The Dirtiest Team In Premier League History Is…

Chris Wright

8th, March 2011

23 Comments

By Chris Wright

Straight off the bat, props go to stat junkies My Football Facts and the always excellent EPL Talk for putting the hard yards in on this one.

With every yellow and red card totted up and averaged by the number of seasons each club has spent in the Premier League’s inception in 1992/93, the guys over at EPL have produced these spiffing tables to illustrate just who are the dirtiest, most low-down filth merchants in Premier League history – or something like that – and the result is fairly surprising…

The ‘totals table’ was calculated by taking the number of red cards for each club and multiplying it by two, on the basis that one dismissal is the equivalent of two yellow cards.

Another point was then added to each club’s tally for each yellow card they have incurred over their time in the Premier League – thus producing a ‘total points scored’ column and providing us with a concise method of determining which are the dirtiest (and, by-proxy, the cleanest) teams in Premier League history…

Sunderland, the dirty beggars. Who’d have thought? I had Bolton earmarked for some Allardyce-infused reason.

In the interests of fairness, it’s perhaps worth mentioning that teams like Blackpool have low averages due to their relative paucity of terms in the top tier, whereas several clubs (though not Sunderland) have been plying their trade in the Premier League for the full 19 year haul.

Once again, thanks to EPL Talk for the tables – you guys positively hum with awesomeness.

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23 Comments

  1. gav says:

    i dont think its a coincidence that liverpool and united are in the bottom few. as we saw at the weekend they have to commit mass homocide to see red!

  2. K P V says:

    blackpool the cleanest team hahahaha

    http://www.twitter.com/andrewabrahim

    follow me on twitter @andrewabrahim yall

  3. chimpo says:

    If you get 2 x yellows to make a red does that give you 1 point for the first yellow + 2 for the second/red to give you 3? Ie is it different from getting a straight red which would be 2

    sorry in a pedantic mood

    K P V- we haven.t had a banal nugget of ‘wisdom’ from you yet- what do you think… YALL

  4. Mr.Angry says:

    it should be manure scum!

  5. Chris says:

    @Chimpo: I don’t think the EPL boys went into that much detail to be honest. The system seems to be based on just getting one point for a yellow and two points for a red.

    @Gav: There does seem to be a case to be made in favour of ‘preferential treatment’ doesn’t there?

  6. Jason says:

    Interesting. Can all the TV commentators read this and shut the fuck up now every time Arsenal get a card and they trot out the tired ol’ “this the X number of cards for Arsenal under Wenger” shit. Funny how we never the same canard about the Stokes, Boltons and Sunderlands of the world. The implication is always Arsenal is somehow historically dirty and these teams are just hard working lads doing what they can to survive. Fuck them. Thanks for the research.

  7. emmy mu says:

    it should be man shitty and liverpool ohh lets not forget about chelsea

  8. VA Red says:

    @Gav I don’t think that one game where there referee wanted to make sure that the match stays 11 v. 11 is very indicative of a 19 year span. Just sayin. And that last comment is just idiotic.

  9. HerpMcDerp says:

    Funny that of the 7 teams now looking most likely to be relegated (the 4 Ws/3 Bs), 5 are in the dirty top 10… Crime doesn’t pay (unless you’re United/Liverpool/Chelsea and get away with everything)

  10. Michael says:

    Arsenal 11, LOL, I feel so proud

  11. The Yank says:

    This is some very interesting info. Its worth noting the two most successful clubs are also the two “cleanest”, excluding Blackpool for obvious reasons. Liverpool and United play fairly and have the obligatory bad refs as well. Also, note that Chelsea is in the top 10. Bunch of brutes.

    Don’t be foolish and say they “get away with everything”. Every club in every game gets bad calls from refs, favorable and not.

    Good stuff.

  12. bob says:

    its cattermole’s fault

  13. Les Robinson says:

    These results are meaningless unless you discard yellow and red cards given for dissent and time wasting.Get 4 players booked for arguing your case for a penalty given against you doesn,t make you a dirty team.Considering some of the refereeing lately I would like to know how many cards have been issued for dissent in the same period.

  14. Adi says:

    Sunderland’s ranking at the top is based on the Reidy era about 10 years ago, we had Quinn, Ball, Bold, McCann, Rae, Stephan Schwarz, Emmerson Thome, Don Hutchinson.

    All of them loved a tackle and never backed out. Gavin McCann’s tackle on Patrick Vieira will live long in the memories of those at the game, an incredibly hard but fair tackle.

    As for Cattermol he’s a pussy comapred to Bally !!

  15. […] The Dirtiest Team In Premier League History Is… […]

  16. Luke says:

    Dirty Mackems.

  17. the tank says:

    the yank, did you say the 2 most successful clubs?? are you considering liverpool as a successful club in the PREMIER LEAGUE ERA?? Don’t you realise that even Blackburn have had more success in the PREMIER LEAGUE than liverpool??

  18. kahhoe says:

    man utd should be top! thats why webbs help them! fuck you howard webb!

  19. RedSkywalker says:

    United aren’t a dirty team, you jealous losers. And there, Arsenal are dirtier than West Brom. They must shut up now

  20. QMario says:

    Arsenals probably were they are because, quite frankly, we dont understand the concept of defending

  21. ted says:

    The Prem only has 18 yrs of history,

  22. ted says:

    The Prem only has 18 yrs of history, the game wasn’t invented in 1992 ya know.

  23. metaman says:

    Your math is incorrect. You are doing 2 times reds + 2 times yellows, should be 2 times reds + yellows.

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