Why players from overseas get more cards than UK players

Dirty Internationals by Alek Pan

What would you say if you were given evidence that overseas players (ie those from outside the UK) make the EPL harder, dirtier and more unfair than it would otherwise be?

Quite probably you would want to look at the evidence twice.  Maybe you would suggest that the person who put the evidence together is paranoid.

So, let’s start with the source of the evidence.  It comes from our old friends PGMOL. They have never said it in words but it is in their stats.

Everyone can find complete official stats of EPL 2010-11 of yellow and red cards, fouls committed and suffered.   These figures are publicly available.  So I have made some calculations with that open data.

I take stats for Big 5 clubs: Arsenal, MU, Man City, Chelsea and Spurs. Then I sorted players (and their statisticss) by player origin: one group for citizens of the UK and one for citizens of other countries (whom I call “International Players”.

Then I calculated total sum of games (TG) which equal to games started (GS) plus games when players used as substitute (SB) divided on 3. TG = GS + SB/3.

So then I divide the total sum of fouls in each category by the total sum of games and get the “Dirty Factor”:

The Dirty Factor for Big 5 clubs: Arsenal, MU, Man City, Chelsea, Spurs.

EPL 2010-2011 (from beginning of season to 25 February 2011).

You can see that PGMOL thinks that international players of Big 5 clubs of EPL 2010-11 committed fouls per game 1.32 times more than players citizens of the UK. These dirty guys get 13 percent more yellow cards and 2.5 times more red cards than sweeties from the UK.

So now you know the truth. And you can start to hate these dirty foreigners. But may be you will find helpful to know for internationals of which club deserves to hate more.

Fouls Committed per match list

Man City internationals the best object for hatred. Arsenal internationals – the best №2 object for hatred. MU stays in the bottom of the international list.

Players of MU (UK and Int) stay in the middle of the mixed table. Is it a pure accident?  Difference between international and UK players of MU is minimal. Is it a pure accident? Or this is something more?

Let’s take a look on Fouls suffered per match list.

Man U players who are citizens of the UK suffered from fouls much less than any other.  Is it a pure accident?   Or do they run so fast that no one can kick they arses?

International players of MU stay on the bottom of International table – but that not far from average level (0.96). All international players of all clubs stay just between 0.91 and 1.00.

Players who are citizens of the UK from clubs of Manchester (MU and Man City) suffered from fouls less than any. Players – Citizens of the UK from clubs of London suffered from fouls more than any in UK list. And Arsenal and Spurs much more than any in total list. Does Manchester know something special that London never knows?

And what about yellow and red cards?

UK players of MU get yellow cards more than any in the UK list and never get red cards. Never. This is unbelievable. How do they do it?  International players of MU get 2 times less red cards than average for international players (0.011) and less yellow cards than any in the international list. Is it a pure accident? Or this is something more?

PGMOL shows us that Arsenal do not play beautiful football, but plays football of dirty tricks. Just because of our international players – possibly because Arsenal has the biggest percentage of international players than any of Big 5. That is the bad news.

But good news is that some special Club from some special City knows how to select and how to bring international players to respect a fair play.

MU knows how to make these international players to commit less fouls – just on the level of UK players. MU knows how to make International players get yellow and red cards less than any internationals.

PGMOL have clearly indicated through these figures that Professor Wenger and other managers of the EPL need some special help and advice from the one special manager who knows how to overcome this problem.

Don’t be shy Sir Alex, say your words of wisdom that makes EPL less dirty and much more fair.

Footnote…

I made some interesting calculation that have connection to the article “Dirty Int”.

I wanted to know how much impact can be if  formula TG = GS + SB/3 is not quite right.

If GS = SB*3 then SB is about 30 min.

If GS = SB*2 then SB is about 45 min.

If GS = SB*6 then SB is about 15 min.

It is amazing! In all these cases difference of final factors is minimal.