18 Replies to “Which is the dirtiest team in the Premier League, who are the dirtiest players?”

1. A big problem is that the number of fouls called by the referee is not a got indicator of how many fouls are committed by either team in a game.

2. As Gord says, the numbers of actual fouls and ‘called’ fouls have no link at all. The same with the cards, look how many games you’ve seen where you’ve wondered how XXX got away without being sent off for the 6 bookable fouls but he actually didn’t get a single yellow!

3. Arsenal usually get a yellow card per foul. And if we were treated like other teams, whose players get 5 or 6 warnings before being issued a card, then our figures would be very very low indeed. Or, on the other hand, were the other teams treated the same way Arsenal is (a yellow for every foul), then some teams would have treble the numbers, or more, in the data collated in these stats.

4. Was going to add that it’s very easy to see we have good discipline to come out with the lowest numbers of yellows despite the low tolerance levels refs show us.

5. I think what would also be very interesting, although I know this would be very unpopular, would be a table showing which players injured how many players while making a tackle. I’m trying hard, and failing, to recall an incident where an Arsenal player made a tackle that injured an opposition player. Not saying there aren’t any such incidents, but really can’t think of any right now.

6. My 8:50 post is referring to the last decade btw…

7. It seems like West Brom don’t get so many fouls called…..same happened when he was at Stoke. Just read the ref review of the west Brom game…..where were the cries from the media for their players to be sanctioned for persistent fouling, as there were with Coq in the Palace game.
   Spurs being up there these days doesn’t surprise me, though the ref let them away with a lot against us recently, Ozil especially seemed targeted with impunity……but then again, we all know who that ref was.

8. I assume Clattenberg will be suspended for several weeks for allowing rotational fouling, just as Ref Mason was when the media accused him of allowing Coq to get away with it against Palace.

9. Mandy, he certainly has a rest this weekend – not even on fourth official duties. More likely to be a reward for a job well done than a punishment though!

10. Clattenberg’s 90 minute weighted score of 42% was still better than Mike Dean who managed 41%. Amazing, and totally disgraceful for a FIFA referee licensed to officiate any match anywhere in the world.

11. just checked my database and I have noted 35 wrongly awarded or nor awarded yellow cards favouring our opponents and 5 favouring Arsenal. I also have 14 wrongly awarded or not awarded second yellow cards and 7 red cards again favouring our opponents. There have been none favouring Arsenal.

    Some of those favouring our opponents are cards wrongly given to our players, and one of the five yellows favouring Arsenal was Coloccini wrongly being booked when we played Newcastle.

    I’m afraid I haven’t separately noted the numbers of fouls by and against Arsenal players and I’m not proposing to extract the data from the referee reports. If someone has the database skills then please have a go …..

12. One last bit of checking, in the West Brom game Arsenal were correctly penalised for 7 fouls and should have been penalised for another 2. West Brom were correctly penalised for 13 fouls, should have been penalised for a further 15. There were three fouls wrongly called against Arsenal players (one of which led to the equalising goal).

13. Really poor refereeing. Such numbers seem go beyond mere mistakes or incompetence hinting at something more sinister

14. Good data picking Andrew. I am slowly working on a mega stat data sheet regarding all these categories. It will go through many revisions until the end of the season. And of course you, Tony and Walter should keep their good work. 🙂

15. Tony, Usama the biggest issue is the PGMO. How many cheating decisions have they given & how much money has been made because of these in the betting market? The bookies don’t know unless there is a pattern, even then they can only assume. Card counts are a superficial skin to hide the reality of corrupt decisions.

    However your approach with systematic analysis of games has its merits & I hope causes fear in the minds of the cheats.

16. Splendid stuff Tony. One of my favourite areas of anorakdom!

    A couple of interesting (well I think so) observations.

    Firstly, I must disagree with your hypothesis in respect of interceptions being a reason Leicester are doing well. Man City have the third lowest and Aston Villa the third highest so I don’t think (in isolation) one can draw any conclusion from that particular stat.

    The other interesting thing for me was that Newcastle had the highest number of fouls per game in 2005/06. This was Shearer’s last season and I remember clearly being very annoyed around that time as not only was he a fine advocate of leading with the elbow, he also went two or three seasons as the player who committed the most fouls per season in the premiership. I also recall clearly (and will do the research if anybody asks) during that period as darling of the English media he received one yellow card in two seasons. If I remember rightly, that was about 200 fouls per yellow card. Quite unbelievable until you remember he was the star of English football at the time……and admittedly a damn fine striker. (Perhaps the same reason Rooney doesn’t pick up the 10 reds a season he deserves!)

17. Al – each time an Arsenal player takes to the field a thousand bookies get injured bank balances. The PGMO rub their hands with glee & the official put in the position of Rileys spiv fears his job if he remembers honesty.

18. Andrew…..FIFA officials cannot referee their national team and also cannot referee some games involving British teams in the CL. I also believe that in the WC they cannot officiate their national team, so they may be able to do any game worldwide but in practice are restricted in certain games.