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

By Bulldog Drummond

Tottenham Hotspur.svgThis 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.

The Arsenal video collection: free

60 historic Arsenal videos with more being added each day

Gaslighting: how refereeing in the Premier League is manipulated, and why the media never speak about it.

3 Replies to “Tottenham: 73 more fouls than Arsenal, but two fewer yellow cards!”

  1. What a disgusting picture at the top of this article. Please do not use such offensive images on Untold I generally look at the site early in the day. Today, seeing that thing, was not a great start.

  2. I am an Arsenal fan to the core but please let us not use degrading languege. The problem however is we dont know if some only pretended to be Arsenal fans and in that way only add fuel to the fire

  3. Stats use fouls to cards but both fouls and cards are selectively, subjectively called by PGMOL officials, so both are tainted with bias. In terms of the two North London clubs, Spurs get away with 40% plus fouls not being called, whereas Arsenal get fouls called for imaginary tackles. This clearly means that all stats have to be taken with buckets of salt.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *