Behold: The dirtiest teams in the PL last season; and the one that were fouled the most

10 Replies to “Behold: The dirtiest teams in the PL last season; and the one that were fouled the most”

1. Perhaps Villa and Spurs players ‘win’ more fouls?

   Certainly Grealish and Kane have reputations as players that look for fouls as part of their game.

   Or more directly put, they are divers.

2. One factor might obviously be to do with who is adjudged to have been fouled the most. I decided to look.

   Last season, the third most fouled player was Adama Traore (86). The second most fouled player was Zaha just two ahead on 88. But way ahead with 25% more than Zaha was Grealish who was, apparently, fouled 110 times. When you add to this the fact that Grealish played around 20% fewer minutes than either Zaha or Traore this then begins to look extraordinary.

   I wondered if the reason could be that Grealish dribbled the ball more than other players. This was not the case and in fact Traore dribbled some 64% more times per game than Grealish.

   Yes I now Grealish is good in fact I think he’s very good but is he that much better than others that he is fouled more often? I don’t think so. There is, of course, another possibility but it would be pure conjecture to suggest that maybe he’s just very good at fooling referees by simulating being fouled and possibly his team mates learned this skill by watching him every day in training. I’m not saying that’s the case but it’s certainly one option worthy of consideration.

   At the end of the day it just raises more questions about the competency and consistency of our beloved PGMOL.

3. Given the reluctance, some might say downright refusal, of refs to blow for blatant fouls on Arsenal players our ‘fouled against’ figure of 421 is probably way too low.
   If we were to be given all the fouls against us we deserve our figure would surely rival Aston Villa.
   At risk of being accused of paranoia I would point to the evidence obtained from the Untold ref reviews undertaken a couple of years ago which I suggest would bear this theory out.

4. Mike I would go along with you. But the debate about refs is two sided – those who look at the evidence, and those who claim we are just saying all this because we are Arsenal supporters.

5. Mikey, by no means for the first time I am deeply indebted to you. Although also kicking myself (no longer literally because my knee doesn’t bend that much any more) for not seeing it. I wrote a series about how Vardy, once the tackling ploy was revealed, would take the ball in the penalty area and then suddenly turn with the ball away from the goal, get knocked by a defender there to block him from turning that way, and grab a penalty.
   Vardy got 8 penalties that way – not the most in one season (that was nine) but Vardy got almost every one of them in the opening ten games, before the ploy was exposed.
   I am not saying that Untold exposes these tricks and then causes a difference, but maybe we do help a little bit. Which is why we’ve spent so much time on stats this summer.

6. Your last line sums up the reality.

   Until the PGMOL is disbanded and a transparent group of officials are appointed the EPL will be a farce!!

7. Hi everyone, reading the comments above , one point in the comparison between grealish, zaha and traore with grealish being fouled the most, the point is that grealish amongst the three is the biggest threat to opposition goal, so maybe, along-with the Harry kane like tactics of looking for a foul, there is a small percentage increase in fouls against them because they are very good and teams dont want to take a chance and want to quash every opportunity for a key pass/shot on goal.
   Secondly, the debate about arsenal being the referees’ least liked team goes back to when i started loving arsenal, during 2001-02 season and onwards, where we were absolutely smashed off the park at times between 2000-2013 -15 where we were lucky in my view to only get two horrific injuries, eduardo da silva and aaron ramsey, we’l let the jack wilshere kicking, the reyes kicking and other absurd tackling pass and focus on major bone injuries that could have ended careers, well eduardo’s career was shaken because of it and ramsey had missed a year and a half…. So im looking forward to the new season now where arsenal have consciously under arteta cut down on tackles, which is the only way we can have a fair game, numerous times our midfielders/defenders get yellow carded in the first 20 mins of a game , that totally effects the dynamics of the game….

   But i love the work untold has done, and im sure some people in power in the FA and PGMO would be looking at these numbers being put up for public review.

   Great work , Cheers

8. Tony

   Just looking at the stats you rely on is only part of the issue. You also need to factor in the number of fouls committed where the referee acknowledges the foul and signals advantage without factoring in these numbers you can’t arrive at any meaningful conclusions or should I say conclusions that can be validated

   I read an article some years ago that refs play advantage around 4 times in a normal 90 minutes but these confirmed infringements don’t feature in the recorded numbers. If that contention is right then
   there are at least another 1500 unrecorded infringements. Many of these infringements, it was said were against teams in the attacking third where there was either an overload of players or the defence was pressed

9. Mike I would always agree that the data I use is often incomplete – my general point overall is that there are a number of issues that give me pause for thought, and it is interesting, in my view, that these issues are normally not taken up elsewhere.

   Overall I am not trying to prove conclusively that something is wrong, but rather to say, “this really looks rather odd” and suggest that if everything is fine and above board, then why not publish all the details? Why leave it to someone like me to have to work out the data, and raise questions?

10. Mike T , I was about to post the same comment about the played on disruption foul ,take a one -two situation where the player that is baulked off the ball having laid it off then cannot get the return but the recipient is left with the ball but nowhere to go but as he has the ball … Play on.

    Man City and Chelsea are masters of this throughout their teams , especially Fernandinho and Rudiger .