Sunderland – Arsenal: is Atkinson truly fit to referee this game?

I was just taking my own personal look at the referee we will see doing the game in Sunderland this afternoon and found there was something extra to say about Martin Atkinson is the ref for this game.
We all know the chant ‘you’re not fit to referee’ as we have to sing it almost every week or thereabouts. In general we then talk of his decision making and I will talk about this of course. But ‘being fit’ (or not) can also point at his general fitness. And well we have something to say about that also.
Because well from time to time we get some little snippets of news blowing our way that send us messages that nobody else knows.
So we heard that Atkinson passed his fitness test for the PGMOL – the organisation that runs the Premier League ref appointments.
But as he is a FIFA ref he also has to pass his FIFA test that is taken fairly obviously by FIFA.
And he failed a couple of weeks  ago.  
Now when you fail a fitness test for FIFA this means that you cannot do international games. And so Atkinson was removed from his CL game and replaced by Marinner.  Of course nobody has mentioned it as …well you know the referee world is the opposite of the open world we would like it to be. Keep it all behind closed doors you know.
Now failing on a FIFA test has no implications on doing games in the PL.  Because Atkinson passed his fitness domestic fitness test so he can do games in the PL. And failing a fitness test can happen to anyone. A bad day just on the day that you have to do the test, feeling a bit sick… it can happen to anyone. So FIFA always gives you a second chance to pass the test and this tests should have taken place by now.
But rumour has it Atkinson didn’t feel confident to do it now already because another failure could have bigger implications. So I have heard that there was a scenario where Atkinson sent a medical  note to FIFA letting them know he can’t take the test now for medical reasons.
Now this is ok, for a ref can always have an injury, so this is not that strange. But where it could turn strange is that Atkinson could send a note to FIFA saying he is injured/sick/whatever… but still would do games in the PL.  This is looking murky.
Now of course he could have done his test (I heard it should have been done on Thursday) and if he passed his fitness test there is no problem. But if he wrote a medical note saying he can’t do the FIFA test now because of injury/sickness/whatever… then it surely would be strange that he would do a PL game. I don’t think there is much difference between the average PL game compared to a CL game.
So it could be that we have a ref who declared or had a doctor declare he is not fit enough to do a test but who is fit enough to do a PL game. A bit strange. So the chant you’re not fit to referee might have a double meaning this weekend – or perhaps it should be “The rumour says you’re not fit to referee”.
If we look at the win% of each team we see that in general Atkinson has a rather even win% (52.63%) compared to Arsenal overall win% (53.45%). And the same goes for draws and lost games.  Like I said it could be down to having him against Chelsea.
For Sunderland we see that there is a marginal difference with their win percentage. 26% wins in general and 23% wins with Atkinson.  They have more draws when he is around (38.46%) compared to normal (25.28%). And Sunderland losing 47.86% of their games in general but when Atkinson is around they only lose 38.46% of their game
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