Newcastle v Arsenal: Arsenal’s tactics working well; Chelsea go yellow bonkers

 

 

• Newcastle United v Arsenal: and again its the issue of the officials
• It is time to force the mainstream football media into retreat

By Bulldog Drummond

You may have come across some chatter by ever-excitable journalists and their allies in the blogs about how dirty a team Arsenal are, and how they are a disgrace through having picked up three red cards.

But where do all these cards come from?

Well, one key point to notice here is that Arsenal are a high fouling team at the moment at least according to referees – in fact the fourth-highest team in terms of tackles in the Premier League.  Only Bournemouth, West Ham and Wolverhampton get more fouls awarded against them.

But this is not because of one player.  Arsenal’s worst player for committing fouls is Kai Havertz and he’s 15th in the league for fouls.  Next is Thomas Partey who is 29th in the league for fouling.  In short, the constant rotation of players due to high injury levels is leading to inexperienced tacklers having a go and getting it wrong.

But even so, Arsenal are the 10th highest tackling team in the league – obviously exactly half way down the table.  But for fouls Arsenal are the fourth highest – so clearly more of Arsenal’s tackles are going wrong than with most other clubs. 

And yet – and this is the bit the media will never tell you, in terms of yellow cards from fouls Arsenal are 17th in the league.  Only three clubs have more.

So again we can see that the red card statistic that has got the media and the anti-Arsenal bloggers in such a tizz, is the odd one out.  But it seems that such is the furore concerning the red card situations that referees are now handing out very few of them at all which perhaps is a relief to everyone.

In the table below we are looking at numbers per game.  This time we’ve included not just the normal three columns of data (tackles, fouls and yellow cards from fouls), but all the total for all yellow cards (whatever they are for).

In the all-yellow card totals Arsenal are 15th.  In the yellow cards from fouls Arsenal are 16th.  Dirtiest club in the league?  Well, actually, no.  That would be Leicester in terms of yellows from fouls and Chelsea in terms of all yellows.  In fact if Chelsea go on picking up yellows at the rate so far in the first nine games they will end up with 152 yellow cards this season – the all time record.

And that is interesting because last season Chelsea broke the previous record of 101 set by Leeds in 2021–2022 with 105 yellow cards in 2023–2024.  It is in fact what  they collect.

Now you might think that the notion that Chelsea is about to get almost 50 yellow cards more than even the notorious Leeds team of a couple of years back would be more interesting headline news than Arsenal having three red cards.  But no.  This the the English media we are talking about, and their football headlines have precious little to do with reality.  Figures below are per game.

 

	Tackles	Fouls	All Yellow	Yellow from fouls
Arsenal	17.6	12.3	2.22	1.33
Newcsatle	15.6	11.3	2.44	1.56
ManU	22.2	10.7	3.00	2.33
Brentford	17.4	6.4	1.56	0.89

 

So let us now consider, if we can, what this means in terms of ratios.   Arsenal are certainly at the low end of things when considering how many tackles they can put in before a foul is whistled.  Thus in this regard the media’s onslaught against Arsenal has been incredibly successful.  An Arsenal tackle (incidentally like a Newcastle tackle) is much more inclined to be a foul than a tackle by clubs like Manchseter United or Brentford.

In fact it is interesting that to try and overcome the refereeing onslaught against Chelsea, they have adopted a “stop tackling” programme.  Only Manchester City put in fewer tackles per game than Chelsea do now.  But still those yellows keep coming!

But to return to this week’s selected group of clubs Arsenal can get away with considerably more tackles before a yellow card is waved around than either Newcastle or Manchester United – but not Brentford.

But then, when we consider the all-important metric – how many fouls can a club put in before a yellow is waved around – Arsenal are out in front by a long way.   Arsenal can get run up twice as many fouls as Manchester United before getting a card.

This problem for ManU is surely one of the factors that led to the sacking of their managers.  They can put in many more tackles than Arsenal before a foul is called but those tackles, when they are called out, are liable to get a yellow card.

In fact Man U are second for the number of fouls they have committed that have been called out as yellow card offences.  They have picked up 21 yellow cards for fouls this season.  Arsenal have picked up 12.  And yet Arsenal are getting all the negative headlines concerning their behaviour on the pitch.

 

	Tackles per foul	Tackles per yellow	Fouls per yellow
Arsenal	1.43	13.23	9.25
Newcsatle	1.38	10.00	7.24
ManU	2.07	9.52	4.29
Brentford	2.72	19.55	7.19

 

In fact the people who should be getting the yellow cards are the journalists and bloggers who have tried to convert three red cards into the dirtiest team in the league.  And quite clearly what the new ManU manager needs to do is to cut out those fouls because at this rate they are going to get a lot of players suspended.

It is true that Man U have only had 27 yellow cards this season compared with Chelsea’s 36 but at this rate they are going to end up with 114 yellow cards by the end of the season.

More anon…