- Are Arsenal turning into a dirty team, or is it the media that’s getting nasty?
- Highlights: Arsenal – nothing to worry about. Football – everything to worry about.
Referee data in this article comes as always from WhoScored.
By Tony Attwood
Now here’s a novel idea – playing a Premier League match at Arsenal Stadium with a kick off at 3pm on a satruday. Wow, it means I can drive to north London, park up at my pal’s house, go to the pub for a pint and then pleasantly walk to the ground, all without rushing around. Sadly in these TV dominated days it won’t catch on.
Midnight kick offs to accommodate the USA audience are on their way. So let’s enjoy it while we can.
Leicester, known as the foxes for reasons that will not become clear at this time, were the club whose most devious tricks in terms of tackles, fouls, cards and penalties we were able to expose here, and whose ability to get away with them was squashed very quickly after our exposé. If you’ve never seen the revelations you could have a look here…
- Leicester heading for all time record number of penalties
- Leicester’s curious tackles/fouls/yellow card figures
But back to now. Here we have Arsenal, Leicester, and Leicester’s proximity to the bottom three. We can see that they are out of the bottom three because of two more draws, and perhaps most significantly a much better goal difference.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 4 | Arsenal | 5 | 3 | 2 | 0 | 8 | 3 | 5 | 11 |
| 15 | Leicester City | 5 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 8 | -2 | 3 |
| 18 | Southampton | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 2 | 9 | -7 | 1 |
| 19 | Everton | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 14 | -9 | 1 |
| 20 | Wolverhampton Wanderers | 5 | 0 | 1 | 4 | 5 | 14 | -9 | 1 |
But the fact is that although Arsenal have only scored two more goals than Leicester in the last five games, Arsenal have conceded five fewer. However, Leicester’s position now is considerably different from that of last season and what we can do is consider their average goals (we can’t do average wins because they haven’t won any).
Last season the average game for Leicester yielded 1.93 goals for them, and 0.89 goals against per game. Their goal difference was just fractionally over +1 per game. This season they are averaging 1.2 goals a game scored and 1.8 goals against per game. That is they are letting in twice as many and scoring only around two thirds as they were last campaign.
| Pos | Team | P | W | D | L | F | A | GD | Pts |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Leicester City 2023/4 | 46 | 31 | 4 | 11 | 89 | 41 | 48 | 97 |
| 15 | Leicester City 2024/5 | 5 | 0 | 3 | 2 | 6 | 8 | -2 | 3 |
Arsenal however are averaging scoring 1.6 goals a game in the league and conceding 0.6 goals a game. It looks like it could be tough for them to score, and if they do by some chance event, it will only be the one.
But we should not be too dismissive of them. Last time around they lasted eight seasons in the Premier League including once winning the league and once winning the cup, although as we showed these were achieved with referee assistance.
So let’s have a quick look at a spot of data and we can again note West Ham who seem to be wandering off into a fouling world of their own without even bothering to put in the tackles!
| Team | Tackles pg | Fouls pg | Yellows for fouls PG |
|---|---|---|---|
| West Ham | 15.8 | 16 | 13 |
| Arsenal | 17.8 | 13 | 10 |
| Leicester | 21.6 | 12.6 | 10 |
Immediately we can sense something a little odd going on here.
Leicester are putting in 21% more tackles than Arsenal but getting fewer fouls given against them.
This is exactly the tendency we saw a couple of years ago, and which following our exposure the numbers changed (although I am sure there was no link).
On the other hand, Arsenal are committing 3% more fouls than Leicester and both are getting the same number of yellow cards. This suggests for all their top-quality players who are used to PGMO referees and used to the Premier League Arsenal are committing more fouls than Leicester!
So yes we are back in that strange world that suggests Leicester really have mastered the art of tackling, and Arsenal, with all its internationally renowned defenders can’t match that. This is really weird.
Let’s go back to last season for Leicester City and compare with this season so far
| Season | Tackles pg | Fouls pg | Yellows for fouls PG |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023/24 | 16.6 | 10.3 | 2.04 |
| 2024/25 | 21.6 | 12.6 | 2.00 |
This is again curious. The level of tackling for Leicester has gone up by 30% this year compared to last year. The number of fouls give against them has risen by 22% but the number of yellow cards for fouling has actually gone down!!!!!
Thus one really is left asking, how is it possible to increase your tackling level by 30% but at the same time take the number of yellow cards down in what is supposedly the more stringent refereeing in the Premier League.
Of course Leicester are tackling more. They are playing in the Premier League and instead of conceding 0.89 goals a game they are now conceding 1.6 goals a game – which is almost double the number of goals this season compared to last. So we can imagine the tackles flying in, but the number of yellow cards from fouls has actually gone down!!!
Maybe PGMO could explain that – and indeed that is why we need an open PGMO who can be questioned instead of a secret society that doesn’t even have a website.
It suggests they’ve made a lot of good tackles.
The mistake your article makes is assuming that just because they make more tackles, that should mean more yellows? Tackles aren’t always fouls and fouls aren’t always yellows.
You could have just a few tackles and those tackles be fouls, fouls worthy of yellow cards, or you could have loads of tackles with very few being fouls and therefore no yellows.
I think your article is interesting but rather reliant on the premise that more tackles must mean more fouls and yellows, which it really doesn’t have to. Proved in the case of Leicester, a scrapy team who make lots of tackles because they have to (Bottom 5 material always will) but clearly they’ve mastered the art of either tackling without fouling or fouling without the need for yellow cards. Simples.
Still bitter! You lost the title to us 8 years ago (were you ever in the race anyway?) Focus on losing to Man City now.
Bob the points you make are fair, and I think the mistake I have made is to take it that readers have read some of the earlier posts which partiuclarly looked into this and considered the point, when we were looking at the original figures particularly with Leicester. If I come back to this I will refer back to the Leicester work or explain it more fully. Thanks for making the point.