Tottenham: 73 more fouls than Arsenal, but two fewer yellow cards!

By Bulldog Drummond

This is a season of runs of alternating success for both Tottenham and Arsenal,

For Tottenham after a run of six defeats in eight games in which they conceded 16 goals, they are now on a run of five wins in a row, in which they have scored 16.

And it has been a bit like this all season- there was another spell earlier with just two wins in seven.

It was also interesting to note that while they could knock in the goals against Marine and Wycombe in the FA Cup, when they came up against Everton they lost, letting in five.

But now like Arsenal their only chance of silverware is the Europa League.  And the problem is for Tottenham that historically they don’t win that many things.   I remember when in 1991 they won the FA Cup, what was hailed by the media as astounding record 8th time.  That comment in fact still appears, in the Wikipedia list of Tottenham seasons page and of course it was quite true.

Arsenal however have won the Cup 14 times, which is a record, and none of the entries in the List of Arsenal seasons notes the record nature of this achievement.   Of course it is true that Mr Wenger did not manage to equal Tottenham’s record personally (he only won the FA Cup seven times to Tottenham’s eight) but he got close.

Arsenal of course have been on a set of runs this campaign, although not to the extent of Tottenham’s this season, but we have had just one defeat in the last seven.  Our best run has been one defeat in nine at the end of last year and start of this year.

But of course as we know they are above us – which is where they have ended up each season since 2017 onwards.  One has to go back almost 40 years to the 1980s when they got third spot in the league three times in six seasons, to find anything comparable to the last few years.

But the table reflects reality and this is where we are at the moment.

	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
7	Tottenham Hotspur	27	13	6	8	46	28	18	45
8	Liverpool	28	12	7	9	47	36	11	43
9	Aston Villa	26	12	4	10	38	27	11	40
10	Arsenal	27	11	5	11	35	28	7	38

Even a peek at the last six games chart doesn’t give us that much expectation.  Tottenham are just above Fulham.  We aren’t.

				H	O	M	E			A	W	A	Y
	Team	P		W	D	L	F	A		W	D	L	F	A		GD	Pts
1	Manchester City	6		3	0	1	11	6		2	0	0	4	1		8	15
2	Chelsea	6		2	1	0	4	0		2	1	0	4	2		6	14
3	West Ham United	6		3	0	0	7	1		1	1	1	4	3		7	13
4	Tottenham Hotspur	6		3	0	0	10	1		1	0	2	2	5		6	12
5	Fulham	6		1	0	1	1	1		2	2	0	4	1		3	11
6	Leicester City	6		1	0	1	4	4		2	2	0	5	3		2	11
7	Manchester United	6		1	1	0	6	4		1	3	0	3	1		4	10
8	Wolverhampton Wanderers	6		1	1	0	1	0		1	2	1	4	6		-1	9
9	Everton	6		1	0	2	2	5		2	0	1	3	2		-2	9
10	Aston Villa	6		1	1	1	2	2		1	1	1	1	1		0	8
11	Arsenal	6		1	0	1	4	3		1	1	2	5	5		1	7

Even the home and away comparison offers only a modest compensation for the tables above

Pos	Team	P	W	D	L	F	A	GD	Pts
9	Arsenal home	13	5	3	5	16	14	2	18
7	Tottenham Hotspur away	13	6	3	4	21	14	7	21

But we might take some joy of the fact that we have had three wins and one draw in the last four but even there we are clutching since Tottenham have won all of their last five.

One table to go: the unique Untold analysis of tackles, fouls and yellows cards

Club	Tackles	Fouls	Tackles per foul	Yellow cards	Fouls per yellow
Arsenal Today	312	248	1.25	38	6.53
Tottenham Hots Today	452	321	1.40	36	8.92
Arsenal 23 Dec	161	139	1.15	22	6.31
Tottenham Hots 23 Dec	227	177	1.28	18	9.83

Here we compare not only our three regular measurements of tackles, fouls and yellows, but also in the last two lines show what the figures were like after the last match before Christmas.

So, Tottenham throughout have been tackling a lot more than Arsenal, for the obvious reason that Arsenal were having fouls called against them more often than any other team in the League in the early part of the season.  As a result of the tactical change, we are now able to get in slightly more tackles per foul and we are almost at the level Tottenham were at in December.  But they also have changed their approach.

As a result, Tottenham have put in an amazing 140 more tackles than Arsenal, and yet ended up with fewer yellow cards!  Quite an achievement.

Following their change of tactics Arsenal are now getting away with slightly more fouls before a yellow card is given out – but this is nothing when compared with Tottenham.  While we can commit a little over six fouls before getting a yellow, Tottenham can get away with almost ten.

Arsenal have done the only thing possible in the light of this referee onslaught, and reduce their tackling level so that it is now the lowest in the league, but those yellow cards keep on rolling in.

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