To be perfectly honest I am not entirely sure what to make of the Premier League stats showing the disciplinary records of Arsenal and the other 19 clubs in the division. In a way the fact that the Gunners have got the best record for discipline and would be the club to get the fair play award of it was given out at this part of the season is a positive thing and shows that we are playing the game fairly and in the right way.
Another way of looking at the report on The Sun showing that Arsenal have committed the second fewest fouls over the course of the current EPL campaign could be seen as a sign that we are simply not fighting hard enough on a game by game basis.
The stats do not take into account the severity or nature of the infringements but the fact that our 216 fouls is almost a third less than the number of the two biggest offenders Man United and Tottenham is quite remarkable. And the fact that those two rival clubs have the best defensive records in the division is unlikely to be a coincidence.#
The sports website ESPN has another chart showing EPL disciplinary stats with yellow and red cards and the Gunners are rock bottom of that. Our 23 yellow cards is a lot lower than the next best figure of 31 for Everton. But we also have close to the highest amount of red cards with three and only West Ham, Newcastle and Stoke have more with four each. Does this also show that we have no luck or that the referees have been harder on us?
I personally would like to see the Arsenal players make more fouls and make life harder for the teams we are facing and if the refs would stop sending our players off for little things while letting our opponents kick lumps out of us that would be handy. What do you guys make of these stats?