the standard of the team for most of that period that was a pretty impressive record but then something changed.
From 2010/11 to the end of last season our record with him in charge has been P22 W8 D7 L7. Contrast that with our overall league record over the same period which is P228 W142 D43 L43. If we were to apply the same overall win/draw/lose ratio to those 22 games under Clattenburg, it would suggest a record in those games of something like W14 D4 L4, which represents a difference equivalent to 15 points.
That's quite a difference, I'm sure you'll agree. But to prove it, I went on to list the controversial decisions which I believed had cost us those points.
- 18 Sep 2011: Fulham 2-2 City. These were the only points dropped in the first 12 games of the first PL winning season. Fulham’s second goal came after a breakaway, following what appeared to be a foul on Dzeko that wasn’t given. Had it been then we probably would have got all 3 points in this game so that’s 2 possibly lost.
- 12 Dec 2011: Chelsea 2-1 City. This was the first defeat of that season and we went ahead early on, then Silva was fouled in the area in the 15th minute. It was a clear penalty yet Clattenburg inexplicably waved play on. Chelsea won the game late on after a penalty was awarded against us for a handball by Lescott but by that time we were down to ten men, Gael Clichy having been sent off for a second yellow card early in the second half. Had we been awarded the penalty and gone 2-0 up, it seems highly likely we would have won so I’m going for 3 points lost on this.
- 15 Sep 2012: Stoke 1-1 City. Stoke’s goal came via a close range shot from Peter Crouch but he had juggled the ball with his hands at least twice before scoring and the goal should clearly have been disallowed. Roberto Mancini claimed Crouch’s goal ‘belonged in the NBA’. A game we would have almost certainly won without their handballed goal so 2 points lost here.
- 13 Apr 2014: Liverpool 3-2 City. The supposed title-decider at Anfield, which fortunately (no thanks to Clattenburg) didn’t decide anything. The first controversial decision came when Dzeko was fouled by Sakho in the Liverpool box late in the first half but no penalty awarded. We were already 2-0 down at this point and a penalty would have brought us back into the game at a crucial time. In the second half, having drawn level, there was further controversy when Suarez, already on a yellow card, threw himself theatrically to the floor following a challenge. He had clearly dived and Clattenburg wasn’t fooled, giving us a free kick, but he also failed to produce a second yellow. Liverpool got a third, winning goal but there was a deliberate handball by Skrtel late on which was again missed by Clattenburg. Had all those decisions gone in our favour, I believe we would have won that game and virtually settled the title race there and then. So that’s 3 points lost possibly.
- 13 Sep 2014: Arsenal 2-2 City. After we went ahead, Arsenal scored twice, before a late Demichelis equaliser. However Pellegrini was upset with Clattenburg after the game as he felt there were fouls on City players in the build up to both Arsenal goals, although I think his case was much stronger for one than for the other. There was a clear handball in the area by Wilshere that went unpunished. We’d have certainly won this with proper refereeing so 2 points dropped.
And last season, he refereed the two games against Spurs, both of which were highly controversial. In the first at White Hart Lane, we were 1-0 up heading towards the half-time break when Spurs scored an equaliser to go in level. The problem was that the goal should never have stood as Kyle Walker, who provided the final ball, was about 3 feet offside.
I was in the stadium for that game and we could see it from the other end of the ground yet the assistant (who was level with Walker and had no excuse) inexplicably failed to raise his flag. To be fair, there were suggestions that De Bruyne was marginally offside for our opener but it was almost impossible to see with the naked eye in real-time whereas there was no excuse for the Spurs goal.
This was compounded in the second half when Kane headed home from an offside position. We’ll never know what might have happened if we’d gone in 1-0 up at half-time but Clattenburg played no direct part in either of these decisions, plus we were terrible in the second half so probably no significant impact there.
The return game, with the same referee, saw him definitely play a direct part in a ludicrous decision. The ball was crossed in towards the City area from the Spurs left and Sterling jumped to block it, with his back to the ball. It hit him either on the back or the elbow and Clattenburg pointed to the spot for handball.
But he certainly couldn’t be sure that ball had either hit his hand or he was in the area, as he was in the air when it hit him and had been just on or in front of the line when he jumped. And as his elbow was well tucked in, it could hardly have been said to be deliberate. We went on to lose that game of course, having got an equaliser. It is often said, when potential penalties are not given, that the official has to be 100% certain. Yet there is simply no way that Clattenburg could have been 100% certain on either count, let alone on both, from where he was stood. I’d say that game we were worth a point so possibly another 1 lost.
I’ve highlighted incidents in games he refereed that might have cost us 13 points. We’ll never know of course but the reality certainly seems to back up the stats. Looking at it from a slightly different angle, our average points per game from 2010/11 to 2015/16 is 2.06. When I look at games split by referee, there are three that stand out. The execrable Peter Walton, who in the same time-frame refereed us 4 times with a record of W0 D2 L2 is, not unnaturally, the pick of the crop but that was only four games. Then there’s a couple around the 1.5PPG mark. Kevin Friend has refereed us 8 times with a record of W3 D3 L2, giving exactly 1.5PPG but he’s edged out by – you’ve guessed it – Mark Clattenburg with that W8 D7 L7 record, which gives 1.41PPG.
So you can call it incompetence, inconsistency or whatever you like, but how much 'inconsistency' does it take to, in fact, be consistent?
