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By Tony Attwood
Anti-Arsenal stories only have an impact when they first break out. They hit Facebook and Twitter and circulate for a few days, generally without any proof or back up in terms of citing a source for any data and figures that are produced, and then the story fades away, and quickly another story emerges.
So I thought maybe we could create a few nonsense Arsenal stories ourselves just to see if anyone takes them up. If they do, we can say, we invented that – it isn’t true. If they don’t no problem – the story isn’t there, and if anyone takes it up later, we can simply denounce it as “old news”.
Now I am not that good at making things up, although most supporters of other clubs claim the opposite is true, so I would like your help. I will start us off with a few anti-Arsenal fantasy tales and maybe you could add some more. They can be ones you have made up but which could be considered true by the anti-Arsenal mobs, or ones you have actually seen. (But in case you don’t like fiction, I will end up with a truth set of data at the end).
So here is the first story. Referees have to declare which club they support each season. But PGMO has a problem because more referees state they support Arsenal than any other club, so there are not enough referees to oversee Arsenal matches, and last season they are using some Arsenal-supporting referees in matches.
Hence Arsenal get all sorts of referee decisions in their favour which they shouldn’t get. PGMOL are therefore scouring the lower leagues for referees who claim they really don’t like Arsenal and so could be promoted to life and work in the Premier League. (And just in case you skipped the earlier paragraphs, let me emphasise, I just made that up. See paragraphs above – but there is some real factual stuff at the end).
The second tale is that Arsenal got more yellow cards than Tottenham last season. Now I have actually been told this – although to be fair it only came up the once, and that was from an email correspondent I had not heard from before.
The actual figures show that Tottenham were top of the Premier League yellow card league last season with a whacking great 97 yellows (four reds to take them over the 100 card mark – something of an achievement). Arsenal were bottom of the league with 51 yellow and no reds. Many people who do a chart of these numbers also run a points system and count a red as three yellows and this gives Tottenham a league-winning 109 points while Arsenal had a bottom-of-the-league 51 points, under half that of Tottenham. Manchester City were half way down the league with 69 yellows and like Arsenal, managed to get through the season with zero reds
The red card tally for Arsenal this past season (I have been told) is clearly false since Arsenal got more red cards than any other team in 2024/25, and complained to the PGMO. That was the reason they got no red cards in 2025/26, according to some – PGMO responded to Arsenal’s request. The alternative explanation is that Arteta got the team together and pointed out how the red cards had led to worse results than the club would otherwise have got, and told the players, “That level of tackling never helps.” So they cut it out, got no red cards and won the league.
One story that is partially based on fact is that Arsenal’s big benefit when it comes to cards, is that they get very few yellow cards
Arsenal in fact 17 yellow cards in home matches last season, while their opponents got 39 yellow cards playing games at Arsenal’s stadium. This 39 card total was not however, any sort of record. Nine clubs saw their opponents pick up more yellow cards playing away to the team in question, making Arsenal absolutely mid-table.
But the issue of cards does give those who wish to show a bias within football a chance to explore their ideas, since quite often the question of whether a foul is worthy of a yellow card or not is a decision made in a moment, without any replay benefits. It must be very easy to get such a decision wrong, especially if the referee is more than a few yards away.
Here is an extract from the card table for last season. The full table from ESPN is shown here.
| Team | P | Yellow | Red | Pts (3 for red) | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Chelsea | 38 | 88 | 8 | 112 |
| 2 | Tottenham Hotspur | 38 | 97 | 4 | 109 |
| 3 | AFC Bournemouth | 38 | 89 | 2 | 95 |
| 14 | Manchester United | 38 | 62 | 3 | 71 |
| 15 | Manchester City | 38 | 69 | 0 | 69 |
| 16 | Leeds United | 38 | 62 | 1 | 65 |
| 17 | Aston Villa | 38 | 60 | 1 | 63 |
| 18 | Nottingham Forest | 38 | 58 | 1 | 61 |
| 19 | Liverpool | 38 | 57 | 1 | 60 |
| 20 | Arsenal | 38 | 51 | 0 | 51 |
