Player Discipline

[M_Afro]

Every time I watch Villa these days we seem to get kicked off the park by the opposition who don’t seem to pick up any cards and then we seem to get carded for our first offence. Several Wolves players escaped cards on Saturday for cynical fouls. We had 3 cards from 11 fouls and they had 4 cards from 19 fouls.

Yesterday, Arsenal conceded 20 fouls and only picked up 2 yellow cards. City didn’t get any from 9 fouls. Odegaard should have been booked about 3 times but didn’t get carded. Cards can really impact the flow of a game but we always seem to get fairly harshly treated compared to other teams.

Am I being paranoid here or do other people think we are being harshly treated? Are there any stats which would bring some context to this? It would be great to know the average fouls per card for every premier league team. I know that this doesn’t tell the whole story but it would be interesting to see.

Edited April 1 by M_Afro

[Mic09]

I don't think Villa are necessarily getting harshly punished.

I do think some teams are getting off easy.

[sne]

Yeah, don't see it as a Villa bias from the refs, but some clubs and players are imo getting off lightly. How Bruno Guimares for example has managed to stay on 9 yellows for 8 games (avoiding the 2 game ban) after picking up 9 in his first 21 is a bit "odd" considering his play style. No doubt when it jumps to 15 games for a ban in round 33 he will start picking up cards again.

Clear attempt from me to jinx it for him here 

All this could probably go in this thread thou

 

[Zatman]

Watch Rodri make 12 fouls midweek and no card

[VillaAlex]

Some referees are afraid of bigger name players. 

I understand the number of fouls won't always map to number of cards given. But we have the third most yellows in the league but 12th in number of fouls.

Liverpool 4th for fouls, but 18th for cards.

We also gets the most yellows in the first 30 mins.

 

Edited April 1 by VillaAlex

[sharkyvilla]

This season I've seen plenty of occasions where I'm shouting at the TV at Watkins and Bailey to react more strongly to challenges which should be free kicks, even penalties.  Even that challenge by Mee on Bailey could've been a leg-breaker but Leon just tried carrying on and luckily we had VAR to step in.  Obviously none of us want to see players taking the piss play-acting but when it's a genuine foul you sometimes have to make it obvious to the ref otherwise they bottle it.  I'm sure if Martinez was an outfield player, the opposition would be getting a shitload more yellows and reds.

[DakotaVilla]

We’re a bit naive to this. We don’t make enough of the oppositions consistent fouls and then make stupid fouls in front of the ref that get punished.

Overall though our discipline has been very good. The only exceptions being the ridiculous antics at Brentford and McGinn losing his head v spurs. 

[limpid]

Please keep this discussion about our players. As has been pointed out, there is already a thread to talk about refereeing and one for Man City and their players.

[M_Afro]

We definitely need to be smarter. I’m not endorsing Roy Keane type referee pressure but we need to influence the officiating more than we currently do. We are quite passive in our referee management. Hopefully if we can maintain our place at the top end of the league then the referees will start to treat us with more respect. I think that most referees are quite dismissive of certain teams based upon their status.

[MotoMkali]

2 hours ago, VillaAlex said:

Some referees are afraid of bigger name players. 

I understand the number of fouls won't always map to number of cards given. But we have the third most yellows in the league but 12th in number of fouls.

Liverpool 4th for fouls, but 18th for cards.

We also gets the most yellows in the first 30 mins.

Tbf it doesn't help that we have Zaniolo and Duran. Who have 12 yellows in 30 fouls. Which is a terrible record. Part of it is dissent and a couple of lashing out but yeah they get a terrible whistle. 

[DJBOB]

This is actually somewhat of an interesting topic so I pulled some of the most prolific foulers to see what the ratio is for Villa compared to other teams.

Our most prolific foulers according to fbref are:

• Luiz (40 fouls, 8 yellows)
• McGinn (35 fouls, 7 yellows)
• Kamara (35 fouls, 7 yellows)
• Cash (25 fouls, 6 yellows)
• Digne (21 fouls, 6 yellows)

So about a 5 fouls per yellow ratio with Cash a little above 4 fouls per yellow and Digne 3.5 fouls per yellow.

Standing out by ratio are:

• Zaniolo (21 fouls, 7 yellows)
• Konsa (11 fouls, 5 yellows)
• Duran (9 fouls, 5 yellows).

By contrast - Liverpool:

• Mac Allister (40 fouls, 6 yellows)
• Diaz (39 fouls, 2 yellows!)
• Endo (33 fouls, 8 yellows)
• Jota (27 fouls, 3 yellows)
• Gomez (26 fouls, 5 yellows)
• Szoboszlai (25 fouls, 1 yellow)
• Gakpo (23 fouls, 1 yellow)
• Nunez (22 fouls, 8 yellows!)

Arsenal:

• Havertz (35 fouls, 7 yellows)
• Saka (32 fouls, 3 yellows)
• Odegaard (25 fouls, 2 yellows!)
• Gabriel (25 fouls, 3 yellows)
• Jesus (25 fouls, 6 yellows)
• Rice (23 fouls, 3 yellows!)

City:

• Rodri (35 fouls, 8 yellows)
• Walker (23 fouls, 2 yellows)
• Dias (22 fouls, 0 yellows!)
• Alvarez (21 fouls, 2 yellows)
• Silva (17 fouls, 7 yellows)

In general - Liverpool and Arsenal have way more fouls along their forward lines but far less yellows. These are probably fouls on the opposition defenders when they press high that are rarely given yelows. Even then - Gabriel (the CB) for Arsenal only having 3 yellows for 25 fouls seems outrageous given he's a CB and same with Rice. Liverpool's midfield has a more reasonable ratio (Mac Allister and Endo) but their forwards get away with a lot of fouls with no yellow cards. City have a somewhat more normal ratio though Dias with no yellows is outstanding defending whereas Rodri has a surprising amount of yellow cards as well as Silva.

So overall, Duran, Zaniolo, and strangely enough Konsa have a lot of yellow cards for us on very few fouls whereas the midfield and Digne have a more appropriate ratio in line with Liverpool and City's midfield. Where we seem to have a lot of fouls are our fullbacks whereas none of the Liverpool/City/Arsenal fullbacks besides Gomez and Walker are even near the top of the fouls list. This is probably a combination of our high line and how exposed we leave our fullbacks since we press so narrowly. It makes more sense when you consider Konsa plays RB regularly now and he has a high fouls to yellow card ratio as well.

A combination of our high line - exposed fullbacks and the chaos twins (Duran and Zaniolo) means we get penalized a lot in comparison to the rest of the top 4. Tottenham, who also play a lot of offside traps - have a similar foul and yellow card ratio to us.

Edited April 1 by DJBOB

[fightoffyour]

Team	Games played	Yellow Cards	Red Cards	Fouls	Fouls Per Game	Fouls Per Yellow
Sheffield United	29	83	4	321	11.1	3.9
Aston Villa	30	79	2	316	10.5	4.0
Chelsea	28	84	3	336	12.0	4.0
Brighton & Hove Albion	29	74	3	302	10.4	4.1
Brentford	30	72	2	298	9.9	4.1
Fulham	30	66	3	289	9.6	4.4
Manchester United	29	67	1	296	10.2	4.4
Tottenham Hotspur	29	65	4	304	10.5	4.7
Newcastle United	29	60	1	282	9.7	4.7
West Ham United	30	65	3	308	10.3	4.7
Wolverhampton Wanderers	29	72	3	342	11.8	4.8
Manchester City	29	46	2	231	8.0	5.0
Nottingham Forest	30	66	3	337	11.2	5.1
Burnley	30	58	6	328	10.9	5.7
Luton Town	30	59	0	337	11.2	5.7
Everton	29	59	1	340	11.7	5.8
Arsenal	29	43	2	267	9.2	6.2
Liverpool	29	54	5	340	11.7	6.3
Bournemouth	29	58	2	371	12.8	6.4
Crystal Palace	29	53	1	340	11.7	6.4

[M_Afro]

Amazing work @DJBOB and @fightoffyour. Thank you for spending your bank holiday bringing some focus to this. 
So we are at the wrong end of the table which is really interesting. I’m sure that there’s nothing sinister happening. Maybe our players are lacking some dark arts skills. I’ve long thought that we were way too honest. I would not condone cheating but we can certainly influence incidents more favourably in my view.

[VillanousOne]

It's hard not to have a claret and blue googles on, but the amount of games I see Luiz pulled up for a foul for what seems like very little, yet I see him man handled, grabbed, pushed down and get nothing over and over and over.

[DJBOB]

37 minutes ago, M_Afro said:

Amazing work @DJBOB and @fightoffyour. Thank you for spending your bank holiday bringing some focus to this. 
So we are at the wrong end of the table which is really interesting. I’m sure that there’s nothing sinister happening. Maybe our players are lacking some dark arts skills. I’ve long thought that we were way too honest. I would not condone cheating but we can certainly influence incidents more favourably in my view.

I don't think there's anything overly sinister. There's some questionable foul to yellow card ratios. I'd be interested to see what situations Konsa got 5 yellow cards to 11 fouls for example. But can we really say Zaniolo and Duran aren't deserving of the yellow's. Duran in particular has been on the edge of 2 reds just off the top of my head. Arsenal and Liverpool have some questionable ratios but can be mostly explained away with the exception of Gabriel and Rice but I don't watch enough Arsenal matches to specify why.

And in fairness - Villa are the second most fouled team in the league behind Spurs. Additionally - Villa opponents have the 5th most yellow cards in the league as well.

As much as the conspiracist in me wants to say otherwise, our player discipline is really focused more on certain positions (fullback) and the chaos twins accumulating 12 yellow cards between them despite being being 17th and 18th in minutes played.

Edited April 1 by DJBOB

[briny_ear]

Wonder if the coaching staff look at these statistics and talk to the players about them?

Certainly someone should be having a word with Konsa - by no means a dirty player so how come he’s picked up 5 yellows from 11 fouls?

Edited April 1 by briny_ear

[WallisFrizz]

I think Konsa has had a couple of yellows for petulant type behaviour hasn’t he? Definitely Dougie has. It’s a lesson we don’t seemed to have learned as the season has gone on either.

 

That said it infuriates me when I see other players getting away with similar behaviour knowing we have players close to suspension for having been booked for those offences.

Edited April 1 by WallisFrizz

[WHY]

Watkins never gets the fouls Harry Kane used to get. He would get 5 fouls a game, purely for being England captain. 

Edited April 1 by WHY

[TRO]

4 hours ago, M_Afro said:

Amazing work @DJBOB and @fightoffyour. Thank you for spending your bank holiday bringing some focus to this. 
So we are at the wrong end of the table which is really interesting. I’m sure that there’s nothing sinister happening. Maybe our players are lacking some dark arts skills. I’ve long thought that we were way too honest. I would not condone cheating but we can certainly influence incidents more favourably in my view.

or are we clumsy, in the challenge.....not saying we are, just opening debate...because we are nowhere close to being the robust side, the stats suggest....in fact, it's quite laughable.

 

[TRO]

3 hours ago, briny_ear said:

Wonder if the coaching staff look at these statistics and talk to the players about them?

Certainly someone should be having a word with Konsa - by no means a dirty player so how come he’s picked up 5 yellows from 11 fouls?

That's the question.

Its a joke....How on earth could the coaches suggest, being less physical....less physical and we would emulate testimonial games....If we back off anymore, we'll be in the dressing room.

Those stats are really concerning, and attention needs to be brought to the  PGMOL.

Those Stats are not representative of the way Aston Villa play.....imo.

Edited April 1 by TRO