- Arsenal v Fulham: how the teams are matched this season
- The 13 players Arsenal are signing this summer
By Bulldog Drummond
So it appears that Saka will be back for the game tonight (which incidentally is not on TV in the UK) although it is not clear if he starts or comes on as a substitute. The kick off is at 7.45pm and the match is available in virtually every other country in the world on live TV. But despite being sold out, as it always obviously would be, those living in the UK are not deemed interested enough to have it shown to them.
Meanwhile, Liverpool need 16 points from their nine games to take the title no matter what Arsenal do. Liverpool play Everton at 8pm tomorrow.
John Brooks is the referee. Now as we know yellow cards are one of the problems with Arsenal this season, with us still unable to find out what many of the yellow cards given against Arsenal (that is to say those classified as being for “other” reasons) are actually for. (The other big problem as we have highlighted of late is the penalties given against Arsenal – see earlier articles for details).
And today, thinking of this it is concerning that Brooks is the man in charge. For Brooks gives out 5.46 yellow cards per game – which is more than any other referee who has overseen five or more Premier League games this season! Exactly the man that a fair-minded PGMO would avoid giving the Arsenal match too. So guess who we get. Mr Yellow Card.
We can do a bit of comparing at this point – all this data is from this season. Data is from Whoscored
| Referee | Games | Fouls pg | Yel pg |
|---|---|---|---|
| John Brooks | 13 | 23.54 | 5.46 |
| Chris Kavanagh | 19 | 21.84 | 5.11 |
| Simon Hooper | 19 | 20.47 | 4.74 |
| Tim Robinson | 11 | 24.27 | 4.73 |
| Michael Oliver | 21 | 23.24 | 4.57 |
| Jarred Gillett | 10 | 23.00 | 4.40 |
| Robert Jones | 17 | 25.12 | 4.35 |
| Samuel Barrott | 18 | 20.67 | 4.17 |
| Darren England | 13 | 23.69 | 4.15 |
| Craig Pawson | 17 | 23.06 | 4.12 |
| Darren Bond | 12 | 23.08 | 4.00 |
| Peter Bankes | 17 | 19.35 | 3.88 |
| Tony Harrington | 14 | 22.43 | 3.86 |
| Andy Madley | 15 | 23.47 | 3.73 |
| Stuart Attwell | 15 | 20.67 | 3.67 |
| Michael Salisbury | 10 | 22.10 | 3.00 |
| Anthony Taylor | 25 | 20.92 | 2.92 |
If we compare John Brooks with Anthony Taylor we can see that Brooks hands out almost double the number of yellow cards as Taylor. To believe that these two referees are handling the game in the same way we would have to accept that Taylor gets all the well-behaved games and Brooks all the rough-and-tumble games. And if one did believe that then immediately the question would arise – why is Brooks getting all the rough games.
No, the obvious issue here is that Brooks likes waving the cards, and no one in PGMO has reigned him in with a warning that his card waving is getting out of control. But that’s the PGMO for you.
But 71 cards in 13 games is what this referee has waved, and Arsenal can expect an avalanche of cards.
And we can see the impact of these cards on Arsenal from this table. The number to the left of the club name is the position in the overall “Tackles per foul” table.
| Team | Tackles pg | Fouls pg | Tackles per foul |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1. Crystal Palace | 21.7 | 10.8 | 2.01 |
| 2. Manchester United | 21.4 | 10.7 | 2.00 |
| 10. Fulham | 17.9 | 11.2 | 1.60 |
| 18. Arsenal | 16.1 | 11.5 | 1.40 |
| 19. Chelsea | 15.5 | 11.8 | 1.31 |
| 20. Manchester City | 13.3 | 7.4 | 1.80 |
Arsenal can only put in 1.4 tackles before the whistle blows for a foul. Compare this with Crystal Palace who can put in 2.01 tackles before a foul is given against them. In fact Palace can put in nearly half as many tackles again as Arsenal before a foul is blown.
As a result of this Arsenal and Chelsea have been forced into a style of play in which they simply tackle less than any other club (except Manchester City who are of course subject to different rules). And yet Arsenal are still in the top half of the table for fouls per game!!!
One might ask why Arsenal can’t teach their players to tackle properly. Or one might ask, as has been asked in recent days, why it is that referees are so willing and indeed anxious to give fouls against Arsenal over and over again. And this is before we go back to the issue of penalties.
And in this regard, you might also like to look at
- Refs give far more penalties against Arsenal than other clubs: but why?
- Penalties for and against Arsenal: the Mike Riley factor
But this is the league Arsenal play in, and this is how it goes. As those articles show Arsenal get penalties given against them and not penalties given in their favour.
This article is the reason why I am not watching many games now. Referees are now so inconsistent as to make he game a lottery – it depends on who officiates the game as to what the result will be..
As I keep saying, as a neutral fan, Arsenal are definitely getting a lot of sanctions for things other teams do not receive punishments for. To me the most ludicrous was Arsenal being fined for surrounding a referee over a decision that the FA said was incorrect. How do they justify that punishment?
@ Les
It doesn’t happen to other teams so it doesn’t matter , we take it , there’s no back up from else where to complain , in my opinion .